Adventure Hook Index Card #003. A new card released every Saturday on Twitter by @jmason333.
The Cock Strikes Twelve
The adventurers have been requested by Lady Adelina of the Ainsworth estate to protect her family from a mysterious cult that has recently begun harassing them. Her daughter, Amelia, is aged eight. Her father, Harold, is sickly and in life’s twilight. The mansion is inhabited by the three of them along with a handful of simple servants.
The Ainsworths are known to be a fantastically wealthy, and there’s no question that the Lady can afford the hefty payment that’s been offered in return for protection.
When investigating the cult the adventurers learn that it is comprised of men; thralls in service to a succubus queen. They have been commanded to retrieve Adelina and Amelia upon Harold’s death, claiming them both as the queen’s own property. The thralls will attempt to murder the adventurers for meddling, but in the process of the confrontation the heroes learn the truth of the matter…
Adelina is the half-succubus daughter of the queen, and Harold isn’t her father, but rather her husband and true love. Seventy years ago she was sent by her mother to claim his soul, but found him to be a good man; and subsequently fell in love and married him. To save her lover’s soul, Adelina made a pact with her mother, swearing that she and the life she created with Harold would be surrendered to her, but only if the two were allowed to remain together in peace for the remainder of Harold’s natural life. The two parented Amelia thirty years past, but her aging process is dramatically slowed by her infernal lineage.
With Harold’s life drawing to a close, the queen has sent her thralls to claim what is hers, and Adelina is desperate to save her daughter from the queen’s clutches. When confronted with the truth, Adelina still begs the adventurers to help her save Amelia.
Three days after the adventurers’ arrival, at the stroke of midnight, Harold draws his last breath while in Adelina’s arms. The thralls immediate descend upon the estate. If they are thwarted, then the succubus queen herself arrives to claim what was promised to her.
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