Karangahake Mining Disaster

Karangahake Mining Disaster

Player quests: 1) Wants to be the ultimate local hero and destroy the monster lurking in the quarry 2) Searching for a golden urn, supposed to be hidden in one of the mines, which can be filled with the waters from the Owharoa Falls and then, if drunk from, makes the magical effects of those waters permanent 3) Believes his/her beloved sister is a prisoner in a tower and wishes to rescue her 4) His/her brothers were slaughtered the kobold leader, Grutox, and has taken a blood oath to take the kobold’s life

GM’s information to slip out to players:

·         Kobolds have overrun the old Karangahake gold mines, which were worked out some twenty years ago

·         The people of Mackay Town are resentful but not strong enough to drive them out

·         The kobolds have just begun to take townsfolk captive, to work in the mines

·         The mountains are steep and heavily wooded, paths are few and maps unreliable

·         The forest south of the main river is greatly feared because of a huge man-wolf who roams unchecked there; the trees there seem to move, sometimes opening areas up, sometimes closing glades like the noose of a hangman’s rope

·         There are three old mines: Crown, Victory and Woodstock

·         The old wagon tunnel to and from Mackay Town has long been a place of death and is never used  by townsfolk

·         There is an old tower named the Tower of the Blinking Light, which pulses ethereal blue light each night for three hours after midnight; it is supposed to be the tomb of a great elven wizard

·         The quarry is supposed to be home to a monster of fearsome reputation, of unguessable terror and power

·         The waters of the Owharoa Falls are supposed to have magical properties and are guarded by a strange spirit

·         Legend tells that the ancient burial site of Dickey Flat is more than a graveyard

·         A local myth is that the Black Tunnel leads not merely under the Waitawhata River but to the Underworld itself, the home of the spirits of murdered kindreds and monsters alike

·         A heavily armoured riverboat travels irregularly up and down the Ohinemuri River, captained by a savage Hill Giant