UniversalMonster
Explorer
This was a pretty fun (well for me) encounter that I ran last week. I may have overstepped in a few places...
The PCs were investigating reports of strange fishlike humanoids emerging from the lake near a rural village. They had already encountered Sahuagin earlier when they were at sea, so they may have believed this was more of the same. They travelled to the village, and inverstigated and eventually found some caves that lead under, and I had sort of a watery cave dungeon. The humanoids they encountered were actually Skum.
They braved various traps such as a falling porticullis gate and waterfilled pits filled with cave pirahna. Finally they reached the final room- an underground lake of clear cool refreshing water. After some careful spotting one of the characters noted that it didn't look that inviting, and there was some cloudy area in the center of the lake, about 40' from the 'shore'. Also there was a wooden pier.
Then the shimmering beautiful elven maiden appeared, rising up from the water and then walking across the water. She tried to explain that she had been trapped in this room and was cursed to remain there unless someone could swim out and locate her soul trapped below.
Another PC sensed my bluff. So I hit with the first dominate. It failed. They continued talking to her and I hit with my second dominate. It worked, but the cleric quickly cast resurgence and the second saving throw threw it off.
The party got ready to attack, suddenly figuring out I (or my elven maiden) was up to something. The third (and final) dominate went against the cleric, and it was successful. "Destroy them!" she laughed.
So the party was suddenly battling on the pier- amongst themselves! Ad in this case, the Cleric was a very tough opponent.
Eventually the other cleric (a more spellcasty less fighty cleric) and the wizard made a break for it (the wizard even dove in the water at one point, before almost getting tangled in some mucusy stuff at the center of the lake, and then deciding against it. He swam back out.)
The elven maiden cackled "cast them into my lake!" to her dominated slave. The cleric nearly succeeded several times, before he got nailed with a cause fear spell and ran.
Now the battle didn't really begin for several rounds but it would be a spoiler if I gave away why.
Ok, guess what monster this really was.
The PCs were investigating reports of strange fishlike humanoids emerging from the lake near a rural village. They had already encountered Sahuagin earlier when they were at sea, so they may have believed this was more of the same. They travelled to the village, and inverstigated and eventually found some caves that lead under, and I had sort of a watery cave dungeon. The humanoids they encountered were actually Skum.
They braved various traps such as a falling porticullis gate and waterfilled pits filled with cave pirahna. Finally they reached the final room- an underground lake of clear cool refreshing water. After some careful spotting one of the characters noted that it didn't look that inviting, and there was some cloudy area in the center of the lake, about 40' from the 'shore'. Also there was a wooden pier.
Then the shimmering beautiful elven maiden appeared, rising up from the water and then walking across the water. She tried to explain that she had been trapped in this room and was cursed to remain there unless someone could swim out and locate her soul trapped below.
Another PC sensed my bluff. So I hit with the first dominate. It failed. They continued talking to her and I hit with my second dominate. It worked, but the cleric quickly cast resurgence and the second saving throw threw it off.
The party got ready to attack, suddenly figuring out I (or my elven maiden) was up to something. The third (and final) dominate went against the cleric, and it was successful. "Destroy them!" she laughed.
So the party was suddenly battling on the pier- amongst themselves! Ad in this case, the Cleric was a very tough opponent.
Eventually the other cleric (a more spellcasty less fighty cleric) and the wizard made a break for it (the wizard even dove in the water at one point, before almost getting tangled in some mucusy stuff at the center of the lake, and then deciding against it. He swam back out.)
The elven maiden cackled "cast them into my lake!" to her dominated slave. The cleric nearly succeeded several times, before he got nailed with a cause fear spell and ran.
Now the battle didn't really begin for several rounds but it would be a spoiler if I gave away why.
Ok, guess what monster this really was.
