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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ViciousPenguin" data-source="post: 3828539" data-attributes="member: 25212">I may have painted myself into a corner in my own campaign by giving the BBEG an "I win!" button, and I'm trying to figure out how to control the amount of damage I'm doing while still raining a little death and destruction in my campaign world.The BBEG's lieutenant, a lich necromancer, has figured out how to stuff a shadow into an urn, and has been active doing this for a couple of years of campaign time.  He's made a lot of urns.  The urns are intended to be used as 'shadow bombs' - dropped on some unfortunate comunity from a great height (he has a zombie dragon to help with this).  Right now we're looking at 100 or so bombs ready for deployment.The PC's are aware of the 'bombs'; I can't unmake them and continue campaign continuity.  So now, I have to figure out how does a community defend against an 'army' of incorporeal undead?The communities know the attack is coming - in fact, its overdue.  (The PC's have supplied them with this intelligence.)  But they don't know from where it will come.  The BBEG has done a good job if keeping his secret base a secret.  Preemptive strikes are out of the question at this time.So far, the defending communities have:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Created "fortified" locations with Hallow and Death Ward - check</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Established R.I.P. squads of NPC clerics to turn/destroy - check</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Prepared to summon celestial reinforcements for the heavy fighting - check</li> </ol>There's even a foreign envoy of special undead hunters who are coming to the rescue, though they're currently slated to be a little late to the party.Finally, these communities have got one more thing in their favor.  The 'shadow bombs' will release uncontrolled, free willed shadows.  That's why I've been quoting the word 'army' - there's no general to lead them.  But, even with the above measures in place, the shadows are going to multiply from that initial 100 or so to some astronomical figure within minuets of the attack.So if you were J.Q. Lordling or Mr. High Cleric, and you had this impending doom hanging over your head, and your word was law and you'd been given 110% of the communities resources to use, how would you use them?Thanks for reading.  I'm looking forward to your ideas.  And so are all my NPC's.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-P" title="Stick out tongue    :-P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":-P" />Note: the NPC's in the target community top out at 10th level, with most of the heavy lifters leveling out in the high single digits, so keep in mind the resources they have available.  (I've guesstimated that 460+ of 8400 people in the town are 5th level or higher and, if I'm feeling generous, maybe 1 in 4 of those are clerics or paladins.)</blockquote>

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