Help with encounters/events for ongoing adventure

[Toric_Arthendain]

I am about to pick up a D&D campaign that has been on hiatus for over a year and I could use some help in fleshing out some encounters for the current adventure. We are playing tomorrow night for the first time since April 2007. The campaign is set in my homebrew setting and we started with the Red Hand of Doom adventure. After playing through that, where the group acquired Vrath Keep (renamed Dragonskull Keep by my players after defeating the various dragons in the RHoD module) and lordship over a small area of land, we moved on to a Dragon Magazine adventure dealing with an assault on an Academy of Magic. Once that was finished, I started a heavily-modified adventure from the free WotC downloadable adventures, A Harvest of Evil.

I placed the tiny village from that adventure just a few miles away from the PCs Keep. The adventure started with the PCs receiving word that the village was letting their crops wither in the fields when they were most assuredly ready for harvest. The group traveled the few miles to the village posthaste and began investigating the situation. They discovered the locals acting strangely, the crops indeed withering in the fields, and found no children playing anywhere in the village. When they tried to visit the mayor, they discovered she was "out of town". On top of that, they discovered the little graveyard that served the village had one fresh grave that no one was willing to talk about it. During their investigations, they met a group of "adventurers" that were supposedly passing through the area and staying in the village to relax for a few days. Deeper investigation proved that these mercenaries were working for someone even more powerful that was staying in the village. This turned out to be the vampire Deskryn. Discovering a vampire in the village which was on the lands that they had dominion over, the PCs naturally became hostile. Unfortunately for the heroes, they soon discovered that the children of the village were being held hostage by minions working for Deskryn and that if he was harmed, the children were to be killed. A meeting with Deskryn was hastily arranged where the nominal party leader heard the vampire's terms. Deskryn stated that he was simply waiting in the village for his wife to arrive. Once that happened, he promised to continue south, leaving the PCs lands behind never to return. He stated that if he was interfered with, or he or his wife harmed, that he would cause much bloodshed and promised to be an enemy the PCs didn't want to inherit. The heroes agreed to allow Deskryn to wait for his wife.

Unbeknownst to the heroes, a group of paladins had tracked Deskryn to the village and were planning an assault to destroy the vampire. When the heroes discovered this group of paladins encamped outside the village, they spoke to them and were dismayed to find out that the paladins had caught up to and killed Deskryn's wife.

So, what I am left with here are plenty of plot threads to work with but what I need are some actual events that I can run as parts of the adventure.

The facts of the current situation are:
The paladins want Deskryn dead. The vampire killed the leader of their group and they want vengeance as well as to rid the world of his evil taint. They want to storm the village and destroy him while he sleeps, despite the fact that the vampire seems to have mortal minions who are to execute the children in the event of an attack on Deskryn.

Deskryn wants his wife to reach him safely and he does indeed plan to leave peacefully and head south as soon as she does. He believes she should arrive within a week and is unaware that the paladins have already killed her. They have her body at their camp outside of town and have given a locket that she wore to one of the PCs as proof that she is dead.

The villagers are scared of the vampire and his very presence has caused a pall to hang over the village. His mercenaries hold the village children in captivity in the cellar of a house. There are eight of them ranging in age from 3 to 14. Since Deskryn's coming, the villagers have stayed mostly inside, and have neglected their crops which are ready for harvest and have allowed their livestock to wander off into the forest.

One villager was killed by Deskryn. Unbeknownst to the PCs, this villagers was a murderer who had fled from a larger city and settled in the village just a week before the arrival of Deskryn. He had murdered Deskryn's mortal child along with six others in the city before fleeing. Deskryn tracked him to the village and killed him.

Deskryn has become aware of the presence of the paladins in the forest near the village. He has informed the heroes that he might have to "deal with them".

Some possible events:
The 14 year old escapes from captivity and decides to attempt to free the others. The heroes need to intervene when the boy is caught by Deskryn's mercenaries and threatened with death.

Deskryn goes into the forest to kill the paladins. He takes some of his minions with him, including a couple of the mercenaries. The heroes need to decide if they wish to allow him to attack and possibly kill the paladins or if they wish to assist the paladins, with the knowledge that the rest of the mercenaries still hold the children hostage and orders to kill them if Deskryn doesn't return.

The heroes have to defend the villagers who have returned to their fields to harvest their crops when they are attacked by rampaging undead. These undead are drawn to the area because of the powerful aura of evil and death surrounding the vampire.

The murderer killed by Deskryn rises from his grave as a mohrg, a powerful undead. The mohrg seeks out Deskryn, who is most often found in the tavern at night, intent on killing him. The mohrg is willing to kill anyone who gets in the way, PCs or villagers included.

The beauty of this story is that I have no idea how it will end as it almost entirely depends on what the PCs decide to do. If they fight Deskryn, they run the risk of endangering the villagers and their children unless they figure out a way to evacuate them from the area. If they allow Deskryn to battle the paladins, there is a good chance the paladins will be defeated and all of them killed. If they help the paladins attack the vampire, they endanger the lives of the villagers. They are in a tough spot but the possibilities are intriguing and should be fun to see play out.

Any other ideas that spring to mind? Comments, criticism? Like I said, I mostly need encounter/event ideas.

Thanks!

 

[Toric_Arthendain]

Oh, I probably should have mentioned that the PCs are all between 9th and 11th level. We have a druid/rogue/wizard, a ranger/sorcerer/arcane archer, a barbarian cleric, a warlock and two new PCs that are still being created (likely some sort of fighter-types or possibly a rogue).

 

[roguerouge]

Deskryn goes into the forest to kill the paladins. He takes some of his minions with him, including a couple of the mercenaries. The heroes need to decide if they wish to allow him to attack and possibly kill the paladins or if they wish to assist the paladins, with the knowledge that the rest of the mercenaries still hold the children hostage and orders to kill them if Deskryn doesn't return.

This is the easiest solution for the players. Kill the vampire and every last mercenary with him. Then, have a character assume his form through polymorph or alter self to gain access to the kids. Start charming the mooks. Additional bonus if they were dominated by the vampire and that explains why they're working with him, as money's a bit generic a motivation for this level of naughtiness.

...Deskryn, who is most often found in the tavern at night....

Oh, well, then! A consistent schedule makes things much easier then. Wait for BBEG to go to bar. Go charm/dominate/kill-and-replace his guards while he's away. Leave someone at the bar with Telepathic Bond or Whispering Wind or something to let you know when he's on his way back. Get the kids out while he's away. Once the kids are free, the party and the paladins go surround the tavern.

 

[roguerouge]

Oh, I probably should have mentioned that the PCs are all between 9th and 11th level. We have a druid/rogue/wizard, a ranger/sorcerer/arcane archer, a barbarian cleric, a warlock and two new PCs that are still being created (likely some sort of fighter-types or possibly a rogue).

Well, that makes things more difficult. Nobody will likely have access to the high volume of charms and illusions necessary to make this work.

 

[Toric_Arthendain]

Well, that makes things more difficult. Nobody will likely have access to the high volume of charms and illusions necessary to make this work.

Exactly. And on top of that, there is unlikely to be a full-blown arcane caster in the group. There are the four PCs mentioned above plus two that are working on PCs as we speak. Those two new characters are likely to be fighter-types.

 

[Herobizkit]

The children aren't being held captive at all. They are, in fact, a dominated group of young vampires who are trained to appear innocent and helpless until the strength of their rescuers can be assessed. Deskryn is expecting the Paladins to attack, and that's exactly what he wants -- for every fallen Paladin he can claim, he can then raise as an [undead of your choice - forget rules, be creative]. The Paladins will charge into the town, hacking and slaying, without realizing that they're chopping up innocents instead of Deskrym's "mercenaries".

The murderer is, in fact, a Blackguard who used to serve under the Paladins around the town, and is working with Deskryn for the same purpose as above.

Be careful with creating 'no win' scenarios. No player likes to feel like he was going to lose no matter what choice he made. Works GREAT in literature, though.