THE CORROSION OF GEDREN'S POINT
A 5th-level ready-to-play situation inspired by the genius of Akeisha
Gedren's Point, the City of Smiths, sits in the midst of iron-rich lands - so rich that the soil itself is flecked with oxidized metal, giving the ground a reddish hue. Every bit of the place is comprised at least in part of the metal that is mined and formed day and night in their forges and smithies. Houses are stone and metal, railways carrying ore and finished goods crisscross the city, and metal catwalks connect buildings to each other for quick and easy travel in this bustling burg.
These days, there is a corrosive element in Gedren's Point in the form of Tetanus the Transmogrifier, a deformed transmuter that has lost his grip on sanity after too many alterations to his body and mind. Using his arcane skills and the muscle of his goons, the Blighters, Tetanus has created a unique rust monster that is capable of copying itself whenever it consumes enough metal. He controls it and its progeny via a magical device he calls the rust belt.
Now from the top of his stone tower, Tetanus the Transmogrifier cackles with glee as he watchs his twisted creations devour the city he once called home. If nothing is done to stop this corrosion, the once-great City of Smiths will rust away to nothing and blow away in the wind.
ENTER THE HEROES!
The adventurers arrive on the scene after the attack is underway. While there are numerous rust monsters in other parts of the city being dealt with by lesser adventurers and the town militia, the PCs arrive at the epicenter of the deterioration - the tower of Tetanus the Transmogrifier. What they do here in this moment will mean the city is saved or lost.
Ten rust monsters - one in each building and one under the water tower - ravage the structures in this area while the Blighters (eight of them) run off citizens, loot, and otherwise cause a ruckus. Tetanus observes the scene from atop his tower, directing the rust monsters and Blighters while reveling in his own evil genius. Within his tower, several animated objects and his pet basilisk, Lith, await any intruders who dare encroach upon his lair.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Tetanus the Transmogrifier: Use the Mage stat block from the Hoard of the Dragon Queen online supplement, but substitute the spell list below. Tetanus is up on his stone tower and tries to keep the PCs from killing the rust monsters. He doesn't care about the Blighters. If he's hurt badly enough, he'll retreat into the upper level of the tower.
1st level (4 slots): feather fall, mage armor, magic missile, shield
2nd level (3 slots): levitate, spider climb
3rd level (3 slots): counterspell, fly, slow
4th level (3 slots): greater invisibility, polymorph
5th level (1 slot): telekinesis
Woohoo! 
This is a wonderful write-up, and I love the baddie's name and 'twisted mind' outlook. 
Having those teleportation circles alter someone every time they use them is pure evil ha ha! 
Dang. another solid scenario!
Would run for players.
Thanks, guys and gals. What needs editing? What would you change?
If you were playing in it, how would you tackle the problems presented?
Will Tetanus, "lock this up". Rust Belt...
Nice. 
Thematic, challenging, and (most importantly) different.
Thanks, iserith!
Lol I like it. Looks like a really challenging and interesting encounter/scenario. One I may have to steal
Just as I was thinking these boards were a massive waste of time Iserith posts this 
@Iserith
What did you use to create your maps if you don't mind me asking?
Another great adventure I'd love to run for my players.
I am crossing my fingers someone does run this soon and posts a write-up.
autolycus wrote:
Screenshot of the Splash Page:
iserith wrote:
I wish I could sign up to take any available spots, but I'll be far away from the internet at that time.
I sort of inhabit two homes depending on my schedule. The one I sleep at unfortunately has no internet.
But I can't wait to see the transcript!
And I agree with Akeisha. That splash page (along with all of the others you've done) is fantastic.
EDIT: How often do you make splash pages? Just for one offs, or do they see a lot of use in your campaigns?
They seem pretty useful, but I don't know how I'd implement them.
Akeisha wrote:
Two spots remain open for my 10 pm Eastern game on Roll20. If you're interested, let me know.
One spot remaining - game starts in 40 minutes...
Alright, so we played this last night on Roll20 in a text-based game. That's not my first choice, but that's the format for the regular Friday night HotDQ game and I left my headphone/mic elsewhere earlier in the week, so text it was. In the group was bawylie and three other players that I found via Roll20. Play took 3.75 hours. The first hour was just character introduction - a dwarf paladin, elf ranger, human monk, and half-orc barbarian - bonds, world-building, discussing the premise and some page-setting. The rest was of the time was spent with the players tackling the scenario. With voice, I figure we could have done it in half the time, so 1.5 hours and change maybe.
At the outset, the characters started by exchanging fire with the Blighters while the dwarf paladin, Hungry Hipplolyto (played by bawylie), used the rusty water in the water tower to attract the nearest five or so rust monsters to that area. They went for it which allowed the PCs to get to them easily to put a few of them down , but there was enough of them that the proximity to the tower caused it to be the first building to fall on the next round. When it fell, a couple of the rust monsters and one of the PCs were swept away by the torrent of water that followed while two of them stood their ground well. During this time, other buildings were being weakened by rust monsters while Tetanus hurled spells down at the PCs.
Soon, more Blighters fell to the PCs' assault as did a couple more rust monsters that were outside of buildings. Hungry Hippolyto bum rushed Tetanus' tower and started to climb it, dragging a rust monster corpse with him and using its antennae to rust out a hole in the bottom of the catwalk to climb through. Once a hole large enough to climb through was created, Tetanus tried to polymorph Hungry into a rust monster... but the paladin made his save, fortunately enough. By this time, the monk Shin Shan had started making his way up the tower. The pressure was on Team Bad Guy!
As two of the PCs converged on the top of the tower, there was some last ditch battling between Tetanus and one of the Blighters versus Hungry and the monk as multiple buildings fell to ruin. The half-orc barbarian Tino and the elven ranger Tyrfing took out the Roach Mother (the unique rust monster) and a couple of other rust monsters, saving one building at the last second before focusing on other rust monsters that just took down buildings in the distance. Tetanus withdrew into the tower and teleported down to his laboratory. Hungry and Shin Shan pursued him, taking on "changes" as the magic of the circle altered them.
A short-lived battle ensued between the two of them, the basilisk Lith, and Tetanus. Tetanus tried to use telekinesis to stop Shin Shan in his tracks, hoping to use his defensive magic to protect him from an attack by Hungry. But Hungry smote him twice, killing him outright and capturing the rust belt. Shin Shan finished off the basilisk. Outside, Tino and Tyrfing cleaned up the remaining rust monsters and Blighters. Gedren's Point was saved!
I thought the scenario was a lot of fun. The players established some fun bonds and backgrounds that worked well with each other. I'd definitely continue playing with that party if it were a continuous campaign. The text-based nature of it wasn't my favorite but it wasn't bad at all. The players said the time just flew by and they seemed very engaged the whole time. In the end, four buildings and the water tower were lost and one more building was down to 1 structural hit point. The barbarian was out of weapons. Everyone had taken a decent bit of damage, but not a lot, and nobody dropped. I think that if I would run this again, I'd include some townsfolk in the scene that need help, perhaps having them interacting in some way to incentivize use of the catwalks and mine carts more. Those props didn't see much use.
In any case, it was a success: We had a lot of fun together and told a memorable story in the doing!
Awesome write-up of the adventure iserith!
That would have been a real mess if Tetanus had succeeded in turning Hungry into a Rust Monster ha ha! And the name would have erm, "fit" too ha ha!
I also love your use of the term "Roach Mother" to refer to the original Rust Monster.
Akeisha wrote:
iserith wrote:
Updated the original post with a link to the official rust monster stat block.
Sorry for getting here late.....
What is the relationship between building structure points and damage done by Rust Monster..... or HP recovered by Roach Mother?
As always, I love your approach to encounters, gets me wanting to DM again.
As for my current PCs, my archer is all set to save the town.....my Plate and Shield Paladin is more like "Sorry about your town... nothing we can do... sorry... gotta go.... good luck and all...."