HELP: Undead adventure! (my players go away!)

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

We will of course be expecting progress reports.

With many hours at a car dealership today, waiting for work to get done on my ride, I think I could theoertically even churn out a story hour from my notes. But at the very least I'll toss out the goodies here. Crypt Chanters from the Libris Mortis, are very, very cool undead, to say the least.

Thanks again to everyone for their help. I've got lots of time before the next session, so I'll love any help I can get with the rest of this graveyard.

 

[jerichothebard]

Yes. Yes they are. It's the first monster from LM I have used, and it was quite an evocative encounter.

I teamed it up with the other musical/bardic type creature from that book, and a ghoul with a few levels of bard... They were the "Lonely Roads Band", and they worked over my party pretty good...

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

Yes. Yes they are. It's the first monster from LM I have used, and it was quite an evocative encounter.

I teamed it up with the other musical/bardic type creature from that book, and a ghoul with a few levels of bard... They were the "Lonely Roads Band", and they worked over my party pretty good...

I like your style.

I fudged around with the CC a bit, just to give my party a fighting chance since I wanted to have a small choir of them. I reduced the effects of their song so that it mainly affected one person. I dunno, it was a bit of vague fudging, and it was mostly in my head, but it did let the party fool around with them long enough to waste a bunch of massive damage spells due to their incorporealbilyty....

 

[jerichothebard]

They can be pretty lethal - between the three undead creatures, vs. my 7th level party (4@7 + 1 cohort), I managed to score 7 negative levels and 3 CHA drain.


They were stunned - it's really the first time I've pulled off the gloves and not played nice. The cohort nearly bought it.

Next up - mummies with Class levels!

 

[Patman21967]

"I said your words"

 

[The messenger]

Perhaps the King's Advisor is the Big Bad here as well, just indirectly. Rather than having the undead be some kind of random phenomena, an agent of the advisor is testing a new weapon, something that creates undead in a wide area. This ties in to some sort of plans the BB has, either to use undead to take over the kingdom or to use the undead to make it appear that the kingdom is threated so he can impliment martial law or something of that nature. The flunky need not be a spellcaster or undead at all, and thus may be a bit of a suprise to the PCs, but just someone with lots of ranks in Use Magical Devise. Perhaps a high level rogue/assassin who is actually following the PCs around after their first encounter, seeing how the undead fare.

Obstacles in such a place could include sinkholes, various kinds of poison fungus, a few actually trapped crypts, or open graves in an area of heavy fog.

Maybe the King's advisor is a religious fanatic who is trying to take over the world by creating an undead army that he can control. Perhaps he is stealing fallen warriors from the national cemetary and having them tranported to this valley where he can create the undead with other priests in a hidden temple that is located in this valley without being interfered with. Perhaps the players will meet some fallen friends in the form of the undead. And maybe the king's advisor is preparing to change into a lich and is creating the undead to protect the ceremony from being interuppted! Just some thoughts!

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

Time to bump some ancient threads! I'm finishing up this adventure soon, so I could use any new fresh suggestions to help me out. There's plenty of goodies in ehre already, but I'll shamelessly steal whatever I can from the collective genius that is ENWorld.

Thanks a bunch!

 

[Runesong42]

*LOL* you could really screw with your PC's and put them in a "Groundhog Day" effect. I also saw this on a Xena episode, and it might be kinda funny.

The PC's have just finished destroying the graveyard, and all is in goodness. Have them return to the town for a well-deserved night of rest. When they wake the next morning, everytihng is as it was... yesterday.

This will continue to happen everyday until the true source of the undead menace is found.

This requires you to think in advance to find out the chain of events that leads back to the real source. You could save time by using any or all of the examples potsed above --

a) The undead in the graveyard are dead. If the undead are not destroyed, they destroy the village in turn. Sleep.
b) They learn that the undead are not from the graveyard, but from a neighboring village that is being stirred up by Paladin Bob of the Shiny Order (TM, Patent Pending). Get Bob to stop killing undead by finding the Unholy Artifact he's looking for. If the evil doohickey is not found or Bob doesn't stop killing undead, go to a). Found, destroyed, yay. Sleep.
c) The Unholy Artifact is a maguffin. It was placed there by the King who is testing a new weapon that creates undead; the item is actually akin to a homing beacon/laser designator that helps the king pinpoint where to use the weapon. Find the source of the attack, find the evil weapon, destroy weapon, yay, sleep. If the weapon is not destroyed, return to a).
d) The weapon doesn't actually work. The TRUE power comes from a Lich, come to the King in disguise. The Lich has charmed the King and has the King convincingly create the "weapon", which is in fact a minor magic item that signals the Lich that the King is about to use the weapon. When the king fires, the Lich uses its own magic to create the undead. When the citizens learn of the terrble weapon, they send for outside assistance. PC's come, as well as an assassin. If the assassin is not discovered, he/she slays the king. Here the PC's might have to split up and search for the assassin; half goes to break the weapon, half finds the assassin. If not...
e) If the assassin is NOT stopped, the King is killed; The Lich then takes the form of the next in line for the throne, ascends, becomes ruler. If the assassin IS killed, weapon is still fired, undead created. If both goals are not met, go to a).

To end the repetition, pc's must learn tha the Lich in disguise is the true master of it all and find a way to defeat him. Have an 18 hr time limit in effect -- if the PC's battle on beyond this time, they feel a compulsion (like suggestion) to fall asleep. When they next awaken... back to square one.

I don't know how this would work in play, whether the PC's would get all pissed, but they would have the advantage of learning more as each day passed. Thoughts?

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

*LOL* you could really screw with your PC's and put them in a "Groundhog Day" effect. I also saw this on a Xena episode, and it might be kinda funny.
....

You know, I might not use that for this quest yet, but I think that could work quite well for some other stuff. Consider that idea yoinked for future use. Thanks!