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GREYHAWK1" ADVENTURES
Book 2 ARTIFACT OF EVIL
ARTIFACT OF EVIL
Copyright о1986 E. Gary Gygax. All Rights Reserved.
ARTIFACT OF EVIL is based on the ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONSо game campaign which the author has conducted sporadically for something over a decade now. All characters and names in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual places or events, is purely coincidental.
Thii book ii protected under ihc copyright lawi of the United Stale! of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized uic of Ihc material or artwork contained herein it prohibited without the expreii written perminion of the copyright holder.
Ditlributed to the book trade in the United Stain by Random House. Inc., and in Canada by Random HOUM of Canada, Ltd.
Distributed in the United Kingdom by TSR UK Ltd. Distributed to the toy and hobby trade by regional dUiributori.
ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS and AD&D *re registered trademark} owned by TSR. Inc. PRODUCTS OF YOUR IMAGINATION and the TSR logo are trademark) owned by TSR, Inc.
GREVHAWK is a trademark owned by E. Gary Gyga*.
Finl Printing, February 1986
Printed in the United Stafel of America
Library of Congreit Catalog Card Number: 85-531%
987654321 ISBN: 0-88038-279-1
TSR, Inc.
P. O. Bo* 756
Lake Geneva W[ 53147
TSR UK Ltd. The Mill. Ratbmore Road Cambridge CB14AD United Kingdom
COUNTY
OF \ULEK
PRINCIPALITY
OF-ULEK
A map o[ a
pontion of the flAiuess, which is the easterni pact of the continent of Oenik, on the wonlo of Death
key to numBeos
3 ChenOl
4 CDOCkpORt
5 oonakaa
6 Oyveos
7 Аnsta6
8 Qneyruwk
9 haudny
10 hkihfolk
11 LittieaeoQ t2
13
14
15 Stoneheim
16 tusham
17 velun&City IS VERBOBOHC
19 Ntocwell
20 Willip
HORNS BELLOWED IN ANSWER to the screaming trumpets that sounded from the high towers of the concentric castle. The starless night was suddenly bright with globes of glowing light, radiance that shed betraying illumination behind the lines of besiegers outside the fortress. Men and machines were moving across the trampled ground toward the great stone walls. Arrows, quarrels, and streaking missiles of magical origin flew toward the encircling soldiers. Some arrows and quarrels lodged in wooden mantlets or struck into shields, but others sank into flesh. The magic missiles, blazing fireballs, and crackling bolts of lightning were far worse. Bodies were tossed high by roaring blasts; wheeled shelters were split and broken by the flashing strokes of electricity while metal-clad men-at-arms behind them became charred corpses. Varicolored darts sped unerringly into hapless targets who screamed and died. Torrents of flame erupted from the sky to set siege towers blazing, giant torches that added a hellish light to the scene, while raging fires swept over the advancing lines or made curtains of flame that seared their flesh.
From these conflagrations sprang huge, manlike forms. The very flames formed them, and these great things strode forth from the fires to further wreak death and destruction on the attacking army. Glowing tentacles sprouted up from the earth itself and wrapped their fiery coils around war machines
GREYHAWK ADVENTURES
and men. Flesh and blood could not stand such an inferno. The lines of soldiers quickly became scattered, fleeing men seeking escape from flaming death, their ranks decimated, all cohesion gone. Arrows and buzzing crossbow bolts sought out the retreating attackers and exacted further toll, while chains of blazing, blue lightning leaped among them, slaying and completing the devastation.
The battle was not all one-sided, of course. While the defenders in the great castle wrought their destruction, the ringing soldiery had countered with showers of arrows, but parapet and merlon protected the defenders, and bolt and shaft most often splintered harmlessly against stone. Rocks and boulders smashed into bartizan and tower, impacted wall, or arced over into the courtyard, before fire silenced catapult and trebuchet. Thick, spearlike missiles flew also, until, likewise burned, the ballistae that shot them forth were blazing bonfires. There were a few, pitiful spells cast tooЧsilvery darts and opalescent rays of cold light, even a few blasts of fireЧbut these had slight effect. It seemed that the spell-casters of the besieging force were unable to withstand those within the great fortress, for the former had to work relatively unprotected, while those within were not so exposed. Abruptly, the scene changed.
Almost simultaneously, the bright spheres of light that revealed the attacking army went out. In turn, the.sky above the castle was bright, and the place was illuminated with something that resembled the light from a full moon, while the area round about its walls was dark, save for burning equipment and fiery elementals still delivering death. As all this occurred, drenching bursts of rain issued forth from directly aboye the huge fire elementals, while gentler precipitation fell upon burning wood. The fire elementals, four in number, hissed and roared their anger and pain as the pelting drops of water vaporized upon them, sending forth steaming clouds and cooling the monsters' flames.
One of these glowing elementals was near the partially filled moat. A pillar of water suddenly arose, formed itself, and grappled with its fiery counterpart. Even as the two giant elementals struggled, a new sort of elemental creature arose from the rain-soaked earth, this one formed of damp dirt and stone
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ARTIFACT OF EVIL