User:Dcolby/Adventure:Supernatural The Changeling

It is a common belief in many cultures that creatures of the fae will steal away a babe and replace it with one of their own for purposes weal and woe. What follows is an adventure hook expanded upon from the Tuornen Players' Guide with more back filler and story. The original hook concerns Rhuobhe Manslayer stealing away a human girl for reasons unknown. It is written in the format I would present to my players with the established status of Tuornen and its regent that they have been working in. The details are easily enough changed to suit your campaign. Present your players with the hook, but not the back-story. The mystery of the purpose behind the kidnapping is half the hook. Presenting players with information they could not gain or should not have (without working to get it) will make some of the later difficult choices less trying.

The Spy Master of Tuornen Arlien Reien begs for an audience as he bears a troubling report with grim tidings. He begins carefully gauging the Duchess?s now notorious mood.
?Your Grace, a message has reached the court that Rhoubhe has stirred in the west and gone raiding in Elevesnemiere. Many homesteads are aflame and the devastation is great.?
(All the gold bars generated by Elevesnemiere for the next realm turn are forfeit)
He continues
?The forces stationed in Elevesnemiere are unable to catch him up and he has slipped back across the border to his dark realm with nary a loss.?
Here Arlien pauses to let all the previous information sink in before he continues
?The Elf has not bestirred himself for such a raid in many years, and it was on the occasion of his last raid that your Grace?s Mother was overtaken and slain in Elevesnemiere. Tis bad enough that this has occurred, but there is another troubling event connected to his bloodletting.?
When he is acknowledged to proceed with the worse news he blurts it out. Arlien is normally a very level and unemotional person but this event has stuck some cord with him.
?The Manslayer has stolen a child! He has never before taken prisoners and the fate of this maiden is a cause of terrible concern among the common folk! In the village of Eame as the forces of the Manslayer made ready to fire the town, the daughter of Miles the town elder came out of her undiscovered hiding place and offered her life for that of her parents. At first it seemed that the offer fell on deaf ears as all pleas for mercy from the Manslayer have for over a thousand years, but then for some inexplicable reason he scooped the girl unto his horse and withdrew his forces without destroying the town!?

Rhuobhe Manslayer has little love in his dark heart and none for humans, but some years ago what small piece of his heart still capable of love was swayed by the affections of an elven maid of the nation of Tuarhievel.
She had come to Ruannoch and its grim master to plead for the soul of her brother. A brother so consumed with hate for humans that he had easily been swayed to the side of the Manslayer and gladly joined his wild hunt. The Maid hoped against hope that if allowed to speak with her brother away from the manslayers influence she could turn her brother away from his path of doom.
When she presented her plea to the Dark Lord rather than destroying her as he would any other so impertinent to question his goals and desires some small part of his past self stirred and he acceded to her request on the condition that should she fail in convincing her brother to depart his service, she would stay with the dark lord as his concubine.
Reluctantly she agreed and despite her pleadings her brother would not be swayed from the cause of the Manslayer and that very day she came into Ruobhe?s household. Despite his feelings the Elf had no remaining understandings of the workings of the heart and all his best attempts to woo the maid availed him little, all his promises of power and wealth and eternal devotion feel upon the deaf ears of one facing eternity imprisoned and enslaved.
Years passed and having Failed in his gentle love suit the Elf turned daily ever more cruel until at last his spurned love turned to hate and in one final attempt to gain her submission he brought before her the brother for whom she had traded her freedom, threatening to end his life if she did not yield to him. Still she refused him, for to her, the brother she once loved above all else was already dead and he would be free should Rhuobhe destroy him.
Enraged the Manslayer carried out his threat, and slacked his lust by force, leaving the former maid in her shame to mourn over the corpse of her sibling. Done with her now the Manslayer could not bear to look upon her, but being a vile creature it gave him comfort to keep her imprisoned and she was maintained in his household in a twisted parody of some proper court. Ignored by Rhuobhe his ?Bride? hid from the court as long as she might that she bore the beast?s child and using the freedom to move about the fortress gathered in secret the materials she would need to escape his realm.
Her years of prior imprisonment had not been wasted and she had made use of the Manslayer's magical texts and learned the arts of Mage craft and studied his wards and protections. Her careful plan to eventually escape her confinement in jeopardy for now heavy with child her schedule was desperately rushed for if the Manslayer learned he had an heir, and was allowed to nurture it, surely it would be as twisted a thing as he should it dwell with him in blighted Ruannoch.
When she fled she was at first not pursued, the game of recapturing her would be sweetened by the head start. When his trackers told the Manslayer that she must have concealed a pregnancy for there was clear sign she had had given birth in a cave he became enraged and the pursuit of his ?heir? began in deadly earnest.
Not yet recovered from her labor Rhuobhe?s bride hemorrhaging and feeling her pursuers close about fled in panic into a small human village in Elevesnemiere in the dead of night. Seeking shelter from the cold night she crept close to outbuildings of a small farmstead and made up a rough bed in the small barn. A familiar sound woke her from her fevered sleep, the sounds of anguish and grief, sounds she had made for her lost sibling. Hearing the wails of a human woman in obvious torment she rose from her makeshift bed and crept close to the wattle and daub hut of the farmstead. She spied through a crack in the shutters a young human couple lamenting over the body of an infant newborn, lying still in its homemade cradle and she hit upon a desperate plan. Bewitching the couple into a slumber the Elf woman cast a polymorph object upon her babe and switched her daughter for the couple?s deceased one. She then ran into the night away from the village clutching the dead infant as if it was her own.
Fleeing into the hills and woods, hoping only to lead her pursuers away from her child she was at last caught up by Rhuobhe?s scouts, who seeking her capture not death closed in upon her cautiously. She rounded on them, railed that the Manslayer's tainted seed had produced only a still born beast and before she could be seized immolated herself in a ball of fire. The wooded glade burned out of control and destroyed any remnants of Rhuobhe?s bride and his still born child. In sullen but subdued mood the Manslayer retuned to Ruanoch, his retinue fearing to ask and indeed never speaking of the event again.
Awaking from their sorcery induced slumber the parents discovered to their amazement a healthy babe where before their dead one had lain. Praising Nesirie the goddess of mourning and grief for taking pity on them the couple kept secret the miracle for fear their neighbors would not understand and settled into the life they had hoped to have. The couple found they could bear no other children, they accepted this as the price the goddess must have exacted and they gladly paid it.
Seemingly the child was a blessing for the farm never suffered a poor harvest, and prosperity came to the farmer and his wife. The Farmer, Miles rose to be the Elder/Headman of the village of Eame. His goodwife Rose acted as the village midwife for her fascination with all things related to the birthing and rearing of children brought her to study and learn all that she could on the subject. The child was named Nesa in honor of the goddess and grew into a lovely young woman that possessed an easy grace that made her the target of all the young men?s fancies.
Seventeen Years had passed since the day when Eame Copse burned and that strange night became but a distant memory. The people of Elevesnemiere are always in fear of nights when Rhuobhe and the Hunt pass through the country side, and Eame is no exception. With each year that passed without a blood-soaked raid the people of the village grew both concerned and timidly hopeful, concerned that the Manslayer was due for one of his dark rages, and hopeful that against all odds his dark fury might have abated, or would fall in another town.
Not long after the first turning of the spring earth, just before the fields were seeded the hunting horns could be heard upon the distant hills. The people did as they always do during these times and took to hiding places, root cellars, or if close enough to the nearest keep of a local laird. As the hunt descended upon Eame the Manslayer himself at its head they made to the home of the village elder, there to make of them the first example for the rest of the town of what was to come.
With torches set and swords poised to deliver the killing strokes to Miles and his wife the elven host was taken aback, Nesa emerged from her hidden sanctuary and approached with arms outstretched. The Manslayer made as if to ride her down but something in her look and manner struck him as familiar and he stayed his hand. Nesa offered the fell Manslayer a bargain, her life for that of her parents and it was then he recognized in the girl the features of the elf maiden who had spurned his love.
The realization of the hoax and the true identity of the human before him stayed his hand. The Manslayer gathered up his child and spirited her away to his realm. There he would dispel the magic that had changed her and teach her of all that was lost to her. When her education was complete a new force in the war against humans would be unleashed, and perhaps, just perhaps his heart would not feel so empty.

Rhoubhe has indeed managed to take the girl back to his realm where he has dispelled the Polymorph Object that changed her to a human. Returned to her true form, the years she spent as a human have matured her to an equivalent stage of development in her true form and she is now physically a young elven maid. However in her mind she remains the human daughter of Miles and Rose and struggles with the truth (which she has accepted but is terrified of) of her heritage. Her blood powers and a previously latent talent for sorcery have emerged and her father not willing to repeat the mistakes of the past has confined her in a place where she cannot gather the materials to escape or progress further in the sorcerer's arts, an abandoned Dwarven Hold in the mountains of his realm. (Use the Dwarf hold from ?the Sword and Crown? for reference and /or Ideas.) She is guarded by a small body of elite troops under orders to only speak to her in Sidhelien and teach her about her proud heritage. If she is not rescued from this fate she will eventually become bitter and easily twisted with anger into an instrument of her father and a new villain to trouble the PCs. and if the PCs do rescue her then what? She possesses a great bloodline of Azrai, will it eventually corrupt her? Do they destroy an innocent? To what lengths will the Manslayer go to recover his heir?