Setting

This one-shot adventure can take place in any campaign setting, including homebrew. It just needs to take place in an area of plains, relatively distant from any other towns or cities, with some mountains around half-a-day's ride away. When I ran the adventure, I placed the fort just to the East of the Sunset mountains (East of Elturel and Scournobel), near the Marshes of Tun.

Background

Some 30 years ago, the region in which the game was set, became overrun by terrible creatures. A party of powerful heroes, determined to end this blight on the land, fought their way to the center of this evil to find that a hole had formed in the ground, which was - in actual fact - a direct portal to the Shadowfell, through which deadly monsters would venture each night, wreaking havoc on the land. Nothing they could do would force the portal to the Shadowfell to close. So, working with some local sages and artificers, a magical artifact was created, named the Elderstone. The Elderstone was a gem which - by day - would absorb the power of the sun, and then - by night - release it as a powerful radiant light, strong enough to effectively prevent creatures from the Shadowfell from entering the material plane.

This was - mostly - successful, however it was soon discovered that more infrastructure was needed. A prismatic chamber had to be built nearby, which could direct more of the sun's light to the gem, allowing it to store more energy than just that which struck it directly, and a great statue was built of a kneeling soldier woman, with outstretched arms which would hold the gem in place over the portal, but the statue itself was also a sort of reservoir (think battery) for excess energy, so that if any given day - or even string of days - were overcast or received not enough sun, then energy from previous days could be released from the statue, into the gem.

Now, the gem, the prismatic chamber and the statue needed protecting. Each day the gem needed to be taken down from the statue, placed into the prismatic chamber to charge, then before dusk returned to the statue to do its job, furthermore these were valuable artifacts that needed to be protected. A garrison of soldiers was set up about the area, with a fortification named Fort Daylight. Made primarily from volunteers from neighboring cities, the responsibilities of the garrison were primarily to charge the gem by day, and guard it by night - but should anything go wrong, then their duty would be to hold back the hordes of monsters from the Shadowfell who threaten to pour through and wreak havoc on the prime material plane once again.

Story Overview

The characters arrive in Fort Daylight to have the story of the garrison explained to them. Due to its hospitality, it is a regular layover for travelers, and as such the adventurers are not the only visitors to the area. Another group, named the Company of the Gilded Banner, are also visiting and they seem - at first - to be quite friendly.

However, in the early hours of the morning as the party sleeps, the Gilded Banner enacts their plan to incapacitate the guard at Fort Daylight and steal the Elderstone. They take some horses, a cart, and the Elderstone and make for the mountains. Within the mountains is a bridge over a ravine, and their plan is to make it across the bridge and then destroy it, cutting off any hope of pursuit, so they can get the Elderstone to a nearby town and fence it (they have been hired to retrieve the stone by an unknown buyer).

The Party

Level

Players should create characters of Level 3.

Alignment

The party should consist of good-aligned, i.e. they should be adventurers who see retrieving the Elderstone and saving Fort Daylight as a worthy course of action, and not necessarily use it as a means to extort them for gold or treasures (though assuming everything goes well, they will likely be rewarded).

Equipment

The party can start the game with the following magic items:

• 2 Common items
• 2 Uncommon items

In addition, each party member may have 250 gold pieces which they may spend on non-magical items or equipment as they see fit (any money they don't spend they can keep as their personal wealth).

Timeline guide

• Chapter 1 - Fort Daylight - 30 minutes
• Chapter 2 - A Rude Awakening - 40 minutes
• Chapter 3 - Pursuit - 60 minutes
• Chapter 4 - Return - 60 minutes
• Chapter 5 - Aftermath - 20 minutes