d20 OtherWorld Creations Forbidden Kingdoms Paris The Spectral City.pdf

Paris: The Spectral City

CONTENTS

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

Dave Webb and R. Hyrum Savage

Chapter 1 - In the Shadow of the City of Lights........ Page 03

Chapter 2 - L'histoire....................................................Page 11

Chapter 3 - Les Affaires Pratique.......................... .......Page 26

Chapter 4 - Destinations Importants.......................... .Page 37

Chapter 5 - Personnes Notables............................ .......Page 68

Chapter 6 - Les Mystères de la Ville.............................Page 98

Chapter 7 - A Tale of the City.................... ..................Page 121

Chapter 8 - Les Campagnes de Paris............................Page 144

WRITTEN BY

Gary McBride

EDITED BY

Scott Holden-Jones

ART DIRECTION

R. Hyrum Savage and Dave Webb

DESGINATION OF OPEN GAME

CONTENT

The following material is hereby designated as Open Game Content and

may be used persuant to the terms of the Open Gaming License: All content

derived from the SRD and other Open sources. This includes all “stat block”

information, but not names already considered Open.

LAYOUT & GRAPHIC DESIGN

R. Hyrum Savage and Kieran Yanner

FORBIDDEN KINGDOMS LINE DEVELOPER

Dave Webb

DESIGNATION OF PRODUCT

IDENTITY

The following items are hereby designated as Product Identity in accor-

dance with Section 1(e) of the Open Game License, version 1.0: All

OtherWorld Creations, Inc. (OWC) logos and identifying marks, including all

OWC Product and Product Line names including but not limited to Diomin,

and Forbidden Kingdoms This includes all artwork, illustration, graphic design,

maps and cartography. Also included as Product Identity are all original names,

places, and text in Paris: The Spectral City. The above Product Identity is not

Open Game Content and reproduction, except for the purposes of reviews, is

expressly forbidden without the written permission of OWC.

INTERIOR ARTISTS

Chuck Lukacs, Derek Stevens, Ginger Kubic,

Chris Martinez, Thomas Floyd, Chad Sergesketter,

and Kennon James

PUBLISHED BY

OtherWorld Creations, Inc.

1424 12th St, Suite #B

Santa Monica, CA 90401

www.otherworlds.cx

The OtherWorld Creations logo, Paris: The Spectral City and Forbidden Kingdoms are Trademark OtherWorld

Creations, Inc.

This book requires the use of the Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook published by Wizards of the Coast.

Dungeons and Dragons is a registered trademark of Wizards of the Coast and is used with permission.

Paris

Je vois un cercle noir, si large et si profond

Que je n'en aperçois ni le bout ni le fond.

Je vois fumer, brûler, éclater des flambeaux,

Brillant sur cet abîme où l'air pénètre à peine,

Comme des diamants incrustés dans l'ébène.

Des ombres de palais, de dome et d'arguilles,

De tours et de donjons, de clochers, de bastilles,

De châteaux forts, de kiosks et d'aigus minarets;

Des formes de ramparts, de jardins, de forêts,

De spirales, d'arceaux, de parcs, de colonnades,

D'obélisques, de ponts, de portes et d'arcades,

Tout fourmille et grandit, se cramponne et montant,

Se courbe, se replie, ou se creuse ou s'étend.

Le vertige m'enivre, et sur mes yeux il pèse.

Vois-je une Roue ardente, ou bien une Fournaise?

--Alfred de Vigny, 1831

Chapter One:

In the Shadows of the City

of Lights

In the summer of 1902, Monsieur Savienne du

Valmont at last returned to Paris, though certainly not

under circumstances he might have preferred. For years

the famed swordsman, explorer, and writer had been

abroad traveling through untamed Africa, enigmatic

Egypt, and the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon in the

Himalayas. He had followed the Congo to the sacred

Valley of the Spiders and had been part of the expedi-

tion that recovered the lost wealth of King M'Kutu. He

had aided in the unraveling the ancient Cult of Five

Knots in Cairo, a group that had sought to reanimate a

thousand-year-old, crocodile-headed godling. Valmont

had been a member of the now world famous Harbold-

Keeling Expedition to Bhutan, where the first living

specimen of the elusive Yeti had been captured and

brought to London for display. Now, he had been sum-

moned to the city of lights by a desperate letter from

his cousin Gerárd. The letter had been both urgent

and maddeningly sparse on detail.

He disembarked from the dirigible Marianna on a

fine summer day, eager to discover the particulars that

had troubled his cousin. Gerárd met him at the plat-

form with a wide smile and open arms. Gerárd himself

was a small, squat, rather pear-shaped man with a waist-

coat five years out of a fashion and an irrepressible grin.

He was dwarfed by the tall and dashing explorer, who

had a reputation not only as a man of action, but also

as a breaker of hearts.

By carriage, Valmont traveled not to Paris itself,

but to the small community of Refuge on the city's out-

skirts. Since the Occurrence of 1884, many had fled

from the city center, where the unusual manifestations

were most highly concentrated. Refuge was still trou-

bled by the occasional ghost or werewolf, but at least

there entire buildings did not shift overnight. In

I see a black circle, so broad and deep

That I can discern neither its bottom nor its outer limit.

I see smoking, burning flares flashing forth,

Blazing against that airless abyss

Like diamonds encrusted in ebony

Shadows of palaces, domes, spires,

Towers and donjons, steeples, fortresses,

Castles, kiosks, and slender minarets;

Outlines of ramparts, gardens, forests,

Spirals, arches, parks, colonnades,

Obelisks, bridges, gates, and arcades,

And all this seethes and swells, claws its way upward,

Bows down, curls up, or burrows or stretches.

A drunken giddiness seizes me and weighs down my eyes.

Is it a fiery wheel that I see or rather a furnace?

Translated by Richard D.E. Burton

Refuge, the sun still shone even though the gray haze of

Paris loomed close by.

For a moment as the carriage halted, Valmont

thought the driver must have stopped at the wrong

house. This was not Gerárd's ancestral home, which

Valmont remembered having visited so many times as a

boy. This was a hovel compared to the grand apart-

ment just off the Champ de Mars that had been built

during the reign of the Sun King. Immediately,

Valmont wondered what could have forced Gerárd

from the famed Leopold House.

Gerárd ushered the well-traveled adventurer into

his home and immediately and boisterously demanded

word of his exploits. Shyness had never been Savienne

du Valmont's problem, and he was all too willing to

relate some of his more astonishing feats. The bottle of

choice Armagnac that Gerárd provided did little to dis-

suade him. It was only after dinner, well into the sec-

ond bottle, after hours of well-embellished tales of

adventure, that the talk finally turned to the matter of

the letter. At its mention, Gerárd's mood visibly dark-

ened.

"These are strange times, cousin," said Gerárd. "I

have considered selling my property in the city center.

Of course, dear Maman, God please to rest her soul,

would never forgive me for letting the Leopold House

leave our family. And besides, I would get only a pit-

tance for it given the current circumstance. But some-

thing must be done."

"What could force you to sell your family home.

Indeed, why are you not residing there now? Have

things gone so mad in Paris that one cannot live there

any more?" asked Savienne.

"In some places, perhaps - but in the House of

Leopold, most assuredly no one can abide. For cen-

turies the House has been haunted. Legend has it that

the house's original builder, noble Leopold himself, was

a foreigner-in-exile who had lost the favor of the king

and was treacherously handed over to his enemies.

Worse, the home he had obsessively built for himself

and his family was gifted to strangers while he and his

beloved Isadora were hanged in the forest like common

criminals. Even recently, sightings of the Murdered

Duke and his beloved Isadora were commonplace.

They were mournful spirits, reunited in the house only

in death. But, cousin, they were never violent. On

their anniversary, they would be seen dancing in the

main hall at midnight. Or perhaps the Duke would be

seen roaming the corridors, inspecting his manor. Any

attempt to modify the house would be harassed by

minor mischiefs - tools would go missing, ladders would

fall, workmen would be scared off. Harmless pranks,

really. But now… things are different-"

"Different?" asked Savienne. "How are they differ-

ent?"

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