The army in question could be traveling through the underdark, emerging from caves near their intended targets.

A great enchantment creates a field of invisibility, preventing anyone from outside the field seeing the army within it.

Or perhaps the army marches through a parallel plane, opens portals in the middle of their intended target, and overwhelms them from within.

Let the players each play a character from a nearby town where the PCs made a good impression, preferably characters previously introduced as NPCs. The players can use these inexperienced characters to try and break their real characters out.

This gives you the chance to break up the campaign a bit and run something a bit more about wits and luck. If the rescuers are successful, then the players have succeeded at rescuing their own characters. If the rescuers fail, however, then they too can be captured and now it’s up to the PCs to not only escape, but break out their would-be heroes as well.

Setup & Goal: First, you’ll need to keep track of two values for each competitor: their distance traveled, and their current penalty. You also need to assign a goal distance, and you may want to place hurdles along the way. For example, for a short sprint you might have a target distance of 100 yards and you might place hurdles at 50 yards and 70 yards.

Penalty: Everyone’s penalty starts off at half their level. This has the effect of keeping competitors of varying levels on roughly even footing, and allows for example a level 1 peasant to outrun a portly, out of shape wizard who just happens to be level 30.

Running the Race The race proceeds in rounds, and each round every competitor gets a turn. Turns are taken in order by distance traveled, with the person who’s traveled the farthest going first. In case of a tie, everyone’s turns happen simultaneously.

Round order

1. You may choose to push yourself this round. If you do, add -2 to your penalty. You may not push yourself on the first round or if you tripped over a hurdle last round. Pushing yourself makes you move farther (see below).
2. Make an athletics check, applying your current penalty. This is the distance you move this round, in yards. If you pushed yourself, increase the result by half. If your normal speed (in squares) is greater than 6, you get a +2 bonus for each extra point of speed beyond 6. Similarly, you take a -2 penalty for each point lower than 6.
3. Make a DC 10 endurance check, applying your current penalty. If you fail this check, add -2 to your penalty. If you fail this check by 5 or more, you move half as many yards next round and cannot push yourself that round either.
4. If you’ve passed a hurdle this round, make a DC 15 acrobatics check, applying your penalty. If you fail this check, you lose any distance gained beyond the hurdle and cannot push yourself next round. For example, if your athletic check moves you from 42 to 60, but there’s a hurdle at 50, you must make an acrobatics check. If you fail this check, your distance is set at 50. A competitor need only ever roll against each hurdle once (e.g. you don’t roll again against it next round), but if you pass multiple hurdles in a single move you must roll against each in turn and stop at the first one you fail (if any).

Winning: The first person to reach the target distance is the winner. In case of a tie for distance, the tied competitors turns occur simultaneously; if several would win at the same time, the winner is the person who went the farthest. If they went an equal distance, the race is a tie!

Strategy: Going first in later rounds is advantageous, as it increases your chances to win. For example, if the goal is 100, you’re at 95, and your opponent is at 94, either of you would probably reach the goal with just one more turn. Since you’re ahead, though, you get to go first so you would win (unless you roll terribly!).

A 100-yard race takes about 4-5 turns, on average, and doesn’t punish you as much for pushing yourself and/or failing endurance checks. A 200-yard race, on the other hand, might take 10-15 rounds, since not only is it twice as long but competitors must also be more conservative when it comes to pushing themselves.

Sultan Abdurahman is 104 years old, and survived only by one of his nine grandchildren, Rasshid ibn Taj ibn Abdurahman, the current heir to the throne. Abdurahman is always accompanied by his advisor, Nazim, a man who seems almost as old as the king himself. Known only to the Sultan himself, Nazim is actually a genie who’s advised every sultan in the city’s history. Nazim is bound to three duties: enforce the city’s laws, ensure the city prospers, and follow the dictates of the sultan. Each of the duties is equally important and given equal weight.

The PCs arrive at a somewhat inopportune time, as the same night they arrive there is an assassination attempt on Sultan Abdurahman. The attempt is botched, and it is relatively easy to discover that Nazim was behind it.

If the PCs suggest to the Sultan that it was Nazim, he dismisses that as preposterous (since he believes Nazim cannot harm him) When confronted, Nazim is clearly despondent about the attack, but unapologetic. He explains that Abdurahman, though once a great and powerful leader, has simply grown too old. He is older than any mortal has any right to be, and his mind has been ravaged by age. The Sultan no longer looks after his city as he should, is easily confused and his memory is all but gone.

The laws of the city are very clear, though: so long as Abdurahman still draws breath, only he may lead it. Thus Nazim orchestrated the assassination attempt so that the leadership would pass to Rasshid.

As if to punctuate Nazim’s accusations, the next day the Sultan holds court, and many seek him out for help. He seems to listen to them, but when asked for aid he has no idea what was just said, but rather he was (for example) entranced by the memory of a monkey he once saw stealing a fig from a goat. Nazim does his best to cover up for the Sultan, but there is little that can be done.

Traditional means of fighting the creatures, which have come to be called slivers, have failed utterly, and now the king is starting a new tack. The court’s alchemist, and the king’s closest adviser, Tarangus Blaque, has been tasked with researching the creatures to find out how to get rid of them once and for all.

Having worked with the PCs before, and knowing this job will require reliable people, Tarangus sends for them personally. His first quest is a simple one; they must only capture one of the creatures, preferably one of the smaller ones (a sliver drone).

After the PCs acquire one of them, Tarangus studies it for a while, before deciding he needs a more potent specimen and sends the PCs out once more. On the bright side, Tarangus has concocted a salve which, applied to the crest of the creatures, should incapacitate them.

This time, it seems as though the slivers were expecting the PCs and set a trap for them. When the PCs do manage to acquire one of them, if they tell Tarangus about the trap, he will be quite surprised. He does not believe such creatures are capable of such complicated tactics; there must be a more intelligent mind guiding them.

Eventually, he discovers that the slivers communicate and identify each other with a specialized gland. If the PCs can procure more sliver drones (one for each PC), he believes he can make a “disguise” which would allow them to enter the hive and explore further.

He gives them some more of the sedative he’d created to aid them and accompanies them in their task. This time, the PCs discover that the slivers have adapted and are no longer affected by the sedative, complicating the task once more.

When the PCs capture the requisite slivers, Tarangus creates their “disguises.” Essentially, he takes the gland of each sliver and puts it in a small phial filled with a preserving compound. These phials are hung as pendants from each PCs neck. Finally, he warns them of two things:

1. Even preserved, the glands will not last for more than about an hour.
2. If, as he suspects, a more intelligent creature leads the slivers, it will likely be able to see through the disguises. They should be careful if they discover the leader and avoid being seen by it.

Tarangus gives the PCs a large barrel filled with a special blend of his own explosives. Their final task is to find somewhere within the lair to detonate it which will cause the most damage to the hive, and to determine if indeed there is a leader. If there is, the PCs should not allow the vile thing to escape.

A 10′x10′ trigger plate is located about 40 feet down-slope from the junction; if anyone steps on it, a door slams shut over the original corridor, trapping whoever’s in there on the slope. A moment later, a huge cylindrical boulder drops at the top of the slope and begins accelerating towards the PCs. The boulder is 10-feet wide and 10 feet in diameter, filling the tunnel from side to side and leaving only a few feet between it and the ceiling.

At the end of the tunnel, where lights can be seen, a gelatinous cube waits, filling the doorway. Due to the refraction of the lights streaming in from behind it, the gelatinous cube is easier to spot than normal (DC 20 perception check instead of DC 25). A counter-weighted trap door at the end of the hallway collects the boulder in a storage area beneath the hallway, preventing the boulder from splattering the gelatinous ooze.

Level 5 Obstable, 200 xp (doesn’t include experience for gelatinous cube)

Trap: A boulder runs the PCs down, damaging them and herding them into a waiting gelatinous cube.
Perception:

• DC 12: The character notices the hole from which the boulder drops at the top of the slope.
• DC 22: The character notices the trigger plate.
• DC 17: The character notices the trap door the boulder falls into at the end.
• DC 25: The character notices the gelatinous cube at the end of the hall. Characters within 6 squares of the cube get a +5 circumstance bonus to this check due to the refraction of the light passing through the cube’s body from behind.

Initiative: +7
Speed: 4
Trigger: A character steps on the trigger plate.

Attack
Free action, whenever the boulder moves into a creature.
+10 vs. Reflex
Hit: 2d8+4 damage, and the target is knocked prone. Additionally, the target is pushed along with the boulder, ending in front of it down-slope.
Miss: As hit, but half damage and the target is not knocked prone.

Countermeasures

• A character can jam the trigger plate, allowing safe passage. DC 17 Thievery. Complexity 1 skill challenge (4 successes before 3 failures). Success prevents the door from jamming shut or the boulder from dropping, though the gelatinous cube is still at the end of the tunnel. Failure triggers the trap.
• A character can try to hold the boulder back. Stopping it after it’s started rolling required a DC 22 athletics check. Keeping it stationary after it’s already stopped requires a DC 17 athletics check.
• Characters may force the trap door at the end of the hallway open with a DC 17 athletics check. Inside there is ample room to hide and dodge the boulder when it falls.
• Characters may defeat the gelatinous goo or otherwise bypass it.

Not long after discovering it, the PCs are ambushed by what would best be described as ninjas. Dressed in simple black wrappings, they are skilled and swift combatants, intent on stealing the sword by any means necessary, though they are desperate and that desperation makes them reckless and sloppy.

After the PCs defeat the ninja, some will likely be left behind or captured. Removing the PCs mask, they find blackened skin covered in boils and maggot-filled pustules. The captured ninja is all too happy to answer any questions the PCs might have, his cracked lips splitting as they curve into a devilish grin.

The ninja are all former owners of the sword. It brought glory and power to each of them, and then abandoned them. Afterwards, they found themselves slowly twisted into their current form. Like the PC, they had each been hunted by the ninja when they possessed the sword, and afterwards it was not difficult to locate the ninja.

In a nutshell, the sword steals its bearer’s soul. Without his soul, the bearer becomes immortal, not quite undead so much as beyond the reach of death. It is a wretched existence, described something like being forever breathless, thirsty and starving. Even if decapitated or burnt to cinders, you will come back to life whole under the following new moon.

The ninja believe that only by capturing the sword can they regain their souls and finally find the rest of the grave. Unfortunately, it is not so easy. The sword will not allow itself to be given away and will do everything it can to remain in the possession of its bearer until such time as it decides to leave. The ninja hope that killing the PC might allow them to possess the sword.

Then, a few days later, the sword disappears…

Something happened recently, though. The ogres have formed a new raiding party, but this one has otten much farther. They’ve already sacked 3 villages and fought off two militias and a unit of the king’s best. The king hires the PCs to find out what’s gotten into the ogres.

The catalyst of these events is a blight on the ogres’ crops– specifically, on their hops and other plants important in the production of their alcohol. When the alcohol supply dried up, it enraged the ogres. On top of that, without the constant inebriation dulling their senses and judgment, it turns out that they’re amazingly skilled fighters and tacticians, taking full advantage of their size, the terrain, and other factors to defeat any who challenge them.

Things quickly proceed down hill from there. The dragon accidentally toasts a cherished mount, demolishes buildings with its tail, and claims anything that’s valuable and not nailed down as its own (as well as quite a few things which are nailed down). Through it all the dragon is very kind to the PCs, for example throwing a feast in their honor (”borrowing” all of a village’s cattle and grains to do so, of course).

It also fills them with a deep obsession, leading them to go to extreme lengths to win their love’s affections. A few days after the mirror is installed, people all over town are going insane. Friends and siblings fight and sometimes even kill each other due to the madness.

Doing some investigation, the PCs might find out that Arnett’s uncle was killed when he was a boy in a duel for a maid’s honor, and his grandfather killed a man to win over his grandmother. Shattering the mirror will release the fae, which must then be killed or bargained with to release everyone from its glamour.