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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 6923067" data-attributes="member: 6669384">Okay, let's add another element.There's a spell called Nightmare that seems made for this scene.  Aside from troubling, perhaps prophetic dreams, it prevents a spell caster from getting the "8 hours" of rest needed.Add in the witch's hut I mentioned.  Now think "Green Hag", rather than the "Baba-Yaga" they'll be expecting.  So if they "choose the road less taken" they'll encounter the witch's hut.  She'll admit to being a witch (it's a valid class, if not from the accepted core books), and she'll offer to read their fortunes.  A rune casting later she'll tell them a few things about the nightmare king, and point them towards him.  He's a rival of hers, too big to take on directly but certainly worth sending some adventurers after.  Who knows, they might succeed.She is a Green Hag, a creature who "rides" mortals in their dreams, slowly killing them through exhaustion that drains their Con scores.  If they treat her decently, she'll help them.  If they're harsh, she'll be harsh.But this adds the "fortune teller" cliche to a Halloween tale, along with the prospect of nightmares.She should have a companion, perhaps a homunculous, more as stage dressing than anything else.The nearby city, in the real world, is the capitol of a maritime power.  It's the home city of the Bard, and the Nightmare King tried to use her to seize the rulership of that kingdom.  So it makes sense that he, and she, would be there, at least for a time.And I know what his secondary use for her is.  It isn't something I can/should discuss in this forum, but involves mortality and immortality, and a way to perpetuate his power.  It's been determined that his original form was an offspring of a Fey and a Demon, two different types of Chaos in one person.  He died, and now his ghost occupies/possess one of his grandchildren, a power seeking warlord.  So now two brands of chaos in a Lawful Evil body giving one big bag of crazy.He can possess others, but his own blood line is the easiest.  (I didn't invent that part, one of the other DMs did.)So the Nightmare King can control the twisted version of her home city because she's the daughter of somebody important.  Which means that the party has to sneak/slip/fight their way into a stronghold that they just helped defend.Okay, I have a plot now.  With or without the witch's hut, I know where they're going, and I know what they have to face.</blockquote>

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