Lost Galmagia: Rumors

As Ben at Questing Beast is fond of saying, “Information is the lifeblood of Old School Play”. I’m leaning heavily into the rumors system that is touched on in module B1: In Search of the Unknown. Before the start of the first session each PC can roll for one rumor on a d20, while Thief PCs can roll for 2 on a d12. Dwarves, Clerics, Fighters, Halflings, and Thieves add their Charisma modifier to the roll (though the thief can choose not to if their Charisma is below average). Magic-Users and Elves can add their Intelligence modifier to the roll rather than Charisma if they prefer, getting their rumors through study of ancient scrolls and tomes. Clerics can add their Wisdom modifier rather than Charisma, getting their ‘rumors’ through Haruspex or Ophiomancy (reading entrails of sacrifices or watching the movement of snakes). Once one PC gets a rumor they can share it, and others try to build on it to get deeper into the rumor tree (or if they make it back to Amethyst Spire they can spend gold to try again.) Rumors in Italics are enticing lies.

0)      The city was built into 8 wards (Acolyte, Ancestors, Mages, Moon, Nobles, Park , Swords, and Trade) radiating out from the canal, and it has undercity trade roads. Everyone knows this.

a.       But you’ve got a map! Actually, you have several, showing the locations of the eight wards relative to each other and the rough layout of each ward. Cartography is not a high art, BTW.

                                                               i.      You also have a rough sketch of the undercity roads in relation to those. Again, it might not be 100% accurate but it’s a fair sight better than nothing.

b.       Each Ward has an icon – bejeweled gold animal statues – locatable by clues in the lost architecture.

1)      The cathedral of the moon was in the far east of the city; it’s under levels held extensive sacrifices and tribute to the gods that was centralized here and distributed across the empire.

a.       There’s a trapdoor to the vaults that an acolyte spotted in the ruins. There’s still a direct way down!

                                                               i.      You’ve found that acolyte and prized from him the trapdoor’s location, half buried under a huge stone block, which is why the pilgrims left it. But blocks can be moved….

                                                             ii.      Per stories, that trapdoor leads down into a “testing chamber”, so be prepared to be tested in a fashion fitting the Matriarchy of the Moon. Once you’re past there travel is freer.

b.       There was a caravan of holy relics fleeing the giant’s shadow that made it to Galmagia but no further. If they have not been pillaged, they are in the cathedral vaults.

                                                               i.      The vaults and undercity spaces were protected by wards that allowed in only the pious, or at least those who knew how to mime the right actions. You can recognize these wards.

                                                             ii.      The relics lost include a True Caduceus – the snake of which can animate and attack – which is of enormous symbolic importance to the matriarchy.

c.       The Matriarchs who did not escape made pacts with dark forces, and now are vampires sucking the life from the horseclans and pilgrims who pass through.

2)      The noble houses were in the far west of the city, and they had extensive under-levels full of family heirlooms.

a.       These include art collections, wine cellars, and similar artifacts of the old order. All of this would fetch high prices from the True King, even if they aren’t inherently valuable.  

                                                               i.      Each family had private armories of elf-craft, dwarf-forged, or magical weapons. There must be three or four such caches in and under the noble houses.

                                                             ii.      Of course, the noble houses also privately entombed and propitiated their dead, and such devotions have not been made in some time. That might cause problems.

b.       The Galmagian noble family was… unstable from inbreeding and constantly laid curses laid on one another; neither they, nor their treasures, ever left the city. They MUST be dead by now. Mustn’t they?

                                                               i.      They are not. Conversation with one of the Galmagians who had been abroad when the giant’s shadow fell reveals eerie dreams of living family turned into things not quite human.

                                                             ii.      The Galmagian noble family had long proclaimed that they would never sully themselves with base metal, and all their daily utensils and adornment were gold and silver.

c.       The crown of Tarmalania lies hidden in one of the storerooms, and whoever claims it claims the empire. The Last King will, of course, deny this.