Escolar Documentos
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by james wallis
The Right-Handed
Sorcerer
an adventure for a group of any
level with at least one sorcerer
Introduction
The Right-Handed Sorcerer is a short scenario that
can be slotted into any campaign, and may serve as
a jumping-off point for a new series of adventures.
It is not set in any specific location in the Lands of
Legend, but it does play on the early life of one of
the members of the group, specifically a sorcerer. If
your players have mapped out the early lives of their
characters then you can refer to these and bring in
characters known to them; if they have not then this
adventure may start that process.
Its not designed for new players, or as an introduction to Dragon Warriors or role-playing generally. Because it involves more deduction than combat, and is left deliberately open-ended, it is suitable
for any level of player.
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about the latest alterations in sorcerous circlesand,
if they are still learning the arts of sorcery, to gain
more knowledge of spells and enchantments.
It shouldnt take much for the alumnus to persuade the others to come with him, particularly if
you give them no other obvious openings for adventure at this point.
My Masters House
It is likely that as they travel the other PCs will ask
the alumnus about his former master. Give him
Handout 1, at the end of the adventure, which summarises everything he knows on the subject.
Magister Lingams house sits in open country
about a mile from a large trade-road. It is a fortified
manor-house, clearly some centuries old though it
is hard to divine the buildings original style or purpose. A two-metre-high stone curtain-wall encloses
a small collection of buildings. A couple of acres
of land in front of the wall is being used to grow
wheat, oats and root vegetables, five cows graze on
land being left fallow, and a number of untidy apple,
pear and plum trees form a shady orchard along the
south side of the wall. A marshy mere half a mile
away provides fresh fish.
The wooden gate on the outer wall looks new,
and heavy. This place would not withstand an
organised military attack for more than a few minutes, but its defences are enough to dissuade outlaws
or raidersor pitchfork-wielding villagers whipped
into righteous fury about the ungodliness of sorcerers by a firebrand preacher.
Inside the wall are, in clockwise order, a stable
containing the Magisters horse and two donkeys; a
pigsty with five contented pigs; the manse itself; and
a long single-storey building used for storage and
servants quarters. Chickens scratch in the yard and
doves coo in a dovecote atop the servants quarters.
The manse itself is an L-shaped three-storey
building, built of local stone. The windows overlooking the courtyard are large, but those facing
outside the wall are smaller and with heavy shutters.
The wall that runs along the outside of the roof is
crenellated, providing cover for archers and other
missile-wielders should the place ever be attacked.
Although only the alumnus will know the internal layout at this stage, the ground floor of the manse
contains the large rooms for eating, cooking, teaching and receiving visitors. The first floor is Magister
The Household
The Magisters household consists of nine people
beyond himself. They are:
Udolphus
Udolphus, the Magisters personal secretary, is a
competent sorcerer in his own right but lacks flair.
He is one of the Magisters former pupils who stayed
on to assist the Magister, some thirty years ago. He
is now in his mid-40s, his hair grey and lanky. He
is tall and cadaverous, with a slow speech that belies
the speed of his thoughts.
Udolphus is the only person whose opinions the
Magister listens to, but he would never contradict
or criticise his master. His real skill is for alchemy,
in which he instructs the apprentices. He has a
stone-built shed outside the Manses walls where
he conducts his work: every so often strange smells
exude from here. Udolphus can brew up the potions
listed in the Dragon Warriors rulebook if requested,
but will take at least a week for each one, and he
will expect payment. If you prefer to deny your PCs
these items, Udolphus may conveniently run out of
reagents.
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Male, 4th-rank Sorcerer
attack 12
defence 6
magical attack 17
magical defence 7
Health points 10
Magic points
AF 0
Movement 10m (20m)
Reflexes 8
stealth 14
perception 6
evasion 3
attack 11
defence 5
magical attack
magical defence 3
Health points 7
Magic points
AF 0
Movement 10m (20m)
Reflexes 8
stealth 12
perception 4
evasion 3
Apprentices
The Magisters current apprentices are:
Jemima, aged 14, from a family of herbalists and
spice-merchants in Clyster: her parents have been
selling rare plants to wizards for decades, and a customer recognised the girls innate abilities. Jemima
is plain in looks but exceptional in talent.
Ariadne, aged 11, a street-child from Ongus (a
former student of Mistress Marta who she felt
showed unusual talent for the magical artssee p.
38 of the book Friends or Foes.) Ariadne is a very
pretty girl, but that carries no weight in the Magisters house.
Barnabus, aged 9, the son of a sorcerer in the south
of Ellesland (himself another of Sigismund and the
alumnuss former classmates, now living as a councilman in the town of Ongus.) Barnabus is consistently unkind to Ariadne, calling her beggar-girl
and street-child. This makes her cry.
Perdu, aged 8. Perdu arrived at the gates of the
manse on the vernal equinox last year, alone, on foot,
filthy and exhausted. He is a quiet boy: questions
about his parents are met with the answer Dead,
his home Gone. Nevertheless he is a gifted and
diligent student.
None of the apprentices have yet reached the ability
of a first-rank Sorcerer. Jemima has 2 magic points
and can cast one first-level spell a day. Ariadne has
only learned Image, Moonglow and Portal, and can
cast one of them once a day. Barnabus and Perdu
can each cast Moonglow once during the course of
the adventure. If you need game-ratings for them,
sample stats for children of different ages are given
in Friends or Foes.
Arrival
As the player-characters arrive at the manse they
are greeted by Udolphus, who runs out to meet
them before they can enter the gate. The alumnus
will recognise him immediately: older, greyer, but
essentially unchanged. Well met, the Magisters
secretary says, out of breath from his unaccustomed
run. You have made good time. We only sent out
the messages at dawn yesterday.
It transpires that the day before Udolphus sent
out messages to all the Magisters former pupils,
using the dovesa communication system that is
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a little slow but surprisingly reliable, if the doves
have been bred by the finest sorcerer in the country.
Hearing of the truth behind the partys arrival, he
refuses to believe it is mere coincidence. Our lord
in heaven above has guided your footsteps at our
time of greatest trouble, he says. The Magister is
in dire need of your help. Come with me.
He leads them not into the manse but to a low
stone building a few hundred metres outside the
walls. Inside it is dark and smells of sulphur and
burnt metals. Dark jars line the shelves on the walls,
and the room is kept uncomfortably hot by a lit kiln
in against one wall. The alumnus has been in here
before: it is Udolphuss alchemical workshop. Udolphus appears nervous, looking around to check for
eavesdroppers, and will not say another word until
the door is closed and firmly bolted.
What has happened to the Magister, one of the
PCs is sure to ask. Udolphus leans close, as if afraid
of being overheard.
He has gone mad, he says.
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Has the Magister any enemies?
Asking if a sorcerer has enemies is like asking if a
dog has fleasif he has none now, then there are
many waiting to take up position. But we know of
none who have threatened him of late. He is an old
man, great in learning but of little activity. There
may be some who still regard him as dangerous, but
you would have to ask why they thought so.
Have there been any visitors recently?
A man from Kurland came with a parchment four
days ago, but stayed less than an hour. Sigismund,
the former apprenticeyou remember Sigismund,
with a nod to the alumnus, and his entourage visited
before the last half-moon and stayed two nights.
If the PCs ask what happened to the parchment
from Kurland, Udolphus will shrug and say he
imagines that the Magister took it to his study. They
can search for it, but wont find itand at any rate
its no more than a red herring, designed to draw
them down to the study. As for Sigismunds visit,
read on.
Whats the situation?
The Magister roams the house, screeching, lashing out at any who approach him, as if looking for
something. Scarcely a stick of furniture remains.
Sometimes he retreats to his study, where he tears
pages from his books and scatters them around the
room. He will not eat, drink or sleep, and attacks
those who block his endeavours. The apprentices
and the servants are terrified.
What Rosamunde saw
Youd have to ask her, but I dont know what sense
youd get. The poor girl was half frighted out of her
witsthe half that isnt simple already.
From here the PCs will probably want to follow one
of a few courses of action: they will want to talk to
Barnabus or Rosamunde, or they will want to enter
the manse to see for themselves what is going on.
Barnabus is lying in a makeshift bed in the servants quarters, his arm bandaged. He is in great pain,
exhausted from crying, and only occasionally coherent. Most questions will be answered with sobs, but
on one thing he is adamant: the man who broke his
arm wasnt the Magister. He cant say who it was, or
how he knows, but he refuses to be budged on the
point.
Rosamunde is not around the manse. It transpires she has gone down to the village, where there
is a young man she likes. She was cleaning the
grates the previous morning, and heard the Magister descend the stairs to enter his study. The house
was quiet and she remembers hearing the Magisters
voice coming from downstairs from time to time,
muttering to himselfnot unusual.
Then there was a curious sound, a big shout, and
then a grating sound, like something heavy being
dragged across a stone floor. A minute or so later she
heard footsteps running up the stairs, and saw the
Magister running up to the first floor. She ducked
into the dining roomservants know their place
around the Magisterand the next thing she heard
was Barnabuss cry of pain.
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A note on books
Books are a rare and valuable resource in the Dragon
Warriors world. They must be copied by hand, a
time-consuming process that sometimes introduces
errors. The major repository for books are abbeys and
monasteries, which means that most of the books
that exist are on the subject of religion. Books are
almost never available for sale: they are exchanged
for copies of other books, or for enormous favours
done, or as marks of loyalty or allegiance. Only
the rich and powerful have anything resembling
a personal library, and to see more than ten books
in one place is very unusual. This may seem odd,
but being able to read in the Lands of Legend is a
rare privilege, and to actively seek out knowledge is
regarded by most as somewhere between eccentric
and potentially heretical.
All this is to say that the Magisters library is a
collection of tomes large and small, scrolls, codices,
strange arrangements of folded parchment, thin
sheets of lead with symbols etched into them,
wooden tablets with waxed wooden surfaces, and
other stranger records. It totals just over forty books,
a third of which have been copied in the Magisters
own hand. The amount of knowledge this represents
is, for the Middle Ages, breath-taking.
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d100 (percentile dice) once every ten minutes, and
if they score under their Intelligence theyve found
something of note:
The Magisters translation notes. However, being
a linguistic genius, Magister Lingam has not done
anything as straightforward as translating the
inscription into Elleslandic. Instead he hasafter a
page of notes in a tiny, crabbed handwritingtranslated it into Bacchile, and then worked backwards to
create a phonetic version of the original inscription
(again in Bacchile) that can be read aloud. Anyone
in the party who can read Bacchile must make an
Intelligence roll against a difficulty of 18 to work
out what this is and how to perform the correct pronunciation.
Letter from Sigismund
Dear Magister, I find I shall be travelling near to your
manse at the end of Harel-monath [or any another
month; see Dragon Warriors p. 188) and would wish
to renew our friendship with a visit. I shall bring
with me a gift, a curious artefact of sorcery that I
was sold on my voyage last year, with a motto in a
script that has defied the wit of all to whom I have
shown it. I have a suspicion of what it might be but
seek your insight on its true provenance and nature.
Should you succeed in unlocking its mysteries, you
are most welcome to keep the resultwith my sincerest regards. Sigismund
Ivory tablet
A thin ivory tablet about twenty centimetres wide
and maybe five high. Set into it in flakes of lapis
lazuli are symbols of an ancient and unreadable language. However, the symbols are definitely from the
same alphabet as the characters carved into the rim
of the mirror. (The PCs will only realise this if they
have examined the mirrorthey almost certainly
have, but sometimes PCs do strange things.)
The tablet can be used to attract the attention
of the Magister: if shown the item it will attempt
to snatch it from the bearer. The inscription itself is
not magical or even useful, but it is the first thing
in the house that the Magister has recognised as
being from its own culture, and that alone makes it
alluring.
To anyone other than a linguistic expert or
scholar of ancient empires the tablet is a curio worth
a handful of florins. To someone who knows what it
is, it is worth 50 crowns.
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There is one way to tell that something has
occurred, and it is not immediately apparent. The
Reflexion is a mirror-duplicate of the original, so if
the original wore a brooch on the right side of her
hair then the Reflexion will wear one to the left; and
if the original was left-handed then the Reflexion
will be right-handed.
All sorcerers in the Lands of Legend are, of
course, left-handed.
The mirror appears to be completely normal,
reflecting whatever appears in it. The only exception
is if the Reflexion stands in front of it. The reflected
image will be that of the Magister, making desperate gestures indicating that he is trapped inside. If
the inscription is read again, the Reflexion and the
mirrors prisoner will switch places. The mirror and
the Reflexion are part of the same entity, and require
each others presence to operate. If the inscription is
read while the Reflexion is not reflected in the mirrors surface then nothing will happen.
The mirror-demon does not take on the mind
or mental powers of the person it has replaced. It
retains its own identity and its instructions. When
Reflexion
The Reflexion is a product of ancient sorcery, created to assassinate a single target and replace him
with a duplicate. Whether this replacement was
intended to take the place of the original in the long
term or simply until the assassin had made good his
escape is unclear. It may very well be unique.
The Reflexion has no form of its own, taking the
shape of the person who replaces it in the ur-space
inside the mirror, but in a mirror-reversal. It has a
symbiotic relationship with the mirror in which it
is usually imprisoned. The existence of the mirror
gives it life and power, and it cannot exist more than
ten miles from the mirror. Although it (usually)
appears to be human, it does not need to eat, drink,
sleep or even breathe.
Its physical form is extremely strong and quick,
as if it was partly immune to the laws of physics.
However, though it is formed of magic, the Reflexion cannot use sorcery or spells. It does have one
unique attack that lets it employ its sorcerous nature:
if it strikes a successful blow against an opponent,
it can channel some of the fabric of its being into
additional damage. That is to say, it can turn its
own health points into damage points, at will. One
Armour Factor 1
Movement 15m (30m)
Reflexes 18
stealth 17
perception 8
evasion 9
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boundaries of the manse, has driven it to further
distraction. If it is allowed to escape across the
sigils that imprison it, it will run away across the
fields on all fours, shrieking as it goes. However,
it cannot travel more than five miles from the
mirror.
It was designed as a tool of assassination: to
destroy all the occupants of a location, in the guise
of a known person, so survivors would report
that the lord (or master, abbot, prefect, or whoever) had gone mad and slaughtered everyone.
However, its insanity has superseded that part of
its programming, at least for the moment.
It speaks only in the tongue of its masters, a longdead language. It cannot understand anything
said or written in another language. Therefore,
although it finds itself surrounded by a cornucopia of knowledge, the only words it can understand are the words that would imprison it back
inside the mirror. It is therefore very frustrated.
It has none of Magister Lingams sorcery, but has
magical powers of its own (see p. 8).
It would rather die than return to the imprisonment of the mirror.
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Impasse
If the PCs are at a loss to understand what is going
on, but refuse to engage the Reflexion in either discourse or combat, instead letting it rampage around
the house, then there are various things you can
throw into the mix to make their lives easier:
While a PC is in the study and the mirror is
turned outwards (the mirror can be moved anywhere in the house, of course), the Reflexion
passes in front of it for a moment and the PC
(Perception check against whatever difficulty
seems reasonable) notices that its reflection does
not match it. Its the same person, but not in the
same pose.
Either in response to a question or statement
about Sigismund from one of the PCs, or spontaneously (if things are getting really sticky), the
apprentice Ariadne mentions that during his
visit Sigismund took her to one side, said that
he was looking for an apprentice of his own, that
the Magister was old and accident-prone, and
The Explanation
It is possible that the player-characters will make a
complete pigs ear of this adventure. They may kill
the Reflexion, allow the mirror to tarnish without
activating the inscription, and never find the true
Magisteror even suspect that the being they
killed was not him. In this case you owe them an
explanation, if only to convince them to try harder
next time.
In this case, as they are preparing to leave, another
of the Magisters former pupils arrives, summoned
by Udolphuss doves. He brings disturbing news: he
has heard that Sigismund has embraced the dark
arts, and with a patron is planning to become the
pre-eminent sorcerer in this part of the world, prior
to a power-grab by his master. To this end Sigismund has found an ancient artefact that (so the
former pupil has heard) will destroy the Magister by
trapping his soul within it. He only hopes he is not
too late to prevent a tragedy....
Alternatively, if and when the PCs catch up with
Sigismund in a future adventure, he can monologue
an explanation of what really happened, and use it as
an illustration of the fact that he is far cleverer than
they are, and they are idiots to think they can stand
against himfor ultimately it was they who killed
the Magister, not him.
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Appendix 1: Background
This is what the alumnus will be able to tell the other
characters about Magister Lingam and Sigismund.
The Magister
The Magister Lingam, also known as the Saviour
of Otleigh, is a respected figure in sorcerous circles.
He gained his title and much of his reputation at
the Siege of Otleigh, where he used his powers to
repair a breach in the castles walls and protected the
young Duke Edmund from a hail of enemy arrows.
The Duke subsequently employed him as an advisor
for some years, before giving him the smallholding
where he now lives, for the furtherance of his studies and the teaching of others.
Nobody knows how old the Magister is. He was
described as old at the Siege of Otleigh, and that
was forty years ago, and Duke Edmund died of old
age in his bed six winters back. His hair is white,
his face as lined and worn as a piece of wave-worn
timber, and he walks with a cane, but there is not a
man alive who remembers a time when he did not.
The Magister is retired from active sorcery these
days, but teaches the arts of magic to a small selection of apprentices who are sent to him by former
pupils and other adepts of the magical arts who
have spotted their potential. He tutors these children from the age of seven to sixteen, when they can
return to their homes, find a new master or set out
to follow the paths of magic for themselves. Pupils
who fail to live up to his standardsabout a third of
themare sent home. He has between three and six
apprentices at any time.
Magister Lingam is a man of great learning and
wisdom, when he chooses to show it. In company he
is often intolerant and short-tempered, particularly
with his pupils. He has an enquiring mind and will
often break off from conversation to follow a train of
thought, sometimes for minutes at a time. He lacks
any sense of humouryou remember one apprentice, Sigismund, a contemporary of yours, telling a
tale that he had traded it to the Devil in exchange
for sorcerous powers, but you have no proof of this.
The Magister is an acknowledged expert in the
languages of days past. In his study area in the cellar below the house are ancient books that may be
the last copies in the world, and artefacts of which
none but he know the purpose. People travel half-
way around the world to consult him on these matters, or to have him translate archaic manuscripts or
engraved tablets. It is said that the gold he takes as
his fee for this work is all stored somewhere within
his manse, which makes it an occasional target for
thieves and opportunists.
Sigismund
You never liked Sigismund. Three or four years older
than you, he was unquestionably gifted in sorcerous
matters, but combined those gifts with a manner
than ranged from supercilious to cruel. He lorded
it over the junior apprentices and the servants. He
never spoke of his parents, but he was richby the
standards of apprentices anywayand used that
wealth as a form of leverage to prove his superiority
when his talents were not enough, buying the affections of local girls and the loyalty of local toughs to
settle quarrels with the other students that had initially gone against him. There were rumours he was
the son of a senior bishop, who had stolen his fathers
wealth and run away, but that was never known for
sure. And he was handsome, and he knew it.
There was that incident with the ducklings and
the cat he starvedah, but why dig up the past?
(GM: Once the alumnus has told the other PCs what
he remembers of Sigismund, you can cast doubt on his
objectivity by having Udolphus and the servants remind
the alumnus how badly Sigismund used to pick on him,
bullying him mercilessly in the years they were studying
together. This gives both characters more interest and
depth, and makes the situation less clear-cut.)
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