UNDER UMBER SKIES

Fruits of Boredom

So I was in a meeting, bored. Cue dungeon spark table in my pocket journal:

2d6 (dungeon vibe, dungeon tyrant)

1. Hot - Dragon

2. Cold - Undead

3. Dark - Aberrant

4. Bright - Angel

5. Mossy - Fungi

6. Wet - Aboleth vibes

I got 4 / 1 (Bright / Dragon), and this is what I came up with during the meeting! I'm working on turning it into a proper adventure, but this is what I have for now!

UNDER UMBER SKIES

Despite his age, Sthuthinias wasn't much of a dragon. For her part, Anja Helminnen wasn't much of a mage. In that way, they were a match made in heaven. Despite his generally bad attitude (his friends called him "the Morose"), Sthuthinias was clever. He only raided high-impact targets far from his home, and his ability to exude glowing magical radiation allowed him to incapacitate his opponents without a fight (and give them a second hand or second head or a second liver in the process).

Anja, too, wasn't much for duking it out with goblins and orcs in dungeons; too much risk of a stray arrow cutting her career short. Instead, she poured over records, and honed her skill in the one area of magic she was decent at. For whatever reason, Anja was drawn to a spell that conjured liquid amber, and while her meager attempts with fireball could barely blow up a chicken, she found she could fill a mansion with rapidly hardening amber.

Their paths crossed when Sthuthinias raided Anja's branch of the Adeptus Arcanum. After Anja lost her vision in the attack, she swore vengeance. Guided by a Rhivian ranger, she tracked Sthuthinias back to his lair on the icy northern coast overlooking the Sundering Sea. Creeping into his cave, Anja prepared herself for her greatest work of magic. As he slept atop his massive horde, Sthuthinias found himself submerged in a sticky substance. He struggled, and sought to rise, but the weight of this liquid held him down and stuck him to the millions of gold coins below him. As the liquid hardened, Anja realized she had trapped a dragon.

The Iron Empire took great interest in this discovery when Anja realized that Sthuthinias was still conscious, and more importantly, that he was still exuding magical radiation. They built a research station around Sthuthinias' prison, complete with magico-mechanical staff maintaining a ventilation system to keep his magical radiation from accumulating. It generated an area of glowing Umber Auroras that glowed in the sky even during the day. The researchers tinkered with the idea of extracting the treasure from the amber, but deemed it too risky. Anja died before they made any significant discoveries.

With the fall of that empire, the post was abandoned, though the magico-mechanical Maintainters continued to operate. A petty bandit king attempted to take the station, and succeeded in destroying the first handful of rooms cut into the rock before taking casualties. He left it untouched, after which point it sat for a thousand years.

Then, a wandering fisherman, drawn by the glowing umber Aurora high in sky, saw a cave that seemed to glow too. Upon investigation, he was met by a dragon trapped in amber atop a massive horde. While chipping off the amber to get at the coins, the dragon reached out to him and touched his mind! It promised him riches, if he would only free it. Before he could respond, spider-like creatures of steam and metal swarmed out of the rock, so he grabbed a jewel the size of his fist, and made off for his boat.

Tales of that jewel and the amber dragon in the cave have now spread far and wide, and before too long cultists, necromancers and adventurers (oh my!) have found themselves journeying UNDER UMBER SKIES to make their own fortune!

I'm debating whether to do the adventure in OSE or Cairn or even OSRIC. Should have a playtest version ready sometime this week though!