An oasis is a life-saver for wanderers, traders and those who are simply just lost in the desert. However, there is one particular oasis which the nomads speak off with fear, and tell all others to avoid at all cost. Those who wander into the area around oasis, beautiful though it is and filled with bountiful supply of fruits, would never leave it again.
- It seems that what the nomads say are true; a community of about a hundred have settled about the oasis, and leaving the small settlement is a no for them. They will gladly trade, but at the same time they would also persuade any travelers to stay for a few days, and after those few days, not to leave at all. The water in the oasis is to blame. It is a form of water elemental which has gain some semblance of life (for it is magically created with a ritual which require the sacrifice of a human being) and it requires monthly sacrifices to survive. It has altered its water’s properties such that drinking it over time would encharm the drinker. However, if the elemental is destroyed, those people will be freed, and not to mention that upon vanquishing the elemental, all that would be left of it are crystal fragments, a potent reagent for spells, rituals and alchemly.
- Skeletons of all kinds, deserted caravans, wagons filled with dried, dehydrated food surround the oasis. The water from the oasis tastes pleasant enough, and there don’t seem to be any immediate danger. However, the adventurers would realise that despite how they try, they would always walk around in circle and returns to the oasis. There is only water, but no food, and unless with sorcery, the adventurers would eventually die. The oasis is part of a time-lock, cast by a sorcerer with good intentions who wish to preserve it so weary travelers could benefit from it. However the plan backfired – it changes the space around the oasis such that those who enter would not exit (the timelock extends for a sphere of about five miles). The only way out is to undo the time-lock, and that requires the adventurers to travel through a portal deep in the middle of the oasis. Clues left by a sage who died may allow the adventurers to find the time-lock. A time-lock always take a form of a mystical dungeon that mirrors the surrounding.
- The nomads are lying; the oasis is normal, and it’s deep; what’s more, it is near to a source of precious minerals and they do not wish anyone to locate those mines. Hence they came up with the story that the oasis is posionous and dangerous, in order to deter people from coming close by. But one of the nomad clans, not happy with the share of minerals which they are getting, may let loose the secret, and by that time…the other clans may really make the oasis dangerous, by releasing snakes into the water, letting loose scoprions in the area or even summon a sand-devil to intercept all intruders.
Adventure Types: Devious Schemes, Exotic Locations, Perilous Places, There Lies Monsters
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