Secrets & The Rumor Mill

Create Secrets to be Uncovered

I've drawn a secret I created in Dragon Magazine #258. If you recall, the campaign planet itself is a living entity known as Aris and worshiped as a goddess by its inhabitants. Most inhabitants believe that the planet's single moon, Selene, is also a living entity and the daughter of Aris. Legend has it that Aris gave birth to Selene so that her daughter could one day take her place in the cosmos. Eventually, Aris (and all life upon her) will die out, opening the way for Selene and new life the moon goddess will create. Unknown to almost everyone on the campaign world, however, Selene turned evil, prompting Aris to revoke her birthright. Selene has already given birth to the race that she hoped would replace the races birthed by Aris: hideous mind flayers! At present, there are probably some ten thousand mind flayers and other assorted beasts living on Selene. They and their goddess plan to destroy Aris and claim their birthright by force.
Now it's time to invent a clue to this secret that I can place inside Ironoak. Before I proceed, I note that I've drawn a particularly big secret: It affects the entirety of the campaign world and has the potential to pit the players against some pretty tough monsters. Ideally, the players won't get to the bottom of this particular secret until far in the future, when they have gained enough experience levels to deal with the mind flayers. As a consequence, I'm not looking for a hint that gives away the farm; I need only raise the players' interest and allow them to uncover something suggesting the mere existence of the secret. As a general rule, the more time that elapses between the point at which the possible existence of a secret is first suggested and the moment the players finally uncover that secret, the more satisfying their experience. Since I hope to give the players a whiff of this secret long before they finally get to its bottom, the saga of the mind flayers and the evil moon goddess has the potential to form one of the most satisfying episodes of the entire campaign.
So what's the clue? Ernst provides an obvious opportunity. Somewhere among the items in his collection is a mysterious stone idol in the shape of a mind flayer perched atop an orb. The orb is inscribed with a strange rune. Ernst acquired the idol from a passing adventurer but has no idea where the adventurer found it. In fact, the seller was too afraid to talk about how he came to possess the idol and was obviously happy to get rid of it. (He sold the piece for a mere five gold pieces.) This gives me all sorts of possibilities for the future.
We might introduce a strange cult of moon worshipers (the mind flayers' agents on Aris) who track their idol back to Ernst and attempt to reclaim it, possibly dragging the players into an adventure. Eventually, we could also allow the players to discover that the strange rune on the orb was a symbol for Selene in one of the planet's ancient tongues, providing them with a clue to the mind flayers' origin. In any case, the fact that the appearance of the flayers will be foreshadowed many months before they actually show up in the campaign should make their eventual arrival exceptionally dramatic.

The Rumor Mill

Adventures are the cornerstone of any AD&D game campaign, and it's difficult for the PCs to undertake adventures if they can't locate them. This might seem like a trivial problem, but inventing fresh and interesting ways to involve the players in your adventures is one of the most challenging tasks you'll face as Dungeon Master. To aid yourself in this endeavor, plan to include a fairly obvious "rumor mill" in your base of operations, a place where adventurers gather to swap boasts, rumors, and legends. Once the campaign begins, you can take steps to inform the players that a few hours spent in the rumor mill are likely to turn up an interesting story, patron, or legend capable of steering them toward a fresh adventure. This isn't the only means you should use to guide your players into new adventures (at least, it shouldn't be), but it doesn't hurt to have a safe backup for those times when you just can't think of anything better. Also, a solid rumor mill prevents the players from getting the uncomfortable idea that there's just nothing left to do.
Typically, the local rumor mill is an inn or tavern with one of those quaint names like "The Laughing Unicorn" or "The Wistful Wyvern," though there are plenty of other opportunities. The mill could just as easily be a marketplace, an "adventurers' guild," or even a library. Any place where adventurers, veterans, "mysterious strangers," or storytellers gather will do. Whatever locale you select to serve as your rumor mill should be a location that obviously draws a lot of travelers and out-of-towners. The more people who pass through the mill, the greater the ease with which you can introduce new information, rumors, and legends.
Of course, nothing says that you must confine your rumor mill to a single location. If you can come up with multiple sources for gossip and legends that seem to fit into your plan, so much the better. In our developing campaign world of Aris, for instance, the forest stronghold features two separate rumor mills. Somewhere inside the marketplace introduced last issue is a storyteller's square that has acquired a degree of notoriety throughout the lands under the aegis of Richard. Bards, adventurers, and others with a tale to tell come to this square to speak their piece to the public, hoping for a few silvers in return.

Examples:

• A youngster, for instance, might come to the square to relate the story of how he and his father were recently waylaid by a huge furry beast (actually an owlbear) on one of the trails outside Ironoak. Fortunately, the youngster managed to escape the beast's clutches, though his father wasn't so lucky. Hearing this tale, an outraged local merchant offers five hundred gold pieces for the beast's hide. This should be all that any adventurer worth his salt needs to hear before setting off to hunt the beast, and another adventure is underway.
• In addition to the storyteller's square, one of Ironoak's inns, The Queen of Cups, is a notorious hangout for out-of-towners and adventurers passing through to the Black Wood. Ernst, the owner of the Queen of Cups, is a retired adventurer himself. Part of what attracts newcomers to The Queen is Ernst's huge collection of curiosities. He's known to pay top dollar for any souvenir of a daring exploit. He then exhibits these items to attract new patrons to the inn. For the price of a few drinks, he'll happily relate the story behind any piece in his collection. At present, the collection includes a black dragon's tooth, an inert ioun stone, the pickled eyes of a medusa, and several lesser items, though Ernst is constantly acquiring new objects. This collection should be doubly effective in setting the players off on new adventures. Not only can they overhear gossip and rumors from Ernst's patrons but also Ernst himself and his items might easily serve to interest the players in a potential feat of derring-do.
• The captain of Richard's guard, Tarrin, is both "not what he seems" and a "man with an interesting physical characteristic." Tarrin has no left hand. He has told everyone that he lost the hand many years ago while fighting in a war, but the real story is much more interesting. About twelve years ago, Tarrin led a special detachment of the king's troops to destroy a stronghold built deep in the forest by an evil cult. In retaliation, the cult leader cast a horrible curse on Tarrin that gave his left hand a mind of its own. Soon, Tarrin was waking up to discover bloody weapons in his hand; the next day he'd learn that one of his neighbors was killed in the night. Eventually, the situation became so unbearable that Tarrin went deep into the woods and cut off the hand himself to escape the curse. He doesn't know that the hand "survived" and is slowly crawling its way across the continent, wreaking subtle havoc and trying to find its erstwhile owner. Naturally, the hand is eventually going to show up in the campaign to provide a strange adversary (and surprise) for the PCs.
• Another local NPC is an old, retired wizard named Jarrak who lives somewhere in the woods outside of Ironoak, though he frequently visits the stronghold to replenish his supplies. Jarrak has the uncanny ability to come and go unseen. You might suddenly hear his voice from the corner of the inn and turn to find him comfortably seated and sipping his broth, even though no one saw him enter. A few moments later, you might turn to speak with him, only to find that he is gone, though no one saw him leave. Jarrak is famous for having discovered a potent, unique spell that he used to save Ironoak from a band of marauders almost thirty years ago. It's said that Jarrak is the only wizard on all Aris who knows this spell; he's never found an apprentice worthy enough to learn it. Naturally, this is meant to serve as a challenge to any PC wizards. I'm hoping (and assuming) that they'll eventually attempt to convince Jarrak that they are worthy recipients of his secret knowledge.