The Trial of Heroes

The Trial of Heroes

Campaign: Drachend

Building

A mysterious dungeon that is found through various means.The dungeon consists of five rooms, each a challenge for proving a hero’s worth. While the challenges have the same theme throughout every story the Trial of Heroes has returned, the challenges themselves have been different in both action and the severity of the situation. In each version of the Trial of Heroes, a woman by the name of either Velvet or Violet supervises the drifters as they traverse from room to room, solving each puzzle before moving forward.

The First Visit (Drachend)

Subterranean dungeon that was found by falling off the side of a path. A young girl with mechanical arms greets the drifters who appear, and asks if they would like to take the challenge, with promise of a reward at the end. The girl, Velvet, professes to having never left the dungeon and having no knowledge of the outside world, having picked her name from the material of the skirt she wore, and working for a mysterious employer. She claims to have run the test several times before, and knows that she will remember the rules to every room when she enters, but forgets all the trials before and after they are run. velvet says that she is not allowed to leave until someone passes the trials, and while she greets the drifters warmly she also expresses concern for what may lie in the puzzles.

The dungeon’s five rooms were as follows:

• Room One: A mostly-empty rock cavern with a few rugs and bookshelves where Velvet has been living. Accepting the Trial of Heroes challenge passes the first trial, as a show of courage.
• Room Two: An empty room with a pool in the center. To progress, a drifter must retrieve the key hanging at the bottom of the pool. The pool has magic enchantment to drag down anyone swimming within its waters, as a show of strength.
• Room Three: A long room with a beautiful banquet set out, centered around 12+ small pastries. The drifters must ingest all the cakes to proceed, either as a show of greed or comraderie, dependent on how the task was approached.
• Room Four: A room with a long table where five hats are placed, being either black or white. Drifters must solve a puzzle guessing which hat they are wearing based on a complex puzzle where the hat wearer cannot see their own hat. If solved without magic (or if a drifter cheated without getting caught), they proceed as a show of intelligence. Before proceeding to the Fifth trial, another drifter’s spirit would appear before the current band of drifters and warn them against proceeding.
• Room Five: A small room that stifles magic and locks itself once everyone enters. In the center is an open grave. In this trial, someone must die and fill the grave, and that person cannot be brought back through magical means.

Passing the Trial of Heroes on the first visit grants a large amount of treasure, gems, and in some cases a magical artifact such as the Sealed Staff.

The Second Visit (Ashen)

A small wooden house off the beaten path in the forest. A young girl named Violet and two small chilcren greet the drifters and offer dinner and lodging. Outside the house, within the basement doors, the subteranean dungeon is sealed off, but can be reopened against Violet’s advising. When entering the Trial of Heroes, Violet transforms into an undead spirit, expressing hatred and grudges against the drifters for sacrificing her during their first visit. She then forces them all to go through the trials once more, with a much darker overtone to the entire puzzle. Violet continues overseeing her duties as the guide through the challenges, but also antagonizes the drifters. Attempting to kill her will fail.

The dungeon’s five rooms were as follows:

• Room One: Now completely empty. Still symbolizes the acceptance of the challenge, but at this stage Violet will actively try to dissuage the drifters from continuing.
• Room Two: An empty room with a pool spanning its entirety, where hundreds of undead Velvets are lurking below. There is no way to progress except for swimming across its length while Velvets attempt to grab ahold of the drifters and pull them under.
• Room Three: A long room with a table full of rotting food. Rather than have the drifters eat the food, like the first trial, Velvet summons a wolf-creature made of the insects which reside inside the rotting food. The wolf-creature is affectionate towards Violet but attempts to kill the drifters, and must be defeated to proceed.
• Room Four: A room with a chair for every drifter present. Each drifter must take a seat, and speak with Violet about her death in the first visit. At the end of every talk, Violet kills the drifter in a manner befitting of whatever they said, be it an apology or a justification.
• Room Five: The same room with the grave, still filled with Velvet’s body. All the drifters are resurrected and Violet asks once again whether they would kill her or not. Once the drifters have come to a decision, the trial ends.

After the second trial, Violet reverts back to her usual self, no longer full of hatred for the drifters. She expresses sincere gratitude for them visiting a second time and freeing her from her corrupted self. She gives them a wolf tooth necklace, symbolic of the gifts they all gave her initially, and is escorted away by two men in black suits. A wolf spirit then guides the drifters to where they need to be next.

Drifters

Each drifter’s visit to Velvet was unique, but each group made two very interesting similar decisions:

1. Every group gave Velvet a wolf’s tooth (which had been found if the party had skinned the wolves that attacked earlier). Because of this strange occurance, Velvet became associated with wolf symbolism throughout all the drifters’ travels.
2. Every group decided to sacrifice Velvet on the first visit.

Some other notable choices made during the Trial of Heroes:

• Splitting the cake-eating task and making everyone eat the same share of cake resulted in a slight loss of health, but no other significant downfall. Eating nearly all the cakes with the same person would paralze the ingestor, but still count as completing the trial.
• Both drifters who killed Velvet during the first visit recognized her second appearance as Violet. Neither confronted her about it until the Trial began.
• Despite knowing Violet was Velvet, the Lantern Carrier triggered the activation of the Second Trial by casting a fireball that blew up not only the celler door but also caught Violet in its range, much to the chagrin of the group.
• The death wounds on Violet changed frequently, jumping between the knife and sword wounds given to her by various members of the drifters.
• Peering into the water of the pool during the Second Visit would show a reflection of the Drachend incarnation of that drifter, if applicable. A few drifters, who were not part of the Drachend campaign, banded together in an attempt to kill Violet, since they knew their companions would not dare.
• Skozz lost his fire sword in the pool during the Second Visit, attempting to cut off the Lantern Carrier’s leg which was being held by an undead Velvet. In response, the Lantern Carrier cuts off her leg in Uln and requests the god of order return the sword as fair trade.
• The bug wolf-creature was quickly disposed of by being set on fire.
• Andrew’s Tiefling, one of the original drifters who killed Velvet, immediately apologized for her death in the fourth room after being confronted. After the trial concluded, he made a vow to never stop searching for her.
• Throughout the entirety of the second fourth trial, Velvet challenges each of the drifters to prove why they should live. Those that admit they should not or who apologize were speared from behind and killed instantly. Those that argued against Violet and her ways, or were indifferent, were killed in more creative fashions.
• During the final room, the two drifters who initially killed Velvet in the first trial assuredly convince the group that Violet must be killed as well. However, the two decide to share their guilt and agree to strike the killing blow together this time. As soon as the decision is reached, the drifters fade into unconsciousness.
• Each drifter recieves a wolf tooth from the necklace gifted to them by Velvet, each shining a different color.