RangerWickett
Legend
Tomorrow night is the last session of my campaign (or rather, act 2 of the campaign; I ran for 8 months, then took a 2 year hiatus, then ran for 8 months again, so I'm viewing this as another hiatus).
The PCs are on a stone age world where the creator god left centuries ago. Now the world is slowly crumbling apart, and powerful forces from foreign planes are trying to strip mine the world, or to set themselves up as its new gods. The PCs are trying to find a way to stop both the threat of dissolution, and of conquest.
Background for People Interested
[sblock]In the campaign's first act, the PCs grew up in a village that worshiped the god Vona, and which was threatened by the ogre followers of the god Ferruus. The young PCs eventually discovered that Ferruus was just a demon trying to become a god, and that their own protector Vona was just a halfling mage with a few illusion spells and a couple of sexy women posing as his angels. They exposed Vona, went on a quest to retrieve the blood of an actual 'god,' and then when Ferruus and his armies attacked, they used that divine power to defeat him.
In the campaign's second act, the PCs set out to explore their world. First they took ogre prisoners back to their home city, exposed the lies of Feruus, and forged a difficult peace with their former enemies. They then contacted powerful forces -- primordial dragons, dreaming demi-urges, the one-time 'angel of beasts' of the creator god -- and eventually discovered the true nature of their world, and its looming peril.
A cryptic message from an old ally they thought lost in Hell told them to seek out the mighty city of No-Ostalin in order to stop the world's dissolution, but they discovered that the city lies on another continent, across an impassable chasm of fire. To reach it, they need portal magic -- powerful teleportation capable of spanning hundreds of miles -- and only one group possesses such power: the Golden Legion.[/sblock]
The Legion
[sblock]
The PCs first heard rumors of the legion months ago. Then they encountered a company of these 7-ft. tall, green-scaled devils, each of whom wore a uniform of gold chains, and bore weapons etched with gold.
The one time they faced the Legion in combat, one of its lieutenants was able to summon additional legion devils simply by tossing gold coins in the air. Portals opened, the soldiers stepped through, and gold chains wrapped around them to bind their allegiance. The party at first thought this was just monster summoning, which is temporary, but later realized that it was actual teleportation.
Now they want to take the secret of this magic from the devils.
The Golden Legion is a hellish army that serves the archdevil Egal the Shimmering, an infernal lord who reigns over a level of Hell. He has sent a thousand legion devils to the PCs' primitive world in order to gather its resources, and if possible conquer a new domain for him. The Legion's first conquest was the city of Mu Lsi, on the shores of a floodplain, akin to swampy terrain in Vietnam. Ten miles off the coast is a bottomless chasm of fire -- the edge of the world, literally, and a clear example that the world is slowly falling apart.
For the Legion, gold and treasure is valued above all. Every member of the Legion bears some badge of office made of gold, from lowly legion devils to commanding vizier devils, all the way up to the sorcerer Paeliryon, the highest-ranked devil on this plane.
By Paeliryon's decree, the people of Mu Lsi have abandoned barter and even metals trade. The only gold they're allowed to own are small golden mirrors, which they must hang outside their homes. Instead, the Legion taxes the people, and gives them valueless pieces of reed scrolls that they must use to purchase goods and services. The PCs view this as evil deception and slavery.[/sblock]
The Meat of What I'm Asking for Help For
The PCs want to defeat a small army of devils with the aid of a popular revolt. I can wing that part, but at some point I figure they're going to have to face the legion's commander himself, Paeliryon, and I want to make the build-up and climax appropriately epic.
The Set-Up
The PCs need to get portal magic so they can teleport to another continent and retrieve an imprisoned entity who can help save the world. Paeliryon is a master of portal magic. Indeed, there is a portal from Hell in the middle of the city, and a portal back to Hell on an island a mile offshore. (All portals on this world are one-way.) The main barracks of the Legion are in the city near the portal, but Paeliryon's personal keep is on the island.
Paeliryon resembles a slender man in golden robes, with white cloth wrapping his face, but underneath this facade his flesh his made of filigreed gold. He has no eyes, but can see through any gold polished smoothly enough to reflect an image. He keeps on his person at all times a book of spells scribed on golden sheets (which is what the PCs ultimately want). His 'throne room' is a long hall with the portal to Hell at one end, and beyond that a balcony overlooking the sea and the edge of the world. The walls are lined with full-length golden mirrors, hidden behind crimson curtains.
I borrowed Paeliryon's name from the high-level 'corruption devil' in the 4e MM3, because of the main threat I want him to deploy in the combat. If he can force someone to touch one of these mirrors, he can use it like a mirror of life trapping and mirror of opposition; it sucks the body and soul of the original person into the mirror, and creates an evil reflection.
The Conflict
The way I envision it going down, the party will come up with some ridiculous method of screwing over the Legion -- civil uprising in the streets, summoning a kraken to take out the fleet guarding the island, using a ritual to close the portal from Hell to stop reinforcements. They'll probably seize the city's gold treasury, and offer to parlay with Paeliryon, giving him the gold in exchange for him handing over the portal magic.
(I'm slightly worried that the PCs will push the diplomacy route a bit too much. If they really want, I suppose I can let them avoid a fight, bribe the devil with tons of money, and send him packing through his portal. But I want a climactic battle.)
Paeliryon will decline. Why does he need allies when he has his gold on this island? Given enough time, he'll just open another portal from Hell, so the party will need to go face him.
The Showdown
The party is 8th level, and each has some house ruled abilities. We basically have:
The island probably has fifty legion devil guards (minions) and a couple vizier devils. Plus I've reskinned the gnoll priest in the MM3 (the one who conjures hyena spirits) to be a devil who conjures legion devils. The party has already fought enemies similar to these guys, so I want to spice it up. Maybe they arrive at the island docks, and while the minions are harassing them, Paeliryon is casting spells at them through a couple of mirrors that are hung up nearby.
I'd like some larger, more monstrous foe for stage 2, guarding the entrance to the keep. Any suggestions?
When they reach the 'throne room,' Paeliryon will have a few guards handy, and will try to pull the typical corrupting villain schtick of "join my side and you'll be rewarded." When that fails, he'll shift to the "leave now and I will give you some useful information, or stay and earn the eternal ire of the legion."
I need to work up stats for Paeliryon, and give him some interesting tricks to keep combat mobile, and keep people away from him. I want him as an elite, with just tons and tons of minions. The minions will block PCs, grab them, and try to drag them to mirrors. Paeliryon can use a standard action to activate a mirror's magic for a round, and then if someone gets pushed into the wall, they have to make a save or be replaced by a mirror version of himself.
Maybe minor action to summon 4 more legion devils, a move action to let him step through one mirror to any other nearby? A teleportation attack that can drop a PC into the middle of a bunch of legion devils. Conjure a wall of gold? (Use that to seal the portal to Hell at the start of the fight.)
Since this is the climax, I'm perfectly fine with the PCs one-by-one being turned into mirror images of themselves, until the whole party is trapped. Likewise, if they manage to be little badasses and throw Paeliryon into his own mirror of opposition, all the better.
Actually, writing this down I think I've got a good idea, but I'm open to additions and refinements.
The PCs are on a stone age world where the creator god left centuries ago. Now the world is slowly crumbling apart, and powerful forces from foreign planes are trying to strip mine the world, or to set themselves up as its new gods. The PCs are trying to find a way to stop both the threat of dissolution, and of conquest.
Background for People Interested
[sblock]In the campaign's first act, the PCs grew up in a village that worshiped the god Vona, and which was threatened by the ogre followers of the god Ferruus. The young PCs eventually discovered that Ferruus was just a demon trying to become a god, and that their own protector Vona was just a halfling mage with a few illusion spells and a couple of sexy women posing as his angels. They exposed Vona, went on a quest to retrieve the blood of an actual 'god,' and then when Ferruus and his armies attacked, they used that divine power to defeat him.
In the campaign's second act, the PCs set out to explore their world. First they took ogre prisoners back to their home city, exposed the lies of Feruus, and forged a difficult peace with their former enemies. They then contacted powerful forces -- primordial dragons, dreaming demi-urges, the one-time 'angel of beasts' of the creator god -- and eventually discovered the true nature of their world, and its looming peril.
A cryptic message from an old ally they thought lost in Hell told them to seek out the mighty city of No-Ostalin in order to stop the world's dissolution, but they discovered that the city lies on another continent, across an impassable chasm of fire. To reach it, they need portal magic -- powerful teleportation capable of spanning hundreds of miles -- and only one group possesses such power: the Golden Legion.[/sblock]
The Legion
[sblock]
The PCs first heard rumors of the legion months ago. Then they encountered a company of these 7-ft. tall, green-scaled devils, each of whom wore a uniform of gold chains, and bore weapons etched with gold.
The one time they faced the Legion in combat, one of its lieutenants was able to summon additional legion devils simply by tossing gold coins in the air. Portals opened, the soldiers stepped through, and gold chains wrapped around them to bind their allegiance. The party at first thought this was just monster summoning, which is temporary, but later realized that it was actual teleportation.
Now they want to take the secret of this magic from the devils.
The Golden Legion is a hellish army that serves the archdevil Egal the Shimmering, an infernal lord who reigns over a level of Hell. He has sent a thousand legion devils to the PCs' primitive world in order to gather its resources, and if possible conquer a new domain for him. The Legion's first conquest was the city of Mu Lsi, on the shores of a floodplain, akin to swampy terrain in Vietnam. Ten miles off the coast is a bottomless chasm of fire -- the edge of the world, literally, and a clear example that the world is slowly falling apart.
For the Legion, gold and treasure is valued above all. Every member of the Legion bears some badge of office made of gold, from lowly legion devils to commanding vizier devils, all the way up to the sorcerer Paeliryon, the highest-ranked devil on this plane.
By Paeliryon's decree, the people of Mu Lsi have abandoned barter and even metals trade. The only gold they're allowed to own are small golden mirrors, which they must hang outside their homes. Instead, the Legion taxes the people, and gives them valueless pieces of reed scrolls that they must use to purchase goods and services. The PCs view this as evil deception and slavery.[/sblock]
The Meat of What I'm Asking for Help For
The PCs want to defeat a small army of devils with the aid of a popular revolt. I can wing that part, but at some point I figure they're going to have to face the legion's commander himself, Paeliryon, and I want to make the build-up and climax appropriately epic.
The Set-Up
The PCs need to get portal magic so they can teleport to another continent and retrieve an imprisoned entity who can help save the world. Paeliryon is a master of portal magic. Indeed, there is a portal from Hell in the middle of the city, and a portal back to Hell on an island a mile offshore. (All portals on this world are one-way.) The main barracks of the Legion are in the city near the portal, but Paeliryon's personal keep is on the island.
Paeliryon resembles a slender man in golden robes, with white cloth wrapping his face, but underneath this facade his flesh his made of filigreed gold. He has no eyes, but can see through any gold polished smoothly enough to reflect an image. He keeps on his person at all times a book of spells scribed on golden sheets (which is what the PCs ultimately want). His 'throne room' is a long hall with the portal to Hell at one end, and beyond that a balcony overlooking the sea and the edge of the world. The walls are lined with full-length golden mirrors, hidden behind crimson curtains.
I borrowed Paeliryon's name from the high-level 'corruption devil' in the 4e MM3, because of the main threat I want him to deploy in the combat. If he can force someone to touch one of these mirrors, he can use it like a mirror of life trapping and mirror of opposition; it sucks the body and soul of the original person into the mirror, and creates an evil reflection.
The Conflict
The way I envision it going down, the party will come up with some ridiculous method of screwing over the Legion -- civil uprising in the streets, summoning a kraken to take out the fleet guarding the island, using a ritual to close the portal from Hell to stop reinforcements. They'll probably seize the city's gold treasury, and offer to parlay with Paeliryon, giving him the gold in exchange for him handing over the portal magic.
(I'm slightly worried that the PCs will push the diplomacy route a bit too much. If they really want, I suppose I can let them avoid a fight, bribe the devil with tons of money, and send him packing through his portal. But I want a climactic battle.)
Paeliryon will decline. Why does he need allies when he has his gold on this island? Given enough time, he'll just open another portal from Hell, so the party will need to go face him.
The Showdown
The party is 8th level, and each has some house ruled abilities. We basically have:
- A monk who can see souls and magic.
- A wizard who summons a lot and spends most of the fight invisible.
- A ranger with a pet velociraptor.
- An invoker who styled himself on Moses, with excellent control of water magic.
The island probably has fifty legion devil guards (minions) and a couple vizier devils. Plus I've reskinned the gnoll priest in the MM3 (the one who conjures hyena spirits) to be a devil who conjures legion devils. The party has already fought enemies similar to these guys, so I want to spice it up. Maybe they arrive at the island docks, and while the minions are harassing them, Paeliryon is casting spells at them through a couple of mirrors that are hung up nearby.
I'd like some larger, more monstrous foe for stage 2, guarding the entrance to the keep. Any suggestions?
When they reach the 'throne room,' Paeliryon will have a few guards handy, and will try to pull the typical corrupting villain schtick of "join my side and you'll be rewarded." When that fails, he'll shift to the "leave now and I will give you some useful information, or stay and earn the eternal ire of the legion."
I need to work up stats for Paeliryon, and give him some interesting tricks to keep combat mobile, and keep people away from him. I want him as an elite, with just tons and tons of minions. The minions will block PCs, grab them, and try to drag them to mirrors. Paeliryon can use a standard action to activate a mirror's magic for a round, and then if someone gets pushed into the wall, they have to make a save or be replaced by a mirror version of himself.
Maybe minor action to summon 4 more legion devils, a move action to let him step through one mirror to any other nearby? A teleportation attack that can drop a PC into the middle of a bunch of legion devils. Conjure a wall of gold? (Use that to seal the portal to Hell at the start of the fight.)
Since this is the climax, I'm perfectly fine with the PCs one-by-one being turned into mirror images of themselves, until the whole party is trapped. Likewise, if they manage to be little badasses and throw Paeliryon into his own mirror of opposition, all the better.
Actually, writing this down I think I've got a good idea, but I'm open to additions and refinements.
