Oasis of the White Palm

The adventure “Oasis of the White Palm” is a stand-alone adventure that also can be played as the second part of the “Desert of Desolation” trilogy. It continues the Egyptian/desert theme that started in “Pharaoh”. The module provides excellent role-playing opportunities as the party encounters an oasis town with three factions competing for power. There is some desert/wilderness travel, two dungeons to explore and a princess to be rescued.

The wilderness encounters that start the adventure are mostly a repeat of the encounters in the first part of the trilogy, I3-Pharaoh. The main table of random rumors has 3 false rumors and 7 true rumors. All of the true rumors are related to other adventures in the trilogy. In other words, none of the rumors are relevant to this adventure. There is a supplemental table of 10 rumors known by NPCs which are relevant to the adventure.

The Oasis of the White Palm is where things get interesting. The Sheik has identical twin sons, with the oldest about to be wed. The younger son has allied himself with a secretive cult that wants to return to “the old Thune ways”. The cultists want to kill the Sheik and the older son and put the younger son in power. The sand voyagers’ guild was secretly taken over by slave traders, and they are trying to remain hidden from the sheik while keeping the guild as a front. They are willing to work with the cultists if the cultists leave the slave trade operations alone once they come into power.
The bride of the Sheik’s son has markings on her palm indicating she is betrothed to the royal family, and also that she is part of a prophesy to defeat an ancient evil. The Sheik offers the party an important medallion if they offer to help find the bride. Meanwhile the Sheik has sent several of his loyal troops to help defeat an ancient evil, an Efreet that is rampaging across the desert. As the party investigates the missing bride, they’ll have an opportunity to discover the hidden cultists and slavers.

The Efreet, who was freed in adventure I3-Pharaoh, is the ancient evil foretold in the prophesy. The Efreet recently appeared to the cultists and asked them for the bride. The cultists asked the slavers for help kidnapping the bride. On the same night that the cultists and slavers planned to kidnap the bride, the Efreet found her and took her away. The cultists and the slavers don’t know that the Efreet has the girl, and they each suspect each other: the cultists think the slavers are holding out for more money, the slavers don’t know what the cultists are doing. The Sheik and the older son want the bride returned so the marriage can take place.

To make things more confusing, both the cultists and the slavers operate out a single dungeon below the oasis. The two halves of the dungeon have two different entrances and are connected via a secret door that neither party knows about. Once the party explores one half of the dungeon, they are very likely to discover the other half (since they carry a gem of seeing discovered in Pharaoh or granted in the introduction if playing this as a stand-alone adventure.) The slavers half of the dungeon has the imprisoned sand-voyager guild leader, and the Cult half of the dungeon has an imprisoned slaver captain. The guild leader and the slaver captain think that the Efreet has the bride in another dungeon several miles away, in the crypt of Badr Al-Mosak.

At the crypt of Badr Al-Mosak, the party must negotiate a number of tricks, traps, and part of the undead army that the Efreet is gathering. When they meet the Efreet, the medallion provided by the Sheik blasts the Efreet who flees in 3 rounds. The party can find the bride, and by holding the medallion over the palm markings, they learn a secret ritual that will free a Djinn to fight off the Efreet.