The Lanterns Beneath Velloran

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investigation and rescue

The Lanterns Beneath Velloran

Lvl 34 to 5One 4 to 6 hour session· medium

“When the lanterns die, the city remembers what it buried.”

— Hook · investigation and rescue

QuestgiverMagistrate Ilyra Voss

Investigation and rescue

D&D 5E

Medium

Lvl 3

4 to 5

One 4 to 6 hour session

4 NPCs

3 encounters

The Opening

“The river ward has gone dark block by block, and with each blackout, someone vanishes near the storm drains. Magistrate Voss begs for discreet help before panic spreads beyond control. Find what is feeding on the city's light, and bring back the missing before the next lamp goes out.”
— Hook · investigation and rescue

Set the Scene

The magistrate's office smells of rain-soaked paper and hot wax. As the last of the daylight fades through the shutters, an assistant drags in a map marked with six black circles, each one where a lantern failed and a person disappeared.

Patron

Questgiver

Magistrate Ilyra Voss

formal plea with a time limit and a promise of legal cover

On the Streets · In the Books

Rumours

d5 · table

01
The lamps only fail after midnight, when the bells stop ringing.
02
People hear footsteps under locked cellar floors before a blackout begins.
03
The city watch has quietly removed several missing-person notices from public walls.
04
Someone in the pump house has been buying lamp oil in quantities too small for a normal ward.
05
A singer in the drain tunnels knows the names of the vanished.

Stakes

If the party fails, the river ward slides into fear and blame, and an entire hidden community may be erased by civic force or sink back into secrecy.

Ticking Clock·At each passing hour, another ward lamp fails. By midnight, the blackout will reach the magistrate's hall, and at dawn the city watch will authorize a sweep of the undercity.

Background Lore

The city of Velloran is built in layers: new avenues above, old tunnels below, and older secrets beneath that. For years, the river ward has depended on a network of lamp-lit maintenance channels that keep the undercity dry and the streets safe from sinkholes. Recently, the lamps have begun to go dark one block at a time, and with each blackout, people vanish near the storm drains.

What the World Knows

A string of nightly blackouts is linked to disappearances in Velloran's river ward. The magistrate hires the party to investigate the darkened streets, trace the missing residents, and stop whatever is causing the city lamps to fail. What begins as a civic emergency becomes a descent into the undercity, where the party must choose between exposing a hidden danger and saving people who were forced to live in secrecy.