Ancient Temple

Now the ghosts wait in a nearby complex of caves with their newly animated zombie minions. They make no effort to hide the tracks of the zombies, because they want Pelor's champions to come hunting. The ghosts and the zombies have, with a few exceptions, no set locations within the caves. They attack in the areas, and numbers, they think most tactically sound. Their precise numbers are left to the DM, in order to best challenge her particular party.

Domains

Although Pelor's church and faithful are the victims here, his champions are best suited to thwarting this evil.

Good: Evil spirits must be destroyed, undead laid to rest, stolen goods retrieved, and innocents safeguarded.

Healing: It is too late to heal the pilgrims. The PCs can, however, offer some comfort to the locals by returning the remains of the pilgrims to their homes and laying them to rest.

Strength:

With undead, even those who might once have counted themselves among

Pelor's faithful, no compromise is possible. Either the ghosts or the champions must be overcome and destroyed.

Sun: The characters must uncover a number of related secrets to learn who is responsible for these events, and to retrieve the stolen relics. Simply accomplishing one goal or the other is not sufficient; every shadowy secret must be illuminated by the light of truth, and the undead must be neutralized. Keyed Locations i. Cave Entrance 2. Darkmantle Cave 3. Ledge 4. Zombie Chamber 5. Treasure Cache 6. Sloping Passage Suggested Rewards

No divine or supernatural reward results from success on this mission, but the local clerics of Pelor are positively inclined toward the heroes from this point forward. The champions can rely on healing, low-level spells, and the occasional minor

magic item in support of future endeavors. If the PCs also return the icons, they might gain some magical or monetary rewards as well. In a distant land, far from the reaches of modern civilization, the earth cracked. Gaping chasms opened into nigh-limitless depths, and entire mountainsides plunged into the breach. When the first explorers tentatively set foot into the region, they found an ancient step pyramid that had been unearthed from its burial within a mountainside. What few carvings had not been eroded away suggested that the ziggurat must have been a place of religious significance to a race that was clearly inhuman. In the days that followed, priests and followers of Boccob, Vecna, Wee Jas, and other deities of both magic and knowledge began receiving the same unmistakable messages. Omens and commune spells all implied that this newly discovered ruin was a site of major importance to the faith. Hidden in the depths of the ziggurat are ancient mystic texts so potent—so revolutionary—that they could well change the mortal races' understanding of magic. Every Who knows what ancient lore awaits in the bowels of this long-buried temple? priesthood with an interest in magic and secrets has dispatched champions on a holy quest to locate and return with these ancient texts. Deities and Domains While the aforementioned deities have the most intense interest in this quest, any god who offers the domains of Death, Earth, Knowledge, Magic, or Trickery might dispatch followers. Death: Though the Death domain focuses largely on the literal cessation of life, it also encompasses lost elements of the past. Why was this temple abandoned in the first place, and why were the secrets contained within it so thoroughly forgotten? Explorers focused on the Death domain seek to understand the death of ideas and cultures, as well as individuals. Earth: While the secrets unveiled have little to do with the element of earth directly, it was the ground itself that vomited them up. Can this be coincidence, or was some power of the stone or the mountains responsible for the quake? If so, surely it must have chosen this time to reveal its long-concealed trove for some reason.