The adventurers come to know of a newly opened tavern, one owned by a half-orc named Dronk. Since its opening a month ago, people started disappearing in the neighbourhood and some say it’s the half-orcs fault. It’s up to the adventurers to discover the truth…

The Alchemist’s Ruse is an adventure best suited for the Out of the Abyss campaign, when the adventurers first leave the Underdark (at roughly level 8). The story uses one of the demon lords, Orcus. Two of his followers, Cuet (artificier) and Rrakas (treachery paladin; both based on the Unearthed Arcana character options), want to bring death to the city the adventurers are resting in.

Cuet, being exceptionally smart, created an elaborate plan on how to mislead the adventurers, framing the wrong people, hiding any leads so as to prolong how much time he has to develop his disease. If the PCs are quick on their feet and creative, they might find the actual source and the real culprit fast; however, if Cuet succeeds in tricking them, doom will come to the city (and so will the demon lord Orcus).

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Version 1.1:

– Reduced the damage of the zombies, and in turn – the difficulty of the final boss fight

– Added more spell options for Cuet and a new necromancy item Vial of Souls (based on the Magic Jar spell)

– Described the outcome when the PCs loose the final fight in the Laboratory and die (some or all of them)

– Fixed some typos