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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 3461990" data-attributes="member: 20741">Agreed Josh. Using this event as a “clean out the undead” incident that attracts an affiliation dedicated to undead hunting is a very good idea as a means to replace dead PCs and move the campaign along.In terms of mission design, the chief problem is that fighting so many wights becomes repetitive.  That’s the thing which needs to be addressed by the OP. The mission designs have to be varied even when the monsters being faced aren’t all that different. That’s the difficulty in this.  But there are lots of ways to go with this situation.Ideas include: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Search and destroy: Wights spotter in warehouse district. Tenser order PCs to district on a search and destroy mission. Victory Points gained only for destroying entire clutch of wights.  Failure means spread of wight spawn to nearby area.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Destroy and protect: Tenser sends PCs to area inhabited by terrified people. Must destroy wights and save citizens. Points gained for citizens saved -  penalty is facing more wights as lesser Spawn.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> What to do with a Drunken Wight: The wights are on the ships! Ships are casting off in the Nyr Dyv in panic but one is partly infested.  Make sure the wights don’t get out of the city and spread elsewhere. Burn the ship to the waterline if need be but contain the spread at all costs. Fight em below the decks. Push the PCs to make some unpleasant moral choices here.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> We got Gophers: Defensive line established on main thoroughfare in City and spread of wights contained. PCs gain 1 hour to rest and get some healing; Yikes! Defensive line somehow breached. Find out how. (Travel to sewers and stop advance of wights under defensive line)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> The Worm Turns: Outcrop of undead in area previously thought contained. Search and destroy again. But this time – it’s not only wights. One of the Spawn of Kyuss vomited forth from the Ulgurstasta has survived! The Spawn of Kyuss are multiplying like maggots and spreading through the terrified citizens holed up in their tenements.  This is far worse than a spread of the lesser spawn of Wights.  The Spawn of Kyuss must be stopped before the Age of Worms comes early! </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Rescue Eligos: Eligos has been murdered! In all of the chaos – Celeste reports that Eligos has been slain. Tenser does not have time to deal with this now. Celeste begs PCs for help in recovering Eligos body before it uhm… gets up and walk away on its own.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Iuz and  Iggwilv intervene:  This happens off camera but the Circle is alarmed as demons have joined the fray. The city is on fire! Demons are in the sky!</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Bozal defeated! Off camera – Tenser has defeated Bozal and the Circle has driven off most of Iuz’s demons. Things seem ok but the war against the remaining wights continues and the PCs are dead tired and out of spells…</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> One last push: A remaining district where a group of wight survivors and a handful of Spawn of Kyuss remains. The PCs must deal with it as a Balor has been seen in the eastern section of the City and all eyes are on the Balor.  </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Bait and Switch: The undead are not alone. After Bozal’s defeat,  the Alklith demon from below the Arena (Area 30) has been released from bondage on the death of Bozal but has not – for some reason – been returned to the Abyss. The Alklith moves towards a hospice near the docks nursing some long held hatred and revenge upon some do-gooding old and venerable cleric who did it some wrong decades ago. The PCs are sent to find out what the hell is going on (“Demons!– It’s always “demons”!! Probably just wights and frightened guardsmen. Go and restore order”.  )</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Save the children; the wights have invaded an orphanage and child wights are playing in the streets – and crawling through holes nobody thought to plug up until now. They are like rats! Stomp em out. </li> </ul>By the time these encounters have played out – the PCs should be well on their way to mid point of 11th level. They will still be too low for Spire of Long Shadows though – so the DM will have to be inventive.Multi-session themes: no time to rest; relentless attacks; always some other problem around the corner; Tenser principally dealing with PCs unit due to their lawful good aligned state (the affiliation Josh Randall mentioned perhaps?)Use the opportunity to develop the story over a few or three sessions and use the roleplaying aspect of mission assignment and debriefing to bring the PCs closer to Tenser as matters wear on. Play up Iuz and Iggwilv’s menace and overt interference as the # 1 growing and main threat throughout all of this so that the Circle of Eight and Tenser are logically distracted afterward.  You need this real and present danger to sell to the PCs so that the aftershocks of this monumental event are logically left to the PCs to deal with as there is something WAY BIGGER on the march that puts Kyuss in the “also ran” category for the Circle.  At best, Tenser is left as a dissenter who is otherwise distracted.  Otherwise, Tenser’s and Mordenkainen’s  “I got better things to do than worry about some more nonsense prophecy” line rings very false and strains all credibility.  (Nonsense? The last “nonsense prophecy” coming true 3 days ago just killed 35,000 people you MORON. What do you think we’ve been doing here? A snipe hunt? Are you *really* an Archmage?”) Lots here to work with. Run with it and have fun.</blockquote>

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