Ylaruam ideas
by Mike HarveyAdventures I've done in Ylaruam...
- A powerful wizard in Selenica sent the party on a quest to find and retrieve a lost portal. The characters had to locate a lost Fire Mage temple that was taboo and guarded by a local nomad tribe, penetrate the caverns beneath, and defeat the demon guarding the portal. The portal was a metal ring that opened a passage to some hellish dimension (where the demon came from) raising the question what does the wizard want with it and should we give it to him? IMC the character took the gate and tried to bargain with the wizard, but found out he had the city government and guard under his control.
- A trip to the great library at Ylaruam to obtain information.
- A PC encountered a beautiful slave girl (dancer) and decided to free her... not by paying for her but by smuggling her out of the country with pursuers close behind.
- The PCs entered a city and one was arrested for practicing forbidden magic. He was imprisoned in a tower and the other PCs decided to rescue him with the aid of an invisibility ring; unfortunately the tower was guarded by a Djinn who could see invisible creatures. (Naturally the lord employs a wizard in order to enforce the anti-magic laws!) Hilarity ensued and they escaped into the desert.
- A character wandered off by himself into the desert and encountered a cockatrice (classic desert monster) and promptly got himself turned to stone, prompting a trip to a city and negotiations to turn him back.
- Various encounters with giant sandworms, blue dragons, and the like.
- In Ylaruam city, a PC from Karameikos was invited to dine with a Karameikan diplomat (the PC had family ties to Duke Stefan). That evening the diplomat was assassinated by Thyatian spies, who made it look like Ylari fanatics in an attempt to stir up internal conflicts. Naturally the PC was a prime suspect and it was a good reason to disappear into the desert.
- A PC was searching for his ancestral city in Ylaruam. Essentially the PC was an M-Jew and his city was in M-Palestine, having been conquered long ago by Ylari fanatics and the people driven into exile. The city is now located in a forsaken wasteland, ruled by bandits and local tribal warlords, and serves sort of as a Ylari black market. The PC naturally wanted to liberate the city and bring his people back from exile. (This campaign thread was never resolved.)
- PCs entering Ylaruam from the Biazzan area seek shelter at a monastic military community tasked with guarding the border from Thyatians. The community is very suspicious after recent humanoid raids (believed to have been instigated by Thyatis) and also very powerful: the monks are essentially martial artists, and also religious dervishes who see females as temptresses sent from hell. The characters had to treat carefully to avoid offence, and were told to stay in their rooms. Naturally they could not resist sneaking around, spying, and infiltrating/desecrating the evening religious services.
- Ran the Lost City, of course.
- A character was seeking an artifact of time travel (part of his background). This slotted nicely with Al-Kalim's quest, so I sent him on a wild goose chase following vague rumours into Ylaruam, though it wasn't there.