The Black Cabin

The Black Cabin is an old hunting cabin that has recently been blown apart by Macreadus, is an arrogant human male, that decided to build a device to control the weather and put a stop to the endless night that has been plaguing the dale for the last 2 years.

The cabin sits on the edge of a cliff, overlooking the turbulent sea below. Before the endless night brought on by Auril, the cabin had a spectacular view of the sunset, but now it just stares out over the dark waters of the Sea of Moving Ice.

The front of the cabin has been blown apart, and is now open to the elements, and part of the interior of the main room has sunken into the snow, or fell of the cliff face, leaving massive holes in the floors that the party must navigate

Set up

If the party gets this encounter, while they are traveling they see a massive explosion near the coast, and can hear a short, stifled scream before the silence returns.

• The front of the cabin has been blown apart and is currently blackened and charred
• There is a small device buzzing and whirring below the sphere.
• Coppper Knobberknocker, a gnome from Bryn Shander, is trapped in an arcane bubble created by the device
• The device is cycling the weather between heavy rain, heavy snow, and a heat wave, on an average 30 second cycle.
• Macreadus' body is laying dead on the ground charred and smoking.

1: Destroyed Room

The charred remains of an old hunting cabin sit smoking and smoldering in the snow. Small fires writhe and swirl, slowly feasting on the ancient timbers of this now ruined structure. A ball of arcane energy flares wildly in the center of what was once a part of the cabin interior. Trapped inside the sphere is a gnome, floating aimlessly as a torrentialS downpour batters him from every angle. The orb flashes wildly again, changing from a deep blue, to a vivid orange, and a searing heat begins to evaporate all of the water soaking the gnome's clothing. After a moment, another wave of energy flares through the sphere, this time turning white with a blinding snow. The cycle continues, each time the sphere flares a new element of extreme weather encompassing the gnome trapped inside.

DM Notes

Several parts of the floor have collapsed into a ravine below the cabin, leaving massive gaps in the floor below the sphere. There are several pieces of timber laying around for the party to build a stable bridge and platform to get closer if they wish.

There is a device on the floor across the room, the party will need to get to the other side of the room and find a way to disarm the device in order to free the gnome.

2: Main Room

Parts of the walls of this room have been blown apart, leaving the room exposed to the elements. The smell of charred wood, smoke, and burning flesh linger in the air. Broken bits of furniture and splintered floor boards are all that is left of the main room of this cabin. There is enough of a path left to reach the back rooms of the cabin.

DM Notes

There isn't much to see in this room, what used to be a simple sitting room is now nothing more than a charred porch. Getting to the rooms in the northeast corner may require a DC 13 Dexterity (Acrobatics) or a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) check to navigate the damaged floor safely, unless they find a way to reinforce the broken floorboards.

3: Sweetberry Summer Wine

The scent of wine fills this room, which contains four frost-covered barrels.

DM Notes

Macreadus was a heavy drinker, and the barrels contain his supply of Sweetberry Summer Wine. Any character proficient with brewer’s supplies knows that this wine comes from a vineyard in the Dessarin Valley, hundreds of miles to the south. The extreme cold has caused the wine to freeze.

4: Workshop

Blueprints and various notes are scattered across the many benches and tables in this room. Scrap metal, piles of discarded papers, and lumps of coal cover the floors. A set of tinker's tools and a set of smith’s tools are spread across a wooden table along with some twisted bits of metal. An old bookcase in the corner holds a few old novels with well worn spines and faded covers.

DM Notes

5: Laboratory

This room contains a fireplace and two empty bookcases. Tacked to the walls and strewn across the floor are frost-covered blueprints. Facedown on the floor next to one of the blueprints is a tiny man made of clay.

Any character who examines the clay figure and succeeds on a DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check ascertains that it is a dead homunculus. This was Macreadus’s magical assistant, Blare. It died when its master died.

Any character proficient in Arcana can study the blueprints and conclude that they show different experimental designs for a weather-controlling magic device. One of these designs resembles a gyroscope and closely resembles the object found in area B4.

6 - 7: The Bedrooms

Wooden planks have been nailed over the windows to block the frigid winds. The room is sparsely decorated with a simple hay bed, a footlocker that contians some old books on various contraptions. A small table in the middle of the room has blank parchment and a set of calligrapher’s supplies. The hearth is filled with faintly glowing coals.

Resolution

Copper gives the party a magic amulet that belonged to Macreadus as reward for saving him. He intends to head to the nearest town, and hire some help to comeback and get Macreadus' body so that he can have his last rights and be put to rest.

Once that is done he plans to head to Bryn Shander and join the House of the Morninglord, and focus more on helping people that are suffering from the cold, rather than getting himself killed trying to solve it.