I started my 4e campaign using the old B/X module Night's Dark Terror. That module involves a magical tapestry which, when touched with the appropriately needle and thread, forms a picture depicting the location of a hidden valley.
As I ran it, though, the tapestry was a relic of the ancient minotaur kingdom, and it was not a map to a hidden valley but rather to one of the greatest secrets of the minotaurs, namely, the location of Torog's Soul Abattoir. The Soul Abattoir is (or, rather, was) a location containing metaphysical machinery giving Torog a hold over the souls of those who die in the Underdark. Torog has the souls tortured before they pass on to the Raven Queen, gaining power from that process of torture.
The PCs acquired the tapestry around about 6th level, and the needle and thread about 10 levels later. Not long after, they went into the Underdark and started following the map to the Soul Abattoir. This was mostly at the instigation of the Questing Knight PC, who as a paladin of the Raven Queen had the destruction of the Abattoir as his quest. (The player had made this choice for his PC.)
After getting distracted by this and that, including a detour via Mal Arundak on the Abyss, they finally made it to the Soul Abattoir, having just reached 25th level.
Although the Soul Abattoir is described in very general terms in the Underdark book, little detail is given. I located it at the end of icy tunnels running through the Shadowdark, on the far shore of the Soul Slough into which flows Lathan, the River of Souls. The "liquid souls" flowed under the ice and stone to the icy, Vault-of-the-Drow-style cavern containing the Soul Abattoir. The Abattoir itself was a series of buildings into which souls "flowed" in a fashion analogous to rivers. Inside the buildings the streams of souls were directed through Torog's various machines, which extracted soul energy from by way of torture, converting that energy into "darkspikes" from which Torog could then draw power by driving them into his body.
The destruction of the Soul Abattoir was run mostly as a skill challenge, but with a combat a little over halfway through (and some of this is reposted from other threads):
At the end of the session, I made it clear to the players that Torog was after them. The invoker made his monster knowledge check, and I briefed them on Torog's stats - they were suitably impressed by his 34th level status, with his main ability being a 3-target close burst 20. (And the only party member who can attack effectively from outside that range is the archer-ranger, and the invoker is the only other one with a reliable attack above 10 squares, with Mantle of the Infidel).
We then had a three-week break between sessions, during which the players plotted and planned about whether to stay and fight Torog, or instead try and escape to their waiting Planar Dromond (anchored on the Soul Slough and crewed by devils from Stygia harvesting souls for Levistus).
In the end, after a bit more debate at the start of the next session, they decided to stand and fight. They made some preparations, in the form of powering up with Wrath of the Gods (+8 to damage) and also preparing a Wizard's Curtain to improve their chances of hiding in the opening round. The sorcerer also got ready to lay down his auto-damage zone for when Torog broke through from beneath the tunnel floor. (Successful Dungeoneering from the ranger had revealed the direction Torog was coming from.)
I had also told the players that Torog, deprived of dark spikes, would weaken rapidly over the course of a confrontation: to be manifested mechanically in the form of a d8 escalation die (ie a die start at 0 but then counting up by 1 each round) granting a bonus to both attacks and damage for the PCs.
In the end, Torog did not have a chance: he was killed in the round that the escalation die was showing 5.
I had Torog burst up from beneath the tunnel floor, creating a 130' rift splitting the tunnel in two. That worked fairly well for Torog - with his CB 20 slide 5 attack, he was able to knock first the paladin down, then the ranger, sorcerer and invoker, and then the paladin again! But that didn't save him. The first attack of the combat was delivered by the paladin, who critted with Strength of Ten to push Torog back down (allowing other party members to stay hidden behind the Wizard's Curtain for an extra turn while they took their attacks). There were 3 or 4 more crits, I think - two from Torog and at least one from the sorcerer - but these favoured the PCs over Torog, as they were able to recover from the damage, while Torog had no regen or healing options.
The sorcerer also landed a stun on Torog, and despite the god having a power to get an immediate save he rolled a 1, which was not enough, and therefore lost a whole turn of attacks.
As already mentioned, the zenith of Torog's achievement was getting four PCs - paladin, invoker, ranger and sorcerer - down the pit.
The paladin survived the first fall fine, and was able to fly back up when the ranger threw down his flying carpet. But it wasn't long before he was knocked back down again.
The 130' fall would have killed the invoker, who was already unconscious from other damage taken, but the ranger managed to grab hold of him as he fell beside him (successful Acro check) and then between his strong Acro and amulet of reducing falling distance (I can't remember its proper name) kept the damage they both took to 20 hp only.
And the sorcerer's Acro kept him alive too.
Regrouping at the bottom of the pit while the fighter solo-ed Torog (using second wind to get +8 to all defences, with a Defending polearm, which meant that Torog missed at least two of three attacks, making for another ineffectual turn), the ranger-cleric healed them all with a Word of Vigour. The invoker-wizard then leapt onto the carpet (which the paladin had readied for him), flew up with a double move and opened an Arcane Gate linking the bottom of the pit to its top. The others rushed through and Torog was dead.
The two lost rounds really hurt him. He was also taking close to 100 damage a turn from zones - both the sorcerer's, and a Firestorm that the ranger-cleric dropped. But even without the auto-damage the PCs pretty clearly had the best of him: by the time he died the escalation die was tipping the tide of the battle, and the PCs hadn't quite dropped all of their big guns yet. And both fighter and paladin had plenty of surges left, the fighter with a second Second Wind still ready to go. (Perhaps the more important consequence of the zones was to shut down Torog's minion crawling blood swarms via auto-damage.)
At the moment when he chose not to discorporate, and rather to give in to his death-wish, Torog warned the PCs of the chaos that would follow his death, as the Underdark collapsed completely under the onslaught of elemental chaos. The sorcerer (who is a Demonskin Adept chaos sorcerer as well as Primordial Adept who reveres Chan, Queen of Good Air Elementals) is somewhat welcoming of this prospect, but while the others were above the pit, the invoker - who was still at the bottom when Torog's dead body tumbled down - said a quick prayer to try and bind Torog's departing soul to Bane and the Raven Queen, so that it can continue to act as something of a buffer against chaotic forces. The player's religion check was good (50+, from memory) and so the prayer was at least temporarily effective.
The PCs then headed back down the tunnels - still collapsing or threatening to do so - to find their waiting Dromond starting to set off, about 20 yards from shore. The invoker summoned the Tide of the First Storm to wash them most of the way to the vessel, and Athletics or flight got them the rest of the way. After a friendly chat with the devils (the fighter, the first to reach the ship, made a successful Diplomacy check and thereby concluded this complexity 2 post-Torog skill challenge) - who explained that they had only been intended to keep the Dromond safe from any ensuing onslaught from the collapsing tunnels - the PCs and crew set off, about 4000 XP short of 26th.
Depending where they go, next session may involve having to deal with Vecna, or the Elemental Chaos, or mad once-were-angels in the Astral Sea, or perhaps the Hells themselves (though the chaos sorcerer is not too keen on that idea).
As I ran it, though, the tapestry was a relic of the ancient minotaur kingdom, and it was not a map to a hidden valley but rather to one of the greatest secrets of the minotaurs, namely, the location of Torog's Soul Abattoir. The Soul Abattoir is (or, rather, was) a location containing metaphysical machinery giving Torog a hold over the souls of those who die in the Underdark. Torog has the souls tortured before they pass on to the Raven Queen, gaining power from that process of torture.
The PCs acquired the tapestry around about 6th level, and the needle and thread about 10 levels later. Not long after, they went into the Underdark and started following the map to the Soul Abattoir. This was mostly at the instigation of the Questing Knight PC, who as a paladin of the Raven Queen had the destruction of the Abattoir as his quest. (The player had made this choice for his PC.)
After getting distracted by this and that, including a detour via Mal Arundak on the Abyss, they finally made it to the Soul Abattoir, having just reached 25th level.
Although the Soul Abattoir is described in very general terms in the Underdark book, little detail is given. I located it at the end of icy tunnels running through the Shadowdark, on the far shore of the Soul Slough into which flows Lathan, the River of Souls. The "liquid souls" flowed under the ice and stone to the icy, Vault-of-the-Drow-style cavern containing the Soul Abattoir. The Abattoir itself was a series of buildings into which souls "flowed" in a fashion analogous to rivers. Inside the buildings the streams of souls were directed through Torog's various machines, which extracted soul energy from by way of torture, converting that energy into "darkspikes" from which Torog could then draw power by driving them into his body.
The destruction of the Soul Abattoir was run mostly as a skill challenge, but with a combat a little over halfway through (and some of this is reposted from other threads):
- The entrance to the Soul Abattoir, at which the PCs had arrived, was an icy tunnel floor, ending at a cliff overlooking the cavern - the river of souls was flowing some way beneath the ice, and flowed out from the base of the entrance cliff into Torog's various machines;
- The drow sorcerer and tiefling paladin flew to the bottom of the cliff, where the paladin blew his Fire Horn to render the ice more susceptible to heat, while the drow cast Flame Spiral to melt some of the ice, and then cast Wall of Water to block the flow of souls (check-wise, this was an Arcana check by the player of the drow, with a buff from the melting of the ice and use of the wall);
- The paladin and invoker then headed to the largest building, at the other end of the cavern, while the cleric-ranger on his flying carpet provided archery cover and the sorcerer flew above them maintaining concentration on his wall spell (check-wise, this was an Acro check for the archer and the sorcerer, and an Intimidate check from the paladin assisted by the invoker to make their way through Torog's minions);
- Once they got to the far building, the paladin and invoker sought the intervention of the Raven Queen to redirect the flow of souls directly to the Shadowfell rather than via Torog's infernal machines (one failed and one successful Religion check; the failure led to damage from a combination of psychic and necrotic energies generated by the suffering souls);
- Meanwhile, with the flow of souls stopped, the fighter fought his way through the other (lesser) buildings, destroying the machinery inside them (Athletic check buffed by expenditure of a close burst encounter power to fight through the minions from building to building, and Dungeoneering to wreck the machinery);
- When the PCs had all regrouped at the furthest (and most important) building resolution then switched from skill challenge mode to tactical combat mode, as they stormed the building and fought with Torog's shrivers plus a death titan;
- After the (very challenging) fight, during which the last machine was turned off by the sorcerer (the player made a successful Thievery check as a standard action once the PCs had finally fought their way along the central gantry that ran above the pool of souls), the skill challenge then resumed as the Soul Abattoir itself started to collapse;
- The ranger and sorcerer flew out of the cavern (successful Acro checks) while the paladin ran out beneath them, but was struck by falling rocks (failed Aths check, making the 3-person group check a success altogether as a majority succeeded, but costing the paladin damage for the failure);
- The fighter shielded the invoker (Endurance check) as the latter held off the powerful soul energy while the others made their escape (Religion check);
- The invoker noticed that Vecna was trying to take control of the soul energy via the invoker's imp familiar that has the Eye of Vecna implanted in it (as GM, I had decided that this was the moment when Vecna would try and steal the souls for himself; mechanically I asked the player to make an Insight check, which was successful);
- The invoker, having to choose between two of his patrons (he is a very pluralist divine PC) stopped Vecna redirecting the souls away from the Raven Queen, making sure that they flowed to her instead (in play, at this point I asked the player whether his PC - who at this point still had the erupting soul energy under his mystical control - whether he was going to let the souls flow to Vecna, or rather direct them to the Raven Queen; the player though for probably about 20 seconds, and then replied "The Raven Queen"; I decided that, on the basis of the earlier Religion check with no further check required, and I also decided that Vecna in anger shut down the offending imp via his Eye);
- The invoker and fighter then ran out of the collapsing cavern behind their companions, the invoker being shielded from falling rocks by the burly dwarf fighter (Athletics checks, with the fighter doing well enough to grant an "aid another" bonus to the invoker, so from memory neither took any damage).
At the end of the session, I made it clear to the players that Torog was after them. The invoker made his monster knowledge check, and I briefed them on Torog's stats - they were suitably impressed by his 34th level status, with his main ability being a 3-target close burst 20. (And the only party member who can attack effectively from outside that range is the archer-ranger, and the invoker is the only other one with a reliable attack above 10 squares, with Mantle of the Infidel).
We then had a three-week break between sessions, during which the players plotted and planned about whether to stay and fight Torog, or instead try and escape to their waiting Planar Dromond (anchored on the Soul Slough and crewed by devils from Stygia harvesting souls for Levistus).
In the end, after a bit more debate at the start of the next session, they decided to stand and fight. They made some preparations, in the form of powering up with Wrath of the Gods (+8 to damage) and also preparing a Wizard's Curtain to improve their chances of hiding in the opening round. The sorcerer also got ready to lay down his auto-damage zone for when Torog broke through from beneath the tunnel floor. (Successful Dungeoneering from the ranger had revealed the direction Torog was coming from.)
I had also told the players that Torog, deprived of dark spikes, would weaken rapidly over the course of a confrontation: to be manifested mechanically in the form of a d8 escalation die (ie a die start at 0 but then counting up by 1 each round) granting a bonus to both attacks and damage for the PCs.
In the end, Torog did not have a chance: he was killed in the round that the escalation die was showing 5.
I had Torog burst up from beneath the tunnel floor, creating a 130' rift splitting the tunnel in two. That worked fairly well for Torog - with his CB 20 slide 5 attack, he was able to knock first the paladin down, then the ranger, sorcerer and invoker, and then the paladin again! But that didn't save him. The first attack of the combat was delivered by the paladin, who critted with Strength of Ten to push Torog back down (allowing other party members to stay hidden behind the Wizard's Curtain for an extra turn while they took their attacks). There were 3 or 4 more crits, I think - two from Torog and at least one from the sorcerer - but these favoured the PCs over Torog, as they were able to recover from the damage, while Torog had no regen or healing options.
The sorcerer also landed a stun on Torog, and despite the god having a power to get an immediate save he rolled a 1, which was not enough, and therefore lost a whole turn of attacks.
As already mentioned, the zenith of Torog's achievement was getting four PCs - paladin, invoker, ranger and sorcerer - down the pit.
The paladin survived the first fall fine, and was able to fly back up when the ranger threw down his flying carpet. But it wasn't long before he was knocked back down again.
The 130' fall would have killed the invoker, who was already unconscious from other damage taken, but the ranger managed to grab hold of him as he fell beside him (successful Acro check) and then between his strong Acro and amulet of reducing falling distance (I can't remember its proper name) kept the damage they both took to 20 hp only.
And the sorcerer's Acro kept him alive too.
Regrouping at the bottom of the pit while the fighter solo-ed Torog (using second wind to get +8 to all defences, with a Defending polearm, which meant that Torog missed at least two of three attacks, making for another ineffectual turn), the ranger-cleric healed them all with a Word of Vigour. The invoker-wizard then leapt onto the carpet (which the paladin had readied for him), flew up with a double move and opened an Arcane Gate linking the bottom of the pit to its top. The others rushed through and Torog was dead.
The two lost rounds really hurt him. He was also taking close to 100 damage a turn from zones - both the sorcerer's, and a Firestorm that the ranger-cleric dropped. But even without the auto-damage the PCs pretty clearly had the best of him: by the time he died the escalation die was tipping the tide of the battle, and the PCs hadn't quite dropped all of their big guns yet. And both fighter and paladin had plenty of surges left, the fighter with a second Second Wind still ready to go. (Perhaps the more important consequence of the zones was to shut down Torog's minion crawling blood swarms via auto-damage.)
At the moment when he chose not to discorporate, and rather to give in to his death-wish, Torog warned the PCs of the chaos that would follow his death, as the Underdark collapsed completely under the onslaught of elemental chaos. The sorcerer (who is a Demonskin Adept chaos sorcerer as well as Primordial Adept who reveres Chan, Queen of Good Air Elementals) is somewhat welcoming of this prospect, but while the others were above the pit, the invoker - who was still at the bottom when Torog's dead body tumbled down - said a quick prayer to try and bind Torog's departing soul to Bane and the Raven Queen, so that it can continue to act as something of a buffer against chaotic forces. The player's religion check was good (50+, from memory) and so the prayer was at least temporarily effective.
The PCs then headed back down the tunnels - still collapsing or threatening to do so - to find their waiting Dromond starting to set off, about 20 yards from shore. The invoker summoned the Tide of the First Storm to wash them most of the way to the vessel, and Athletics or flight got them the rest of the way. After a friendly chat with the devils (the fighter, the first to reach the ship, made a successful Diplomacy check and thereby concluded this complexity 2 post-Torog skill challenge) - who explained that they had only been intended to keep the Dromond safe from any ensuing onslaught from the collapsing tunnels - the PCs and crew set off, about 4000 XP short of 26th.
Depending where they go, next session may involve having to deal with Vecna, or the Elemental Chaos, or mad once-were-angels in the Astral Sea, or perhaps the Hells themselves (though the chaos sorcerer is not too keen on that idea).
