Age of Worms AP - Ulgurstasta on the loose! - What should I do now?

[Olaf the Stout]

My group is halfway through the Champion's Belt adventure in the Age of Worms AP. They easily survived the first gladiator fight and Ekaym spilled the beans on what his real motives were. The party agreed to search for his sister.

After finding the palace too heavily guarded, the decided to look around the arena understructure. With the help of the deaf mute, they found their way down to Bozal's hideout. The Spawn of Kyuss and the Mohrg were easily dealt with. The fight with Bozal was almost even easier than that.

Bozal started with a number of spells up, including Anti-life Shell. One natural 20 Dispel Magic check and that was gone and the party's meat shield was up in his face. Bozal's first action was to bring out the big guns, Harm. I proceed to roll a 1 on the Concentration check, the spell fizzles and he takes 40 points damage from the AoO.

This is followed up by a Nat 20 critical hit with an axe that is confirmed with a second Nat 20 (making it x4 damage - house rule). This left Bozal with just enough hit points for the Wizard's Enervation spell to take him down so that the Crusader could then smash his unconscious body to death.

I had decided before the combat even began that the Ulgurstasta would be awoken if Bozal was killed (or he could activate it early if he wanted to). So, the party heard a loud roar and the sound of something being smashed coming through the double doors.

They opened the doors and saw the Ulgurstasta down the hallway. Immediately they realised that it was too big to escape the room it was in. However, for some unknown reason the Crusader still decided to charge it (without even bothering with a Knowledge: Religion check to see what exactly he was up against).

He didn't even get close as the Ulgurstasta chomped him with an Improved Grab bite attack, grappling him in it's maw. The Knight then charged down and attacked, only to have his damage completely negated by the 10/Magical Piercing DR. The Crusader managed to avoid being swallowed thanks to a Nat 1 on the Ulgurstasta's grapple check but copped 30 points damage when the Wizard decided it was a good idea to hurl an Orb of Force into a grapple (the attack is randomised).

At this point the party was nicely in place for a Necromantic Acid breath weapon attack. The attack hit everyone in the party, with only the Rogue and the Cleric making their reflex saves. I then proceeded to roll 16 Con damage on 3d6, killing the Crusader, Knight and Wizard outright! The Rogue and Wizard (wisely) fled at this point.

That stopped the session for the night and we talked about what the party could have done differently, and where to from here in the campaign. We eventually decided that we wanted to continue the campaign and the party (well the 3 that were left - the Bard was left back and the Conoeby as his player was absent) would try and get the 3 that were killed resurrected.

That part I have figured out. I'm going to hand wave the 3 remaining members killing the Spawn of Kyuss that their fellow party members have turned into and then recover their bodies (or part of them) for resurrection. They will also recover the (now powerless) Apostolic Scrolls and find Lahanka's zombie coprse.

The question is what happens to the Ulgurstasta? After it killed half the party it then burst upwards into the arena, where it would continue its rampage. It is about midnight, so the arena is empty. So I figured that the Ulgurstasta would continue on wreaking havoc and turning people into spawns until it was finally killed by some of the higher levelled NPC's that live in the Free City of Greyhawk.

So, what sort of damage should the beast be able to do before it is finally killed? I don't think it will be anywhere near as bad as turning 20,000 people into Wights, but it still should do quite a bit of damage and create a fair few Spawns of Kyuss that then need to be killed.

Any suggestions? My next session is a week away, so I have until then to decide just how much destruction it causes before being destroyed. This will all be handled out of game as the party will not be taking it on again, they will be recovering the bodies of the PC's who were killed.

Olaf the Stout

 

[airwalkrr]

Awesome! This is a great opportunity to really make your mark on the campaign world. While it is true that there are plenty of high-level NPCs in Greyhawk that will eventually be alerted to the presence of the Ulgurstasta and destroy it, the real difficulty is in dealing with the havoc it will wreak before said NPCs do it in. The ulgurstasta needs only swallow a single character with at least one level of fighter for the ritual to be completed. And there are probably plenty such individuals in the stables nearby. The ulgurstasta shall dine well. However, the consequences are much less dire, as in your campaign the incident happened during nighttime and not during the final match (with thousands of 1st-level commoners in the stands to be wight-bait). So the completion of the ritual will probably involve the creation of dozens of wights, not thousands. Enough to cause some severe problems for the city, but none that cannot be dealt with.

If you want your PCs to be the ones to fix the problem (which I feel is the best solution), then arrange for most of the high-level NPCs (like Jallarzi) to be away on business (as they often are), at least the ones with game-changing spells like wish or miracle (how inconvenient!). The ulgurstasta rampages on through the night while the PCs recover the bodies of their allies and have them resurrected at the nearest temple. Such resurrection might well be performed gratis, as the city will need as many high-level champions as it can muster for this problem. Describe how the templar of the city temples are out and about battling wights and the spawn of kyuss in the streets while adventurers lodging at the Green Dragon Inn have been spurred into acts of heroism, many falling in the process only to be turned themselves. Clerkberg is likely to become a war zone. Raknian has likely become a death knight already and ridden away on his nightmare. Make sure this is an event the PCs either hear about or witness themselves. Meanwhile the ulgurstasta reigns unchecked. A flying wizard and his druid companion fling spells at it from the sky only to be blasted away by cultists of Nerull who have arisen from the underground to take advantage of the chaos for themselves.

As soon as the PCs have been resurrected, bring them into this scene and allow them to do what they do best, be the heroes! Their first charge should be to rally the people of the city behind them by destroying the ulgurstasta. Once the ulgurstasta is destroyed, the tide of battle turns. The city's other adventurers gain a second wind and begin slaying the many wights and spawn. Some will undoubtedly escape (perhaps commanded by the cultists of Nerull and taken back underground, where they will continue to be a thorn in the city's side for months to come), but the PCs should be the ones to finally get things back in order. Of course Clerkberg will be a mess. But the PCs will be lauded as heroes for succeeding when the city needed them most. Perhaps when Jallarzi returns, she bestows upon them one wish as a sign of gratitude. Make it epic!