“So new to him,' she muttered, 'so old to me; so
strange to him, so familiar to me; so melancholy to both of us!”
― Charles Dickens, Great
Expectations
Of the infamous Flesh Traders, perhaps none was more
fearsome than the twisted elven enchantress known simply as the Marquessa. Her
unspeakable experiments that twisted the flesh and bones of the innocent into
horrific abominations continue to fill the good folk of the land with dread,
even now, fifteen years since the slavers ring was smashed by a band of
legendary heroes and she was forced to flee into the night. [A5 Kill
Marquessa! - cover]
Sound thrilling?
It should. Could there be a viler villain in all of
Greyhawk than Markessa? Unlikely. Iggwilv would surely give her a run for the title, but
where Iggwilv might have consorted with demons, her main goal appears to be
power and conquest.
Not so Markessa, or might I say, the Marquessa.
Hold on, you say! Marquessa? Who the deuce is Marquessa?
Could Marquessa be construed as Markessa? There are parallels. Indeed, inspiration. Unfortunately, a little thing
called Intellectual Property stands in the way of calling A ROSE anything but a
ROZE. Suffice it to say, while WotC may not be publishing new material in the
Greyhawk setting, they have not opened up the IP to fan content on DMs Guild, either.
Therefore, anyone who wishes to set their adventures in the venerable old
setting will have to do a little slight of hand, if they want to sell the fruit
of their labour. They could give it away free, legal under the fan content
clause, but why then would they go through the trouble is producing EXPENSIVE physical
product. To sell adventures, they have to do something called “shaving off the
IP.” Change names, etc.
Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this, just in case WotC is
reading this humble blog…. I suppose it doesn’t matter, seeing that those who
do this have voiced what they do on online streams.
Getting back to Marquessa, what do we know about her?
She’s beautiful.
She is a small female elf with ivory white skin,
golden hair and an evil slant to her amber eyes. [A2 - 27]
And yeah, she's evil. Iggwilv doesn’t really measure up
to Marquessa's kind of evil. Marquessa experiments on people. She’s a cross between
Josef Mengele and Doctor Moreau. That puts Marquessa on a completely different
plane of sinister depravity.
[What] catches the party’s attention are the two
tables in the center of the room, from one of which rises a strange caricature
of a man—long and thin, with a horribly deformed mouth and a long clawed arm.
It emits a brutal croaking sound [A2 - 27]
The creature on the table was once a human slave, but
is now a crazed experiment of Markessa. Markessa is chaotic evil and an agent
of the Slave Lords and in charge of the running of this branch of the slaver
operation. Markessa is also performing private experiments on some of the
captured slaves in order to create the perfect slave. […] Unfortunately, most
of her experiments have gone awry, for she operates without anesthesia and most
of her experiments are driven insane by the pain. [A2 - 27]
Some were successful:
The party sees a female elf with ivory skin, golden
hair and amber colored eyes. She is wearing studded leather armor and carrying
a shortsword and throwing darts. She is seated at a work table writing on a
length of parchment. [A2 - 33]
Actually she is one of Markessa's more successful
experiments, a double who has been surgically and magically altered to look
like Markessa, then brainwashed to obey Markessa's commands. [A2 - 33]
Why? So she can be in more than one place at a time, I
suppose. Chris Pramas and Sean K. Reynolds puts this to great effect in their
1999 sequel to the Slavers series, Slavers.
When confronted by Markessa’s experiments, the PCs ought to
be horrified, and desire to put an end to hem, and her.
I’ve suggested in prior posts that if the PCs manage to kill
the real Markessa, the deceased ought to be one of her successful experiments.
I will be so bold as to suggest that even the writers of the module, Harold
Johnson and Tom Moldvay, intended Markessa to escape:
If things are going badly for her she will either cast
her darkness spell and flee or she will pick up a flask off of a shelf and
throw it down to smash on the floor. The contents of the flask will form a blue
cloud of smoke, 10' radius, that cannot be seen through. Anyone caught in the
smoke will find that it stings their eyes and blinds them for 1 round after
they leave the cloud. [A2 - 27]
Behind the fireplace on the east wall is a secret door
opened by adjusting the flue with a poker. When the secret door is opened the
wooden chandelier on the ceiling will come crashing to the floor to distract
attention. The fireplace will then swing out into the room revealing the secret
passage beyond it. This is Markessa's escape tunnel if she is pursued to her
chambers. [A2 - 33]
Part way down the tunnel, Markessa's escape tunnel
exits through a secret door in the west wall into this passage. The secret door
looks like part of the stone wall and is opened by pushing up on a nearby rock
outcropping. [A2 - 35]
The tunnel opens into a large natural cavern. In the
southeast corner of the cavern are a number of black-skinned elves leading
slaves who are carrying packs. [A2 - 35]
It was because she escaped that Markessa's depravities
were able to continue in Slavers. Did Markessa survive the assault on
Kalen Lekos in Slavers?
You bet your ass she did.
Markessa has a
contingency spell cast upon herself that should she be reduced to 10 or fewer
hit points, she will be teleported to the home of a charmed ally in Furyondy. [Slavers
– 105]
Aside from that, she will fight smart. She wants to win.
And she wants to survive. Wouldn’t you?
Markessa is
incredibly intelligent and extremely wicked, and will use her spells to
neutralize her opponents. If she thinks she’s outclassed, she’ll use her
project image spell to harry people from afar (in addition to sending guards
after them) and dimension door away if things look bad (failing that, her
contingency spell should save her). [Slavers – 105]
All this matters if you’ve been playing the A series in
sequence, and in a larger campaign.
You may have never played the original tournament
modules.
But if you had, or if you wish to, the story need not
end, or have ended, with Slavers. Our
heroes might have chased the survivors down. And one or two might have slipped
through their fingers.
Which brings me to A4 Kill Marquessa!
Even now, fifteen years later, the tales of her
unspeakable experiments upon the flesh of the innocent fills the hearts of good
folk with dread and brings spider-legs to climb the ladderwork of their spines.
Of those that cannot forget the nighmares found in
Marquessa’s laboratories is Leander Hatgeld. [A5 - 1]
Leander Hatgeld is none other than Dread Delgeth of A2,
one of the pre-generated characters of the A-series. A middling mage all those
years ago, he has grown in skill, and in the intervening years, he has spent
his life dealing with the aftermath of that epic struggle. [He] quickly
discovered that [many of the Flesh Traders] survived and thirsted for revenge
against those that had laid leaders low. [A5 – 1]
The Slavers tried to assassinate him for his efforts, a
score of times. They failed. And those who tried died.
None of his fellow heroes that stood at his side
during that final battle [in A4] had been so lucky, each one felled by blade,
spell, or poisoned cup. [A5 – 1]
Hatgeld [Delgeth] fled to Divers [Dyvers] and from there,
dedicated his life to tracking down those slavers who had managed to escape the
fall.
Recently, Hatgeld has learned much regarding one of
the most fearsome of all the Flesh Traders: The brilliant and depraved elven
enchantress Marquessa. [A5 - 1]
He’s divined her fortresses, and even discerned a pattern
to her movements.
He’s assembled the PCs to strike at her least defended
fortification. Too, he is shrewd enough ensure that each one of these heroes
has some personal score to settle with the Flesh Traders and their agents.
[A5 - 1]
Sounds exciting.
There’s one flaw here that I can discern, why not go
himself? He’s powerful. He’s capable. And he, if anyone, has a score to settle
with Marquessa.
It’s a small issue, one easily resolved: Hatgeld has
narrowed the possibilities to two within the time frame pinpointed. He and his
team will strike the more difficult of the two. There, done. As I said, it’s a
small bone of contention.
What can Hatgeld tell them about her lair? Little. It has
defied scrying. So, how does he know about it then? Activity of her minions, outside
and nearby, maybe?
Let’s not be too critical. This was Carlos Lising’s first
kick at the can, and he was writing a tournament module, not a campaign set-up
as Pramas and Reynolds were. If you wish to slip this into a long running
Slavers campaign, you’ll have to do a little work, as would have been required to
develop all the scenarios leading up to and around A1 through A4. There’s no
denying that will be a lot of work. It will be; but therein lies the difference
between running a one-shot tournament module and a long-running campaign.
There are two potential starts to the adventure. One for
tournament play, the other for campaign play.
As one would expect, the PCs begin play at the fortress
entrance in tournament play. Campaign play can begin in Diver [Dyvers], where
they set out overland or by sea. Wilderness and Water Encounter Table are
included.
In either case, a map was provided to the PCs, but not
included, owing to the adventure being originally intended for convention
tournament play. The text describing the surrounding terrain is vivid enough
for the DM to create on with a little imagination.
The story begins at the fortress entrance.
A Wandering Monsters Encounter Table is provided for the
fortress, but only intended for campaign play. That has always been the case
for tournament play. NO wandering monsters. There’s little enough time to reach
the end of the adventure in the allotted time as is, likely impossible if the
party is stumbling across patrols, or their pets.
I won’t go into the particulars of the adventure.
It’s new, after all, published in 2016; and not mine to
disclose.
What I will disclose is the adventure was penned for the
OSRIC Reference and Index Compendium. It’s a close cousin to the AD&D
ruleset, so if you have one, you won’t need the other.
It’s designed for 7th to 11th Level
characters, and more difficult than the original tournament modules. It would
have to be, wouldn’t it? It has been years since Marquessa was “defeated” in
the Drachensgrab Hills and forced to flee. One ought to expect that she would
have grown in skill and power, much as Hatgeld had. She’s not much more
powerful than she was in Slavers,
though. In Slavers, ten years had passed since the “final” confrontation at
Suderham; and in that noble work, Markessa had advanced from a meager 5th
level magic-user and 5th level fighter to a F12/M13; where in the
five years that followed she has only risen to F13/M14. That seems realistic to
me. It would take far longer to advance in levels and carry on her research.
Some might say that she exceeds level limitations. She
does. Were she a PC, she’d have been limited to 5th level fighter
(14 strength) and 9th level magic-user (16 intelligence) in AD&D
1e. She was still “legal” in A2. She is even “legal” in 2e: Fighter limit 12,
magic-user limit 17 (15 +2, due to Intelligence). She is not legal in OSRIC:
F5, M6; but she’s not a PC, is she? She’s an NPC; and NPCs have always been a
little outside the rules, haven’t they?
As to the Pregens, they have a detailed backstory, much
like those of A1 Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan had. Are they required? Not for a
tournament; but those stories do add a little lore to the setting, if you are
so inclined to use them. Much like the classic A series, the Lising sequel use
the same pregens in each of his A adventures.
They include:
Marya Hammerfist, 8th level Dwarf Female Fighter
Quenden Tasander, 6th level Elf Male Fighter / 6th level
Magic-User
Sildan Enathwrel, 8th level Elf Male Magic-User
Ilsandre Sunshower, 6th level Gnome Female Illusionist /
6th level Thief
Jaran Braxx, 7th level Half-Elf Male Ranger
Telvas Thistlewine, 8th level Halfling Male Thief
Khâzratha Ironthews, 7th level Half-Orc Female Cleric
Lyandra Yrsanthi, 6th level Human Female Cleric / 6th
level Magic-User
Merranen Eagleheart, 8th level Human Male Druid
Ravella Zaar, 8th level Human Female Illusionist
Brother Lyrwend, 8th level Human Male Monk
Kendrel Rilsheven, 7th level Human Male Paladin
12 Pregens. That seems a lot, more than in the average
classic tournament module, in any event. I’ve never attended a convention, so
that may be the number of seats around a convention table.
Back to the adventure, and what I will disclose.
Needless to say, Marquessa is well protected. She was in
A2, and she is now. There are guards, and guards do what they will: they
patrol. She has a trusted lieutenant in Storm Zothculb (if that seems at all
familiar, it might be that the 5th level thief Sturm Blucholtz of
A1-4 Scourge of the Slavelords
survived A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity,
and has prospered under Marquessa, ever since {now 8th level Thief}).
Stealth is crucial.
The PCs should understand their fate if captured.
Marquessa’s reputation proceeds her.
If the party surrenders
to the garrison, they will be disarmed and their magic items, and armor
confiscated. Once the party members have been rendered harmless, Markessa will
question them as to what they know of slaver activities, using all means
available, including torture, if necessary. Once she has learned everything she
can, Markessa will immediately kill all spell casters (if these can be
identified) and sent the other party members to the dungeon [,] where it can be
assumed that the mad cavelings will kill them for meat. [A2 - 3]
She could have experimented on them, as well, a fate
potentially worse than death, one might assume.
One should expect no less now.
The consequences of
failure would be catastrophic. Not only would Marquessa become aware that the
system she relies upon for her safety is compromised, but the Player Characters
could well pay for their defeat with their lives. Perhaps worse, the
enchantress would likely vanish from sight, never to be so easily be found
again. Certainly, the good folk of the land would pay dearly, in such a case. [A5
- 1]
Her fortress strategy of A5 is essentially identical from
that of A2:
Once a party of
adventurers is detected inside the fortification complex, the guards will raise
the alarm. This will generally be done by means of an alarm switch (with which
every room is equipped) that sounds a great klaxon within the facility. If, for
some reason, this switch fails to sound the alarm, the guards will voice a
great hue and cry that is much more limited in effectiveness (only the rooms or
halls on either side of the area in which this is raised will be alerted to
trouble). Should the alarm switch be thrown, the entirety of the fortification
will be alerted at the end of the turn in which it is sounded. If a shouted
alarm is used, the fort will be alerted at the end of the turn following the
one in which the characters are spotted.
Once the complex is
alerted, guards in barracks will proceed to the area in which the alarm was
thrown. Storm Zothculb (possibly accompanied by one or more of his pet giant
weasels) will likewise speed to said area, if he yet lives. Marquessa will
begin casting defensive spells upon herself and her bodyguard in anticipation
of their approach. [A5 - 2]
No complains there on my part. Don’t mess with what
works.
To disclose more would be unfair to both Carlos and to you.
Is this a good adventure? I think so. Is it a great
adventure? Those who’ve played it loved it (Carlo’s games much sought after at
conventions, I’ve heard), if that is any guide.
Is it worth the expenditure? I think so. I purchased it;
and I think you should, too, especially if you are a fan of the Greyhawk
setting. Few are creating new adventures for the setting, and it behoves those who
wish to keep it “alive” to support those who write for it.
What do you get for your money, you ask?
The adventure hardcopy is staple bound, with glossy
cover. The adventure is 10 pages in length of a total 40 pages. Marquessa is
extensively detailed, and each PC is given 2 full pages, ideal as handouts.
There is a page for tournament scoring, one for the Open Gaming License, and 2
for maps.
The bound maps are grey in colour, and look to be
computer generated. They may have been rendered in colour, but they are B&W
in the fold.
Carlos was kind enough to donate a digital copy for my
review purpose (to which I am grateful), and that has B&W maps. I prefer
these. I printed them, and doodled what was described in text for each room
within them, to get a feel for what was there, how spacious or cramped they
might be, and to better see how combat might play out in each. I do that,
doodle. I’ve copied and printed every module map for the same purpose
throughout the years, painstakingly drawing altars and pews, and desks and
beds, and braziers with a fine-point pencil, adding descriptive passages and
notes in the margins and spaces between. Those doodled and annotated pages are
tucked into my physical copy of this module even now, and likely will remain
there until I pass beyond the veil. What did I discover? I can say with great certainty that nothing
thicker than the consistency of water will drain from the refuge chutes of two
rooms given their length of travel and depth of discharge (it’s a small
complaint, maybe even trivial, but I am exhaustive in design, given what I do
for a living). The rest holds up to scrutiny, and I’m finicky, as you can now
well imagine.
All considered, it’s a good adventure, and worth the cost
of admission should you deem it worthy of your consideration, and its potential
place on your shelf.
I wish you luck.
Defeating Marquessa will not be easy. Honestly, the odds
are in her favour that she’ll escape.
But that’s okay. Her escape paves the way for A6, and
A7….
“...all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified,
and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white
hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam
down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s
shell upon it.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or,
the Whale
One must always give credit where credit is due. This
piece is made possible primarily by the Imaginings of Gary Gygax and his Old
Guard, Lenard Lakofka among them, and the new old guards, Carl Sargant, James
Ward, Roger E. Moore. And Erik Mona, Gary Holian, Sean Reynolds, Frederick
Weining. The list is interminable.
Very special thanks to Carlos Lising, without whose efforts, this piece could never have existed.
The Art:
Kill Marquessa! cover art, by Chet Minton, 2016
Markessa by
mli13, originally published in A0-4
Against the Slavers, 2013
Markessa detail, by Bill Willingham (?), from A2 Secret of the Slavers Stockade, 1981
OSRIC cover, by Mark Ahmed, 2006
Orcs detail, by Jeff Dee, from A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity, 1980
Source:
2011A
Dungeon Masters Guide, 1st Ed., 1979
2010,
Players Handbook, 1st Ed, 1978
2160
Dungeon Masters Guide Revised, 2nd Ed., 1989/1995
2159,
Players Handbook Revised, 2nd Ed., 1989/1995
OSRIC,
2006
9040
A2 Secret of the Slaver’s Stockade, 1981
11621
Slavers, 2000
A5
Kill Marquessa! casl Entertainment, 2016
A6 Die, Marquessa, Die! casl Entertainment,
2017
A7
Marquessa, Thy Name is Evil, casl Entertainment, 2018
