Gnoll Country for Old Men Guarded with sacred magic and a bit of trickery, the Rityethi Pagoda is a sanctuary of magnificence in a dangerous and bloody world. Nestled on a green plateau in a valley of unforgiving grey cliffs and greyer clouds, it is one of the realm's most closely-held secrets. It trains monks and hermits in the ways of the humble life, while also providing work opportunities for those of lower class and poor standing. The leadership of the pagoda intend to keep their simple, idyllic life intact, yet they also staunchly believe that anyone is worth reforming, two philosophies which occasionally come into bitter conflict. One such conflict has resulted in gnolls screaming and howling at their walls for days on end ... Important Monsters Giant Hyena

Gnoll

Gnoll Witherling

Hyena Party Goals Quell the gnoll siege upon the Rityethi Pagoda. Locations and Events The party finds themselves travelling through a region called the Greying Valley on a simple road to the Rityethi Pagoda. The valley is quite large and the last few days of their journey have been solely within this valley. The valley was once lush with greenery, but it's been clear cut by the endless march of progress. Merchants use its relatively well-maintained and simple roads as a shortcut between the mountains. It often rains, so they make use of covered wagons and thick, strong, spiked wheels that can power through even the most muddy puddles. It is recommended to start this adventure in medias res while the party rides in a wagon with other travellers. The Greying Road As the party rides their wagon through the pass, read the following passage. Pounding rain threatens to burst through the fabric covering of your wagon. Every time you feel like drifting off to sleep in the darkness, the wagon's spiked wheels catch a rock and jolt you awake. Not that your sleep would do you any good in such freezing cold. The rain has never once let up in the three days you've been travelling through this valley. There are many people in the wagon with the party. It's not quite big enough to accommodate all of its passengers and everyone is cramped and rubbing elbows, or worse. There are seven people in the wagon, each with their own reasons for wanting to venture to the Rityethi Pagoda.



Wagon Party Of the seven other people in the wagon, four wish to become monks, two are pursuing job opportunities, and one has recruited the party to help him with his own weird personal issues. General Anderson Young. His older brother Bashful, a disappointment to his family name, lives in the monastery as a servant. Not even a monk. Hapsickle Anne. Driver of the wagon. Forest gnome. Speaks to the horses in a weird, muttering language. She agreed to drive for the chance to work with the animals in the pagoda full-time. Hetch Widget Whipperwilly Wilson. Rock gnome engineer. Wears a helmet of scrap metal. The pagoda's isolation and reliance on outside assistance poses an interesting logistics problem which he intends to solve. Gertrude Ulth-Astade. After failing to conceive a child for the last six years, she has decided to become a monk. Marek Astade. Gertrude's husband, formerly a cobbler. He feels emasculated by his inability to give his wife a child. He agreed to become a monk with her, but secretly wishes to dissuade her. Magdelene Astade. Marek's mother. She has always been overbearing in her son's interests. After he gave up the family business, she intends to become a monk just to keep an eye on him. Petero Ulth. Gertrude's older brother, immature and snide with everyone. He has agreed to become a monk with his sister after failing to settle down and find a wife at forty-five years old. The party can talk with the other travellers about various topics, gaining more insight into the area they are travelling and the monastery they are approaching. Rityethi Pagoda Gertrude and Petero Ulth are both optimistic about their prospects in the monastery, but the Astade family, a characteristically pessimistic bunch, aren't hasty to share their trepidations with the quality of its facilities and comforts it can afford its monks. Hetch Widget is excited by solving these kinds of problems in isolation. General Young just thinks the monks are a bunch of idealistic hippies. It'll get ransacked eventually and he just wants to rescue his brother. Gnolls General Young is the most knowledgeable about gnolls. He's fought them before, and the way he speaks, you get the sense that they are one of the few things in the world that genuinely scare him. They grow more manic and vicious the more they kill, and they leave their kills rotting in the sun for their pet hyenas to devour after the battle. They are pure evil, the personification of ravenous hunger, toothy maws made flesh. They are utterly without reason and beyond redemption.

General Young Medium human, lawful neutral Armor Class 18 (plate)

18 (plate) Hit Points 33 (6d8 + 6)

33 (6d8 + 6) Speed 30 ft. > STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 15 (+2) 12 (+1) 13 (+1) 12 (+1) 12 (+1) 15 (+2) Skills Animal Handling +3, History +3, Intimidation +4, Persuasion +4

Animal Handling +3, History +3, Intimidation +4, Persuasion +4 Senses passive Perception 11

passive Perception 11 Languages Common, Dwarvish, Orc Actions Multiattack. General Young makes two melee attacks, or he makes one melee or ranged attack and uses his commander's strike. Sabre. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) slashing damage. Heavy Crossbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, range 100/400 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d10 + 1) piercing damage. Commander's Strike. General Young chooses one friendly creature that can see and hear him. That creature can immediately use its reaction to make one weapon attack, adding 3 (1d6) to the attack's damage roll. Monkhood Most monks don't achieve the kind of power that would allow them to keep up with your standard adventuring party. Many hardly practice martial arts at all, especially at the Rityethi Pagoda. The pagoda in particular lacks a central defining philosophy, employing many teachers of many different disciplines. They allow their disciples to choose the "way" that suits their personality and beliefs the best. It's clear that all four of the Ulth-Astade family will probably choose different disciplines, a fact which is not lost on them. The Greying Valley Thousands of years in the past, this was the site of a battle between gods and demon lords, scouring a mountain to dust and leaving the valley in the crater where it once stood. At first, the gods claimed ownership over the new land, sprouting it with wonderful trees and blue skies. Then the demons reclaimed it, turning it to a burning wasteland with red sky. Then the demons abandoned it, and now the land is grey silt and grey sky, the only colour remaining being the brown of mud from relentless rain. The Gnoll Ambush While the players are interacting with their companions, in the middle of a totally unrelated conversation, the wagon grinds to a halt. A sharp listener will remember that the wagon's wheels are designed not to get stuck in mud, so the reason for stopping is mysterious. ... At least until the driver, Hapsickle Anne, stumbles through the wagon's fabric covering, bleeding to death from an arrow wound to the gut. The gnoll ambush is sudden, brutal, and completely without warning. The ambushers consist of 6 gnolls. Gnoll Appearance To quickly distinguish between the gnolls in this encounter and in other encounters in this document, you can choose a distinctive visual feature or roll on the following table. d12 Distinctive Visual Features for Gnolls 1 face sliced symmetrically down the middle 2 lips sliced off in a permanent skull's smile 3 missing an arm, windchimes dangling from the stump 4 human finger bones as earrings 5 face clanking and sagging with metal jewellery 6 skin studded with hundreds of subdermal piercings 7 cheeks sliced open to widen its grin 8 neck flayed, displaying muscle, weeping with sores 9 ears dangling from the sockets with twine 10 needles jabbing out of its body at all angles 11 slick and wet with open, infected wounds and sores 12 fingers almost broken too much to wield a weapon Gnoll Tactics The gnolls swarm the wagon from all sides. They go after the weakest and most vulnerable first (the dying driver and the humble Ulth and Astade family members). After making a kill, they use their rampage attribute to turn their attention to the more dangerous player characters. The gnolls refuse to share kills, so they'll each target someone different, occupying as many people as possible so that nobody can help the others for fear of their own life. This is a brutal, violent, bloody first battle meant to demonstrate the threat of the gnolls, something for the players to recall in vivid detail as they negotiate with the leadership of the pagoda. Go into as much gory detail as possible in the way that the gnolls slaughter and dismember their foes, and in the details of the horrifying mutilations the gnolls do to themselves to satisfy their sadistic urges. Wagon Party Reactions General Young is uncharacteristically animated and spritely during this fight, his warnings about the gnolls completely justified after all. If a gnoll attacks Hapsickle Anne, she begs to be killed before the gnoll can do its worst to her. The Ulth and Astade family take any deaths with horror and wailing dismay, blindly striking out at their vastly more powerful attackers, blinded by tears and anger. Any survivors of the ambush grow quiet and despondent after the gnolls are dead. They will make any burials and take over as driver as necessary, determined to press on and complete their mission as originally intended.

The Green Plateau After weathering the ambush from the gnolls, it's not long until the party reaches the outskirts of the pagoda. It's on a plateau of uncharacteristically green and thriving vegetation where young trees stretch for what little sunlight they can. The pagoda is surrounded by 30-foot walls that are slick with magical grease. The pagoda is an enormous estate of such size that it could easily hold a village and some farmland within its walls. It's bigger than most small towns, and its size is almost dazzling. Strangely, all talk of the gnolls surrounding the pagoda seem to be greatly exaggerated. There are sounds of cackling and howling from miles away, but the gnolls aren't literally right up against the pagoda like originally described. The party can see the red roofing of the temples above the tips of the walls, but there doesn't seem to be any obvious gate that leads inside. The only indication of an entrance is a red marble statue of a fat, laughing halfling. The Pagoda Guardian As the party gets close, the statue blinks, and its marble neck twists, rolls of fat curling under its jaw. It speaks to them with a soft, soothing voice, oddly heightened and mechanical. "We've experienced some difficulties with marauders. I hope you don't mind the inconvenience. Unfortunately, we can't allow visitors into the pagoda. Only those who genuinely wish to devote their lives to the hermitage of our lifestyle may pass through these walls. What say you to prove yourself?" The statue is controlled and monitored by a monk on the other side of the wall who watches their attempts with a Scrying enchantment. Each of the NPC companions who survive are able to pass this test, but the players must devise their own method of proving their devotion. Hapsickle. She explains her devotion to understanding animals and wildlife, study which is otherwise impossible without the tranquility of the pagoda. Hetch Widget. He explains his wish to devote his mind to the single-minded study of systems and engineering, which can only be achieved by monkhood. Gertrude. She is honest about her listlessness not being able to raise a family, and wishes to seek a higher calling to give her life meaning. Marek. He explains the intertwining of his own soul and his wife's, waxing poetic about the limitless power of love and acceptance until the monk sighs with impatience and lets him through. Magdelene. She has a moment of sudden self-clarity and explains that she has lived her life obsessed with others, and now wishes to reform and turn all that energy into something worthwhile. Petero. He wishes to understand the secrets of the universe and become untethered by material needs. General Young. His brother is a servant in the pagoda. He believes his brother is destined for greater things and has much more potential than a humble servant. He of course neglects to mention that his brother's potential doesn't lie with monkhood, in his opinion.





Consequences of Failure Every time the player characters fail to satisfy the monk's requirements, or otherwise cause the monk to become displeased with their conduct, one or more of the following effects of your choice can take place, driving up the urgency of getting safely within the walls before the warband gets to them. The cackling of the gnolls in the background grows louder and louder.

Arrows from hidden longbows whistle and slam into the ground a few hundred feet away.

The sky darkens. Night has almost fallen.

The rain pounds harder, stinging and cold.

Beady eyes appear in the bushes far away.

Howling of hyenas thundering through the night, blocking off any routes of escape.

Two hyenas dash ahead, mouths slavering with spit and drool, eyes manic.

dash ahead, mouths slavering with spit and drool, eyes manic. A gnoll stands on a ridge 500 feet away, notching an arrow, illuminated by lightning, before launching one haphazard arrow and retreating back into the darkness.

Three hyenas and a giant hyena attack.

attack. Eight gnolls and two gnoll witherlings attack. If the party manages to kill all of the gnolls, the module ends, as this consists of the entirety of the warband. This fight is almost impossible to win, however, and it's best to avoid it if possible. If each party member cannot construct an at least half-decent lie about their intentions, there are other methods to get past the wall. Dispelling magic removes the grease from the wall and allows a skilled climber to get through. Any sort of flight or levitation can help someone get over the walls. An actual monk in the party can help cover for the others, as the elf will be much more liable to trust them. Any other creative methods to get past the guardian should work, as it's more fun for crazy solutions to succeed than fail. The Rityethi Pagoda The monastery is beautiful, lush, with green grass and flowers that almost glow with rainbow colours. The stinging rain outside of the monastery now seems to be calm, gentle, forming a mist with a pleasant odour of petrichor and earth. The party can see from the entrance monks practicing in training grounds, servants tending to the gardens, a farmer corralling animals into their stables for the night, and builders repairing arrow marks in the beautiful red-arched architectural marvels of the temples. The party looks completely out of place in their armor and gear. The party is greeted by a monk, the one behind the statue, pulling his face away from a complicated magical machine. This monk is named Gradane, and he is a Warforged.

Rityethi Pagoda Leadership The monastery is a haven for all sorts of folk, where none have much power to dictate others' actions, but the grounds are facilitated by six people who have taken on more responsibilities than others. You can use the commoner statblock to represent these people and others in the pagoda. The strongest of the monks, namely Prothe and Aldine, have statblocks included in this document. Gradane. A warforged mainly constructed out of wood and other natural materials who keeps his weird clockwork body hidden underneath layers and layers of yellow robes. His face is stuck in an unsettling tombstone smile. He loves to greet new prospects, even though he is ill-suited to it. Nurreitha. An older lady with a cheery, almost fake disposition. She seems to care for the buildings more than for the people. She can be found overseeing the repairs on the temples. Yll. One of two elves, twins, who are in charge of maintaining the farms and animals. He uses prestidigitation to light his pipe and other mundane uses. He can usually be found arguing with his sister over some petty matter. Yllyth. The other of the twin elves. She seems to have a ramrod stiff spine, and she towers over others with an unnatural height, looking down on them with barely-masked displeasure. She constantly argues with her brother. Prothe. A hyperpacifist half-orc the size and shape of a gorilla. He could crush any one of the others without lifting a finger, but instead he focuses his time and effort on the gardens. Aldine. A monk wrapped head to toe in black fabric. Only her eyes, shining blue and intelligent, can be seen at any time. She has taken a vow of silence, which makes her job as a martial arts instructor difficult. Gradane is all too pleased to show the party around and acquaint them with the pagoda's facilities. He seems totally unconcerned with the warband of gnolls outside the gates, though with his face frozen in a manic smile it's difficult to truly read his feelings on the matter. If the party wishes, they can take a rest in the accommodations and explore in the morning when the cackling howls have died down. Gradane assures them the gnolls are like that every night. You get used to it. Population The pagoda is home to about twenty full-time monks, six monks in a leadership role, thirty servants (builders, farmers, repairman, maids, gardeners, and other roles), and four merchants who have not been able to leave the pagoda since the gnolls showed up. Accommodations The pagoda has only humble accommodations. The monks sleep on the floor while the servants and guests are given scratchy hammocks that swing uncomfortably with or without a breeze. The sound of gnolls makes sleep difficult.

Temple of Worship Nurreitha oversees two servants balancing precariously on the red roof of the temple, ripping up damaged shingles and replacing them with new ones with loud hammering. Her voice is disingenuously pleasant and positive. One of these two servants is Bashful Young, General Young's older brother, a man of 67 with wrinkled, browned, sun-weathered skin and wiry muscle. He seems happy with his lot in life and has no interest in becoming a monk or leaving the pagoda. Bashful was the one who originally sent the message to General Young asking him and any adventuring party to come deal with the gnoll problem. Bashful hasn't had a good night's sleep in weeks. The interior of the temple is humble and unassuming. Sticks of incense over a statue of some unnamed deity. Mats for kneeling and prayer. Facilities The pagoda has several outhouses to dispose of waste products and garbage, which lead out through a sewer system to a run-off in the valley. Nearby, a few servants perform a laundering service for the rest of the pagoda, washing and hanging robes to dry. Library The library is elevated and protected by balsa wood walls to keep out moisture. It is host to shelves upon shelves of religious texts, not just on texts relevant to monks but also for other religions, other gods, and other agnostic philosophies and political essays. It is a library for great thinkers, but not for great doers. When Yllyth is not arguing with her brother, she often forgoes her duties at the farm to come up here and study. Training Ground Exposed to the elements is a small sandy training ground lined with thick rocks. It has dummies, weapon racks, and obstacle courses designed to hone the body into as sharp a weapon as the mind. Aldine practices here all day, with or without disciples. She is happy to spar with the party, but she will not speak for fear of betraying her vows. Gardens The gardens are obsessively maintained by a few loyal gardeners directed by Prothe. Prothe is the most gentle person one could ever expect from a half-orc, and he takes great care in handling his flowers with the light touch of a pixie. He can often be found perched atop a rock, content to take in the lovely colours and designs for hours on end. Farms The farms are looked after by a team of servants under Yll and Yllyth, though Yll takes his duties more seriously. They have vast fields of vegetables such as potatoes, corn, and carrots, and they breed sheep for wool and food. Oddly, at noon hour each day, one farmer takes count of the sheep, marks them down in his book, appraises each and every one of them, and then chooses exactly six of the youngest lambs. On these lambs he paints a big red Y with a line through it. Nothing else. The marked lambs return to the flock as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. After this, of course, they are never seen again.

South Dining Hall The pagoda has two dining halls. The southernmost dining hall is lively at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with all sixty of the pagoda's inhabitants crowding into it to eat their soup and other such mush. Strangely, they have plenty of farm animals, most bred to be eaten, and yet their diet is vegetarian. Even the servants are happy with vegetables and beans. East Dining Hall There's a second dining hall that nobody eats in. It's locked and nobody is really willing to explain why, choosing instead to change the subject to the gnolls outside the walls. Occasionally, the sounds of bleating sheep can be heard inside, pained shrieking, then silence. If questioned about this, most people will say that it's where the sheep are slaughtered for food. If further questioned, they can make deception checks against the party's passive Insight, stating that they are saving up meat for when they can't farm any more vegetables or other meals. Careful observation of the dining hall reveals that Yll sneaks away from his sister to smuggle half a dozen lambs into the dining hall at six o'clock on the dot every day. Each of the lambs are the ones marked with the strange red Y. If the party manages to convince someone to let them in, or if they break inside, they will find a nasty surprise. Pagoda Gnolls Inside the west dining hall are 4 gnolls. The gnolls are feasting upon the marked lambs, eating them alive. They are streaked with blood and entrails, their eyes manic with hunger. The sheep bleat and scream in pain. Despite their appearance, these gnolls are peaceful. They can speak surprisingly good Common, and if given a chance to explain, they calm themselves down and tell the party they are actually prospective monks. "The hunger, you see, it's overpowering, a hunger so vast and consuming you can't think straight, you revert to an animal, nothing more. And that hunger, it consumes you more than you consume your meal. It is Yeenoghu's hunger, and we have chosen to reject it. This pagoda is the only place for us, you see. The only place that can protect us from our warband. From our brothers and sisters. From ourselves." The gnolls are still driven by that endless hunger, but they satiate it with lambs instead of sentient beings. They are still under a trial period, and though almost all of the monks and servants are aware of their existence, they've chosen to hide them away in the dining hall for at least the first couple weeks that the new prospects (the party) will have lived in the monastery. The gnolls are fine with this arrangement, as they understand that they are still not fully in control of their own temptations. The Siege As the days go on, signs show that the gnolls are getting more and more rabid and vicious, and they are coming closer and closer to breaking past the walls. They can't climb on the walls, but they bash and smash and break everything they can. It's important to prepare for the attack before it happens.

Reformed Gnolls The four gnoll monks still bear marks and scars of their former warband. Scratch. He has a Y cut into his chest, with a line through it to symbolise his rejection of Yeenoghu. Neek. She has no fur, just mottled grey skin, as if all of her hairs were plucked one by one. Lyoolvee. Half of her head is frozen from a bad stroke. One half is sharp, intelligent, thoughtful, and the other half is as dull and lifeless as Gradane's own frozen face. Presher. His jaw is wired shut. He takes small nibbles rather than huge chunks like the others. Over time, you can introduce more and more signs of trouble to build up the urgency of preparing for an attack. Their cackling goes from amusing to frightening as their desperation cracks through.

Parts of the wall they've successfully chipped off are chucked into the pagoda.

Arrows occasionally land in random locations in the pagoda. These become more frequent.

The reformed gnolls howl at the walls in the night, a sad and regretful howl, and a warning.

There can be heard scratching behind the walls and sometimes even below one's feet, impossible as that is.

The rain never lets up, cracking through the pleasant veneer of the pagoda and making every day wet and unpleasant.

Random monks go crazy, finding themselves rocking back and forth in the corner, laughing.

Some servants commit suicide from the stress.

The gatekeeper statue is tossed in broken pieces over the wall.

Chunks of dead gnoll are tossed over the wall, which reform as a witherling.

Dead silence. The last sign, dead silence, marks the point of no return. The gnolls attack very soon after they go silent. If the party hasn't prepared for the attack by this point, they will likely be killed, along with everyone else in the pagoda. The gnolls have split their small warband into three strike teams, attacking through the front gate, through the facilities, and through the farms. Front Gate 3 gnolls and 5 hyenas smash through the wall in the front gate, attacking whoever is closest first. They make as much noise and chaos as possible to distract from the other strike teams' attacks. Facilities 3 gnolls and 2 witherlings crawl out of the waste disposal sewers, seeking out the leadership to assassinate them and demoralise the rest of the monks.

Farms A giant hyena burrows up from the farmland, munching through vegetables and spitting them out in disgust. Crawling through the hole it made are 3 gnolls that lead it to the East Dining Hall in search of the reformed gnolls. They will make a token effort to convince the reformed gnolls to return to the ways of Yeenoghu before just killing them. The reformed gnolls are unarmed and won't fight, choosing to die rather than give in to the violence. Combatting the Gnoll Siege A party of 2nd level adventurers should be able to defeat any individual one of the gnoll strike teams, but fighting all three would be impossible without significant risk of total party kill. The party can mitigate its risks by employing the natural defenses of the pagoda. There is plenty of wide open space, and though the gnolls have longbows they would much prefer to run straight at the source of their hunger and use their claws and teeth instead. Most of the monks and servants are considered to be commoners, but General Young, Prothe, and Aldine are strong enough to stand a chance against a gnoll. It is recommended to allow the party to control these characters if they fight side by side. The reformed gnolls may also be willing to fight, though they would rather than die than risk giving back into the insatiable hunger of sentient flesh, which even extends to killing other gnolls that they despise. If they submit to the thrill of murder once more, Yeenoghu wins and their rebellion was for nothing. They must resist. Still, they will happily contribute to the defense efforts if their contributions do not result in them directly combatting other gnolls. Additional Defense Ideas The party may struggle to think of ideas of how to use the pagoda's resources to their advantage. You can have NPCs suggest these ideas, or subtly suggest them through other means. Each of these ideas, however, will likely require heavy convincing. Temple of Worship. If the gnolls are led into the temple, locking the doors and burning the place to the ground can kill many of them without much effort. Facilities. Laundry lines and other mundane objects can be used to construct traps. Library. Like the temple, the library is exceptionally flammable. Also, since it is elevated, any creature underneath it when the supports break will be crushed by shelves upon shelves of priceless books. Training Ground. The loose sand makes it easy to hide traps. Gardens. A skilled druid or illusionist could use the plants of the gardens to trap, confuse, or hurt the gnolls, and there may be some flowers that can be used in alchemy or poisons. Farms. A warband of gnolls is no match for a hundred-strong flock of frightened sheep.



Prothe Medium humanoid (half-orc), neutral Armor Class 12

12 Hit Points 22 (3d8 + 9)

22 (3d8 + 9) Speed 30 ft. > STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 16 (+3) 15 (+2) 16 (+3) 10 (+0) 12 (+1) 10 (+0) Senses Darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 11

Darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 11 Languages Common, Orc Relentless Endurance (Recharges after a Long Rest). When Prothe takes damage that would reduce him to 0 hit points, he is reduced to 1 hit point instead. Actions Multiattack. Prothe makes three attacks with his fists. Fists. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d4 + 3) bludgeoning damage.





Aldine Medium human, neutral Armor Class 13 (padded armor)

13 (padded armor) Hit Points 19 (3d8 + 6)

19 (3d8 + 6) Speed 30 ft. > STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 15 (+2) 15 (+2) 15 (+2) 10 (+0) 14 (+2) 10 (+0) Senses passive Perception 12

passive Perception 12 Languages Common Actions Multiattack. Aldine makes two attacks with her quarterstaff. Quarterstaff. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d8 + 2) bludgeoning damage.