It’s a real-world holiday, so you know what that means. It’s time for a thematic adventure! With romance in the air for Valentine’s Day, I decided to do something romance-adjacent. So I present you with this little one-shot featuring a character seemingly made for Valentine’s Day, Sliberberg’s resident matchmaker, and hack romance writer Lady Aisling Bellefontaine.

Background

Among the gentry and peerage of New Mountainheart and Sliberberg, you will not find a noblewoman more obsessed with love than Lady Aisling Bellefontaine. An eladrin perpetually in spring, she is the city’s self-proclaimed greatest expert on romance and the city’s most prolific matchmaker despite her less-than-stellar record in finding her own true love. She is working to get no less than a dozen couples together at any given time. She uses this voracious appetite to feed her true passion, writing the sort of lurid dime romance novels that populate the paperback sections of most libraries and bookstores.

Recently, however, a couple she has been meticulously cultivating for months—whom Aisling was certain was mere weeks away from their grand romantic climax- has faltered. Emmerich Eisenwald , the son of a knight vassal of one the resident’s peers in the city, has been swept off her feet by a mysterious and unnaturally beautiful and wickedly charming temptress by the name of Isadora del Fuego, leaving the poor Rosamund von Silberhain, the sweet and demure daughter of a close friend, utterly heartbroken. 

While Aisling loves relationship drama in all its forms, she is annoyed that a love story she invested so much in, one she was about to turn into her next novel, has taken such a dramatic reversal. Worse, it seems that  Emmerich is not returning to Rosa any time soon; the way he hangs on Emmerich arm like an expensive handbag makes Aisling wonder if there is more at play here and she needs a group of adventures to discover.

The Adventure begins.

The players are drinking in a pub, most likely the Iron Oak Inn or the Rose and Holly, when Lady Aisling Bellefontaine approaches them dressed in a poor and rather conspicuous

 disguise. She has been going from table to table, looking for adventures willing to help her. Read the following.

An eladrin woman with green hair, wearing a white dress with a red sash, oversized sunglasses, and a big white bonnet with a matching red ribbon, walks up to your table. She leans in conspiratorially and asks, ‘Do you mind if I sit here? I have an offer you might be interested in.’”

The woman introduces herself as Bella Fountain, the matriarch of the fountain family and the husband of the owner of the Fountain Merchant company.

Bella’s request. She explains that she has relatively simple job for a brave band of adventurers like themselves.  Her godson, Emmerich Eisenwald, has been acting strange in the last few weeks. He recently broke off his courtship with the kindhearted and demure Rosamund von Silberhain and is now spending all his time with an exotic newcomer to the city high society, a beautiful and voluptuous playgirl named Isadora del Fuego. 

Bella insists that there is something more going on than the mere fickle love of teenagers. When Emmerich is with Isadora, his personality changes drastically. The once proud son of knight becomes meek and submissive, following her commands like a trained puppy. Worse he is never far from Isadora’s side. She suspects that Emmerich has been charmed or hexed and would like the players to investigate and deal with Isadora if she has him under a spell. She can pay the players 300gp for their services.

Bad disguise. Aisling Bellefontaine is not particularly skilled at subterfuge, and her disguise is laughably transparent to anyone paying close attention.

• Any players with a noble background or professed interest in romance novels can see through her disguise and recognize her as Aisling Bellefontaine the infamous hack romance author,
•  A character who makes a DC 9 insight check will also recognize that the person in front of them is in disguise. 
• If the players do a DC 10 intelligence check, they will realize that the FOuntain trading company does not exist.

Aisling’s face shifts into a mask of demure shock. She is genuinely baffled that they saw through her disguise and insists that it was flawless. After dramatically sighing in defeat, she drops the act and confesses the true reason for her request.

She then tells them the actual story about how she is a childhood friend of Rosamund von Silberhain’s mother, Mary, and how the girl is practically her goddaughter. Mary had asked her to set Rosy up with a boy of good breeding and character, so she orchestrated a “classic meet-cute” between Rosamund and Emmerich, believing them to be a perfect match. Things were going smoothly for the couple, and it seemed that Emmerich was on the verge of proposing when Isadora swept in out of nowhere and swept him off his feet.

Aisling is furious that her carefully cultivated love story has gone awry, but more importantly, she genuinely worries for Rosamund’s happiness. If Emmerich is truly ensorcelled, then it is the players’ duty to set things right.

Taking in the Nightlife

If the players agree to undertake the quest, Aisling is practically giddy at the thought. She tells the players that Isadora and Emmerich have been spending every night in Nachtglanzviertel, taking in every show, gala, gallery, and expensive shop they can. Just look for the raven-haired and olive-skinned beauty in a provocative red dress leading a dreamy-eyed slack-jaw blond hair dope around, and they will find them.

When the players leave the tavern, if one of them has a passive perception 12 or makes a perception check DC 12, they notice Aisling following along, trying and failing to be discrete.

Once the players arrive in Nachtglanzviertel, it does not take long to find their quarry among the artists, revelers, and performers flitting from venue to venue in the light of lanterns, street lights and venue windows. Read the following

It only takes a few minutes of searching before you see them. A young lady with raven black hair, olive skin, piercing green eyes, and a perfect face is leading a young man by the arm from an expensive restaurant onto the busy street. She wears an elegant red silk dress with ample lace and a scandalously plunging neckline that shows off her ample bosom. Every eye in the crowd is fixed upon her, and she playfully revels in the attention, giving her admirers sweet smiles, playful glances, and occasionally blown kisses disguised by her silk fan. The boy at her side is, in stark contrast, looks dazed, as though he is sleepwalking. His blood hair is slightly disheveled, his fine doublet is open at the color, and his face has a dreamy look.

Isadora del Fuego and Emmerich Eisenwald have just left an exclusive restaurant on the way to the next destination on their “date,” an opera at Elmwood Hall. The succubus Isadora is enjoying playing the playgirl temptress and reveling in the attention, the adoration, and most of all, the luxuries of city life away from the lower planes. She is planning on draining Emmerich dry tonight and moving on to her next target after the show. The players have one shot to save Emmerich, but first, they need to get close enough to him to confirm he under a spell and to dispel the effect.

Roleplaying the couple. Isadora is irresistible to men in this form, and she knows it. When approached by the players, she will alternate between playfully flirting with the male members of the party and amused condescension. If the players try to get details on her background or where she came from, she will skillfully deflect the question and shift the conversation to make the players feel foolish for answering. If the party insists on interfering, she will accuse them of being overprotective of Emmerich and insist that he is “a grown man capable of making his own decisions.” 

Emmerich will act like he is in a trance. He will respond sluggishly to everything except when Isadora touches him, and he will struggle to recall specifics about how they met or anything that happened in the last few days.

Something is off with Emmerich. The players can quickly determine that something is off with Emmerich by how he acts, but it is not clear that he is under a spell, and Isadora will insist that he is merely drunk and tired. However, several clues point to the truth of the matter

• .Insight (DC 12): A character notices that Emmerich is behaving like a man under a trance—his reactions are sluggish, and he only perks up when Isadora touches him.
• Religion or Arcana (DC 13): A character familiar with fiends or enchantments recognizes telltale signs of magical enthrallment—Emmerich’s vacant look, his occasional twitches, and his utter lack of independent thought.
• Detect Magic (or similar ability): Reveals an ongoing enchantment effect on Emmerich.

Something is off with Isadora. After interacting with her for a few minutes, it should be clear to the players that something is not quite right with her. If they are perspective, they should be able to pick it up

• Divine Sense (Paladin Feature): Detects Isadora as a fiend.
• Isadora has unnaturally strong control over the room. A player with high Wisdom or Insight (DC 14) might notice that how people react to her is not normal attraction—it’s overpowering.
• Perception (DC 14): While flirting with a wealthy nobleman in the crowd, Isadora’s shadow flickers unnaturally in the lantern light, showing a silhouette with bat-like wings for just a second.
  • Alternatively, the player might pick up the faint scent of brimstone from her perfume.

Breaking the spell. Once the players are confident that Emmerich is under a spell, they must figure out how to break it. A player can make a dc 15 arcana or religion check to figure out how to break the spell. The spell can be broken using the following methods.

• A kiss on the lips from Rosamund
• Protection from Good and Evil
• Lesser Restoration
• Killing Isadora 
• Isadora using her charm ability on someone else

When the spell is broken, Emmerich suddenly snaps out of his trance, gasping as if waking from a deep dream. His first words: “Where… am I?”

Out of the frying pan and into the fire

As Emmerich senses return to him Isadora throws a fit. “Why couldn’t you no good meddlers leave well enough alone,” she shouts as she stamps her foot, “I am going to make you pay for taking such an exquisite soul from me.” Her skin darkens and turns red, small horns appear on her forehead, and a pair of devil wings sprout from her back. She glares in your direction and howls her rage between sharpened teeth. Three jackal-headed creatures with sabers step out of the shadows. 

Despite having rescued Emmirch from his fate, things have worsened. Isadora is now furious at the players and has decided to drop all pretense of being a sexy heartthrob and reveal her true nature as a Succubus. Worse, she has brought friends; she summons three jackalweres to serve as bodyguards.

Human shields. Isadora will use her flying speed to stay out of reach of the players, letting her jackalweres do the actual fighting and swooping in to use her Multiattack or charm ability whenever possible. However, once the first jackalwere falls, she will swoop into the crowd to grab a random person to charm and turn into her living shield, hoping to use any noble sentiments the players possess against them. She forces the shield to fight for her and threatens to drain the hostage dry if the players try to press the attack against her.  Roll on the following table to determine what sort of person she grabs.

D8	NPC
1	commoner
2	noble
3	bard
4	veteran
5	knight
6	watchman
7	priest
8	thug

Conclusion

With Isadora banished back to the lower planes, Emmirch quickly returns to his senses and his old self. He quickly apologizes to Rosamund, and the two share a heartwarming scene before disappearing into the crowd. Feel free to make the scene as mushy as you desire. As for Aseling, she is ecstatic and excitedly talking to herself, seemingly drafting a plot on the spot. The whole affair of a succubus seducing the male protagonist away from the female protagonist will make for an excellent plotline for one of her novels. She won’t include the story based on Emmirch and Rosamund’s love story, but she will definitely use it. She gives the players the agreed-upon amount of gold and offers to sign copies of her books.