What would Zagig do?

[ellestar]

Greetings,

Not sure if this is the right forum, but I couldn't really find any others dealing with this sort of thing.

I'm in the final stages of building an adventure for tomorrows session. What I need help with are ideas on cool locations Zagig (for those of you who do not know him, former insane archmage turned demigod in the Greyhawk setting) would hide an important rod piece. The adventure is for 11th level chars.

Exotic locales welcome. Does not have to be dungeons or vaults, diplomatic encounters are also welcome.

 

[Henry]

EGAD! WHAT AN AVATAR!

'sallright, though - he sings well.

You picked the right forum for this - Plots and Places got merged with this forum about 5 months ago.

As for your quandry, Zagig is Former on the archmage, still PRESENT on the insane part, and wherever he hid something is still crazy - crazy like a fox. As nuts as he is, he has a soft spot for adventurers, remember, so if they PC's find themselves doing something outrageous to gain the artifact, like having to slay an young adult red dragon while butt-naked, or needing to convince a tribal chieftain that his non-magical great staff given to him by Zagig is truly Great JuJu, then go for it. Zagig has resources to hide anything anywhere - and if players need to find a way to enter a miniature castle within a snowglobe without destroying it, then that's the kind of challenge that Zagyg (Zagig) would ask of them.

 

[ellestar]

'sallright, though - he sings well.

David Hasselhoff can sing? When did that happen?

I love the snowglobe idea, and have though up fun things for them to do while inside the snowglobe.

Any ideas on how they can actually enter it? As far as I know, multiple reduce person spells do not stack. Polymorphing into something tiny, then teleporting/dimension dooring inside? Can you polymorph into a miniature version of yourself? If they have to polymorph into for example flies, that would limit their abilities quite a bit.

 

[cleaverthepit]

He could have hidden it in Castle Zagyg or the environs of Yggsburgh.

And if you wait about 60 days Yggsburgh will be available!!!

davis

shill

 

[ellestar]

He could have hidden it in Castle Zagyg or the environs of Yggsburgh.

And if you wait about 60 days Yggsburgh will be available!!!

davis

shill

I've never heard of Castle Zagyg. Are you sure you didn't mean to say Castle Greyhawk (and more specifically, the Tower of Zagyg there). I'm not familiar with Yggsburgh, and I definitely don't have 60 days to wait

I decided to go with the snowglobe idea, and made the snowglobe contain the missing rod piece. A miniaturized version of it. The snowglobe also contained a bee, trapped in a temporal stasis. Why the Zagygian (correct term for follower of Zagyg?) who has the snowglobe in his possession decided to hide the piece (after learing of its importance from Zagyg) in a snowglobe, is anybodys guess.. The bee serves as a guardian. After some chit chat the Zagygian will tell the PC's that they can have the rod piece if they can enter the snowglobe and defeat the bee without breaking the snowglobe.

The Zagygian managed to get the rod piece into the snowglobe with help of a spell of Zagyg's making; Zagyg's Magnificient Miniaturization, which turns the caster, along with several other targets into miniature versions of themselves.

Now for the fun part; to get the scroll (he has only one left) from the Zagygian they must defeat him in a game of conjurers chess. (I finally get to try out the rules in Complete Warrior)

Entering the snowglobe (probably through teleport or dimension door) the bee animates, and attacks them.

I had fun with statting out the bee. I applied the Titanic template to a Giant Bee to get more or less good results. A CR 13 encounter for the 11th level party, sounds perfect! The players are crafty, and their characters mighty (*cough* powergamers *cough*), but along with the snowstorm raging inside the snowglobe the fight should be fun and well balanced.

Thanks to Henry for sparking this idea!

 

[Dogbrain]

One piece would be the gavel handle of the Supreme Magistrate of one of the Suloise lands.

One piece would be at the bottom of a public privy in Greyhawk City.

One piece would be in a museum, clearly labeled as to its identity and function--and well guarded by the Powers that Be.

One piece would be the Lucky Stick of a village idiot in some village that nobody ever heard of.

One piece would be a favorite toothpick for a Huge Ancient dragon.

One piece would be an artificial limb, currently in use.

One piece would be embedded in the key pillar of the most important temple to the PCs. Removing it requires destroying or virtually rebuilding that temple.

 

[grodog]

I've never heard of Castle Zagyg. Are you sure you didn't mean to say Castle Greyhawk (and more specifically, the Tower of Zagyg there). I'm not familiar with Yggsburgh, and I definitely don't have 60 days to wait

Davis was alluding to the looming release of part 1 of Castle Zagyg, as penned by Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz, which IIRC is due to be released at GenCon. If you manage to equate CZ and Castle Greyhawk, ellestar, you're putting one and one together and getting two

 

[Robbert Raets]

he sings well

You're not mutating into a German, are you?

 

[Henry]

You're not mutating into a German, are you?

Nah, just admitting the truth grudgingly.


As for Castle Zagyg from Troll Lord Games that cleaverthepit refers to, it's a new d20/OGL-based game system that's coming out. Details are at www.trolllord.com under "Castles and Crusades" - and the first supplmement planned is a certain multi-level Castle and Environs made popular in the D&D community about 25 years ago, but has NEVER been published...


...until now.

 

[MCakaTLK]

David Hasselhoff can sing? When did that happen?

He did an acceptable job in a 2001 theatrical production of the musical "Jekyll and Hyde" It's out on DVD, and if you've never seen it, it's worth watching. And heck, the plot is the basis for all kinds of D&D adventures, call it research.