Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe.

-- John Milton, Paradise Lost

This adventure begins in the City of Greyhawk in spring 585 CY, the year after the end of the Greyhawk Wars. The campaign information in the 1992 "From the Ashes" boxed set is fully applicable. The Dungeon Master should also make use of the 1989 "City of Greyhawk" boxed set, including the "Greyhawk: Folk, Feuds, and Factions" booklet and the "Greyhawk: Gem of the Flanaess" booklet. The campaign year may be adjusted, though some of the background material will need to be changed if this is done.

This is intended as a "between adventures" adventure and so has an unusual structure. "The House on Summoner Court" is broken up into a series of sequential events that may be added into a campaign based in the City of Greyhawk. When adventurers return to the city after exploring cairns, fighting bandits, or what-not, they are introduced to some of this material as they are resting and preparing for their next mission. The house on which this adventure focuses is dangled before the players as a secure spot where their heroes may rest and recuperate, and perhaps store their treasures.

However, ownership of the house comes at a price that is not obvious at first glance. It is the dwelling of a slain wizard who had many enemies, some of whom may come visiting from time to time to check on the place. Also, the house has its own secrets, left behind by its former owner and missed in subsequent investigations. Combat is not necessary (except, perhaps, when dealing with visitors). Careful examination of the house and its contents, and side investigations around the city (all of which can be accomplished between other adventuring), will reveal much - including some unanswerable questions. It is possible, however, that the answers to some questions will actually seek out the characters, making combat a real possibility.

The main story thread throughout this adventure revolves around a missing dagger that Otiluke's assistant, Gloriall used. The weapon is cursed and extremely dangerous. See the end of this adventure for clues on including this artifact.

the worst kept secret

In the spring of 585 C.Y, in the Free City of Greyhawk, a legal notice is quietly circulated among a few dozen individuals - among them at least one player character. The notice first appears on a wall outside the governing offices in the Guild of Wizardry, then it is privately copied by hand and passed among certain wizards, legal workers, and adventurers elsewhere in the city. The original notice has the city's coat of arms carefully reproduced on the top, and it and its copies read as follows:

Be it known to all from the offices of the honorable Guild of Lawyers and Scribers of the Free City of Greyhawk that a private auction of land within these city walls is hereby scheduled to take place on the 1st of Flocktime, 585. Sealed bids for the property must be submitted to the First Secretary at the Master's Office of the Guildhall of Wizards before sunset of that day; the property will be awarded to the submitter of the winning bid on the 2nd of Flocktime at noon. Details on the property may be received by simple inquiry at the Master's Office from the First Secretary.

The auction is obviously being handled in an unusually discrete manner; the notice is not posted anywhere else in public, and those who pass the notice along usually ask that it be kept confidential (though, of course, everyone seems to keep passing the notice on to everyone that they know). The overseer of the sealed-bid auction is not given in writing but is rumored to be none other than the master of the Guild of Lawyers and Scribers, Sir Anton Palmirian, of the City's Directing Oligarchy. This however, is impossible to confirm from any source.

Anyone who goes to the Wizard's Guildhall and asks for details on the property receives a detailed verbal briefing on it. The speaker is indeed the First Secretary, a middle-aged zero-level mate human scribe named Erojen Dwir. Under his dull-colored outfit, Erojen wears an amulet of proof against detection and location, so his mind cannot be read, and ring of spell turning, just in case; the items are not his, but merely on loan from the guild vaults. Inquirers may take notes and ask limited questions, but no hand-outs are given. The property's previous owner is not immediately identified.

The House

The property for sale is a well-built two-story town house, the eastern half of a large structure on Summoner Court, just off Marsh Street and about 300 feet from the Marsh Gate. The western half of the structure is a three-story home (not for sale) owned by a leather-working family, their own dwelling separated from the eastern town house by a 2- footthick fire wall. No passages through the fire wall exist. The leather-working family has no small children, and all members are said to be quiet and keep to themselves.

The town house has been enchanted to block all sounds originating from within or without the house. Also, the house description says that the structure has water and sewage systems "up to Guild standards, clearly implying that magical systems operate here. Such systems are not uncommon in the dwellings of wizards. No other enchantments or enhancements are detailed. Again, the previous owner of the house is not named, and the reader has no idea who it was. [For more information, see Exterior of the Town House, below.]

The house is currently under guard and cannot be inspected until after the sale is complete. This is very irregular, but this term cannot be altered. From the description of the house, however, any native of the City of Greyhawk could find the house with ease. Any long-time native of the city will also know almost immediately who owned it (see following), but outsiders probably won't.

Word-of-mouth from sources outside the Guildhall is that bidding should not fall below 20,000 gp to have a chance of succeeding. This seems like an exceptional amount for a dwelling, though it is within the city walls and is noted to be of high quality.

The building being sold is on the southern end of the River Quarter. The single door into the house is physically unlocked, but has been wizard locked by an l8th-level archmage. Four fighters from the city Watch patrol the area around the house at all times to prevent any looting or defacing of the house. Various patrols pass by this area fairly often, as the DM desires.

With further probing from one of the following sources, the previous owner can be learned:

• the Guild of Wizardry
• neighbors around the dwelling
• the right PC or NPC

The house in question is the former dwelling of the famed City Oligarch, President of the Society of Magi, and recently revealed member of the Circle of Eight - the late Otiluke.

talking to the neighbors

The DM should allow for a period of time before the sealed-bid auction in order for interested adventurers to investigate the deal. They can personally go to the house being sold, but they will not be admitted by the guards, who can't get past the wizard lock anyway. Inspection of the outside is permitted. Clever characters might break into the house by other means, a possibility that will be addressed later and can be allowed.

A very clever character might think about talking to someone at the City of Greyhawk's Guild of Architects and Stonemasons. It is nearly impossible for just anyone to get access to the housing plans and records here, as they are locked away in a hidden room on the second floor, in a false wall behind one of the meeting rooms.

Ruling out a direct assault on the guildhall, an adventurer might be able to use magical or mundane disguises, charm spells, ESP, teleportation, and so forth to obtain non-violent access to the data on the house -- with an interior description presented later. The plans for Otiluke's home are here in general detail and dimensions, minus all furniture placement and room use. Side notes on the house's owners, with severa papers filed for business zoning (for tax purposes), are included with the house plans.

The guild's papers reveal that the town house was built onto the western half of the structure, the original home, in 524 C.Y. It was owned by the middle-class leather-working family and was intended to bring in extra money as a weaver's business, run by two brothers, but this was discontinued 530 when several members of the family died during a minor outbreak of food poisoning. The add-on residence was then used to store leather-working goods, then sold as a town house for 12,500 gp to a retired brewer and his family in 556, who then sold the residence to Otiluke in 573 for an undisclosed sum -- the papers are marked: "based on separate agreement". Otiluke is noted as having moved to the City of Greyhawk from an unknown location in that year. The former owners moved to an undisclosed location outside of the city.

Tax information on the house and its occupants is not available in this adventure. This information is closely guarded by the Greyhawk Revenue Service. Nothing more can be learned from the Guild of Lawyers and Scribers, either.

Persistent inquiries in either direction are sure to bring doom upon the inquirer in the form of a tax investigation that threatens to reduce the character to the status of a beggar. No information on the house can be gained from the Thieves' Guild though it seems obvious that the guild had nothing to gain by trying to rob someone in the city's government thieves were encouraged to avoid the place at all costs, as Otiluke was not only a government member but volatile, vengeful, and dangerous in the extreme. Any PC thief who is a member of this guild will know this information.

As noted earlier, the house stands in the western side in the River Quarter, though in the relatively peaceful southern end of that notorious district. The house is very close to the local Temple of Trithereon the Summoner (for which the dead-end residential street is named).

The temple has a huge bell in a tower that gongs hourly for 1-4 minutes on Godsday, from dawn to midnight, normally gonging once per day at sunset for 1-6 minutes. Many Trithereon worshippers live around this area, as no one else can stand the noise. It is not unusual to meet an assortment of low-level Sacred Daughters, Hopeful Initiates, and so on during the day, going about their business. Stray dogs and cats, peddlers, washerwomen, playing children, street patrols, farmers and fishermen can also be encountered. The area is zoned for small shops and family dwellings. A bakery, tavern, two small warehouses, and the leather-working family's small sales room are nearby.

Talking to most neighbors quickly reveals their antiauthority, anti-law, anti-Pholtus, borderline-troublesome Trithereon activism. Though friendly, most neighbors are highly opinionated. Unless the questioner loves heated debates on politics and religion, it is best to keep questions focused. A few mercantile neighbors are followers of Zilchus, others of St. Cuthbert and other gods; these are generally less annoying, too. [A couple of neighbors could be minor thieves who never dared investigate Otiluke's home; a player character thief from Greyhawk might know one of these NPCs and gain some information in this way.]

The following tidbits of information may be gained from random neighbors here. The DM can pass along this information dependent upon questions asked or simply based on Charisma, time spent in the area, disguises used, etc.

• Otiluke purchased his home here in mid-573 - the date given may vary by up to 5 years, depending on the speaker's memory. The wizard claimed at the time to be almost 30. He lived there with a few minor servants and from 580 on, a young female human apprentice named Glorial, who simply moved in one day with almost no possessions.
• Otiluke was a young, very short, weak-looking individual who had short black hair, a thin beard, and brown eyes. He dressed well in a variety of clothing, but the thinness of his arms and legs was often secretly remarked upon by those who saw him. He stood just over 5 feet tall and was 41 years old in Harvester 584, when he was slain by Rary in the horrible battle before the signing of the Treaty of Greyhawk. He was slain only a month before his 42nd birthday, which fell in early Patchwall. He never celebrated his birthday in public.
• Everyone around appreciated having a powerful and reasonably reliable wizard living nearby, especially given that he was eventually made one of the city's Oligarchs and the president of the city's Society of Magi. However, Otiluke was not well liked, as he was often rude and insulting; neighbors variously describe him as touchy, cruel-tongued, threatening, and "a really nasty little @#$(Yo!" He rarely smiled. Still, he was well tolerated.
• Glorial, Otiluke's apprentice, is thought to have moved to Greyhawk from Dyvers. She was very short, under 5 feet tall, a little on the heavy side, with green eyes and long dirty blonde hair. Reasonably attractive and cheerful, she was widely believed to be much more than a mere apprentice to Otiluke. It appears that several of Otiluke's servants, with some discomfort, admitted a relationship existed between the two wizards. Glorial was often heard to complain to friends and acquaintances about how little money she had, and the public supposition was that she managed to find "other ways" to pay for her tutoring in magic.

  The relationship was widely believed loveless. Glorial appeared subservient in Otiluke's presence, and he was sometimes seen shouting at her about one matter or another in public, usually involving her magical lessons. Though verbally abusive, he was never seen to strike her. She appeared eager to please him, but he offered her no visible affection. This further lessened his image in the eyes of the neighbors; there was talk about quietly complaining to someone in authority about his behavior, but nothing was done.

• Otiluke vanished for several months a few years ago, when some of the other great wizards of Greyhawk were rumored to have been slain by a dangerous being (Vecna himself, it is said in low whispers). He was not known then to have been a member of the Circle of Eight, though this news is known to many now, following his death in Harvester of last year. It is thought that Otiluke was himself slain at this time; Glorial shut herself in the house for two weeks, and suddenly Otiluke had returned. The neighbors thought that he had managed somehow to bring himself back from the dead, and they were suitably impressed. [Cloning and time travel are the means usually mentioned for his "revivification" by more intellectual sorts, who have no evidence on which to base their theories.]
• Otiluke had on several occasions briefly invited tradesmen into his home for business purposes; he always warned them to never touch anything. Various stories tell that Otiluke's home once contained many art objects, mirrors, trinkets, etc., most made of highly reflective silver.

  He had bragged that his collection of valuables was worth tens of thousands of gold orbs. Everyone had heard of Otiluke's habit of tracking down and destroying any thief who dared steal from his home, which had only a lock on the front door to protect the valuables scattered on shelves and tables around the first floor. (He often bragged of this, too.)

The last time such a thing had happened was about 581, when a half-elf is rumored to have been frozen to death by one of Otiluke's spells outside the city walls for stealing a jeweled cup. Some neighbors suspect that Otiluke had actually hoped for a theft, daring others to give him an excuse to attack them with some new spell he'd invented. There is no proof of this, of course, but the suspicion is strong. Other neighbors simply believe that Otituke relied on his reputation to keep his home safe, not going out of the way to seek trouble but taking any opportunity to expand his fame and prove his powers.

The House on Summoner Court Greyhawk Location

Introduction
Events of Harvester 14 584CY: About Noon
Loose Ends and Odd Trails
Examining the House Inside and Outside
Objects Found in the House
Future Adventures and Disasters
NPCs: Sgt-at-Arms and Invisible Stalker