The Nature GM

Hello, and welcome to another adventure concept inspired by a manipulated fantasy image! Here is a unforgettable tale which is sure to impress and entertain your players.

This image is flashy enough that you might have seen it before. I Google searched by this image, and I found it on numerous wallpaper sites, album covers, articles about dreams, D&D blogs, a Kickstarter campaign, and even a cross-stitch pattern.

As far as I can tell, it was created by the artist xresch and first entered the world via Pixabay on December 29, 2017. But we are not here to discuss image licensing ethics, though I will do better about crediting all images moving forward.

No, we are here today to imagine this art as the cover of our fantasy TTRPG adventure.

Let us begin.

Image Breakdown

We have a stone building with large windows on a floating chunk of land that is lined with gears.

The island is quite clearly floating by magical means. The gears, therefore, are not some steampunk mechanism but rather a simple deterrent to discourage unwanted guests from arriving on the backs of griffins or by grappling hook.

The building is neither a castle nor fortress; it seems to be a ranch style house, albeit a rather old-fashioned one.

When I look at this floating refuge, I do not see a mad wizard or a bellicose conqueror, but merely someone who wants to retire and went to extreme lengths to cut off association with others.

But a campaign cannot center around the sunset of a life enjoyed over glasses of gin in the evening, and so this floating home must also be the source of tension. Danger. Even calamity.

The island floats due to the power of a devil, which has broken loose and possessed the wizard.

The island floats due to the aid of an artifact that is causing unintended side effects.

The wizard is needed to fight X, and the players must find him and recruit him to their cause. But a campaign to persuade an NPC to save the day is no fun. It would be best if he was evil.

Oh wait. I have it.

Adventure Hook

The player characters hear rumors of a floating island that serves a banquet at sundown, where you can feast on the finest delicacies. There is a mixture of fear and excitement in these rumors, for many have sampled the banquet and returned to tell of its mouth-watering decadence, and many more have simply disappeared.

The floating island has just been spotted above the town of Elderbrook. Curious folks from neighboring towns and villages have flocked to the town in anticipation of the night banquet.

The adventuring party itself has recently arrived in Elderbrook, with two hours to spare before sundown.

Before the Banquet

Elderbrook is a fishing and river trade town. It has basic amenities such as a general goods store, a couple of taverns, a temple to the regional god, a shipping operator who is willing to deliver mail to another destination along the river, and lots and lots of smoked trout and perch.

The party can easily find someone who has sampled the night banquet before, perhaps an oarsman hired to row a shipping boat upriver. He had been on the floating island at a town downriver, and he left early for a rendezvous with his sweetheart. He might share information such as:

• Details of the food served. It should be lavish plates only accessible to the nobility.
• A striking man with bushy grey eyebrows and a pointed beard who wandered among the crowd, refilling wine goblets with a wave of his hand.
• A feeling of giddiness that advanced throughout the banquet, nearly causing him to stay.
• Falling asleep in the road promptly at midnight and sleeping late into the morning.

The characters might also meet a woman with bloodshot eyes who looks as though she has not slept for days. Her two children snuck out of the house to the night banquet in the same town as the oarsman, and they never returned. She will do anything to get them back. We will name her Alma.

The Banquet Begins

As the sun crosses below the horizon, the floating island drops gently into a field outside of Elderbrook. A glittering staircase lowers to the ground, and ghostly music begins playing a lively tune.

The crowd rushes towards the stairs, eager to partake in the fabulous food. The night banquet begins. The tables are covered with lavish food and goblets of wine that never seem to run out.

The characters catch glimpses of a man with a pointed beard who they cannot quite get to. Anyone who eats from the banquet finds their sensibilities increasingly muddled throughout the evening. They fall asleep promptly at midnight.

When they awaken, they are locked in a room with a dozen townsfolk.

On The Floating Island

What happens next is up to you as game master and your players. Here is the assumed situation:

• A dozen townsfolk are imprisoned in a room on the floating island. The room has a heavy wooden door which is locked. The room also has a window with a shutter but no glass. Through the window is a narrow ledge along the back side of the building and a fall to certain death.
• The mother Alma is imprisoned in a separate room. She is bound to a chair, on account of attacking the man with a pointed beard after everyone else fell into enchanted sleep. (In Monster of the Week terms, she has the bystander motivation “to put themselves in danger.”)
• The man with the pointed beard is sitting in his study, resting after an evening performance of illusion. His name is Sweven Blye, and he is a high-level wizard with dark powers from a deal with the evil goddess Takaris.
• There are two women in black robes wandering around the floating island with expressions of severe boredom. They are acolytes of Takaris who are keeping an eye on Sweven.
• The stone building is built around a single, long hallway. On one end there are four bedrooms, two on each side. At the far end is the banquet hall, study, kitchen, larder, and servants’ quarters. The main entrance is through the banquet hall. The kitchen also has a door that opens to the narrow ledge and the certain death.
• The island grounds have no features expect several large iron gears which provide adequate cover for hiding.

Through roleplaying or eavesdropping, the characters will likely learn that Sweven Blye owes a debt to Takaris. He is capturing people and bringing them to the Void, where their souls become imprisoned by the dark goddess. He owes Takaris one hundred souls, and this trip brings him up to thirty-seven.

Sweven Blye is first and foremost concerned with his own safety. If confronted, he will try to subdue the party while minimizing his own injuries. He is quick to tell the characters that he is the only one who can operate the flying island. This might be true, or it might be operable by anyone via the helm.

The two acolytes would relish a confrontation to break up the tedium of watching Sweven. They are not afraid of death, because they know that the next night they will rise as wraiths.

A resourceful adventuring party can surely find a way to escape their prison, subdue or slay Sweven, neutralize the acolytes (twice), and free the remaining townsfolk. They may be satisfied with this ending and return the floating island to Elderbrook. However, if Alma is present, she will press the characters to take her to the Void so she can save her children.

To the Void

The Void is a place of dense, unending fog. Souls trapped there wander aimlessly in mental anguish, their screams falling flatly on their own ears. Takaris sometimes drops terrifying monsters into the Void, purely for the amusement of it.

But greatest danger of all is the Enforcer, that armored tyrant who ensures all souls, once captured, remain in place. If Sweven is still alive, he is particularly afraid of the Enforcer.

You might be wondering how the characters will find twenty-five people (two of whom are children) scattered around a foggy hellscape. I am also wondering this.

The good news is that most of the pressure to figure this out is on your players; your main concern as game master is to make the place seem dangerous and have weird monsters appear suddenly from the mist. My experience is that, in the absence of a “right” answer, eventually one of the players will have a better idea than I could have come up with myself.

Even so, if they get stuck it is helpful to have a few hints up your sleeve. You noticed a bell on the back side of the building that you think you could detach and ring as you walk. On Sweven’s desk is a large magnifying glass that you think would double the effect range of light and illusion spells. Etc.

And then, once the characters have wrangled up the missing people, defeated a few monsters, and detained or evaded the Enforcer, what heroes they will be!

Conclusion

In my mind, the most important detail is that once all townsfolk are safely returned, the flying island stops flying. You may see things differently; that’s fine.

Either way, I hope you have enjoyed this tale of a night banquet, a flying island, and a selfish wizard who wanted to retire at any cost.

I have one final manipulated image to use as cover art, then we will move on to something else.

Until then, keep exploring.