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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aegeri" data-source="post: 5430179" data-attributes="member: 78116">Dark Sun: Builder's Cry Once again I was faced with the challenge of designing encounters for a party that lacked a leader, due to my new player not having internet yet. This is always a challenge, because if monsters front load too much damage or have a bit of luck go their way it can make life very awkward. Additionally PCs cannot use their healing surges in a very efficient manner and so burn through them faster. With these challenges in mind, I shifted around encounters so some of the more rolepaying orientated encounters came earlier so to give the PCs longer breaks between combats.Firstly came some clean up from the end of the last game session. The Crodlu was still sinking beneath the silt and with it all 24 (!) of its remaining survival days of rations. This was not a situation that the PCs wanted to be in, as survival days will be gold at a later stage in the campaign. After some debate, the wizard started to pull some of the weight of the struggling beast and the other PCs pushed some of the large bones into the silt. With sufficient purchase the Crodlu was heroically rescued and they earned themselves a new pet! After a moment to name him, eventually they decided upon simply "Bob" they rejoined the caravan.Unfortunately not all was well in caravan land since the dust storm. The sun was getting even hotter and brighter, literally boiling the unfortunate members of the caravan alive making travel extremely difficult. I started to require the PCs to make endurance checks even when supplied to avoid the suns especially intense heat. If you're familiar with Dark Sun as a setting, you can totally guess what might be in store soon creature wise! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" /> None the less the intense heat was also causing other problems.The dust storm combined with the rapid raid on the caravans supply beasts had reduced the amount of water they had considerably. The PCs soon found themselves on half the normal water ration because of the vastly reduced stocks! Techulan admitted that they would not make it all the way with their current water supply. He had diverted the caravan further west than intended so he could potentially raid a nearby oasis for more water. Unfortunately the scouts he had sent there didn't report back and he suspected the worst. Realizing the PCs were the sort who got things done and best of all quietly, he enlisted their aid.During this I wanted to put some hints as to things coming up in the game and also show just how powerful the seering stone Techulan was using is. While conversing with the PCs, Techulan examined his dusty orb and was looking at the images within it. One of the PCs risked a look and couldn't quite handle the influx of psychic information that rushed in with it. He took some damage and picked up a couple of strange, distorted images. One of an army of ssurran's led by a familiar figure and the other of a broken city, with five tall towers stretching up all the way to the burning sun above.Under the cover of darkness the PCs left the caravan to go and secure the oasis, so some of Techulan's men waiting nearby could gather enough extra water. Here is where I wanted to show that even at night Athas is a brutal and horrible place. While the PCs will burn during the day the night offers no solace as it becomes freezing. Traveling at night requires a more difficult endurance check due to the sub zero temperatures and exposure (while the PCs have items, like Sun Balm that can make travel under the sun easier). The PCs pretty easily succeeded in the end, but it was a quiet reminder that Athas' environment does not let up regardless of day or night.Eventually the PCs arrived at the oasis and quickly found that it actually was almost luminous. Strange energy permeated the cliff, plants and the strangely glowing water. Approaching carefully at first, the PCs could see nothing among the rocks but neither could they see any sign of the missing scouts. Only upon reaching the oasis proper did the PCs find the reason for the scouts disappearance. The oasis rapidly revealed itself to be a shifting piece of terrain appearing partially in Athas from it's dying feywild. The eladrin guardians rapidly made their presence known and demanded the PCs leave or die. The characters of course attempted to reason with the eladrin but they had no interest in what the filthy "defilers" wanted. Battle rapidly begun.<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v305/Aegeri/OasisBattle.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> This is actually a crossing into Athas' dying feywild, where the eladrin have shifted from the feywild into Athas to defend the spring. Several water elementals animated by primal spirits summoned by the magic of the spring also rose up in its defense. The eladrin started by pounding into the PCs and the snipers jumped out from hiding, trying to drag the PCs down with their thrown chatkcha. Most of the snipers threw pretty poorly and so the PCs avoided most of the extra damage from hidden sniper. They were then blown off the cliff by use of the mages scorching burst. The executioner front loaded pretty much everything into the eladrin veiled warrior to nearly down him round 1 (10 HP, only 1 HP from death attack <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" />). The eladrin and elementals though did not give up and assaulted the PCs to deal some damage. But things looked firmly in control.<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v305/Aegeri/WinningtheFight.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> With only a single elemental left on the field and just the mirage adept left on the top of the cliff, the battle had been mostly won. Despite the losing position the mirage adept continued to fight to the death. Never giving in whatsoever to the "Defilers" and vowing their deaths to her final breath. Impressively her last few turns were considerably productive as she dealt some considerable damage to the PCs. Although a critical hit from an arrow to the thigh almost killed her, it was another amusing case where the assassin failed to get a death attack by 1 HP (she was left on 11 HP). She stood tall on her rock until the very bitter end. <img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v305/Aegeri/LastStand.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> A satisfying resolution to the combat. Without a leader the party could have been prone to a very swingy fight, but as it was I damaged the party enough to be challenging without anything feeling unfair or that dice could kill them any minute. As the PCs checked out the water, which fresh from the spring had some mild healing properties (restoring a couple of surges, though the party wasn't too bad off pleasingly). They suddenly found they had another guest who had been watching them. An elven woman - incidentally rule #1 of Dark Sun is never trust an elf - approached the party and commented how pleased she was they had cleared away the eladrin. Introducing herself a Variya, she offered the PCs a bit of an interesting proposition. Some of the caravan's inix's were carrying valuable weapons and other supplies. If one of them would get "waylaid" and end up in the desert unguarded, she would see to it disappearing. Then the PCs would be able to gain a reward - equally as mysteriously you understand. This provoked a lot of back and forth from Variya, who was more than happy to talk the PCs heads off and run circles around them with words. After a somewhat involved conversation the PCs somewhat agreed to the terms she set. I'm not entirely sure what they are planning to do, but one of the weapon laden inix's with the caravan is actually serving the contingent of templars sent with the traveling party by Nibenay. It does not appear that the PCs would be at all upset if one of their inix's was to suddenly go mysteriously missing. Though how exactly they plan to carry out this nefarious deed will remain to be seen! Also - almost as a casual afterthought - Variya mentioned that while talking to the PCs they had "borrowed" a couple of the Crodlus that the other soldiers waiting nearby had. She then promptly vanished into the sands of the desert as mysteriously as she arrived, leaving the PCs with quite the interesting choice. There is where we left it but you had better believe the sheer magnitude of backstabbing available here is going to be immense. I'm not done setting up backstabs and counter backstab options for the PCs just yet, many of whom will have very long term ramifications... </blockquote>

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