[KOTS] Help me come up with a first encounter that doesn't suck

[Phebius]

So in the mentioned Sir Keegan adventure, the girl who played the Tiefling Paladin couldn’t make it, so we worked out the following bit with her character ahead of time, which would give an in-story opportunity to redo her character as a hybrid, as she was unhappy with her character as it was. (She was unhappy about a lot of things, but I digress)
Keegan showed up in a flurry of “Who dares disturb the sanctity of” and what not, but was clearly going through an internal struggle of some sort. She recognized the dragonborn as a worshipper of Bahamut due to the holy symbol she was wearing, and was struggling to let that calm her, but before that could happen, I had to really scare the crap out of everyone, by having the Paladin up and attack Keegan, who responded by graphically one-shot killing her.
This got everyone’s full attention.
A series of skill challenge type stuff and some amazing roleplaying by pretty much everyone led to the Dragonborn agreeing to accept knighthood and accept a quest to destroy that which had corrupted keegan in exchange for passage to it. Passage was granted across space and time…
To the Caves of Chaos.
One of the players got the biggest kick out of this, and his enthusiasm was contagious. And it was a blast for me to revisit what was the location where I learned how to DM in the first place. I dropped them in the Temple of Evil Chaos series of caves, and they had some fun battles with some acolytes and undead, with some great roleplaying involved. (The newly knighted one was getting a rather big kick out of things during interrogations: “Where is the coward that fears a straight up fight to the point that he flees back in time?” As well as the rogue: “So, essentially if I b ring this stuff back, I’ve cornered the market on mint condition antiques, right? The session ended with them outside the door of the penultimate battle.
After the session, the tiefling paladin’s player and I roleplayed time in the afterlife in which she made a completely reasonable deal with Asmodeus, in which she received power and assistance if she agreed to eliminate the leader of a cult of Vecna. Since the character was a refugee from this very cult and wanted very much to do just that, it was a fairly easy sell, particularly since a provision in the agreement stated that nothing in the agreement implies transfer of possession of her soul, and the fact that Ioun told her that nothing in the agreement went against their association, per se, but that “It’s the stupidest decision you’ve yet made and this will be apparent in the very core of your being from now on.” She asked me what I meant by this, and I said that the new version of her character. (hybrid Paladin/Warlock) had an intelligence score two points less than her earlier character. I’s so funny.

 

[shock_at]

Im so liking what you're doing with KOTS, im a first time DM and just had my party go through the twisting halls mini adventure and was thinking of a hook to tie that with KOTS (since both Orcus cult people). But now with all the things you did (story with slaying stone and whatnot), im thinking of somehow adapting your story elements into it. But since my group are all non roleplayers (for now at least), i think they see the game in terms of numbers, xp and equipment and am not sure if it would work (also because its my first foray into D&D so dont know some of the references you used, im purely reliant on the published adventures for 4e). Although maybe doing slaying stone before KOTS will help give them more story based events i could work with

 

[jbear]

I'd just like to drop by and say that I think you have captured for me what is the essence of 4e. A lot of people don't get past 'It's an awesome combat system'. The fact it is so easy to adapt, add, make s*** up on the fly should naturally lead to the awesome stories that you have related. I always think of the modules as the bones. It's up to the DM to add the flesh and breathe life into it. And by have you done that!!

It's great to hear DM's stories like this!

 

[Phebius]

This post should catch up to the present so I can start a new thread for what’s going forward. We did the final two battles in the Keep (now in the Caves of Chaos) in one marathon session. I threw in a de-leveled Aspect of Orcus in the final battle. I used a hell of a lot of props and tiles, (Terraclips from worldworks games is pretty awesome, btw check em out.) I had a glowing portal to the abyss, and glowing blue pillars. I put a lot of work into it, so it was unfortunate that some personal issues erupted during the game and the tiefling’s player is no longer playing. But they did defeat the baddies and saved the world.

Unfortunately, they had failed to stop one ritual in time to stop a horde of zombies to attack Winterhaven. Due to the heroic efforts of a new party of adventurers, the threat was stopped, the PC’s level of clout in the area is pretty much nil, and no one believes a word of their story about what went on in the Keep.
Also, the Dragonborn’s husband filed for divorce, Spyder from Fallcrest was assassinated and the PC halfling’s friend the half elf law student has taken over. The Rival Adventurers have since been treated kind of like a Roller Derby team. (this society is not used to an all-male band of adventurers.) The Dragonborn and the elf threw me a curveball by using what clout they had to assemble a human/elf joint militia, which I praised them for thinking of, and then destroyed it utterly in the next adventure because I am a bastard to the core.
Speaking of that, the next session advanced the calendar 3 months, and the PC’s found themselves below Thunderspire Labrynth, doing various character things. They received word that their militia was under attack, and what the hell, I’m just going to post the recap of this particular adventure that I wrote to the group afterword.

Characters
Callie: Halfling Rogue
Reijah: Dragonborn Fighter
Shara: Deva Druid of the Raven Queen
Reticence: Elf Ranger
Lambda: Eladrin Wizard

(The druid was absent for the session and one of the other characters ran her. The bit where I'm quoting owlbear stats is me responding to her contention that if she'd have been there, she'd have beaten both of them)

After spending 2 months in the 7 pillared hall deep below Thunderspire Labrynth (q.v.) (which means see also. The entry on thunderspire labyrinth that I wrote up waaaaaay back. With a picture and everything. Damn you people) and trying to learn the ins and outs of the strange society ruled by the equally strange Mages of Saruun and their rather terrifying inquisitor, the party decided to allow Lambda to use her newly learned ritual to teleport them to the first circle she'd attuned herself to in the room where the orc chick kept kicking you into a hole. The decision was prompted by messages indicating that the joint militia lovingly assembled by Reija and Reticence and then just kind of left to wander around the area and do stuff (and don't get all "Hey, you fast forwarded the time between sessions and we didn't have the opportunity to do anything but" with me. You wanna tell me with a straight face that if we'd been playing those days out that once the militia was out of sight, you'd remember it existed? You guys forgot Ninaren every 10 minutes. This is me teasing so I can point out that there is something that you are all forgetting about, but you'll remember soon. Anyway)

So the teleportation didn't work as planned and instead the PCs found themselves in the presence of the guy below. Who indicated that it was he who wad interfered with the spell but that you were apparently not his planned targets. Actually he indicated it maybe, but not in a way you'd call useful, since he peppered his speech with talk of his cave being infested by bears. Shara, who had been waiting for the opportunity to talk to bears since foring ever, didn't so much as leap at the chance as sorta wander over there and talk with more of a southern accent than usual, (South of the Nentir Vale, amiirite?) theoretically excited to have this chance. By now we all know (as does pretty much the entire gaming community of Eau Claire who apparently really find what happened next hilarious because I was in the comic shop and I heard a complete stranger describe the events to another complete stranger) in which Shara learned briefly but definitively that druids can talk to owlbears all they want, but owlbears are pretty much gonna answer in the one way. Phil has expressed a belief that had he been there, Shara would have completely taken it. Here are some of the owlbears' stats: AC 20 Fort 22 Reflex 18 Will 18 Hit points 212 action points 2 Attack with two claws which each do 4d6 +6 damage. If both claws hit, it's beak does 4d8 +22 I love owlbears.

so then it was all AIEEE OWLBEARS!! Except for Reijah who was all Squee! OWLBEARS! Callie, remembering that doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results is what STUPID PEOPLE think the definition of insanity is and thus went went to flank via a route that ended her turn outside of the movement range of the rest of the party. Fortunately Callie also regards keeping stuff you've found's existence from the rest of the party to be a positive quality, and the playing card he'd found months ago reacted to the existence of something similar in the cave. The two cards then manifested a visual representation of themselves on the floor of the cave in different places. Stepping on one gave the stepper the ability to dominate another being. Which she used rather effectively by causing one owlbear to beat the holy crap out of another one. Immediately afterward, the owlbear learned what the other one did when he stepped on the other tile and was teleported to the original tile and dominated Callie. The last owlbear was cornered in the cave, but Fearless Leader elected to forgo the domination ray in lieu of beating the out of it with her axe, (and to be fair she'd been doing a pretty effective job of it up to this point) but this time her efforts came up short, and the owlbears claws and beak came up the opposite of short. Your blood froze as you heard your leader's death cry.

The rest of the party dispatched the owlbear, with Reticence scoring the killing blow, and Shara, who had been dropped again and was bleeding rather a lot, Lambda's quick potion use brought her back to the land of the living, and Shara's Raise Dead ritual did the same for Reijah, though she had a bit further to come back from. And then of course an egg hatched and your leader made a command decision to scoop it up and keep it as a pet. (Did you name her yet? You should name her so you have something to say before such phrases as "don't eat that," "don't bite her" and "sweet mother of Bahamut what have you done?" The man, happy that he got his cave back sped you on your way. Into a hellscape of carnage. "



Their militias had been utterly destroyed save for one surviver who is in a bad way, by various beings from hell, who also for good measure, eraticated what was left of the town from their very first adventure as well as the dragon they'd met on the same one. Things get fun from here on out, but I'll need some help figuring out exactly how.