iamntbatman
First Post
Sorry for the longwinded post, but I want to spell out the full situation to avoid having to explain likely questions in the replies. Thanks in advance for reading!
I'm a new DM currently sitting in the chair in our homebrewed D&D 5E campaign. Most of the rules are RAW but the lore is completely reflavored to our setting. The party has six members who are all level five. Composition is as follows:
-Assassin Rogue 3/Monk 2
-UA Revised Ranger - Spell-Less Variant Hunter 5
-Hexblade Blade Pact Warlock 5
-Circle of the Land Druid 5
-Eldritch Knight 5
-Lore Bard 5
We rolled for stats and most people have a fairly high main stat, plus we've handed out a few interesting homebrewed magic items, though nothing insane.
Background: there's an artifact called The Blood of the Tchernobog, which is literally the blood of the slain god of undeath. The Raven Queen killed him and stands sentinel with her hexblades in the Shadowfell, keeping the undead at bay. Not trusting it in anyone's hands, she hid the Blood somewhere in our world with a Sequester spell. The Blood is believed to be able to restore to life any entity, including other dead gods. So, naturally, many factions want the stuff. These include:
1) A splinter faction of the Viskari, a human civilization who worship the dead god of misery, Himeki, whose body lays under fathoms of salt at the bottom of the Pit of Despair in their capital city. Most Viskari are content to worship a dead god, but a splinter faction would rather Himeki live again.
2) The Gujorans (reflavored Yuan-Ti), who were once humans but killed and consumed their own serpent god in the past to gain its powers. They hunger for the flesh and power of another god. The only other they know of is Himeki, so they seek to sack Visk, raise Himeki, kill him, and eat him.
3) The Tendrils of Entropy - A cult that worships chaos itself, led by a charming man who is actually Nyarlathotep in disguise (the EK was raised in this cult). They want to destroy the Blood to prevent any one god or faction from becoming too powerful, in order to keep the Prime Material Plane destabilized and ripe for invasion by Far Realm forces. These guys haven't been major players yet.
4) The Claws of Tiamat - A cult of a few dedicated of the remaining, scattered and violent chromatic dragonborn. Their Oath of Conquest paladin General Heskan Delmirev leads a clan of viking-like human warriors on a guerrilla warfare campaign raiding Gujoran outposts that are secret dig sites in the search for the Blood. The cult wants it in order to raise Tiamat herself, whose body lies entombed beneath a massive fortress of holy metallic dragonborn warriors dedicated to Bahamut, who himself is said to stand guard over Tiamat's body.
5) Tchernobog's loyal servants - A Death Knight leads in the Shadowfell, but his agent in our plane is the vampire Reynard Crowley. Naturally, he wants to bring the blood back to the Shadowfell to resurrect the Tchernobog. Crowley has been working undercover as Heskan Delmirev's advisor, planning to double cross him and steal the Blood after the paladin has secured it.
The party has been working out of a town called Nine Trees. To the north is a huge manor house of the local Lord Grelson, who hasn't been seen in some time. Between the town and the manor house is Heskan Delmirev's encampment of warriors. They met a rogue/paladin servant of Bahamut who simply wants Heskan dead for killing her husband years ago (she's strayed far from the path of her Oath and the big picture). She's scouting the encampment to look for openings to kill him. Citizens of Nine Trees have gone missing, and the party suspects one or more than one vampire.
The ranger actually recognized Crowley from his youth as the vampire responsible for turning his dear uncle, and is out for revenge. Crowley has a ring of Nystul's Magic Aura that causes him to read like a true neutral human. Crowley doesn't stay in the dragonborn's camp; he's actually based out of the manor to the north. He's made a spawn of the lord himself, and has two of his other favorite spawn with him as well as a small band of hired bandit henchmen. The crypt beneath the manor house contains the resting places for the three spawn and Crowley himself; Crowley has a back-up resting spot in the woods a couple of miles away in his wagon, guarded by a few more henchmen and a CR7 vampire-like creature that's his liason to the Shadowfell.
Now, Crowley has seen the party from a distance, and witnessed them coming out of a Gujoran site for looking for the Blood, so he could have reason to believe they're also looking for it. The ranger has him made. The party wants to try to bait the vampire by hiding while one of them wanders the town streets at night, hoping to ambush him rather than try to assault the manor house where they know he's staying. They're headed back to town from other business. I think I'm going to have him send them a dinner invite (actually written by his spawn Lord Grelson, who the party has shown some concern about as he's been missing).
So here are my options:
1) They turn down/ignore the invite and go to bed - perhaps have Crowley, backed up by spawn, try to get one of them alone and charm him, ask him to convince the party to come?
2) They turn down/ignore the invite and attempt the baiting - try to separate them, charm them one by one. If things go south, flee - he's beefed up a bit (19 AC, +2 Greatsword of Wounding) so could easily TPK them especially with a few spawn helping, but he wouldn't want to blow his cover in the middle of town and ruin his whole lair setup.
3) They accept the invite and attack once they're in the premises - again, I don't want to just murder them all, so toy with them a bit, maybe keep one as a hostage?
4) They accept the invite and actually go to dinner - I'm really hoping this is what happens. I plan to try to charm them all, one by one. Start with the hothead ranger. Move on to the silver-tongued bard who might help convince the others. Get the rogue and EK as they are easy targets. Warlock after that, with a decent save. Druid last - half elf with advantage on charm saves. Convince them all to, in some combination, leave him alone, get him a high-ranking Gujoran as a prisoner to charm for intel, aid Heskan. If this plan doesn't work and he only charms a few, and/or his cover is blown, try to get charmed targets to convince others this is a losing fight and leave. If a fight breaks out, capture some/all of them.
Monkey wrenches: They might get spotted by Heskan's men on their way to the manor. They might bump into the Bahamut rogue/paladin on the way their and enlist her help. They might track Crowley's wagon and fight his guards at the hiding place. They might infiltrate the manor house from above ground or through the crypt (have some encounters planned for down there). Or worst case: they wait until daylight and try infiltrating the manor during the day. Quick question here - can human hirelings wake sleeping vampires and spawn during daytime, provided there's cover from sunlight? Otherwise it might get to be stake city, quick-like.
The one thing I know I'm missing is that I feel like there should be some angle where the party reveals that they're out to kill Heskan, so I'm just looking for some way Crowley could use that to his advantage. Other than that....I just feel like I'm missing something obvious. Crowley isn't some Strahd-type figure; he's undercover. The local populace learning of a vampire nearby would really screw up his plans, as would revealing who he's working for. The hexblade in the party is the Raven Queen's somewhat unwilling servant, so I'm not sure how invested he is in destroying a vampire or thwarting its plot in the first place (self-preservation might win that internal argument).
Basically, I'm just worried about how this session will go as there are so many different things the party might do, and basically all of them involve getting tangled up with this vampire who, if they really want to start a bloodbath, will absolutely slaughter them unless they really plan meticulously, which they haven't. I just want to try to account for as many things as possible they might attempt before resorting to fudging dice to prevent a TPK if they go guns blazing. What am I missing?
I'm a new DM currently sitting in the chair in our homebrewed D&D 5E campaign. Most of the rules are RAW but the lore is completely reflavored to our setting. The party has six members who are all level five. Composition is as follows:
-Assassin Rogue 3/Monk 2
-UA Revised Ranger - Spell-Less Variant Hunter 5
-Hexblade Blade Pact Warlock 5
-Circle of the Land Druid 5
-Eldritch Knight 5
-Lore Bard 5
We rolled for stats and most people have a fairly high main stat, plus we've handed out a few interesting homebrewed magic items, though nothing insane.
Background: there's an artifact called The Blood of the Tchernobog, which is literally the blood of the slain god of undeath. The Raven Queen killed him and stands sentinel with her hexblades in the Shadowfell, keeping the undead at bay. Not trusting it in anyone's hands, she hid the Blood somewhere in our world with a Sequester spell. The Blood is believed to be able to restore to life any entity, including other dead gods. So, naturally, many factions want the stuff. These include:
1) A splinter faction of the Viskari, a human civilization who worship the dead god of misery, Himeki, whose body lays under fathoms of salt at the bottom of the Pit of Despair in their capital city. Most Viskari are content to worship a dead god, but a splinter faction would rather Himeki live again.
2) The Gujorans (reflavored Yuan-Ti), who were once humans but killed and consumed their own serpent god in the past to gain its powers. They hunger for the flesh and power of another god. The only other they know of is Himeki, so they seek to sack Visk, raise Himeki, kill him, and eat him.
3) The Tendrils of Entropy - A cult that worships chaos itself, led by a charming man who is actually Nyarlathotep in disguise (the EK was raised in this cult). They want to destroy the Blood to prevent any one god or faction from becoming too powerful, in order to keep the Prime Material Plane destabilized and ripe for invasion by Far Realm forces. These guys haven't been major players yet.
4) The Claws of Tiamat - A cult of a few dedicated of the remaining, scattered and violent chromatic dragonborn. Their Oath of Conquest paladin General Heskan Delmirev leads a clan of viking-like human warriors on a guerrilla warfare campaign raiding Gujoran outposts that are secret dig sites in the search for the Blood. The cult wants it in order to raise Tiamat herself, whose body lies entombed beneath a massive fortress of holy metallic dragonborn warriors dedicated to Bahamut, who himself is said to stand guard over Tiamat's body.
5) Tchernobog's loyal servants - A Death Knight leads in the Shadowfell, but his agent in our plane is the vampire Reynard Crowley. Naturally, he wants to bring the blood back to the Shadowfell to resurrect the Tchernobog. Crowley has been working undercover as Heskan Delmirev's advisor, planning to double cross him and steal the Blood after the paladin has secured it.
The party has been working out of a town called Nine Trees. To the north is a huge manor house of the local Lord Grelson, who hasn't been seen in some time. Between the town and the manor house is Heskan Delmirev's encampment of warriors. They met a rogue/paladin servant of Bahamut who simply wants Heskan dead for killing her husband years ago (she's strayed far from the path of her Oath and the big picture). She's scouting the encampment to look for openings to kill him. Citizens of Nine Trees have gone missing, and the party suspects one or more than one vampire.
The ranger actually recognized Crowley from his youth as the vampire responsible for turning his dear uncle, and is out for revenge. Crowley has a ring of Nystul's Magic Aura that causes him to read like a true neutral human. Crowley doesn't stay in the dragonborn's camp; he's actually based out of the manor to the north. He's made a spawn of the lord himself, and has two of his other favorite spawn with him as well as a small band of hired bandit henchmen. The crypt beneath the manor house contains the resting places for the three spawn and Crowley himself; Crowley has a back-up resting spot in the woods a couple of miles away in his wagon, guarded by a few more henchmen and a CR7 vampire-like creature that's his liason to the Shadowfell.
Now, Crowley has seen the party from a distance, and witnessed them coming out of a Gujoran site for looking for the Blood, so he could have reason to believe they're also looking for it. The ranger has him made. The party wants to try to bait the vampire by hiding while one of them wanders the town streets at night, hoping to ambush him rather than try to assault the manor house where they know he's staying. They're headed back to town from other business. I think I'm going to have him send them a dinner invite (actually written by his spawn Lord Grelson, who the party has shown some concern about as he's been missing).
So here are my options:
1) They turn down/ignore the invite and go to bed - perhaps have Crowley, backed up by spawn, try to get one of them alone and charm him, ask him to convince the party to come?
2) They turn down/ignore the invite and attempt the baiting - try to separate them, charm them one by one. If things go south, flee - he's beefed up a bit (19 AC, +2 Greatsword of Wounding) so could easily TPK them especially with a few spawn helping, but he wouldn't want to blow his cover in the middle of town and ruin his whole lair setup.
3) They accept the invite and attack once they're in the premises - again, I don't want to just murder them all, so toy with them a bit, maybe keep one as a hostage?
4) They accept the invite and actually go to dinner - I'm really hoping this is what happens. I plan to try to charm them all, one by one. Start with the hothead ranger. Move on to the silver-tongued bard who might help convince the others. Get the rogue and EK as they are easy targets. Warlock after that, with a decent save. Druid last - half elf with advantage on charm saves. Convince them all to, in some combination, leave him alone, get him a high-ranking Gujoran as a prisoner to charm for intel, aid Heskan. If this plan doesn't work and he only charms a few, and/or his cover is blown, try to get charmed targets to convince others this is a losing fight and leave. If a fight breaks out, capture some/all of them.
Monkey wrenches: They might get spotted by Heskan's men on their way to the manor. They might bump into the Bahamut rogue/paladin on the way their and enlist her help. They might track Crowley's wagon and fight his guards at the hiding place. They might infiltrate the manor house from above ground or through the crypt (have some encounters planned for down there). Or worst case: they wait until daylight and try infiltrating the manor during the day. Quick question here - can human hirelings wake sleeping vampires and spawn during daytime, provided there's cover from sunlight? Otherwise it might get to be stake city, quick-like.
The one thing I know I'm missing is that I feel like there should be some angle where the party reveals that they're out to kill Heskan, so I'm just looking for some way Crowley could use that to his advantage. Other than that....I just feel like I'm missing something obvious. Crowley isn't some Strahd-type figure; he's undercover. The local populace learning of a vampire nearby would really screw up his plans, as would revealing who he's working for. The hexblade in the party is the Raven Queen's somewhat unwilling servant, so I'm not sure how invested he is in destroying a vampire or thwarting its plot in the first place (self-preservation might win that internal argument).
Basically, I'm just worried about how this session will go as there are so many different things the party might do, and basically all of them involve getting tangled up with this vampire who, if they really want to start a bloodbath, will absolutely slaughter them unless they really plan meticulously, which they haven't. I just want to try to account for as many things as possible they might attempt before resorting to fudging dice to prevent a TPK if they go guns blazing. What am I missing?
