Faerie Encounters

[Evilhalfling]

The PCs in my game entered an area controlled by fay
Any suggestions for the effects of plucking a toadstool from a faerie ring and eating it?
- my players are nothing if not unpredictable.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Removed

 

[Evilhalfling]

That was pretty close, to my ruling, I went with the hallucinations of growing butterfly wings and the urge to get a running start, since they couldn't lift him directly.

it only lasted 3 hrs (per the groups ex-recreational drug user.)

So having no real plans this week, and since th e 3 heads in the well got such rave reviews I'm going to throw it in. Along with the house of bone.
the faerie wisdom will be H1 - "neither eat nor drink anything from the queens table" as they are on the way to see the Faerie queen (an ancient elven bard/lich)
this advice should be obvious, but its a low challenge after all
H2 - house of bone quote - Less obvious but still winnable if they don't get it.
H3 - Im not using the green knight, may use the crossroad, any chance of more info?

also the heads may attack varrgoyal like instead of curses - my player like a bit o violence and it was short on that last week.

The background
[sblock]In my world there have been rare sightings of standard D&D Fae ie. 1 dryad, a sea nymph, and a few hags, but no history of Faeries as presented here/in legends, the (mad) queen wants to change this, as she has visited other primes. My cosmology does have a plane of dreams, and the queen wants to carve a piece of it off to be a faerie world, transferring her long haunted forest over as the seed for this new demi-plane. Can she succeed? well she is a 850 yr old lich, (Bard/wild soul PrC) and insanity is just a bonus with plans like this.
[/sblock]

Ill let you know how it goes.

 

[Evilhalfling]

3 heads in a well.
first of all one the characters drinks from the well and is shocked when I tell him the water tastes pure and clean, with no saving throw or ill effects.
(He has had previously characters turned to stone and permanently cursed after drinking from wells/pools/fountains.)
He did feel a little nausea when the first calcified head floated into view.
he and the druid cleaned the heads, while the bard cleans, the house? ... I'm not sure why.

they managed the first, got cursed by the second, for the third they asked for the bards help - but were still not competent enough. Crying for revenge he starts biting them, and the second head joins in as well, the first head is contented and just sits happily in the grass. The party has fun hacking at them, and carefully bury the pieces after the battle.

The Bard then picks up the first head and stuffs it in his bag of holding!
I have no idea how this will turn out, a day later he hasn't checked it yet. any advice?

They pass by the House of Bone, and since this isn't actually Faerie land, only the land within about 100' is in winter. This bothers the druid alot. Its midnight and they decide to come back and check the house later.

The Queen
They go on to meet the queen and her retinue at dawn, (2 goblin knights, 3 ladies 1 with butterfly wings.) The queen hospitably offers breakfast and lays out a feast.
The characters try various reasons and explanations for why they are not eating, and the queen at one point tells her goblin knights to "take that one out into the forest and cut bits off him" Before being flattered out of it by party diplomats.

Finally one of the goblin knights throws food at a PC to get him to eat it, and a food fight breaks out. The queen dismisses the feast, and after telling the PCs to go fetch something for her rides off, leaving them with 3 pure white faerie steeds that will take them to the edge of her lands. (actually Phantom Steed) recognized as such by adventures (4/5 of party are spell casters)

The parties conclusion - that the queen was the least sane royal they had ever met.
just what I was going for a little Narnia, a little of Black Adder's- Elizabeth I


the Bone House II
Riding the steeds back past the house in the daylight, the party stops and goes to knock at the door. With no instructions, the party moves carefully, trying getting the hang of faerie rules. The text was perfect - and when they got the old man to come speak with them at the door rather than going in, he came muttering " now where is that trusty staff of mine.. ah here it is" and for a while he kept one hand out of sight behind the door.

The Old man kept asking for a glass of red - and when the PCs complained they had given all their wine to the queen, the perfect reply was obvious
"I don't drink ........wine"

They managed to figure out were dealing with 'Old Man Winter' when asked if he could leave the house, he stuck his head out the door sniffed the air and said yes, in about 3 months. Although tempted by a jeweled lire or the ash staff itself, the PCs decided they didn't like the odds and fled on the horses. - a reasonable choice.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Removed

 

[Evilhalfling]

Thread Necromancy for a good cause -
I need your help again RC

My players are heading back into the Fae Queens land to ask her for help.
This is not destined to go well - and the PCs should end up opposing her. Of course it has to be suitably mythic - So instead of being able to challange her directly they will be advised to take on the "seasonals" Fae who personify the seasons. They have already beaten fall (a ruin chanter from MMV) Old man winter will be taken/modified from here, and spring is an elven girl who the queen stole (and left a changling of course) in an earlier session.

What kind of Fae works best for summer? The only legend I found was Bride, held captive by a fae queen of wind & storms, and rescued by the King of summer.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/tsm/tsm05.htm

 

[Raven Crowking]

Removed

 

[Evilhalfling]

I have at least 2 weeks - since they already met winter they will probably go after him first.

as for CR 10-13 for a fight, but she could be a captive or require tricking out of her power, rather than just killing. Its the story quality that Im missing, but since this is one of three challanges to stop the true threat, it can't be a journey to the ends of the earth problem.

duskblade8,
Beguiler5/master of masks3,
Druid 8 & earth Ele companion
Cleric7(victory),
Fighter8 (merciful blade, won't kill)
and a cohort C5

in a previous game the cohort promised to marry the changeling - who is 8yrs old equivalent (as 60 elf) later explaining he would perform the marrage as soon as she was old enough, and found a husband.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Removed

 

[evilbob]

thread necromancy

It's been some time since this thread has been alive, but I wanted to post my own experiences with this excellent material. I came across this thread ages ago and immediately liked it; I've been dying to try it out since.

I started a new game this past weekend with level 6 characters - all played by new or relatively inexperienced D&D players - and ran the faerieland encounters as their first foray into the game. It was great! Everyone had a blast, and even though they generally didn't do the "right" thing it all came out right in the end and a good time was had by all.


First, I made a few modifications to the material. My characters were higher level, so I tried to make some of the encounters a bit tougher, and since I more closely follow the DMG treasure guidelines, the loot was toned down a bit. The main changes I made were:

- The ogres in the first encounter were taken straight from the MM1. "Papa" ogre was the 4th level barbarian (CR 7) and "baby" ogre was the standard ogre (CR 3). This was still pretty big for a 6th level party, so I nerfed the ogre slightly by having him be out of rages for the day (since he'd already battled the crone) and removing his +1 greatclub and +1 hide armor (replaced with mundane of the same - this also helps with treasure). If it is still a bit much, you can always make him "wounded" as well, although that wasn't a problem with my group. This should give you a nice EL 6 to EL 7, depending on how the players encounter the ogres.

- Since loot wasn't specified, made the treasure in the bottom of the tower near the ogres be 15 MW sling stones and an ancient helm worth 200 gp. (Idea stolen from the story hour.)

- Completely left out anything about a paladin joining the party (obviously - different campaign).

- Changed the +1 keen longsword (~8000g) reward from the second head to a MW longsword with a scabbard of keen edges (normally 16000g) with the limit that it only works for 5 minutes a day with each use (this is ad hoc, but according to the DMG this would make the price something more like 3000g; it normally should last for 50 minutes). This made it easier for the group to use and reduced the treasure total.

- Changed the third head's main clue entirely. Since I figured my players weren't going to eat the turnips (they never did), and since I didn't want to worry about keeping up with the Green Knight later in the adventure, I devised an entirely new challenge for the players. The third head said, "When challenged by the green guardian, challenge him instead to his favorite game. But be mindful of thy own self-worth." In other words, when the green knight challenges you, challenge him to a different game.
The idea for the "game" was stolen directly from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. The knight offers a game of "chance," in which the characters can choose a coin that is either copper, silver, or gold. (I was going to get a penny, quarter, and gold dollar coin for props, but ran out of time. The copper coin could be bronze as well.) The face on the coin becomes the face of the character once it is chosen. The idea is that you flip the coins, and whoever gets heads wins. You play until someone has won 2 out of 3 (ties are replays).
The trick is, the coin flips have nothing to do with the game: the coin you choose determines how well you do. The copper coin will always come up heads and the gold coin will always come up tails; the silver one is random but largely irrelavent, since the Green Knight will only pick a coin that has better odds than the one you choose, if possible. The trick is to "mind your own self-worth" and choose the copper coin.
However, the reward/penalty isn't so bad: I decided the reward was that you just got to go on your way, while the penalty was that you had to face the "three blows" challenge as before.

- The "crossroads" mentioned by the third head became a place in faerieland since my campaign had no boneyard or anything like it; plus, it was nice and neat that everything applied to areas inside faerieland (although it tends to tip your hand about them leaving faerieland when all the clues are done). The item dropped was an Eyes of the Eagle, straight from the DMG (2500g).

- The old man winter's stick was a custom runestaff based on the runestaff items in the Magic Item Compendium; its value is probably around 8000g.

- Since I don't have Savage Species, the old man's cat became a standard tiger from the MM1 that had its size changed to small (without a strength or dex change) and type changed to undead (~CR 4 or 5). The additional monsters with it were imps (MM1 devils, CR 2) who were altered to be ice foxes. This was about an EL 5, but hopefully it would come at the end of a long road with fewer resources.


The rest was pretty much the same or as close as I could get. So how did they do?