The God-King's Curse: A 3rd-Level 5E Adventure (Patreon)

The God-King's Curse is the fourth adventure I wrote for the Swords & Sorceries line for 5E. The first three are available: The Sea Demon's Gold, The Song of the Sun Queens, and The Tomb of Fire. Finishing God-King and the others in the line will probably need a Kickstarter fundraiser to cover the substantial costs of editing, art, and layout. Try this one for yourself in the meantime and tell me how it goes!

INTRODUCTION

Zyirra, the City of a Thousand Gods, is an ancient, sweltering trading port on a rocky island on the coast of a stormy sea. Its houses, temples, and fortresses rise in endless tiers of crumbling stone. A few days ago, the residents and shopkeepers of the Street of Silks hired the adventurers to protect them against a haunting. Other than threats from local thugs who resent the competition for their protection racket, it has been an uneventful job. But it may draw the adventurers into deadly secrets at the bedeviled heart of a fallen empire.

The God-King’s Curse is optimized for five 3rd-level adventurers. Some encounters recommend ways to make things challenging for a substantially stronger party or easier for a substantially weaker party.

HOW TO GET HERE

The crumbling city-state Zyirra can be located in any sea where the weather is hot and humid in the summers and rainy but rarely cold in the winters. It is a fractious place, once the heart of an empire that fell long ago, now governed by the invaders’ corrupt descendants.

CITY AND EMPIRE

All information in this section is readily available to the adventurers. It may be useful to present it in handouts or cards that the players can review when a detail comes up.

Zyirra and Surkat: Zyirra once was the capital of an empire under the patronage of Surkat the Conqueror: the God-King, the devil-god of rivers and shallows, lakes and the underworld, Father of Furies, patron of sailors, traders, and soldiers. Surkat is said to be both consort and rival of Tiamat, the dragon-mother, queen of the deep seas and primordial Chaos, embodiment of grasping greed, power and vengeance.

The Samarran Conquerors: Perhaops 200 years ago, an invasion from a rival kingdom, Samarra in the sun-drenched east, overthrew the infamously ruthless Zyirran Empire. The priests and paladins of Samarra crippled the power and influence of the cruel cult of Surkat and built new temples to their gods atop the ruins of the old temples. The Samarrans salted the mainland fields that once fed the city, forcing Zyirra to trade with Samarra for crops. Even Zyirra’s legendary docks and fisheries had to be repaired and rebuilt. The Samarran priest-king of Zyirra today is Akila Utusham, brother to the distant high king of Samarra.

The Holy Guard: A Holy Guard of Samarran soldiers and priests has remained, generation after generation, to enforce the rule of the priest-king Akila Utusham. Samarran rule of Zyirra is uneasy and often corrupt. The church of Surkat thrives, its temples allowed to be rebuilt. Its most passionate adherents blame their the empire’s fall on their ancestors who abandoned their bloody-minded god. Those Zyirrans despise the Samarran occupiers and often fight them.

CONTINUED...

Download the attachments for the full text, maps, reference art, and pregens. Use the "Labyrinth Overlay" image to gauge where certain encounters should occur on the labyrinth map.