Axe from the Grave - Keys from the Golden Vault

Axe from the Grave. An Adventure for 6th-Level Characters Famed bard Froderic Dartwild is dead, and his beautiful mandolin, called Golden Axe, has been stolen from his grave. Even worse, Froderic has risen as a zombie, terrifying the hamlet of Toadhop. In this heist, the characters must track down Golden Axe from the music school owner who stole it and return it to Froderic so the bard can rest peacefully in death once again. A chasme demon aims to thwart a bard's bold escape from Skalderang Conservatory Adventure Background Froderic Dartwild-Frody to those who knew him well-was a gifted human bard born and raised in the hamlet of Toadhop. He could play the mandolin by age three and performed regularly at Toadhop's local tavern until his eighteenth year, when he left this bucolic backwater and became an adventurer. But his adventuring exploits paled in comparison to his reputation as a performer. So gifted a musician was he that an admiring wizard gave Frody an Instrument of the Bards, Canaith Mandolin-a famous Canaith mandolin called Golden Axe. The mandolin's magic served Frody well during his many adventures but wasn't enough to save his life. On a crisp autumn day, Frody and his companions were beset by manticores on a lonely stretch of road, and Frody was killed by a manticore's tail spike. Frody's body was returned to Toadhop and laid to rest in the earth next to his mother, Veena, and his sister, Marigold. Golden Axe was buried with him. Shortly after Frody was interred, a tiefling named Sythian Skalderang, who lived many miles away, learned of the famous bard's untimely death. Sythian had inherited his parents' estate and debts, but a mysterious poison killed off the family's olive orchard, leaving him with nothing but the mansion and its furnishings. Those furnishings included a multitude of musical instruments Sythian's parents had bought in the hopes of making him a musical prodigy. While he excelled at none of the instruments, he realized he could pay...