The earth is shaking; sinkholes erupted throughout the countryside, walls have fell and the foundation of castles shook. And this is in a region not known for earthquakes, and no one has taken any precaution. The losses are devastating, and there don’t seem to be an end to the sudden quakes. The adventurers, if experience enough, would be asked to find out the cause of the troubles. If they are relatively unexperienced, they may be drawn into it somehow, perhaps when they fall through one of the crevices.
- A gigantic worm that dwelles beneath the ground used to roam and wreck havoc wherever it goes (think of the dhole from Call of Cthulhu) It has been gone from the region for hundreds of years, but the last couple has laid eggs, which would take decades to hatch. Now they have hatched, and a couple of young wormlings are learning just how to tear through the strata of the earth. Soon, they would be hungry, and they would emerge to the surface to feed.
- The earthquake and sinkholes soon escalated. Entire parts of the ground have collapsed, leaving gasping chasms. Cities and castles are isolated from each other. Down within one of the biggest of chasms, the adventurers could see a structure of sort, with many towers, encrusted into the ground. Each time an earthquake struck, more of the structure is revealed. Is the cause of the massive earthquake within that structure? It is, for long ago, countless years before, a civilisation which could cross planes visited worlds to which they could escape to when their own would be doomed, and this realm of existence was one they had chosen. They have erected “gate-towers”, which would allow them to escape from their own doomed home to their new home. Unfortunately, due to change to the earth strata, the temple is buried beneath the ground. The only way know, or so it seems, is to sabotage the temple; but that may mean the death of hundreds of thousands of the planar travellers who are trying to escape to this world…
- Earth golems soon began to stalk the countryside, destroying settlements and killing at whim. Crawling out from the various fissures are more earth golems, earth elementals and other creatures of elemental earth. A wily Earth Elementalist has struck a bargain with the reigning Spirit of Earth in the region, persuading it that the mortal folk’s building of cities, quarrying, using up the nutrients of the soil and so forth are a desecration, and have to be stopped. However, the Earth Elementalist has more than just keeping the purity of his element in mind. An ancient ward was once built in the area to safeguard the powerful Spirit, so that it may not be enslaved. The Elementalist will arrange for the ward to be ‘accidentically destroyed’ (perhaps by involving the adventurers?) so that he would enslave the Earth Spirit and its entire armies of golems and elementals…
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