The Book of Macguffin is, as its name implies, a Macguffin. Its sole purpose is to get the plot moving.
The Book of Macguffin is a set of botanical notes by a long-dead sage. It is of no value to the player characters even if they gain possession of it, since it has no intrinsic value and there is no-one who would be prepared to buy it. The players should be able to work this out for themselves, but if they don't, drop enough hints until they catch on.
The Institutes of Atlantis and the College of Knowledge in Megalopolis both want the book for themselves. Civic pride is at stake, particularly since each organisation knows that the other one also wants the book.
Diviners have determined that the book is somewhere in the Wilderness on the world of Salta.
The book is not so valuable that either organisation can afford to pay high level adventurers to recover it. What they have done instead is to train low level adventuring parties. Assume that each organisation will send a well balanced party of about a dozen second-level adventurers. The race proper will start when these two parties complete their training.
The player characters are too late to join either of these two parties. The race proper starts soon. If the player characters are tardy about accepting their commission, the race may even have started already.
The purpose of the Book of Macguffin is to send several low-level adventuring parties to an unexplored wilderness.
The parties' reactions to one another depend on their particular missions. Most of these involve recovering the Book of Macguffin for their assorted sponsors, so misdirection and trickery are likely.
For the most part, the parties all want everyone to return safely (if empty handed). Parties will not fight one another or lead one another into lethal traps. Most parties will rescue another party which has fallen into a lethal trap.
How the player characters react if they come across another party which has fallen into a lethal trap is up to them. Word about how they react will spread quickly.
If the player characters fall into a trap and manage to stabilise the situation, sooner or later one of the other parties will show up. Unless word has spread that the player characters have themselves turned their back on other adventurers in distress, they will be rescued.
If the player characters fall into a trap and fail to stabilise the situation, they die.
The wilderness may appear in due course. Until then, if you have a wilderness of your own prepared, that will do. Have the player characters (and all the other contestants) start at one end and place the Book of Macguffin somewhere reasonably obvious at the other end, following the adventure outline below.
The furtive contact does not represent the Institutes of Atlantis. She is a servant of Erl Viabinodis's sister, the one who has married into the Atlantean aristocracy. It is Viabinodis who has organised the party representing the Institutes, and there is family prestige as well as civic pride at stake.
Apart from this initial untruth, her story is essentially true. If the player characters accept her commission, they will be teleported to Salta, probably in time to see the two official parties set off.
If the player characters deal fairly with her, Viabinodis's sister and her husband will deal fairly with them. In particular, they will keep their promises. Atlantean aristocratic honour requires this.
Everything Tapeen Wswfirn tells the player characters is true. Sort of.
Wswfirn and sons is the only publisher in the Fifty Worlds to use moveable type. That is because, although moveable type has been invented in several places on several worlds, it had never been able to compete successfully with woodblock printing, which is known and used in every city. Woodblock printing is straightforward, and woodblock craftsmen are skilled and reasonably cheap. Moveable type printing requires expensive printing presses, and typesetting is fiddly and time consuming.
It was Tapeen Wswfirn's grandfather who had the bright idea of using moveable type to print restaurant menus. There are so many restaurants in Atlantis that by doing this he was able to recoup the investment required to set up printing presses. Nowadays, all of the restaurants in Atlantis have menus printed by Wswfirn and Sons.
All of this will be common knowledge in Atlantis, and the player characters can find it out by asking.
What Tapeen Wswfirn does not tell the player characters is that he works for the Secret Police. His true motivation in recruiting the player characters to steal the book is to ensure that it really is the harmless Macguffin that everyone says it is, rather than something which could pose a threat to the city.
Tapeen Wswfirn will attempt to seduce any attractive female party member. If his initial attempts fail, he will use charm spells, but he will not use force.
If Tapeen Wswfirn seduces one of the party members, he will ensure that she is well prepared for a wilderness adventure (any non-magical equipment she is likely to need will be provided, whether she asks for it or not, and it will all be top quality). Otherwise, equipping the party is the responsibility of the player characters.
Everything Kryptos tells the player characters is true. And why not? He and the player character are both chaotic good, living as best they can in an oppressively lawful society.
If the player characters accept his commission, Kryptos will ask his friend Xukry to take them to Salta, and Xukry will agree. Xukry will then vanish and play no other part in the proceedings until such time as the player characters return.
If the player character belongs to one of the gangs of Qwanet, the head of that gang approaches him and briefs him about the Book of Macguffin.
The gang does not actually know a lot about the Book of Macguffin. What they do know is that a lot of people are going in search of it. So it must be valuable, mustn't it?
The gang will send the player character, and as many companions as seems appropriate, to Salta to get the book.
The player character's job is to retrieve the book. How the player character goes about this is a detail, and the gang boss is not interested in details. Just results.
If the player character does retrieve the book, his problems are only just beginning. There is no way that the gang boss will believe that there has been all this fuss about a few botany notes. The gang boss will deduce (plausibly if incorrectly) that the player character has stashed the real book somewhere and substituted this irrelevant trash. The player character will be tortured, and when that doesn't work, he will be allowed to escape, so that the gang can follow him to where he has hidden the real book.
Sensible player characters should know better than to return to Qwanet with the book. As long as they do not go anywhere obvious (such as Atlantis or Megalopolis) they should be safe enough. The power of the gangs of Qwanet is limited, and they do not have the resources to chase absconding gangsters all over the Fifty Worlds.
The adventurers have been told to seek a castle on the other side of the continent. They know roughly what the castle looks like, and will be able to recognise it when they see it. They also know roughly where the castle is, but only roughly. The adventure thus subdivides into five stages:
There are three plausible routes from the starting point to the castle:
Different parties will choose different routes. The player characters may choose whichever route they think they are best prepared for.
Whichever route the party takes, the journey will be approximately 1000 miles (the castle is about 600 miles from the starting point as the crow flies). The journey will be difficult - this is unexplored wilderness. Ten miles a day is reasonable, and fifteen miles a day is fast.
There will be a set encounter (usually a monster in its lair) about once every 50 miles. If more than one party is following this route, the first one to reach the encounter spot gets the encounter, and all that subsequent parties find is the remains of a slain monster.
The difficulty of set encounters should be such that about six of them are enough to give everyone in the party enough experience to gain a level.
There will be a wandering monster about once a day. If more than one party is following this route, each party gets a separate wandering monster unless the two parties are within a mile of each other.
Wandering monster are there to annoy the party, wear it down and slow it down, not (usually) to kill them outright. The difficulty of wandering monster encounters should, on average, be such that about thirty of them are enough to give everyone in the party enough experience to gain a level.
The official Atlantis party will travel by the central (rivers and mountains) route.
The official Megalopolis party will travel by the southern (desert) route.
The unofficial Atlantis party sent by Viabinodis's sister will travel by the southern (desert) route unless led by the player characters, in which case the player character chooses the route.
The unofficial Atlantis party sent by Tapeen Wswfirn will travel by the northern (forest) route unless led by the player characters, in which case the player character chooses the route.
The unofficial Megalopolis party sent by Kryptos will travel by the northern (forest) route unless led by the player characters, in which case the player character chooses the route.
A party sent by the Rainbow Circles gang of Qwanet will travel by the central (rivers and mountains) route unless led by the player characters, in which case the player character chooses the route.
A party sent by the Yellow Circles gang of Qwanet will travel by the central (rivers and mountains) route unless led by the player characters, in which case the player character chooses the route.
If the player character is a member of one of the other gangs of Qwanet, the party they send will travel by whatever route the player character chooses.
Some parties may find the journey too difficult, or suffer losses, and turn back.
The player characters are within fifty miles of the castle. They do not know where it is, or even in what direction it is, but they do have a good description of it, so they will recognise it when they see it.
Depending on their level of competence, it may take them anywhere from three to thirty days to find the castle.
There are about thirty set encounters within a fifty-mile radius of the castle. The first party to get to the encounter spot gets the encounter. Anyone else either finds dead monsters, dead adventurers, or live adventurers in need of rescue.
Parties maintaining a steady search pattern get about one set encounter every three or four days, but parties retracing their steps do not get the same set encounter twice.
As before, there will be about one wandering monster encounter per day. An intelligent wandering monster might know where the castle is, and if approached politely might tell the player characters. Then again, a really intelligent wandering monster will also know where the set encounters are, and lead the player characters into a trap.
Note that it is important to keep track of where the other parties are at any particular time. They will not all arrive in the region at the same time - some will have travelled across country faster than others - and some will have better ideas about finding the castle than others.
The book is somewhere in the castle, but the player characters do not know where. They must search the castle.
The upper part of the castle is inhabited by orcs. There are far too many orcs there for taking them on in battle to be a reasonable plan. The player characters must either sneak around the castle while hiding from the orcs (not easy) or send the orcs out on a wild goose chase (not difficult).
If the orcs go out on a wild goose chase, this will make so much noise that anyone within a ten mile radius will know that something is going on. Intelligent parties should be able to find the orcs and track them back to the castle when the orcs realise that they have been had.
The staircases leading down into the castle dungeons are covered with slimes and oozes and other disgusting things. The orcs know about them, treat them with a healthy respect, and never go into the dungeons.
The dungeons themselves contain several monsters. All but one of them are relatively weak and easy to dispose of.
The remaining monster is a beholder. By a curious coincidence, the book which everyone seeks is in the beholder's lair, and the book isn't going anywhere until the beholder is dead.
Note: unless they enter the castle and find the slain beholder, it is not obvious to the other parties that the book has been found.
Parties travelling back the way they came travel more quickly: fifteen miles per day is reasonable, and twenty miles per day is fast.
Parties travelling back by a route other than the one they took coming travel more slowly: ten miles per day is reasonable, and fifteen miles per day is fast.
There are no set encounters on the way back. All of the monsters have been disposed of.
As before, there will be one wandering monster per day.
The party with the book will go back the way it came, and will set off as soon as they have it.
Other parties have a choice: follow the party with the book, or admit defeat and go back the way they came. Note: unless they enter the castle and find the slain beholder, it is not obvious to the other parties that the book has been found, who has it, or which route they took going back.
Catching up with the party with the book will not be easy, especially for a party which came by a different route. It is, nevertheless, the only chance they have to get hold of the book while still in the wilderness.
Finally, one of the parties makes it back to the starting point with the Book of Macguffin.
If they are the first party back, they have won the contest. All that remains is to see how many other parties return.
If one or more of the other parties returned before them, there is one last chance to steal the book.
The safe return of the successful party will be celebrated by a wild party, which, as usual, will degenerate into a drunken orgy. Anyone remaining sober and celibate has a chance to steal the book while no-one is paying all that much attention. After all, everyone knows who returned with the book, and everyone knows that the book isn't really all that valuable, so it will not be well guarded.
Everyone will know which party returned with the book, and so nominally won the contest, but the real contest is about prestige, not about the book. Losing the book at the last hurdle loses a lot of prestige. Kryptos, for one, would be just as happy to see his party steal the book during the drunken orgy as obtain it in any other way. Either they steal it from the official Atlantis party, in which case it is Kryptos's cunning rather than Quentin's meticulous preparation which has saved the day, or they steal it from the official Megalopolis party, which makes Quentin look a like a complete and utter idiot.
When everyone sobers up, the morning after the drunken orgy, they all go home. Whoever has the book at that point has won the contest. All that remains is to see how many other parties return.