SolitonMan
Explorer
Hello,
I recently began running Age of Worms for my group, and things had been moving along nicely. The players had been very proactive in the development of their characters, and had accomplished quite a few tasks from The Whispering Cairn sans violence. Or with limited violence. They managed to reach the iron ball trap in area 23 and came to an agreement with Alastor Land, tracked down his family farm, located Kullen and his group, cajoled (25 Diplomacy check by the sorceress, plus gold and booze) them for information on Filge, whom they defeated but kept alive for questioning.
When they finally confronted Smenk, none of the conditions for him being hateful to them had come to pass, so I had him being helpful (and manipulative). By providing some outline of his experiences in the Dark Cathedral, he gave them somewhat of an advantage as to its layout (the main chapel and part of the labyrinth only). Allustan had been working closely with the group, since he was a mentor to the sorceress, and had worked to help them secure a claim to the land on which the Whispering Cairn is located (basically told his brother he wanted it for historical research purposes - which is true, in fact). He helped them with a few healing potions and other one shot items when they entered the Dourstone mine.
As expected, they followed the two tiefling guards into the temple of Hextor and, after a protracted series of skirmishes that saw one character killed, managed to defeat Theldrick and his minions. The deceased's player rolled up a new character that was a prisoner within the temple of Hextor, a dragon shaman from the south that had stumbled upon some cultists in the midst of searching for information about green worms and unkillable undead.
The new character joined the group, and then they made their fatal mistake. Although they were all level 3 at this time, and well on their way to 4 after the sacking of Hextor's temple, they chose to enter the labyrinth, of which they had a partial map, rather than explore the unknown area behind the unmarked door. They had some knowledge of the nature of the Ebon Triad, and Smenk's intel identified the Faceless One as the de facto leader of the cult. They entered the labyrinth and proceeded to have a cat and mouse game with the kenku. They managed to kill most of them, but the leader did some damage with a 5 hd fireball from his necklace, then fled to warn the wizards of the incursion. The assault on them stopped at this point, and the players gathered themselves in one of the kenkus' rooms and healed up, then followed their map and proceeded through the area to the laboratory. They managed to get to area 25, from where they tried to spy on the Inner Sanctum. They spotted the two wizards, the allip and the boss kenku (still wounded), and made an assault. The allip wasn't surprised and leaped to the attack, while the dragon shaman rushed into the room to assault the wizards. One wizard was taken down relatively easily, but the other used his scroll of web to snare the remainder of the party in area 25, save for the halfling bard who was closer to area 24. Sorry, been rambling on here, the point is that the battle drew in the other two wizards and the Faceless One, and with the web separating them, the allip was tearing up the party while the dragon shaman was bitten by the summoned huge fiendish centipede, then burned to death by a flaming sphere. The party was getting free of the web, but the flaming sphere coupled with the burning webs took down the cleric of Kord, who did get revived briefly by the rogue, but when they should have fled completely, the rogue closed the door to area 24 with the Faceless One and his flaming sphere on the other side, then when it opened he bull rushed the mage, managing to knock him into the remnants of the web. Everyone started filing back into the room, and when they were in a nice line the Faceless One zapped them with a lightning bolt. That was pretty much the end of it, the sorceress was still on her feet and made a brave stand, but a magic missile spell dropped her and that was that.
OK, I guess all that detail wasn't completely necessary, but it may help with the reason I'm actually writing this in the first place...continuing the story. My players are great, they didn't skip a beat, as soon as everyone was dead they started talking about the new characters they wanted, to go kick some Faceless ass.
MY problem is how to balance out the ensuing situation. Obviously TFO isn't going to sit on his hands and do nothing...finding the sketched maps would likely lead him to Smenk, and the sorceress had Filge's spellbook with her. The party had also collected most of the booty from the temple of Hextor, including holy symbols to use as evidence of the cult's presence.
So, realizing that someone is on to him, and that the map could only have been provided by Dourstone or Smenk, I'm trying to establish tactics for TFO over the course of say two weeks...I ruled that the amount of time that passes in game will be the same as in the real world for this period, to reflect the fact that the new characters aren't just sitting around waiting to enter the mines, and probably aren't in Diamond Lake. Allustan will send out a call within a day of the fall of the characters, but it will still take time to have the new team arrive and get prepped. With the loss of the kenku the defenses of the labyrinth are weakened, but more pressing, I think, is the rise of the Ebon Aspect. The module doesn't spell it out, but I am operating under the rule that the cultists are engaged in some series of rituals that will eventually manifest this big baddie. Since the rituals for the temple of Hextor can no longer be completed, will this cause the beast to rise? Or can the other two branches of the cult continue on, and the aspect will be limited with no Hextor special power maybe? Or maybe they can go into a stasis mode, and call for another priest of Hextor to join them. Which would be fine, if time and secrecy weren't factors. No, there's only a few options open, and I'm not certain of the best way to proceed.
So if anyone out there has any ideas on what they might do, I'd really appreciate hearing them. I'd like to bring in the new characters in a smooth way, allow for Allustan's involvement in some way to provide guidance in routing the cult, and also account for the feeling of impending doom that would afflict TFO and Grallak Kur on discovering that they are known and being hunted to some degree. Some basic ideas I'm toying with:
1) Smenk has fled Diamond Lake already, once he is sure the party went into the mines to rout the cult - probably hiding in the Free City for the time being
2) TFO arranges to abduct Filge from prison and press him into service. I wonder where he'd get some bodies to make zombies...![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
3) TFO places a call for a new priest of Hextor to join him, with about a 1% cumulative chance per day of having that call answered. Probably generous on the chances, but also subject to the immediacy of dealing with the fact that the presence of the cult is known.
4) The cultists somehow abduct Allustan, after discovering that the sorceress was his student, and try to silence anyone with direct knowledge of their presence.
Anyway, please add your thoughts and ideas, and thanks!
Regards,
Dave
I recently began running Age of Worms for my group, and things had been moving along nicely. The players had been very proactive in the development of their characters, and had accomplished quite a few tasks from The Whispering Cairn sans violence. Or with limited violence. They managed to reach the iron ball trap in area 23 and came to an agreement with Alastor Land, tracked down his family farm, located Kullen and his group, cajoled (25 Diplomacy check by the sorceress, plus gold and booze) them for information on Filge, whom they defeated but kept alive for questioning.
When they finally confronted Smenk, none of the conditions for him being hateful to them had come to pass, so I had him being helpful (and manipulative). By providing some outline of his experiences in the Dark Cathedral, he gave them somewhat of an advantage as to its layout (the main chapel and part of the labyrinth only). Allustan had been working closely with the group, since he was a mentor to the sorceress, and had worked to help them secure a claim to the land on which the Whispering Cairn is located (basically told his brother he wanted it for historical research purposes - which is true, in fact). He helped them with a few healing potions and other one shot items when they entered the Dourstone mine.
As expected, they followed the two tiefling guards into the temple of Hextor and, after a protracted series of skirmishes that saw one character killed, managed to defeat Theldrick and his minions. The deceased's player rolled up a new character that was a prisoner within the temple of Hextor, a dragon shaman from the south that had stumbled upon some cultists in the midst of searching for information about green worms and unkillable undead.
The new character joined the group, and then they made their fatal mistake. Although they were all level 3 at this time, and well on their way to 4 after the sacking of Hextor's temple, they chose to enter the labyrinth, of which they had a partial map, rather than explore the unknown area behind the unmarked door. They had some knowledge of the nature of the Ebon Triad, and Smenk's intel identified the Faceless One as the de facto leader of the cult. They entered the labyrinth and proceeded to have a cat and mouse game with the kenku. They managed to kill most of them, but the leader did some damage with a 5 hd fireball from his necklace, then fled to warn the wizards of the incursion. The assault on them stopped at this point, and the players gathered themselves in one of the kenkus' rooms and healed up, then followed their map and proceeded through the area to the laboratory. They managed to get to area 25, from where they tried to spy on the Inner Sanctum. They spotted the two wizards, the allip and the boss kenku (still wounded), and made an assault. The allip wasn't surprised and leaped to the attack, while the dragon shaman rushed into the room to assault the wizards. One wizard was taken down relatively easily, but the other used his scroll of web to snare the remainder of the party in area 25, save for the halfling bard who was closer to area 24. Sorry, been rambling on here, the point is that the battle drew in the other two wizards and the Faceless One, and with the web separating them, the allip was tearing up the party while the dragon shaman was bitten by the summoned huge fiendish centipede, then burned to death by a flaming sphere. The party was getting free of the web, but the flaming sphere coupled with the burning webs took down the cleric of Kord, who did get revived briefly by the rogue, but when they should have fled completely, the rogue closed the door to area 24 with the Faceless One and his flaming sphere on the other side, then when it opened he bull rushed the mage, managing to knock him into the remnants of the web. Everyone started filing back into the room, and when they were in a nice line the Faceless One zapped them with a lightning bolt. That was pretty much the end of it, the sorceress was still on her feet and made a brave stand, but a magic missile spell dropped her and that was that.
OK, I guess all that detail wasn't completely necessary, but it may help with the reason I'm actually writing this in the first place...continuing the story. My players are great, they didn't skip a beat, as soon as everyone was dead they started talking about the new characters they wanted, to go kick some Faceless ass.
MY problem is how to balance out the ensuing situation. Obviously TFO isn't going to sit on his hands and do nothing...finding the sketched maps would likely lead him to Smenk, and the sorceress had Filge's spellbook with her. The party had also collected most of the booty from the temple of Hextor, including holy symbols to use as evidence of the cult's presence. So, realizing that someone is on to him, and that the map could only have been provided by Dourstone or Smenk, I'm trying to establish tactics for TFO over the course of say two weeks...I ruled that the amount of time that passes in game will be the same as in the real world for this period, to reflect the fact that the new characters aren't just sitting around waiting to enter the mines, and probably aren't in Diamond Lake. Allustan will send out a call within a day of the fall of the characters, but it will still take time to have the new team arrive and get prepped. With the loss of the kenku the defenses of the labyrinth are weakened, but more pressing, I think, is the rise of the Ebon Aspect. The module doesn't spell it out, but I am operating under the rule that the cultists are engaged in some series of rituals that will eventually manifest this big baddie. Since the rituals for the temple of Hextor can no longer be completed, will this cause the beast to rise? Or can the other two branches of the cult continue on, and the aspect will be limited with no Hextor special power maybe? Or maybe they can go into a stasis mode, and call for another priest of Hextor to join them. Which would be fine, if time and secrecy weren't factors. No, there's only a few options open, and I'm not certain of the best way to proceed.
So if anyone out there has any ideas on what they might do, I'd really appreciate hearing them. I'd like to bring in the new characters in a smooth way, allow for Allustan's involvement in some way to provide guidance in routing the cult, and also account for the feeling of impending doom that would afflict TFO and Grallak Kur on discovering that they are known and being hunted to some degree. Some basic ideas I'm toying with:
1) Smenk has fled Diamond Lake already, once he is sure the party went into the mines to rout the cult - probably hiding in the Free City for the time being
2) TFO arranges to abduct Filge from prison and press him into service. I wonder where he'd get some bodies to make zombies...
3) TFO places a call for a new priest of Hextor to join him, with about a 1% cumulative chance per day of having that call answered. Probably generous on the chances, but also subject to the immediacy of dealing with the fact that the presence of the cult is known.
4) The cultists somehow abduct Allustan, after discovering that the sorceress was his student, and try to silence anyone with direct knowledge of their presence.
Anyway, please add your thoughts and ideas, and thanks!
Regards,
Dave
