D&D General How many Abyssal scavengers/skulkers does it take to make a portal?

[the Jester]

I know the thread title sounds like a joke, but serious question here.

I'm not certain whether this has actually been answered anywhere... but these little demons called either Abyssal skulkers or Abyssal scavengers create a portal to the Abyss when gathered in numbers. How many does it take?

 

[Krachek]

666?

 

[GMMichael]

Assuming you mean "magic portal," my best guess is given by the formula:

x + y

where x is the minimum number of abyssal stalkers necessary, and y is the number of abyssal stalkers that the PCs can destroy before the portal conjuration is complete.

Or, the PC researching it can find the answer in an old tome, which was written by someone so mad that the very act of reading his writing causes madness in the reader.

 

[Quickleaf]

Oddly enough, I just wrote up a random encounter entry dealing with exactly this...

Abyssal Scavengers & Demon Gate
Shrieks echo in the distance, seemingly coming from multiple directions. Scattered groups of 5 (2d4) abyssal scavengers* can be seen running along the ridgelines. If none of these groups are interrupted, some time later, the party encounters a group of 15 (6d4) abyssal scavengers* gathered tightly together around a stone monument. If at least 10 of them persist in shrieking for 1 minute, a demon gate is created.

Demon Gate. Each round at initiative count 20, the demon gate has a 50% chance of summoning demons in an unoccupied space within 60 feet of the gate. Roll 1d4 to determine the type of demon summoned:

1. 1d8 babau*
2. 1d6 vrocks
3. 1d4 armanites*
4. 1d3 hezrous
5. 1d2 glabrezus
6. One nalfeshnee

The demons act as allies to the abyssal scavengers, remaining for 1 minute, until they die, or until the demon gate is destroyed (AC 17, 27 hp, immune poison, psychic; damage threshold 10).

 

[pming]

Hiya!

I believe it's the same number as the number of licks it takes to get to the centre of a Tootsi-Pop.



^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[the Jester]

So I guess there's no established answer that anyone is aware of? I was wondering if maybe there was old Planescape lore I didn't know, or maybe if it had been established in an adventure or something.

Just wondering since I'm going through my monster conversions and updating them, including their lore.

 

[Quickleaf]

So I guess there's no established answer that anyone is aware of? I was wondering if maybe there was old Planescape lore I didn't know, or maybe if it had been established in an adventure or something.

Just wondering since I'm going through my monster conversions and updating them, including their lore.

Abyssal skulkers first appeared in 3rd edition's Monster Manual II. There was no mention of them in any of the Planescape books or earlier edition books AFAICR. They got rebranded as abyssal scavengers in 4e, which is where the "creating a demon gate" lore came from IIRC. I'm pretty sure they didn't exist prior to 2002.