(This adventure was posted by Justin Grabowski in 1999. I believe it was the first homebrew adventure posted to the list, and seems like a good place to start with content. -jh)
Designer Notes
I originally ran this adventure in 1981 and it took place in the Free City of Haven by Gamelords. At the time I had three players, who each played their own character and one player character controlled PC and I also ran a NPC for myself. Their average point value was 35-36 points at the time.
The scenario began with the characters hearing a commotion outside of a tavern they were drinking in. On investigating, they get involved in the tail-end of a kidnapping. When they arrive on the seen, they see dead men-at-arms and further down the street see shadows turning down an alley in the distance. Before the characters could move they were arrested by the city guard. While proclaiming their innocence, they take the guard to the alley to show where they saw the shadows disappear but the guards only find a padlocked door (from the outside). While in jail, the characters are convicted of murder and the kidnapping of a leading guildmaster's daughter.
What had happened before is a visiting archmage grew infatuated with this guildmaster's daughter who spurned him. The mage hired a group of goblin and hobgoblin ruffians to kidnap the girl, which they did after they dispatched her guards as she was traveling home after a night out.
As the characters are rotting in jail, one of them discovers the keys to the door to the cell and the shackles they wear in the bottom of his/her gruel (My Haven has jails with shackles that inhibit magic and it is hard to pick a lock when it is on the other side of a door). As they made their escape, they knocked out an unarmed guard and beat up two lightly armed guards. As they left the gaol to make their escape, they were ambushed by men with missile weapons, who made them surrender and follow them blindfolded. The party was brought to the Thieves' Guild Headmaster who explains to them that it was he that had the keys placed in the gruel and that he needs the party to do something for him. He explains to the party that there is a reward for the girl that was kidnapped and he knows where the kidnappers disappeared and for a price he will tell you. The price is to destroy the group of kidnappers as they were acting outside of the authority of the Thieves' Guild (members of the Black Hand possibly). In return the party, will receive the reward and keep anything they find in the kidnappers hideout. Of course, the party excepted especially when the Guildmaster stated he would turn them in again to the guard.
On their acceptance the party was given back all of the equipment they had before they were captured by the guard. The Guildmaster then tell them that the kidnappers went to ground when they turned down the alley. They are then led blindfolded at night to the place where the kidnapping occurred. As the party went to the alley, they look and discover a sewer opening that can be squeezed into.