[D20cember] T is for Tradetown Rumble

Tradetown Rumble: A Get Ready, Get Set, Go! Labyrinth Lord adventure set in the Ashford Valley.

Get Ready:
Two merchant houses in Tradetown are in the middle of a feud - one is the Halfling House Clough (symbol: a black bird) and the other is the Dwarvish House Rhuln (symbol: a Dwarvish rune of luck).

Get Set:
The PCs are in Tradetown for the annual mining celebration and Sir Hoel has pulled out all the stops - jugglers, musicians, stalls filled with fruit pastries and sweets and flowers, dancing bears, and taverns over-flowing with patrons singing loud songs and drinking copious amounts of beer fill the town.

In the midst of this celebration, two merchant houses come to blows over a contract that hasn't been fulfilled.

Go!:
The PCs are enjoying the festival in Tradetown when they wander into the middle of an argument between a group of dwarves and a group of halflings. Both sides are to the point of brawling when the PCs find themselves accosted by them, demanding that the "tall folk choose sides or step aside!"

Fists fly and the halflings give as good as they get. No one draws steel unless someone else does (like the PCs) and when the watch arrives, everyone is arrested (including the PCs) unless they manage to hoof it before then.

Throughout the rest of the festival, the PCs are marked as being members of the other faction and the whole town has taken sides, along racial lines. Halflings don't deal with "damn dwarf-lovers" and dwarves refuse business with those "tall friends of the short humans."

If the PCs try to find out what's going on, the only buzz they get is that the two houses had a deal and one (or the other) backed out of it. Visiting each House leader (Rhuln Goldsmither and Thomas Clough) reveals very little, except that the deal has been broken and there won't be peace until the offending parties make amends.

It even gets more uncomfortable for the PCs when they're called before Sir Hoel to explain their part in all this. He doesn't take their excuses of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and charges them to solve the problem before someone gets killed or be banned from Tradetown forever!

The PCs finally get a break when someone casually mentions that most contracts are registered at the Hall of Records. Getting in to see the contract, however, requires some finesse, as the Halfling Clerk and the Dwarven Librarian are none-too-friendly to them.

The contract, when they manage to find it, outlines the deal agreed to by House Clough and House Rhuln and each side hasn't completed one part of it (so they're both wrong - but too proud to admit it). What those requirements are is up to the GM (but they should be hard enough for the PCs to sweat a whole lot).

Should the contract details be met, both Houses declare victory and the trouble is over, with the PCs in good standing with both of them. This should give the PCs additional adventures (sometimes at cross purposes to the Houses) for future game sessions.

Notable NPCs:
Rhuln Goldsmither (1 Dwarf); Alignment: Neutral; Armor Class: 4; Hit Dice: 3d8, Hit Points: 16; Attacks: hammer (1d6) and heavy crossbow (1d8); Save: D3; morale: 9, Special abilities: mining.

House Rhuln Dwarves (7 Dwarf); Alignment: Neutral; Armor Class: 4; Hit Dice: 1d8, Hit Points: 6 each; Attacks: hammer (1d6) and heavy crossbow (1d8); Save: D1; morale: 8, Special abilities: mining.

Thomas Clough (1 Halfling); Alignment: Neutral; Armor Class: 7; Hit Dice: 2d8, Hit Points: 12; Attacks: short sword (1d6) and short bow (1d6); Save: H2; morale: 8.

House Clough Halflings (10 Halflings); Alignment: Neutral; Armor Class: 7; Hit Dice: 1d8-1, Hit Points: 5 each; Attacks: short sword (1d6) and short bow (1d6); Save: H1; morale: 7.