Map I: Schloss MordenheimScale: I square = 5 Feet

6th Floor

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Table of ContentsIntroductlion 2

Background Information 2Running a RAVENLOFT® Adventure 3

Fear and Horror Checks 3Story Background 3

The Domain of Lamordia 4On the Isle of Agony 5

Helpful Hans 6Sea Hag Summer 7

Old Wine, New Skins 10Reawakenings 11

Adam's Wrath 15Schloss Mordenheim 19The Chase 26

Of Mice and Madness 29A Message Delayed 29Schloss Von Aubrecker 31Baron Von Aubrecker 34

Adam's Children 38

Seekers of the Spark 39The Monastery 39Arrival 43The Mine 44The Cave 45The Sleeping Beast 45

The Return 47A Mother's Nightmare 47Back to the Island 48

The Portal of Fear 49Wolves of the Sea 49Treasure of the Winter Wolf 51The Frozen Fens 51Sentient Snow 54Adam's Lair 55The Gate 60

Handouts 61Fleas of Madness 62Flesh Golem, Ravenloft 63

CreditsDesign: Lisa SmedmanEditing: Doug Stewart

Project Coordination: Dori Jean WatryAdditional Development: Doug Stewart

Cover Art: Robh RuppelInterior Art: Mark Nelson

Graphics Coordination: Sarah FeggestadArt Coordination: Peggy Cooper

Cartography: Christopher Farris and David C. Sutherland IIITypesetting: Angelika Lokotz

ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, AD&D, MONSTROUS COMPENDIUM, and RAVENLOFT are registered trademarks owned by TSR,Inc. DUNGEON MASTER, DM, and the TSR logo are trademarks owned by TSR, Inc. All TSR characters, character names, and the distinctivelikenesses thereof are trademarks owned by TSR, Inc. ©1994 TSR, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.

Random House and its affiliate companies have worldwide distribution rights in the book trade for English-language products of TSR, Inc.Distributed to the book and hobby trade in the United Kingdom by TSR Ltd.

This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the materialor artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written consent of TSR, Inc.

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little learning is adangerous thing;

Drink deep, or tastenot the Pierianspring;

There shallowdraughtsintoxicate thebrain,

And drinking largelysobers us again.

—Alexander Pope

Knowledge can be a deliciousthing. What mortal has notdreamed of discovering thesecrets of the ancients, of pushingthe frontiers of science to the

ultimate? Unimaginable rewards await thosewho succeed.

Yet there were some things mere mortals werenever meant to know. Some mysteries shouldremain eternally secret, the providence of thegods alone.

When the thirst for knowledge becomesunslakable, the dividing line between good andevil is veiled. The consequences of evil arehidden, as are the rewards of returning to thelight. In the blind pursuit of knowledge, thequester will drink any cup dry, no matter howtainted, no matter how bitter its dregs.

This adventure concerns the obsessive questof one Victor Mordenheim, a man who delvedunknowingly into the darker reaches of the soul,who committed unspeakable acts, and thenrejected the gods in order to serve Science. Heis a man whose small victories and successeshave completely blinded him to the horror andagony of his deeds—and to his ultimate doom.

This is also the story of Adam, his creation.Bound together for all eternity by chains ofeternal torment, the pair dance a ghastlyminuet, their wretched fates entwined like twinsnakes upon a rotted caduceus.

This adventure will see the PCs shipwreckedon the Isle of Agony in bleak winter. After being

rescued by a sailor, himself the victim of ashipwreck, the party stumbles into a bay thatseems to exist in perpetual summer—a bayinhabited by three hags. For the purposes of thisadventure, the PCs must be killed by the seahags. They will then be resurrected by Dr.Mordenheim and given flesh golem bodies. AfterAdam attacks Victor, the PCs are transferred intocloned bodies and they set off after Adam, whohas stolen away Victor's wife. If the PCs survivethese adventures and return Elise Mordenheimto her husband, they travel back to the Isle ofAgony, where they can enter Adam's lair andsearch for a dimensional gate to take themhome.

Background Information

This adventure is set in Lamordia, one of thedomains at the core of the RAVENLOFT®campaign world. It is designed for a party of

four to eight characters of levels 5 to 7.Important background information about the

domain of Lamordia and its principal nonplayercharacters (NPCs), Victor Mordenheim andAdam, can be found in the sourcebook from theRAVENLOFT boxed set, Realm of Terror, on pages104 through 109. Please note, however, that inthis adventure age and experience haveaugmented Adam's statistics, and he is now amore formidable opponent.

Other useful sources of information includethe Monstrous Manual, and the RAVENLOFTAppendix to the MONSTROUS COMPENDIUM®, whichprovide important information about themonsters encountered in this adventure. VanRichten's Guide to the Created also offers usefulbackground material.

Additional information, on a secret societythat exists within Lamordia, can be found in theCryptic Allegiances sourcebook from theForbidden Lore boxed set—see "Adam'sChildren," page 20. This information, however,need only be used by a DUNGEON MASTER™(DM™) who wants the drama that additionalbackground material will provide. All necessary

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I;t <*..-s*°ys '•.' *•':

NPC statistics, maps, and descriptions of themonastery that is the headquarters of thissociety are provided within this adventure.

Running a RAUENLOFT Aduenture

R unning an adventure in the Demiplane ofDread requires much more effort on thepart of the DM than a standard AD&D®

campaign. The RAVENLOFT setting, by its verynature, demands a greater level of theatrics,pacing, and mood setting than do most otherrole-playing games. Those who are willing to gothe extra distance and pay close attention todetail will find the rewards are well worth theeffort.

The DM should become thoroughly familiarwith the material in Adam's Wrath, and have agood working knowledge of the backgrounds ofthe domain, the NPCs, and the story of Adam.

Fear and Horror ChecksFrom time to time it will be suggested that theDM make a fear or horror check. These rules aremeant to encourage better role-playing, andshould be used when and where the DM thinks itnecessary.

If the players are doing a good job of actingtheir roles in terrifying situations, the DM willhave no need for these checks. Encourage theplayers to have their characters act in a mannerthat suits the situation. Fear and horror checksshould be used only as a last resort.

Story BackgroundFor thirteen years, Doctor Victor Mordenheimsearched for the source of the proverbial "sparkof life" that abides in all living creatures,attempting to reproduce it artificially. With thisknowledge, he believed, he could reverse theprocess of death and restore life to dead tissue.He could, in fact, bring the dead back to life.

So obsessed was he with this quest that hespurned all else. He barely ate, rarely slept, and

paid only the most cursory attention to his wife,the beautiful Elise Von Brandthofen. All of histime was spent in his lab, ceaselessly laboring atthe experiments that consumed him.

Then, on a stormy night in November of '15(as reckoned in the world the scientist camefrom), Dr. Mordenheim at last succeeded inelectrochemically stimulating the cells of deadtissue. His creature, sewn together from thebone, muscle, and flesh of dead bodies, came tolife.

Victor delighted in his creation, regarding"Adam" as the child he and his barren wife couldnever have. But Adam showed an unnaturalaffection for Elise that terrified and repulsed her.Even when, two years after Adam's creation,Victor introduced a playmate to his creation (aseven-year-old orphan whom he found half-starved and dying in an alley near Ludendorf'sdocks), the situation did not improve. Adamseemed jealous of the attention young Eva (asthe Mordenheims had named her) received.Such was his antagonism toward the girl thatElise threatened to leave her husband and takeEva away if his attempts to encourage Adam's"social adjustment," using Eva as anexperimental tool were not stopped.

An ordinary man might have heeded thepleas of his wife. But Victor was drunk with thepower of his newfound knowledge, and hisattempts to socialize and educate Adamcontinued.

Then, one night in April of '17, Victor's worldcame crashing down upon him. Awakened byscreams, he rushed to Eva's bedroom, only tofind the girl missing and his wife in a crumpledheap beside the bed. Looming over her was themonstrous Adam, holding a bloody scrap ofEva's nightgown. With a furious roar, Adamdisappeared into the misty night.

Elise was still alive-but only just. It was clearshe would die within the hour unless drasticmeasures were taken. Now Dr. Mordenheimfaced a new challenge: maintaining the spark oflife in the woman he loved.

Victor worked feverishly, trying to restore

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Elise to health. But for all his efforts, he wasbarely able to keep her alive. She remained aragged corpse, continually in need of ever morecomplicated machinery to sustain her. Unable toface the agony in Elise's eyes, Victor kept herunder heavy sedation.

At one point, Victor thought he had found away to transfer her soul into a healthy, wholebody by an electrically induced "soultransference." But his experiments provedcatastrophic, nearly killing Elise. (These eventsare described in the adventure "Bride ofMordenheim" in the Book of Crypts; VanRichten's Guide to the Created also containsbackground material about flesh golems.) Hehas likewise discarded the idea of building abody for Elise and transplanting her brain intoit—his experiments with flesh golems havetaught Victor that these creatures are not onlyhideous to behold, but that they lack anyemotional capabilities. He wants the return of hiswife as she once was—her beauty and emotionsintact.

As the adventure opens, Dr. Mordenheim andhis entourage have been transported toRavenloft, where Lamordia was waiting for them.In recent months, Dr. Mordenheim has shiftedhis efforts away from the reanimation of deadtissue and toward an attempt to regrow livingorganisms from single cells or groups of cells.His experiments in cloning (a process Victorcalls "cellular reproduction") are just on theverge of success, when the player characters'ship careens onto the rocky shores of the Isle ofAgony.

Note: If the player characters (PCs) havebeen adventuring in Ravenloft for some time,they may have experienced the events of "Brideof Mordenheim." If so, they may already havedefeated Dr. Mordenheim and attempted to healhis wife Elise. But even if the PCs had previously"killed" the doctor, he will have returned to hishome after one week, his body that of a freshlydead corpse. By the time of this adventure, hewill have assumed his usual form. And even ifElise was destroyed or carried away by the PCs

previously, Dr. Mordenheim has resurrected her,via cellular reproduction, from a hank of fleshthat was overlooked by the PCs. Unfortunately,the resurrected Elise has reverted to the samesad shape she was in before. She depends onthe crude life support systems Victor has createdto keep her alive.

The Domain of Lamordia

O n the night that Adam first was given life atthe behest of the gods (the same godswhom Victor Mordenheim openly scorns),

his body was imbued with a soul that wastroubled and twisted, rife with evil intent.Combined with the malefic miasma produced byDr. Mordenheim's foul experiments, Adam'sspirit proved an irresistible lure in the demiplaneof dread. Gradually, over the months thatfollowed, Mordenheim's estate was inexorablydrawn into the world of Ravenloft.

The domain of Lamordia sprang into beingaround the estate some years before. Such wasDr. Mordenheim's obsession with his work thatat first he failed to notice the change. Thedifferences were subtle; the land appeared thesame as before, as did its people and the townsin which they lived. But now the folk ofLamordia exist only to feed Dr. Mordenheim'sinsatiable hunger for experimental subjects—andto torment him by spurning him with the fearand loathing one might expect them to reservefor his monster. Victor desperately yearns for thecompanionship and acknowledgement of otherscientists; instead he is surrounded by those hedeems "ignorant fools and cowards."

Lamordia's cities appear aged; bothLudendorf and Neufurchtenburg seem to havebeen in existence for several hundred years. Buttheir people, when questioned about recenthistory, often falter in their answers, givingcontradictory dates and accounts.

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Narratiucnjourneyingthrough life, thetask be mine

To paint the gloomyhorrors of thetomb;

Th' appointed placeof rendezvous,where all

These travellersmeet.

—Robert Blair

The Isle of Agony hasbeen Adam's home forsix years, ever since hefled SchlossMordenheim after that

fateful night in '17. It is a desolate, dangerousplace. The island is inhabited by many of thesame wild animals found in the rest of Lamordia(wolves, giant weasels, moose, bear, and lynx),but in addition it is home to a number of skeletalbats and flesh golems, (created by Adam in hisefforts to duplicate the scientific experiments ofDoctor Mordenheim). One coast is inhabited bya colony of lycanthropic seawolves. The islandis also home to a sea hag.

The PCs arrive in the winter, when the islandis connected to the mainland by jutting slabs ofice. Reaching the mainland involves firstcrossing five miles of ice to the island known asThe Finger, then crossing an additional mile ofice to Lamordia.

OucruicwThe adventurers have taken passage on a cargovessel from any port, whether they are in thedemiplane or on any AD&D® world. Theirintended destination is not important, nor arethe reasons for their journey. Their ship iswrecked on the shoals of the Isle of Agony.

You stand on the deck of a cargo ship,watching as the stars are occluded by a mistso thick that your breathing becomes labored.Lightning cracks and splits the sky withjagged arrows of anger, and a freezing rainfalls from the thundering clouds.

Masts and spars, sails and rigging areswiftly covered in layers of ice. The windvibrates the sheets and ratlines, creating aneerie, high-pitched thrumming that assaultsyour ears. Before you can get below, the shipstrikes the rocky coast and shatters like abottle thrown against a stone wall. Freezing,grasping for flotsam in waters choked withice, you and your comrades begin to swim foryour lives.

The PCs gain the shore by any meansavailable to them—swimming, hanging on tobroken pieces of masts or spars, orcommandeering a lifeboat. The DM should keepthe mood oppressive and dangerous. The PCshave nothing but their regular clothing, whateverthey are carrying, and their abilities. A fearcheck is appropriate.

You crawl onto the rough, stony shore ofthe island, fighting the ice for each purchaseon the slippery rock, shivering uncontrollably.You come together, huddling for warmth.Looking back to the icy waters, you can seethe masts of half a dozen sunken ships.Tattered sails hang from them, fluttering inthe breeze like the shrouds of restless ghosts.Splashing in the water nearby are creaturesresembling seals.

Looking up the coast you can see severallarge cabins. It seems this desolate island ispopulated, after all. From the size of thesettlement, there must be nearly two dozensouls living in the village—perhaps sailorswhose ships were wrecked by winter gales.

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