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On the outskirts of a poor looking village is a large mausoleum that is well kept and richly deserted. It has a marble walkway and bricked windows with beautiful ironwork adorning it. For grave robbers the look of the outside tells of untold riches on the inside.
The crypt was created by a magician untold years ago to imprison a mighty Lich. If the place is plundered it will release the Lich once again on the world. The villagers only know that it must not be opened and a few that tried have mysteriously died sudden and sometimes violent deaths.
November 15, 2002, 21:09
My guess at an answer to this is that the repeated attempts at grave robbing have put small cracks in the defenses of the mausoleum and some small influence of the lich can now get out. Possibily animating the dead surronding him and attacking the town. With only limited influence, the lich could only animate a handful at a time, but if they're destroyed, he's surronded by ammo. Since the traps where magical in nature, he couldn't just have a zombie start hacking away at the walls to free him, so the attacks on the town are to see if he can bait some powerful suckers, err adventures, into coming to the town's rescue by leveling the graveyard. And since all adventuring parties have this honorable vow of poverty, they wouldn't be interested in the richly appointed crpyt, no, no, no.
"Odd how those undead never rose up again when the party was next to the mausoleum, isn't it? We must have moved from the fighting section of the adventure to the mage's work. After that will probally be some traps for the thief. Boy, have we sure got the DM figured out. We'll just have the cleric use all his spells to heal us while we wait for the mage to finish."
Try not to give away the plot with too much diabolical laughter.
November 18, 2002, 2:22
On the other hand (claw), the Lich may be almost thankful for what they did, assuming they are not a threat. So once that old mystical gentleman with an aura of power gets out of his grave, he may not kill them at once, surely not. Better make them his servants, conquering the world needs cannon fodder.
January 28, 2007, 18:27
April 26, 2011, 9:45
A starting point, though a bit bare :)
July 26, 2011, 8:32
August 17, 2011, 3:31
I don't think this submission stands on its own, but Agar's comments as well as manfred make this a good, usable submission.