Contents
The Orrery of the Wanderer
This chapter presents a complete Acquisitions Incorporated adventure divided into six episodes. Episode 1 is for players using shiny new 1st-level characters. They're ready to take on the world and hoping to become part-owners of a share in a valuable, prestigious Acquisitions Incorporated franchise—or at least gain a coveted internship with the organization.
At the end of each episode, characters gain a level. Each episode is an appropriate challenge for a party of four characters of the indicated level, but that challenge can be modified to accommodate your group. At the end of the sixth and final episode, the characters attain 7th level. But even more importantly, they will be fully vested in an operational and maybe even profitable Acquisitions Incorporated franchise. After that, the players and characters can take their treasure-hunting activities in any direction that you and they desire.
Between episodes, characters will use downtime to undertake a variety of activities to better themselves or their franchise. By later episodes, choices of downtime activities might alter the flow and challenge of the story. After all, there's no rest for the wicked, so there shouldn't be rest for heroes either. (Logically then, wicked heroes would need to work twice as hard. Budget the time.) Familiarize yourself with the new activities presented in "Franchise Tasks and Downtime" in chapter 2 of this book, and with the standard D&D downtime activities discussed in that section.
The Monster Manual contains stat blocks for most of the creatures found in this adventure. All the necessary stat blocks are included there or in appendix B. When a creature's name appears in bold type, that's a visual cue for you to look up the creature's stat block in the Monster Manual or the monster appendix in this book.
Spells and equipment mentioned in the adventure are described in the Player's Handbook. Magic items are described in the Dungeon Master's Guide, except for the Orrery of the Wanderer and its components, described in appendix D.
Running an Acquisitions Incorporated Campaign
The grand buffet that is an Acquisitions Incorporated campaign features plenty of the exciting locations and high adventure common to all great fantasy campaigns. But an Acq Inc game adds a unique helping of humor and corporate intrigue to the mix, creating a rich narrative familiar to anyone who's watched an Acquisitions Incorporated livestream game. To take full advantage of the potential of an Acq Inc campaign, keep the following concepts in mind.
Familiar Faces
This campaign provides many NPCs for you to do with as you please. They all have roles to play in the encounters and events of the adventure, but what happens to them after that is up to you. Every NPC could be a potential ally, enemy, or foil later in the campaign. If the players take a shine to one, bring that character back—or better yet, make the NPC an integral part of the ongoing plot. All franchises need servants and hirelings to do mundane jobs, and NPCs the characters already know are a great fit for these roles. Employ these NPCs to make the world feel more familiar and real to the players and characters alike.
Right and Wrong
Even the most heroic heroes sometimes fall short. And in many cases, adventurers aren't even within longbow range of "virtuous" in their motivations. As such, what the characters fail to do, do poorly, or do wrongly can be just as important as what they accomplish. Don't let failure and setbacks derail an adventure or a campaign. Rather, look for ways that failure or partial success might lead to new ways to reach a campaign goal.
You might be absolutely confident that the characters will save those townsfolk and earn their trust, letting you use the townsfolk to reveal an important quest goal. But if the town burns down despite the heroes' best intentions—or because they had better things to do—let them be mistaken for local authorities come to lend a hand in the aftermath. Or let them be unexpectedly arrested after being mistaken for the evil forces that burned the town down, and given the dangerous quest out of animosity. Humor plays a big part in an Acquisitions Incorporated campaign, so make use of unheroic irony whenever the players and characters provide it.
Life Goes On
By its most basic nature, a roleplaying game campaign focuses on the actions of the characters. However, it's important to remember that the world goes on without them. The heroes can't be everywhere at once. If they establish a base in one town but spend a lot of time away, anything could happen to that base. Hirelings might grow disenchanted in the characters' service if abused, neglected, or left to their own devices for too long. Ramp up the drama and the humor of a campaign by occasionally focusing on what the characters neglected or left behind.
Let the Franchise Shine
An Acquisitions Incorporated franchise is like a newborn baby that the characters all had a hand in conceiving, delivering, and raising. It needs constant care and feeding as it grows to its full potential, but there'll be a lot of risks, drama, and dirty diapers along the way. (Okay, that might be taking the analogy too far, but you get the idea.) Running a franchise can be difficult, but the potential rewards for the characters are tremendous. And for the players, making the franchise the focal point of the campaign provides a joint goal and a shared vessel of creative input.
Story Overview
This adventure touches on a number of classic tropes in its setup and execution. Artifact of incalculable power accidentally stumbled upon? Check. Evil faction with plans to end the world? Got it. But even against potentially world-shattering events and plots, an Acquisitions Incorporated campaign is always centered around humble characters making choices—including one unfortunate NPC whose choices have set the adventure in motion.
A year ago, a group of adventurers led by a dwarf named Caerhan Coalsmith found a strange object buried in the remains of a ruined tower. The relic appeared to be a golden orrery housing, missing its geared clockwork components. It was obviously a magic item of some kind, but arcane lore wasn't the party's strong suit, so the orrery was set aside while Caerhan investigated its provenance and history.
The dwarf heard a few tales about devices that matched the relic's description. Though he never learned the full scope of its powers, rumors told of how those powers would increase if a magic orrery's missing components were collected and placed within it. Unfortunately, Caerhan also never learned about the curse the orrery carried—and his party paid the price.
As an artifact, the Orrery of the Wanderer comes with a random major detrimental property (see the "Artifacts" section in chapter 7 of the Dungeon Master's Guide). The specifics of that property when the orrery housing was found are left up to you, but whatever it was (compulsion to evil for someone in the party, hostile life force, imprisoned death slaad, yadda yadda), Caerhan returned from a research trip to Candlekeep to find his fellow party members all dead.
Recognizing too late that the orrery housing channeled dark power, the grieving Caerhan decided that the relic must be destroyed. However, its artifact-level magic made it seemingly impervious to harm. More research was undertaken with the help of Caerhan's goblin sidekick, Gorkoh. In the end, Caerhan concluded that the best place to ensure the orrery's end was a secret shrine to destruction beneath Waterdeep, rumored to be able to destroy even powerful magic relics. So the pair packed up and headed for the City of Splendors.
The veteran dwarf adventurer located the underground tunnels leading to the shrine easily enough. He and Gorkoh braved those dangerous passages, but were separated during an encounter with a carrion crawler. Caerhan pressed on. But when he activated the shrine, he caused a minor earthquake that opened a sinkhole in Waterdeep's Dock Ward, and which cracked walls and sidewalks across the city. In the end, the orrery housing was too strong even for the destructive power of the shrine, and Caerhan died during his heroic attempt to rid the world of the dangerous device. Now, the orrery waits for someone else to take possession of it.
As the characters will learn in time, the orrery and its components were intentionally scattered long ago. But the pieces of the orrery maintain a connection, and have been steadily making their way toward each other for years. With one piece permanently held by the orrery's creator in the Greypeak Mountains, the other components and the orrery housing have ended up scattered across the Sword Coast, falling into the hands of different adventuring groups. One of those groups is the evil faction known as the Six, whose members have become aware of the orrery's existence—and have a full understanding of its potential for destructive power. That power is described in the orrery write-up in appendix D.
As the characters are drawn into contact with the orrery, they discover that two of the artifact's components have been claimed by Acquisitions Incorporated franchises that have come under recent attack by unknown foes. The rival faction of Dran Enterprises becomes a prime suspect, with its agents found on the scene for both attacks. And all the while, the shadowy members of the Six pull together a tangled plot to gain control of the orrery to destroy Acquisitions Incorporated—and bring ruin to Faerûn.
As the adventure unfolds, the characters travel hither and yon across the Sword Coast and the North, checking in on some classic adventure locations and exploring a number of brand-new sites. Map 1.1 shows the sites and locations featured in "The Orrery of the Wanderer."
[image: Map 1.1 Campaign Area]