Mangrove Swamp Fishing Village Free Battlemap & Adventure

Quality Assurance Test

There’s a poster in one of the cities for a wizard looking for adventurers to pick up an item for him, from a distant magic store. Should you go talk to the old wizard who put it up, you’ll find him at one of the universities of magic, in a very dusty wing of one of the towers which is positively filled with books.

He’s got knobbly knees and hands which shake with palsy, but is surprisingly bald and clean shaven. He is also dressed in normal clothes, not a wizard’s robe. If you ask him about his unusual dress, he’ll wave his hand at you and chuckle that it’s more practical and less of a risk of catching on any moving experiments.

The wizard will then invite you to sit down on the other side of his desk. Behind him is a shelf filled with lots of tiny, carved idols. They’re all the same; a kneeling squid-man with bat-like wings carved from red coral, but encased in different glass jars.

He’ll introduce himself as Aruzahl, before explaining that he’s heard of a magic store in a distant village which he’s seeking to purchase an artifact from. He says the town is renowned for dredging the seas for sunken magical artifacts, and they supposedly sell all sorts of weird and wonderful ones. However, what he wants is specific. It’s a red mask that shouldn’t be too expensive. He’s happy to send you there with the gold to purchase it–consider it half payment in advance. You’ll receive the rest of your funds when you return, which will be quite handsome.

Should you agree, he’ll give you the coin and directions to the village, before bidding you a safe trip.

Once you arrive, you’ll find things aren’t right in the village. The locals are all cultists, with tentacles growing out of their backs, or writhing from the skin of their arms. Some even have multiple eyes!

When they see you, they will attack, whilst rambling madly about the “deep ones” and the “Tatterdemalion King”. If you manage to survive the first attack, you’ll see that the locals have clustered in a ring at the heart of town, surrounding a woman–who is covered with not just tentacles, but eyes all over her skin as well–that is holding up a small, red idol of a kneeling tentacle-man with wings. Like the ones in the wizard’s study.

If you destroy the idol, the people will begin to return to their senses, and the mutations will bubble away and dissolve into black liquid. They will be incredibly thankful, and if you explain that you came here to get the mask they’ll gladly give it to you as thanks for saving them from the cursed idol.

When you return to Aruzahl, he’ll thank you for bringing him the mask and pay you the agreed upon sum. But, regardless of whether you tell him about the cultists or not, he’ll ask how the people in the town were doing and if there was anything unusual going on.

If you tell him about the cultists, he’ll ask how many people in the town were affected, and if the madness seemed to increase with the number of tentacles, etc.

Should you confront him about the artifact being the same as the ones on his shelf, he’ll harrumph and explain that he sent them a little test. A test which they failed–the idiots couldn’t even figure out the artifact was cursed. He won’t be buying their inferior, or possibly dangerous, magical goods in future because they clearly have no idea what they’re doing, he’ll explain. The test is something he does when he discovers any new magic shop, that’s why he has so many of the cursed artifacts.

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