P1 foreshadowing in H1/H2

[Nebulous]

I'd actually like to hear the details on this. I love fey. Sadly, not much opportunity to implement them in the WotC mods.

Sure. I'll just post the relevant part from the story hour. I had fun making this fey encounter, it helped break up the heavy combat encounters of Shadowfell. In fact, the whole thing sprouted simply from that one picture of the Frog Queen. Which i should note, has been edited so as not to offend Grandma. My players, however, experienced full-on Frog Nipples!


“Ooh! Ooh! Look what I found!” cries Delphina Moongem. She rushes up, cradling plants in her hands. “Yellowfiddle! This is SO hard to find, you just don’t know.”

Helga the dwarf growls at her. “Why didn’t you help? We could have been killed.”

Delphina glances around. “Oh, I’m sorry. I…I did not notice. Are…are the pigs hurt bad? I hope not…”

The dwarf has had enough of this elf imbecile and stalks off. Brandis grunts, following, and Ash is about to follow too when he hears a distinct chittering laughter in the trees. They all stop, and for a brief moment catch a glimpse of something bright RED in the branches, and then it’s gone, tinkling laughter melting into the darkness.

Unnerved now, and afraid that something else is stalking them, they follow Delphina to Jade Hill, which she insists is not far. Soon, the woods reach an end and they see a large hill rising before them toward a clear, bright, uncluttered moon.

“There! Not far now!” the elf wanderer announces, and she hikes up her dress and begins climbing the hill. Brandis and Helga follow, but Ash hangs back, sinking into the shadows and extending his senses into the darkness behind them, wary of anything following, his dagger ready to lash out and kill it…

Delphina soon crosses a concentric circle of small rocks that rings the hilltop. Helga and Brandis stop outside these rocks, wracking their brains for the significance of such placement. The rocks are deliberately arranged, but they’re not sure why. They ask Delphina, who has dropped to her hands and knees and is digging into the dirt.

“A faery circle, silly!” she says, chortling. “Don’t you know anything? Wonderful magic happens here, things wondrous and beautiful! Now I must find the snailwort for Lady Cynthia. Your mother needs help, Brandis, and help her I will!”

Meanwhile, inside the perimeter of trees, Ash peeks out and sees his companions standing near the top of the hill under a bright, bright moon. He snaps his head around upon hearing laughter above him in the boughs. Again, something reddish leaps limb to limb and vanishes. He squeezes a hand around the pommel of his blade…

Helga and Brandis patiently wait for Delphina to find the ingredients she needs for the tonic. A cool breeze has begun to blow, one that strangely comforts them (demanding FORT saves). Brandis notices fireflies around him and reaches out to grab one…

…but upon opening his palm sees that it is a tiny woman!

Smaller than a dandelion, she sputters and sparks, and he releases it, soon to find it joined by dozens of variously shaped faeries that flicker with eldritch light. Helga hefts her axe to her other hand, unsure of what to make of this, and then a tiny creature alights on her head and begins braiding her blond hair. Brandis finds his sword belt unbuckled, and his blade clatters to the grass. Dozens of these things surround them, a miasma of faery-kin, a nimbus of soft light under the silent moon.

“Delphina—what are these things? What do they want?”

“Oh, just the faeries. They’re so sweet. But I’m busy now. Must dig! Your mother needs help, Brandis. Ah, I found some snailwort!”
Brandis is unimpressed by her help. “We mean no harm,” the warlord announces to the fey visitors. “We’re just here to collect some herbs. We mean no intrusion upon your sanctuary. We’ll soon be gone.”
At the bottom of the hill, still hidden, Ash sees an unusual amount of bright fireflies clouding the top of the mound. He hears giggling again, and spots another flash of red in the branches, this time attached to a small humanoid form. Something is closing in on his location, skirting between the branches with unnatural accuracy, something hefting a heavy metal blade gripped in gnarled hands…

Mist has begun to coalesce inside the ring of faery stones. The sparkling intensifies, the conglomeration of fey kin swarming and singing and chattering, the glow brightening, and then from the depths of the mist appears a short, squat green man with a red scarf cinched around his neck.

“Make way for the Frog Queen,” he croaks in a peculiar voice, a tongue that only Brandis identifies as an ancient goblin dialect. Helga can’t understand it at all.

Brandis stutters, staggering back from this small man who resembles a goblin, but unlike any he’s ever seen. His features are smaller, his demeanor different, and the goblin brusquely waves them aside.
“I Picklenose announce the arrival of the Frog Queen! All hail the Frog Queen! All hail… THE FROG QUEEN!”

Mist swirls and gusts about them, and to their shock and surprise, a HUGE amphibian foot plants itself in the soft green grass! A glistening wet body pushes itself through the fabric between worlds, another foot crashing down, followed by pendulous breasts swinging from a hybrid woman-frog. Her awful voice croaks across the hill in a tongue that is both alien yet intelligible.

“WHO’S UPON MY HILL THIS NIGHT?
WHAT YOUR MOTIVE? WHAT YOUR PLIGHT?”

Brandis and Helga are terrified, and the redhats and redscarves swarming out from the mist and surrounding them does not help the situation.

Ash is likewise being flanked in the forest by six redcaps grinning evilly at him. He dashes up the hill and joins his companions, taking his chances against the Frog Queen. Delphina cheerfully keeps digging.
Brandis stammers a response, reiterating that they are only here to gather herbs and then be on their way, and they meant no disrespect whatsoever. The fey creatures begin laughing, and the Frog Queen tells them that mortals should know better than displease her.

“TELL THEM WHAT HAPPENS, PICKLENOSE.”

The squat redscarf clears his throat and says that he used to be a human barber in Waterdeep, and now loyally serves in the court of the Frog Queen for all eternity.

Now the PCs are really worried.

This encounter instigates a Skill Challenge where they try a variety of Knowledge, Diplomacy and Insight checks, trying to gain some advantage in the situation and avoid eternal service as some ugly little toad monster. Helga wisely decides NOT to Intimidate the Frog Queen, which would have resulted in an auto-fail. Brandis has heard old wives tales about the Frog Queen and how she steals people to serve her, but she is not wholly evil or wholly good, just unpredictable. And ugly as sin.
Their stilted conversation sways back and forth, and initially the Frog Queen seems adamant that she wants to take the mortals back with her to the Feywild. There is clearly no way to escape, and impossible to fight them off, so the group carefully avoids any kind of melee. Brandis Padraig is finally able to convince her that he and his friends can serve her better on this side of the mystic veil, and he heartily offers their services in whatever capacity she deems worthy.

Ultimately impressed by this offer of servitude, the Frog Queen (who ended up sounding like Yoda) says that she will allow them to go free on ONE condition:

There is a goblin who has offended her, a goblin who has overstepped his boundaries. A goblin named IRONTOOTH.
Brandis knows the name because Thair Coalbiter and his father Lord Padraig mentioned it himself this very evening (The last adventure, session #1). Irontooth is whispered to be the leader of the raiders.

“BRING ME HIS HANDS ON THE NEXT FULL MOON,
ONE MONTH FROM TONIGHT. THAT IS OUR BARGAIN, MORTALS.”

So Cynthia wants his head, and now this Frog Queen wants his hands! There won’t be much left of Irontooth to dish around. The group readily agrees to her terms, and then the Frog Queen gestures toward Picklenose. He hands her a stone bowl. She gestures toward Delphina Moongem who brings a handful of snailwort and drops it in the bowl. The Frog Queen spits in the bowl, adds water from a decanter, and waves her wet fingers over the concoction. It bubbles and fizzles, acrid fumes rise up, and then she hands the bowl back to Delphina.

“THIS IS THE BREW YOU SEEK.
NOW GO, AND REMEMBER OUR AGREEMENT.”

Oh, they’ll remember alright. They won’t forget this night for a long, long time. The fey creatures begin slipping back into the mist, vanishing a few at a time, and soon the companions are alone on top of the hill.
Delphina sighs and yawns. “Oh…I am SO tired. I want to go home.”
So they do.

 

[Stoat]

I'd do away with the idea that the prince is significantly more powerful than the PC's. After all, he gets whacked by the same trolls that the PC's kill in Trollhaunt. I'd suggest making him 2nd or 3rd level, on his way south to investigate whatever cult. He's stuck in Winterhaven because the caravan routes are so dodgy.

He gives some aid and assistance to the players, possibly even joining in the Irontooth fight.

He could show up again in Thunderspire, looking for information, selling loot, or just passing through on his way to deal with the Trolls.

 

[Rechan]

Nebulous, that is one big freaking post that I will have to get to later. Although, eek, fat frog nipples.

Stoat, that is a great idea. Just having him hanging out in Winterhaven seems like a very useful thing.

 

[Rechan]

So, among other things, I think what I'll do is have Winterhaven to be a hop skip and a jump from the Trollhaunt.

Of course, the place is Winterhaven; that suggests cold. Cold and swamp aren't usually associated. So I think that I will just position Winterhaven as a sort of "resort town" near some cold mountains; folks built Winterhaven to be a respite from living on the mountain. Then, not far off, you have the moorish Trollhaunt.

 

[Rechan]

Nebulous, that is really wicked. I finally sat down and read that.

How does the Frog Queen instigate Thunderspire, by chance?

I'm contemplating putting some fey in my KotS game. For instance, the first encounter the PCs have involves two short men the PCs meet on the road. They sound funny. They look odd, and their shadows move independent to their bodies. They say "Have you seen a man that looks like us?" They are overtly vague, but imply that "This other fellow has overstepped his bounds", and "bitten back his burdons" to their madam, and they are hunting him. These two are gnomes under the employ of some fae, and they are hunting Agrid. The gnomes give the PCs a rabbit's foot, and if they squeeze it, the gnomes will return. If teh PCs turn over Agrid, the gnomes will give them something.

In the House Rules section, a conversion of the werefox made it into a fey, which is tempting me to make a fox woman faerie. Or to pull something like the Frog Queen here, for other purposes.

Another idea is replacing one of the encounters in KotS. In the Blue Ooze room, I was thinking of instead having a door of bolted iron. The PCs hear sobbing on the other side, a little girl's voice, begging to get free. And if the PCs don't let her out once, twice, thrice, the voice BOOMS and the walls SHAKE, dust falling down. If they do open it, a great wind blows, and they hear laughter, and then nothing. There was a faerie bound in that room. What, I'm not sure.

 

[Wrathamon]

Hrm. Well, according to P1, the Prince was actually on lay-over when he went to fight the trolls. He was on his way home from "fighting a cult in a far-off land". Heard the trolls were getting uppity, went in to battle, and got whacked.

But then, the same idea could be used. Say, the Prince, before running off to battle The Cult, had a different adventure, and so he dumps off his loot on the PCs.

I read that as the same death cult in the area of H1. The Prince would be great to introduce at some point in H1 along w. Bax and a couple other great adventurers.... you could set up one of the encounters (the dragon excavation) with these NPCs needing the players help to win the day... If the player's accomplish several goals they can turn the tide of battle in the NPCs favor... the NPCs can give the players a reward and off they go to destroy the death cult of orcus... only for the little guys the PCs to actually find out the real threat and save the day.

The key is to make the NPCs seem super powerful, but still let the players be the ones who shine in the encounter. If it wasnt for the help of the PCs these great heroes would be killed!

 

[Rechan]

I read that as the same death cult in the area of H1. The Prince would be great to introduce at some point in H1 along w. Bax and a couple other great adventurers.... you could set up one of the encounters (the dragon excavation) with these NPCs needing the players help to win the day... If the player's accomplish several goals they can turn the tide of battle in the NPCs favor... the NPCs can give the players a reward and off they go to destroy the death cult of orcus... only for the little guys the PCs to actually find out the real threat and save the day.

The key is to make the NPCs seem super powerful, but still let the players be the ones who shine in the encounter. If it wasnt for the help of the PCs these great heroes would be killed!

First, I generally would prefer the PCs to feel like heroes from day one, instead of the unwashed sidekick in the shadows of someone else.

Secondly, that's easier said than done. What's the goals they need to accomplish? Why can't they just join the fray? Is the place just swarmed with enemies? If so, that doesn't make a lot of sense given that it's just an excavation site, and if it's swarming, where did Kalarel get all that help, and wouldn't it draw attention?

I do like the idea of the Prince going off in this direction to fight The Cult, only to overlook it and the PCs actually solving the situation. However, 2 PCs are looking for the cult. They could easily say to the Prince, "You know. We've heard there is cultist activity in this area", and suddenly the Prince has a reason to stick around.

One option is to say the Cult is a Cult of Orcus, but use the Ashen Covenant from Dragon. Different factions of the various Orcus priests, with different agendas. Possibly tieing them in later (since P2 deals with an Orcus cult, and no doubt E1-3 does).

 

[Wrathamon]

First, I generally would prefer the PCs to feel like heroes from day one, instead of the unwashed sidekick in the shadows of someone else.

tell that to any of the hobbits...

it's all in the sell. If you cant sell a powerful NPC and still let the players feel like heroes then dont use him in that way.

I just tossed that encounter as a place you could use him and his merry band... but you would need to change the encounter to make it work.

I understand that in a D&D game most players would try and fight the balrog even thou the uber powerful NPC says to Run.. only to have a TPK and complain that balrog at that level was too powerful...

again, its in the sell of the encounter.

You could set it up as a skill challenge to aid the Prince during the encounter or give the players three tactical choices. they dont get the option of running into the fray... they have three other things they can do.

My player's would enjoy the cinematic aspect of the encounter and not be upset that they couldnt run in and fight the "big boys" because later on when they are the big boys and realize they are facing the villain that killed such a powerful character earlier in their careers they will go wow how cool is that. They will be rewarded for the earlier encounter.

If you dont like doing this or you know your player's wouldnt like it. Then use him in a non combat encounter.

Maybe his band is just passing through winterhaven... stopping off at the tavern before moving on. He has a of information on the death cult... maybe a minor skill challenge to get more information.

he is a prince so he wont go along because he has more important matters to attend to... maybe if the players do really well and ask the right questions he rewards them with a trinket to help them on their mission.

 

[Rechan]

tell that to any of the hobbits...

Different tone, different story.

Some gamers like to be the farmhand and earn their dues and such. Not the tone I am looking for in my game.

To put it in perspective, were LotR my campaign, the PCs would be Gandalf/Striker/Legolas/Gimli, escorting the hobbits along.

 

[Wrathamon]

Different tone, different story.

Some gamers like to be the farmhand and earn their dues and such. Not the tone I am looking for in my game.

To put it in perspective, were LotR my campaign, the PCs would be Gandalf/Striker/Legolas/Gimli, escorting the hobbits along.

Are they starting at lvl 1? nm

If you try to use the Prince hook (with his backstory being in winterhaven looking to solve a mystery about a death cult) make it non-combat so your players are the spot light in combat.

but, remember he is supposed to be a lvl 12ish NPC with several lvl 12ish NPC companions, the heroes of the barony... to make the "TPK" of this group meaningful in P1 you should try to at least express their power in H1. Maybe show off Sunwrath?

You seem to know what you want, but this is just my advice. Otherwise they will be like who cares... lets kill trolls opposed to OMG those guys are dead? this is serious...

I would avoid letting them get Bax as an NPC sidekick. He will overshadow most lvl 11-12 PCs with his AC and Damage output. My group got him and I didnt think it would make a big deal since I only have 3 players... but he is the defender and the striker, now. I wish I just had him do the training of the town guard option.

btw I like the idea about the "other" orcus cult... depends on if you want to reveal that this early or not.

there is also great side quests on DDI that has a great hook for P2.

FYI if you didnt read it... I believe Winterhaven is North of Moonstair which is North of the barony... I liked the suggestion of the DMG town being in the barony.

My hook for H1 was the secret agents.... which worked great for P1 since I used the barony hook.

I was a bit surprised that they didnt have a great hook for P2 from P1