Demiliches and other Epic nastiness- help me plan my game!

[Ellie_the_Elf]

Hi all,

The PCs in my Forgotten Realms game are currently en route to an abandoned Netherese nature reserve on Mechanus to, amongst other things, kill a demilich...

What I'm looking for is any tips, ideas and encounter suggestions to help me do what should be a highly magical and dangerous place- even to epic characters- justice.

The ideas I have so far-

- I'm thinking about putting the demilich in a massive, partially ruined castle (I have 0One's Vampire Castle blueprint pdf which I'm planning to use as my map). They'll first encounter the demilich near the entrance and fight would then consist of a chase through the castle, with various minions and thralls of the demilich joining the fight at various intervals, traps going off, PCs being lured into hidden rooms and stairways, and having to escape and find their way back to their friends with the fight still ongoing between the rest of the party and monsters...

-Plenty of magic-sapping monsters outside the castle, drawn there by the huge amount of magic held within the reserve. Possibility too of some wild/dead magic areas as a result

My victims for this adventure are:

Human wizard/cleric/mystic theurge/archmage- around 27th level (artillery)
Elven wizard/fighter/bladesinger- around 27th level (melee/buffs)
Drow spellthief - around 26th level incl ECL (melee)
Elven arcane archer-around 22nd level since he's been absent for a while. Not sure yet if he'll make it back in time. (ranged/spells)
Half celestial paladin -around 25th level incl ECL (NPC, melee)
Human cleric (Lathander) -20th level (NPC, healer/buffs)

They know the demilich is there, but very little else about the place.

Any ideas?

Ellie

 

[boredgremlin]

Well besides making sure your PC's actually have a chance to beat it (they are one nasty critter), you could have lots of open extradimensional gates around. Demi liches are supposed to spend a lot of time studying the dimensions. And interesting twist on this might be adding leaks to the far plane that the demilich opened to study. That allways adds a little wierdness and solid challenges even to high level parties.

 

[Ellie_the_Elf]

I don't think they'll have too much trouble beating it- they're all extremely powerful, and all but the spellthief have been playing these characters for a long time (almost 2 years) so they know how best to use their abilities to give me a headache! Since they know there's a demilich to be fought the fighter types have brought along vorpal swords...

I like the gate idea - I could have the chase wind up moving across the planes through various gates that are scattered around-would be a nightmare to run and remember to apply all the planar effects of course but probably worth it!

 

[Dakkareth]

The epic pseudonatural template makes hideous challenges out of creature - maybe a few modrons have come too close to the demilich's gate ... ouch!

 

[Shemeska]

The epic pseudonatural template makes hideous challenges out of creature - maybe a few modrons have come too close to the demilich's gate ... ouch!

Pseudonatural modrons... *griiiiiin*

As it is, Modrons can be played anywhere from kooky to coldly lawful bordering on alien in mindset.

Here's another one for you. Insane Moignos who tried to do calculations on what was beyond that demilich's gate. Pseudonatural Parai...

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I like the pseudonatural modrons. You don't see one of those every day.

Does the demi-lich know they are coming?

If you are open to psionics, this would be an ideal time to introduce them. Or even if you don't, perhaps a bodyguard of githyanki who have been offered knowledge of a gateway to an illithid stronghold in exchange for their service for three years.

Another idea for grunts would be troll barbarians who weren't brought into the demi-lichs' dimension all the way. So they are considred to be incorporeal.

Hmmmm. Maybe a corrupted deva or two? It isn't often PCs get to fight good guys. The deva are working for the demi-lich for the "greater good" because the demi-lich has promised them a weapon against devils and demons. Obviously, the demi-lich has lied and the devas, their vanity having driven them to self-absorbtion, have fallen without their own knowledge.

Hope that helps!

 

[Ellie_the_Elf]

I love the pseudonatural template - although my PCs didn't last time they fought something with it - so it's probably about time I use it again

Sorry if this is an extremely dumb question, but where do I find modrons? I've looked through all 3 MMs, plus MotP and the Planar handbook and can't see them- of course I'm the person who complained to her PCs about lichs and vampires not being in the monster manual when I first started DMing cause I didn't realise they were templates, so I know it's probably somewhere obvious

Love the idea of corrupted celestials too- actually that would tie in really well with some other stuff that's been going on in the campaign and possibly give my Eilistraeen drow PC someone to redeem into the bargain....

The demilich doesn't know they're coming yet, but will do once they move from Mechanus itself into the Netherese reserve (so will probably have about a day of prep time)

Thanks all for the ideas so far, you've helped me a lot

Ellie.

 

[Shemeska]

Sorry if this is an extremely dumb question, but where do I find modrons? I've looked through all 3 MMs, plus MotP and the Planar handbook and can't see them- of course I'm the person who complained to her PCs about lichs and vampires not being in the monster manual when I first started DMing cause I didn't realise they were templates, so I know it's probably somewhere obvious

They were originally going to be in the 3e MM, but were left out because of page limitations and not wanting to have 1/2 the book dedicated to extraplanar critters, but with the idea that they'd be covered in a future book. At some point after that someone in the new design team just didn't like them and they've seen little to no mention since, including the PlHB that just utterly ignored them, including no mention of them in the descriptions of places in Mechanus they made.

They're talked about in the MotP but not given stats in there. However after a rather large amount of outrage regarding that, WotC put out a web enhancement for the book that had all the modrons statted out.

 

[Ellie_the_Elf]

Downloading them now! Thanks

Ellie.

 

[dungeon blaster]

Um...how is a vorpal sword supposed to work on a demilich? You cut its head off...from what?