What design features should Iuz's place of power have?

[ValhallaGH]

Lava. Because every boss fight should have lava. Or a raging thunderstorm. If you can swing it, combine the two and have a thunderstorm of lava as they battle a mile or two in the sky. Cheesy but it adds a ton cool to the scene and provides a lot of unconventional tactical options to creative players (on either side of the screen).

Animated anything / everything. Statues, columns, walls, floors, air, whatever. The real idea being to provide some crazy-looking giant monsters.

Traps. Nothing says "deceitful and treacherous" like having oodles of traps. Given the level and power of the PCs, most of these traps should be disguised, treacherous, and involve multiple hazards. They should also be easily avoidable by magic users in the know (this is[/i] his house, and he doesn't want to constantly trip over his own things).


Best of luck.

 

[Hand of Evil]

To me, a place of power sould be just that...Iuz is stronger there, in game terms maybe 5 levels higher or the players at some form of minues.

Some things I would think on...

• Damage Reduction for Iuz
• Anti-magic zone for casters "good" alignment
• Detection of the non-Iuz
• Hostile Enviroment rules
• Name reaction - say the name Iuz in the place of power and monster encounter

 

[Minicol]

I seem recalling some rule in 1e where deities in their home plane had double hp plus several other benefits ... it would definitely apply here.

Can't remember where though

 

[jonesy]

A mine with anti-magic ore, eh? Make the final abode multi-dimensional.

(This idea might be affected by what sort of dimension travelling abilities your PC's have. Or you could have the place itself have a travel system of somekind.)

The PC's go through his place of power and then finally arrive to reality level 1 of his residence. It looks like the sort of over the top cliched throne room you'd see an end of game RPG boss have.

Reality level two is a (god level) laboratory.

Reality level three looks like a desolate post-apocalyptia. Lava streams, stark blue acid spewing from sky-high mountains, the sky like flowing blood with stars that shimmer black.

Reality level four is his home. The place where he relaxes. With Iuz type entertainment.

Reality level five is a massive fortress on the border of the Abyss.

The trick here would be that the lava dimension is the real entrance, and to reveal what it really is you need to take some of the anti-magic ore there. Or use another source of anti-magic.

 

[terrya]

I think to get this one right all you need is to read the Demon Web Pit module. The build up to the final fight with lolth on her plain should give you a good idea of what is to be expected when fighting a god and how to build the tension apropaitly. All you would have to do is swap spiders and webs for tricks and undead and your have a pretty good idea.

Iuzz should not be in the castle at all and on the final level there should be a portal to the abyys (or W/E you have Iuzz home plane as) but there should also be a sphere of ahinilation identical to this portal but with clues to which will be the right one to take scattered through out the dungeon.

This will give Iuzz the home turf advantage and allow you to stack the odds in his favor whilst maintaining realism, it also means when they kill Iuzz hes dead full stop and not just banished from the realm which i think has a much better dramtic feel for the end of such a long campagain.

 

[grodog]

The area I need help with is cool ideas for what Iuz's place of power might contain. I think gates to the Abyss for sure. I have the place of power being an old mine where an anti-magic ore was mined. This allows some anti-scry properties. The mine also has various wards to prevent dimensional travel ie it's anchored.

Let's frame the question this way, what really cool idea for locations and encounters in this sort of setting?

In terms of physical location ideas:

• Iuz's seat/place of power should be distinct from him home(s), and should be intrinsically tied to his essential nature: it should ooze "Iuz" and Iuz should ooze power even moreso when within its confines
• his portfolio includes Oppression, Deceit, Wickedness, and Pain, so taking them one at a time:
  • Oppression: PCs lose the will to continue, their suffer from hopelessness (see symbol), they give up, and allow themselves to be crushed by Iuz simply to end their own sufferings
  • Deceit: illusions, lies, words being twisted, half-truths, PCs trust erodes to the point that they attack one another; nothing is as it seems: spies, dopplegangers, clones, twins, mirrors of opposition, etc.
  • Wickedness: spite, contagious evil glee, temptation to vileness and succumbing to it, giving in to your inner demon (Poe's "Imp of the Perverse"), hatred and the freedom of it (that reminds me of Sep's "Wave of Hate" cast by Graz'zt in his Wyre storyhour: worth looking up!)
  • Pain: emotional as well as physical: PCs fallen comrades (or family members or allies or loved ones or whatever) are trotted out as sock puppets forced to do the bidding of their most-hated foe, and the PCs are forced to kill them/damn them to eternal torture/watch Iuz eat their souls, etc.)
  • Iuz is Iuz the Old, and his spit ages victims, so there should be some nasty effects available based on that premise as well (ghosts age 10-40 years, Iuz's spit ages 1-6 years and withers!)
• I'd also consider all sorts of gonzo/planar effects, as well (you may want to look up some of my ideas in Knockspells #3 and 4 which touch on planar/gate-based spells and magics):
  • non-euclidean geometry (there's an essay for how to use this to create such HPL-ish dungeons in Dungeon #6 "Forbidden Mountain")
  • nested demi-planes with wildly different characteristics (many inimical to mortals, of course): a gauntlet of hostile environs for people who don't know the back door
  • non-standard magic effects: if evil altars in a simple dungeon level can reduce the chances for PCs to turn undead, what vile nastiness is present in the inner sanctum of Iuz??: perhaps time passes incredibly quickly in his environs, so that even if the PCs succeed in slaying his physical body, once they leave his power base, they turn to dust as they re-enter the timestream 1000 years later (or whatever); perhaps non-evil spells are suppressed, or twisted into Iuz's service; etc.
• Lastly, Iuz is said (per Sargent) to have gotten his power via the Soul Husks, which offer all sorts of interesting ideas just from their names---has Iuz lured the PCs into his inner sanctum in order to drain their souls and fuel his next stage of parthanogensis?

In terms of Iuz's abilities as a demi- or lesser-god:

• don't forget to use the standard divine abilities available to such creatures in the 1983 GH boxed set (and they're also printed in the Gods of Greyhawk columns in Dragons 67 or 86); you may want to allow him reversed forms of spells like Resurrection --> Destruction, of course!
• he's a 16th level assassin---that's 1 level higher than the Grandfather of Assassins, which is the class max in 1e---so assassination should definitely be part of his planning, in many forms
• his cape provides some nice effects, but could certainly be bumped up on the artifact/relic level, and granted some more powers

 

[Virel]

Some of the PC's involved in this have five to seven years of play time invested. One has twelve plus years. So I really I appreciate all of the input. This will close a (one way or another) a grand story thread in my old campaign. Please keep the comments coming.

I like many of the of idea and will stive to include most or a least a twist of most of them into this adventure.

I should add the players have secured use of an actual major artifact, since I posted. One of the PC clerics has been a very faithful and successful worshipper of Vecna. The cleric's true alligence has been hidden for many years from the majority of the players. So for this undertaking, the Sword of Kas has been released given that Iuz is a long standing enemy of Vecna's.