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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5998559" data-attributes="member: 42582">A recent session ended with the PCs cleared the Immoliths and other demons out of an ancient underground temple to Orcus. The PCs stumbled on the temple when following a trail left by Orcus cultists they had beaten up in an earlier session. It hadn't occurred to me to place an Orcus temple until one of the players said that his PC spent time going around town trying to find out where the cultists had come from and what they were up to.As the PCs went to go down the Moria-like stairs behind the back door of the temple (the map is from one of the 4e Dungeon adventure Siege of Bordrin's Watch) they were attacked by a Nightwalker and its bodak servants. The idea of putting the stairs there, and using a Nightwalker as a Balrog substitute, was something I came up with in the time between sessions. But it was easy to narrate a weakening of the barrier between world and Shadowfell in the vicinity of an ancient Orcus temple.Then, when the PCs were searching around after beating the Nightwalker and bodaks, one tried to sense if there was any more shadow energy leeching through. I said that there was, and expected the PCs to try to seal the breach. But instead they took up positions and prepared for combat - so I had a dracolich attended by lost souls (levelled-up wraith figments) come through the barrier.The PCs then conjured a hallowed temple via a ritual to rest, and after resting went down the stairs. I had just got my copy of Into the Unknown, and used a picture in it, of an underdark staircase in a vast cavern, to indicate the general character of their descent. I had statted up some Death Giants as part of general prep, expecting that they might come in handy, and used them - plus an Eidolon, levelled up to 17th - to ad lib an encounter at the bottom of the stairs involving a locked door, and the guardians on the other side of it protecting the sealing away of this ancient Orcus temple complex. I decided that the giants had been placed there by the Raven Queen, under a geas to serve as warders against the servants of Orcus. I thought the PCs might try to negotiate, and they did, but the dwarf fighter wields a giant-hating dwarven thrower artefact, and the paladin of the Raven Queen is pretty rabid too, so the idea of negotiating peaceful passage in return for lifting the geas on the giants didn't get very far. Combat ensued, although the paladin managed to ensure that only one of the giants was actually killed (the other was knocked out, and will regain consciousness still geased).I'm guessing that's somewhat different from your preferred approach, but I'm not sure how different. My two criteria for encounters are (i) that it fits with what's come before ("background consistency") and (ii) that it pushes the players (and their PCs) in some interesting direction. The surprise for me isn't in what the PCs encounter - I generally decide that, although often not very far in advance - but rather how they respond to it.</blockquote>

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