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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mirth" data-source="post: 450999" data-attributes="member: 5242">Funny enough, mmadsen, here it is! (Better late than never I suppose <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> )Ingredients: Wraith w/levels of BardMagic ring of ironyA large cityTasty pudding The Tree of KnowledgeBarbarian rageThe Ballad of Mad Jack An encounter of substance for 4 characters of 5th-7th level.The one sentence synopsis: Mad Jack is stuck with a ring and the party must get rid of it or get rid of him.Background: Decades ago, Jack Songspinner fancied himself a ladies' man and raconteur, but his many improprieties and adulterous affairs began to catch up with him. His good looks and pretty voice did for this bard what his smarts could never do - kept him alive. Secretly, Jack knew he lacked the brains to make it in this rough-and-tumble world if his face or his throat ever gave out on him. This bothered him greatly and many an evenings' dalliances were cut short by Jack's growing lack of self-confidence. Jack decided that the best course of action would be to seek out someone smarter than he was. An old sage told Jack that one sure way to gain the intelligence he needed was to seek out The Tree Of Knowledge. Jack paid the wise man for a sheaf of papers detailing the legends that were known about The Tree and set out to find it. He never did.Lucky for Jack he didn't need to, for along his travels he discovered a Ring Of Three Wishes. What does one need with brains when you have unlimited power, nay your every dream, at your fingertips? Not wanting to waste any time needlessly worrying over what the three wishes should be, Jack immediately wished all three at once. First, he wished for everlasting life. Then, he wished for all of his loved ones (illicit and otherwise) to be with him. And lastly, Jack wished for a gigantic pudding of exquisite taste (mostly because he was really hungry, pudding was his favorite food and he couldn't think of anything else at the moment - you see, he really wasn't very bright).All of this would have worked out fine for Jack except for one small problem - the Ring Of Three Wishes was intelligent, and it realized really quickly that Jack wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. Not wanting to be stuck with this moron for eternity, the Ring decided that if it didn't give Jack exactly what he wanted, if it twisted the wishes around, then Jack would get upset, throw him away and storm off to live some stupid existence somewhere else. Anywhere would be fine with the Ring as long as Jack was gone. So for Jack's first wish, the Ring made him undead - specifically a Wraith. For the next one, the Ring brought all of Jack's loved ones together and even gave them an entire city they could live in and call their own (Jack had a lot of loved ones, if you know what I mean), the only catch was that the city was contained within a large glass bottle [OOC: like the Bottle City Of Kandor from Superman] that Jack would have to lug around with him everywhere. And lastly (the Ring really got a kick out of this one), Jack was joined by a huge Black Pudding [found under Ooze, MM p145-146] with Awakened Intelligence that fancied itself a gourmand - bored with the standard fare (like humans or rocks), the Pudding decided it would travel with Jack (who he took an instant liking to) and seek out new tastes and textures the world over. With the wishes taken care of, the Ring was sure that Jack would cast it off and be on his way - the poor dumb sod. What the Ring didn't count on was that Jack was too dumb to figure that out. Instead, Jack figured that he had made a mistake in making his wishes. His lack of intelligence had stumped him again. He must find the Tree Of Knowledge and figure this out, if only he could remember where he put those papers with the legends written on them. And so off Jack went with Ring (which was shocked in disbelief) and Bottle City in hand and Pudding schlepping behind. For decades Jack has traveled the land looking for the Tree Of Knowledge he can never find, going more and more mad with each passing day and obsessing over the Ring and his failure.The encounter: The party may encounter Jack in practically any dark setting - forest, underground, seedy alley - you pick a place and Jack has probably been there. It's not where they are but what they decide to do with Jack once they meet him that makes this interesting. Unlike most Wraiths, Jack has retained some semblance of sentience about himself, probably because of his obsession with the Ring and with finding the Tree. It is his driving force, his only reason for existence. And it is the reason he seeks the party out. When the party encounters him, Jack will already have been following them for quite some time, sizing them up and building up the courage to ask them for help. He will pick one character that he thinks looks the smartest, either a spellcaster or perhaps a psion, and approach that person alone if he can, explain his situation and ask for help. How the party reacts to Jack is tantamount to what happens next. After all, he looks like a Wraith and they may very well attack first and ask questions later.If they attack Jack without provocation, he will defend himself using all of his Wraith abilities. The Black Pudding will also come to the aid of his friend (and for a possible shot at something new for dinner). If Jack is killed, the Black Pudding will fly into a Rage (like a Barbarian), forgetting his delicate pallette and consuming everything in his path. This is probably not the best course of action for the players.If the players listen to Jack's plight (which he will tell from his perspective, leaving nothing out), then they may decide to help him try to find the Tree Of Knowledge, but this may lead to worse things also. Jack won't wait somewhere for the players to go and find it for him, he feels he must stay with them. It's not easy to travel in civilized areas with a Wraith and huge Black Pudding tagging along. Jack won't have any information about where to find the Tree (he lost those papers ages ago), the Ring can't communicate with anyone but Jack (and Jack stopped listening to it years ago as well, although he still tells it to shut up) and the Black Pudding will constantly be trying to eat Jack's new friends (which Jack won't do much to stop). And any insult to or shortness with Jack will have a great possiblity of making him strike out in anger at the party (leading to the same end result as if they had attacked Jack).One possible solution is to have the party convince Jack to give them the Ring. The Ring will try to convince Jack that this is the best solution as well. However, the party may get the idea that the Ring is cursed (this is strongly encouraged in order to further confuse the situation). Either way, once the Ring is in the party's possession, it will explain everything to them and beg for their help in getting out of the mess that it has created (IRONICALLY, in order to avoid the very situation it finds itself in now). If the party can convince Jack that he did nothing wrong, that it was the Ring's fault alone, then Jack will regain his self-confidence. This leads to Jack being freed from his unlife and passing on to the afterlife, finally  happy (some might say blissfully ignorant).Of course, the party still has the Pudding to contend with. It will leave them alone, on one condition. The party must give it something truly special to eat, something unique… like a intelligent Ring, perhaps?</blockquote>

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