Traveon Wyvernspur
First Post
Back in 2e, the highly inquisitive gnome wizard found a telepathy-enabled crystal ball in a lich's treasure room. A few nights later he dreamed of a beautiful black-haired woman, crying and trapped in a featureless room. He cleverly used the crystal ball to find her. Ever so relieved, she explained that she had been kidnapped by devil worshippers who were trying to release the Princess of Hell Solthra back into the world. They'd run across Solthra before; her symbol was a skull with a short sword jammed down through it. Bad stuff.
So they went after her. The devil worshippers had her imprisoned in the ruins of an old LG temple, reportedly because the corruption was essential to bringing back the fiend. The PCs had to cut their way through the devil worshippers and absurd amounts of traps. They even got ahold of the ritual book that the cultists were using. The girl begged them not to read the last page, at it could free the fiend. Bloodied but resolute, the PCs managed to complete the incantation to release the innocent girl from her magical prison in the floor and rescue her.
Girl: "Thank you! Oh, thank you so much!"
PC paladin: "How does she look?"
Me: Relieved. Dirty. Scared.
PC paladin: I take some of my holy water and gently wash her wounds. Poor thing.
Me: She says "ouch."
Entire party, simultaneously: "OUCH?"
Then the girl smiled wickedly and gestured. The wizard's +3 shortsword appeared in her hand, and she jammed it down into the top of her head to make a living symbol of Solthra. "Ahh," she said, "that's better."
The group all screamed at once.
Turns out it was a cursed crystal hypnosis ball, one tied to the imprisoned princess of Hell. Her cultists had been trying to free her but they needed a hero of pure heart to break the wards that bound her. And if the PCs had actually read the last page of that ritual book, they would have learned exactly that.
Wow this scenario was full of awesomesauce! I was actually reading it and thinking to myself that the girl was Solthra when you were describing it, as a player I may have been pretty hesitant to go through with trying to free her. Sounds like a very evil DM trick to pull and it was so cool that your players were all like "OUCH?!" and then the "Oh sh*t moment" on their parts. I bet the looks on the players' faces was priceless.
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