D20 SYSTEM✦ Beginner

The Weeping Warrens of Riverbend

# Urban# Dark Fantasy# Dungeon# Magitech

A mysterious affliction grips Riverbend, twisting its poorest citizens into feral rat-kin. The town guard blames a notorious sewer-dwelling gang, but whispers speak of a new alchemical cure that could save the infected—if one dares to trust the source. The stench of mutagenic waste rises from the drains, and two desperate factions offer their own brutal solutions to the crisis. Your party must navigate the rotting underbelly of the city, where every choice carries a cost in blood or sanity.

Chronicle Prelude

The crowded, lantern-lit square of Riverbend's Lower Market. The air is thick with fear and the sound of a tolling warning bell. Town criers shout conflicting edicts: quarantine the Warrens district or burn the sewers. Mourners gather around a shrine where a child's rat-like corpse lies in state, and a masked healer distributes 'protection charms' that smell faintly of alchemical reagents.

Environmental Traits

The source of the mutation is a potent alchemical mutagen, originally developed as a plague cure, now leaking into the water table from a hidden laboratory in the old sewer works. The plague is not natural; it is a failed experiment. The two factions—the town's desperate authorities and the sewer's organized outcasts—both seek to control or destroy the source, but their methods threaten to either condemn the infected or unleash a worse horror.

Legendary Archetypes

Rayan

HP:45

STR:16

WIS: 12

CHA:11

Key Factions & Autonomous Nodes (8)

Captain Eva Thorn
A tall, severe woman in scarred plate armor bearing the flaming crest of the Purifiers. Her face is a mask of grim determination, etched with deep lines of stress and loss. She carries herself with rigid military posture, her hand rarely far from the pommel of her sword.
Mira, The Unbound Alchemist
A woman in her mid-thirties, once poised and elegant, now showing signs of the plague: a faint, web-like pattern of dark veins on her neck and one hand slightly clawed. She wears a stained alchemist's coat over practical clothes, her eyes burning with a feverish, desperate intelligence.
Filch, the Rat-Catcher
A small, wiry man with a perpetually nervous expression, dressed in layers of patched leather and oilcloth. He smells strongly of the sewers and carries a bag of traps and a hooked pole. His eyes dart constantly, scanning for threats or opportunities.
Corrupt Guard Garris
A heavy-set town guard in mismatched armor, standing post by the sealed sewer grate. His uniform is stained, and he leans against the wall with a bored, cynical expression. He pockets something shiny as you approach.
Elder Moss
An ancient, stooped figure with large, dark eyes and long, sensitive whiskers. Their skin is a patchwork of fur and scales, a testament to a life spent in the damp, magical environment of the sewers. They move slowly, leaning on a gnarled cane, radiating a calm, weary wisdom.
Lira, the Infected Child
A small child, maybe ten years old, huddled in a makeshift blanket fort in a damp alcove. One of her arms is elongated and covered in a fine, dark fur. Her eyes are wide with fear, but she clutches a small, carved rat toy tightly.
The Sewer Otyugh
A massive, bloated creature with a central body of matted filth and three thick, tentacular appendages. Its single, milky eye tracks movement with a surprising alertness, and its maw drips with a foul, acidic slime. It reeks of decay and guards a choke point with territorial aggression.
Gnash, the Rat King
A towering, bipedal wererat clad in crude armor of stitched hide and bone. His head is that of a giant rat, crowned with a jagged circlet of rusted metal. A swarm of lesser rats chitters and flows around his feet. His eyes glow with a cunning, feral intelligence.

Chronicle Prelude

Environmental Traits

Legendary Archetypes

✦ Related Cases ✦

The Crucible of Leavened Souls

The Blackspire Somnolence