Frozen Tree fortress..

[Arrgh! Mark!]

Hi all.

I'm sort of at a loss. After a long journey and adventure through some forests and hidden temples, spider-sages, and hostile elves in a plague ridden land, my PC's will find out that the reason for the plague itself is a ritual cast by a powerful sage in the lands of the ice-elves on a powerful magical nexus which is linked to the waters of this section of the land.

(Midnight game, and Autilar in particular is where I have set one of the springs.)


Autilar, a great ice-elf fortress, is a giant icewood tree the size of a castle in the center of a nigh impassible frozen swampland that has been taken by elves and Shandrak Child-killer. Through manipulations of another powerful bad guy, the frost mother tribe of orcs suffered horrendous casualties to take the tower - and are told to retreat by the beginning of winter proper.

Our PC's, wondering where their allies have got to, go to investigate. After trial and tribulation they find their way to the great fortress, finding that it was first grown as a prison to hold something deep below. Inside there's a orc witch and her coven poisoning the water of the north.

What I need help with is stuff that I can do inside the fortress itself. I don't want a strait dungeon romp - while the orcish tribe is decimated, it isn't useless. (Probably about 1000 left from about 10 000.)

Character level is 6th. We have a magic user, a fighter, a defender, a monk-like, a barbarian and a ranger. Mostly human, the barbarian is a dwarf. heaviest armor is breastplate.

What can I get my PC's to do other than avoid orcs and climb walls and things?

 

[fnork de sporg]

Orcs often keep slaves. They could decide to free them. Or they might figure out a great hiding spot only to find some haggered escaped slaves already hiding there.

 

[Herobizkit]

You could have a small colony of potential allies living inside the castle. When the PCs stumble upon them, they are under attack by Orcs. After defeating the Orcs, the PCs can treat the area like a town... it'll have one weapon/armorsmith, one guy with potions (no more than 1d4 or 1d6 per visit, maybe), a safe place to sleep, and provisions.

Entreprenurial PC's may try and expand this territory, room by room if needs be, until they clean the castle out... and then they keep the castle! *YAY!*

You've pretty much set up a classic "dungeon romp" type area, so it may be difficult to find other things to do. I might suggest going through old Dungeon magazines, or picking up some cheap modules, and literally plug one into the castle itself. Having an adventure inside the adventure will blow your PC's minds.

 

[runtime]

wow! I am impressed by your story. It sounds really cool.

One adventure idea/setting I've been storing in the back of my head is a race out of a dungeon that is flooding bottom-up (from a lake above). Since your setting is related to ice and poisoned water, maybe you could have your players race against time to rescue the orc's prisoners as the tree fills from water?

 

[Gothmog]

Well, this being Midnight, you could have the former occupants of the keep dumped into the basement/dungeon/subterranean area when they were killed. Because the orcish witch is poisoning the water or because of the "thing" imprisoned below, maybe some of the bodies of the previous defenders were also touched by it, and became a weird kind of Fell, which then break out of their tomb while the PCs are exploring the fortress. Remember that the power of Izrador doens't spare the orcs from his wrath either- and it would drive home the point just how corrupt and malign the Shadow is. The adventure could become a free-for-all as orcs vs. PCs vs. Fell, and would keep things moving and fast-paced.

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

Hey, these are some rather nice ideas.

Here is my working hypothesis. Our intrepid PC's, tasked with sneaking in to one of the most dangerous fortress-cities in Eredane to go below are tracked by an old enemy. (The Dark ice Dragon Yxssn, "The Frozen Shadow.") Inadvertantly, while sneaking in to a poorly defended entry, they find out that there is a state of war still ongoing between the Ice-elves and the Orcs; Orcs who hold the exits and certain key areas and Ice-elves who hold the upper reaches, dying of starvation.

As they fight their way in, a bunch of elves are fighting their way out; they inform the PC's that they have worked an ancient magic to flood the lower reaches, under the ground; cut the orcs off so they can starve to death. As they speak, the water is rushing in; this is to ensure the powerful nexus underneath the ground is kept safe until the elves can mount a countterattack. However, this action will poison the water around, allowing the plagued water to spread at a much greater rate than it has (So far it's only reached a 150 mile radius, plague only effects elves so far.)

With this in mind, they must swim their way through plagued water, saving what elves they can from the troops of orcs frantically attempting to stop the water rushing through the lower reaches of the trees. They learn where the spring is and a way to climb out.

Eventually, after jumping, swimming, and climbing their way through the roots of the tree and hacking up whatever terrors the orcs have brought with them..

things start coming from the darkness. From beneath them - dark things, long left hidden, running from the watery embrace; the fell orcs the least of the problems.

Eventually they get to the spring itself with the catatonic witch and her protectors. They then spill some "innocent" blood in to clear the spring; a few drops will do. Finding innocent blood is up to them. They also know that the other springs locations are also known and soon their rituals will begin.

the plague is cut off at it's source; however, the water still rushes onwards. As they climb as fast as they can the water rushes after them; they get trapped in a cul-de-sac, listening to the sounds of battle overhead. The water comes down after a day or two, and the PC's personally help with the final destruction of Shangrak child-killer in a bit of urban combat.

That sound fun and interesting?

 

[LostSoul]

What about this: the poisoning of the water done by the orc-witch is what is keeping the evil down below. If she stops doing this, the evil wakes up. It kills the orcs first, and then some other good innocents later. Not the PC's friends, of course, but some other innocents.

The orc-witch tells the PCs this, of course.

 

[Herobizkit]

Hell YES that sounds interesting!

You might even want to throw in a weak water elemental who can poison with a touch.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Or a shark capable of flying through the ark of the covenant and biting god's head off...with missles and metal teeth. It is a fish. It is thirty feet long and lives in bermuda. It's name is stan. It's metal teeth are made from steel, but also gold. It can never die...

Wait...that sounds familiar...

Considering this place seems to have been the center of much death and fighting, you could use spirits of the restless dead to set up adventure hooks, drop clues as to the nature of the thing below...

Your imprisoned nemesis can either be a BBEG and his minions, or some kind of superpredator (think Alien), either of which could be devastating should they escape.

A template idea I've been toying with- an aquatic creature with a poison sting touch (like an anemone or jellyfish)- could be qute nasty in this semi-aquatic setting and within the context you've outlined, especially if paired with the gelatinous template. One downside, the creatures upon which I based it are all marine (salt-water) critters.

Remember...aquatic/semi-aquatic predators tend to think in 3 dimensions, as opposed to the 2-dimensional thinking of most terrestrial creatures. That is, they don't only consider left, right, front & back, they also consider above and below. Even a predator of animal intelligence with an aquatic nature will try to attack from angles that most players won't even think of...until its too late. This is especially true of ambush predators.

 

[DaveStebbins]

Have fun with the environment. The first thing I thought of when I heard "ice" was "balance checks during battle." Have one area that is sloped with enemies on the high ground... with barricades for cover... moving upslope every round is slow and requires balance checks... and the enemies are sliding big heavy things down at the PCs... and if the PCs don't come in at the 'bottom' of the room, there could be something very nasty there (spikes? mold/slime?) in case they blow several checks in a row and slide all the way down. Maybe the main enemy in the room has boots of the north and can move about without worry, and tries to knock people down into whatever hazard is at the lower end of the room.

I am also reminded of the ice axes of one of the old Dragonlance adventures. A +3 battle axe made of ice, so it can only be used in cold temperatures. I thought that was avery cool idea at the time.

That's all I got (for now).
-Dave