Adventure Sites 3: The Shrine of Kaliandra

​For AD&D, Levels 4-6
By Grützi
Four centuries ago, the paladin Geren of Khaz defeated the demon Malgryth the Sanguine Blight by impaling it with his holy sword Schattenbann onto a rock in a hidden cave deep in the Broken Hills, trapping it alive but paralyzed. Mortally wounded, Geren left a warning and died there as the demon’s blood still seeped into a dark stream. Fifteen years ago, the halfling thief Barlo Lipply stumbled upon the cave, found the desiccated husk of the demon, drank from the stream, and saw his wounds healed and strength restored. Sensing profit, he enlisted his old accomplice, the human illusionist Thorman, and together they set out to exploit the cursed cave. Five years later they built a small cloister and shrine, sealing the original cave.
   Oh boy, it's a Grützi Site. If you've been with the contest long, you know what that means...dense, brilliant, dense, clever, dense, well-designed, dense, fun, and dense. The "Grützi Rule" restricting font size comes from our halfling-superfan friend and fellow judge, whose great Lipply's Tavern impressed every one of us once we got past the eyestrain. He's promised to be a good boy this year, let's see what we've got...
   Despite the name, this adventure site bucks the trend of ASC III and is not a religious location. Instead, as seen above this is the site of a con (run by another Lipply, hey) where demon-tainted waters heal people with only a teensy weensy 1% chance per use of moving them toward CE. Once that happens, oops, the demon takes them over, turns them into a pseudodemon, and then uses said servant to turn more evil all to free the stuck demon. As of the start of the site, Lipply just went nuts and slaughtered a lot of his monks and there are pilgrims hiding upstairs and all of en media is very res. Which, as you know, I dislike...
   ...but of course, in a long-term campaign, that is not how to use this adventure site. Instead, given its a shrine of healing and even limb-regeneration, you have this sucker in normal operation and just a normal feature of the game world, even used by PCs, until later ol boy snaps and goes demony and now your party gets summoned to help. The notional setup is best for a one-shot, but the integrated site is ideal.

   The map in this case is quite simple, but has just enough up and down, secret doors, and hidden passageways to make exploration worthwhile. The secret section of the map linking two buildings together as well as showing the way to the nasty demon death area, plus all the best loot, is classy. As always, hiding an essential part of your dungeon behind a single secret door can go very wrong but behind multiple possible secret doors, you are guaranteed to get somebody finding the way in. It does work well though, making sure that when the site is visited at peace there is an explanation for why nobody realizes what's up. Really big fan of this entire complex. 
   There are loads of wonderful interactive characters here if you go with the module's suggested scenario, paranoid and terrified monks and pilgrims being led by one-handed fighter is a good group just loaded with fun conversations, and The illusionist Abbot isn't evil, he is just trying to sneak around and find his partners key so that he can steal everything and leave. If you can't run something interesting off that, I don't know what to tell you. 
   Of course, the majority of the area is going to be dominated by those pseudo demons, very interesting and fresh enemies to have to fight, the main bad guy up and running around is Lipply transformed, and he has the nasty ability to transform other helpless victims into more pseudo demons. A lot of very chaotic and interesting fights available here without having to go with a vast number of different monsters. Traps are just going to be naturalistic and not very common, but the single best piece of loot here being a holy avenger embedded fully in the demon's body is a great temptation. Forget any measly 1% chances of slow corruption, wave that massive sword in front of the players and you have all the temptation you need to make sure that the final fight is against the big bad evil demon guy. 
   Other loot here is going to be a little bit funky, the location is not a legit shrine so everything in the main area is going to be cheap and shoddy. There are the occasional valuable bits and pieces to be found but the real loot is in the very clearly valuable massive iron safes that require not one but two keys, used simultaneously, to open. You need two thieves lock picking to do it at a normal success rate, which is great. I also like the bug out kit in the main guys lair, that is always a nice little bonus loot hoard. Outside of the amazing sword magic is going to be mostly restricted to what is worn and what has been squirreled away for a rainy day. I don't know if you will be able to steal everything if you rescue the terrified victims, but that is just more interesting gameplay as well. It is definitely a lucrative site for level 4 players, and even level 6 parties won't complain too badly about the amounts available.
   As I said, this site can go anywhere in any campaign and would be best served to be placed early and referenced from time to time. Regardless, this shrine needs to go into your campaign, and massive congratulations to the writer for making something that is actually readable without zooming in.