We are currently halfway through Lightless Depths and at the end of the last session my players...
... had absolutely no intention of destroying Tlalocs Tear (being as wary of the "demon fish that enslave whole tribes" as they are of the "Lords of Dread"). Instead, they plan to trigger the Shadow Pearl they still have (from Vanthus) in the middle of Golismorga.
Did anyone else encounter this plan before? I'm not seeing any kind of fatal flaw.
Now, for the data I gathered so far:
Golismorga measures about 0.4 x 0.6 miles, so the 1 mile burst radius of the shadow pearl should affect the whole city and a bit of the surrounding caves.
It is a Will Save DC 15 to avoid becoming a Savage Creature, so statistically will be affected:
25% of all standard Kopru (meaning 9.5/38 in the ziggurat)
20% of all behemoths (3/16 in the ziggurat)
30% of all dark nagas (3/10 in the ziggurat)
70% of all troglodytes (49/70 in the ziggurat)
That should definately wreak some havoc. I'll assume, that the kopru will concentrate on clearing the ziggurat of any savage creatures, so the PCs will (if they wait a while for the smoke to clear) encounter some savage kopru and troglodytes in the ruined city, but the ziggurat should be mostly filled with unaffected ones - at a much reduced number.
If anyone has ideas or thoughts, I'd be happy to hear them.
We are currently halfway through Lightless Depths and at the end of the last session my players...
** spoiler omitted **
If anyone has ideas or thoughts, I'd be happy to hear them.
Yes I ran into that problem with my players too where they didn't want to trigger the tear- but I do believe that, that is the point of this campaign arch. To give the players a chioce between two evils and they must pick the lesser one.
That said: After I ran my players through that arch I honestly would not destory the tear myself. Certainly the "Fate of the world" hangs in the balance, but the player don't know that at this stage of the campaign yet. All they know at this point in the campaign is that "which group of monsters would you like to have attack Far shore at a later date: Pirate/Savage Creatures or Aboleths?" And if I were in my players shoes (and did not know the whole story) I would pick Savage Creatures over Aboleths any day.
In my campaign I managed to con my players with the "Ghostly Trog ancestor" into destorying the tear but they certainly had their doubts about doing it- if the Brain Eater had not been lording over it they still probably would not have destoryed it.
I would make sure to congratulate your players with a unique solution to the problem, however according to the STAP if they don't flood the city big D and Khala will simply send more Kopru later (Although I never understood where they would get another Bilewitch from.)
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In my campaign, the party was able to see through the disguise of the "old trog ghost", and knowing about the abberations below, chose to do the opposite of whatever he told them.
when they fought the brain collector, they sealed the tear in a giant steel box about 4-5" thick, and filled in the area around with stones and rubble, if i recall correctly.
they then wiped out all the Kopru to the man, including the trogs and all the other critters in there.
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I definately will congratulate them... afterwards - if they survive *evil laugh*.
Now to generating all the templated version of the monsters...
however according to the STAP if they don't flood the city big D and Khala will simply send more Kopru later (Although I never understood where they would get another Bilewitch from.)
Ah right, though I'll probably make it enough of a setback that by the time operations in Golismorga are up and running again, either Demogorgon is history or the PCs will return with near-epic levels and finish it.
If you are a player who hasn't finished STAP, this isn't the post you're looking for . . . move along.
Shouldn't the power of the energy released by the shadow pearl fuel Big D? I mean, sure Golismorga is poo-jabbed, but shouldn't Big D have something more (maybe he's CR 34 with an extra 100 HP and one more attack) because isn't that the whole point of those things?
The players don't know that they're buffing the Prince of Demons, but just because they don't know that, doesn't mean it ain't happening.
Heck, maybe Big D is happy that the pearl was detonated. Maybe he deliberately steers a few more the players' way in the hopes that they'll trigger more savage tides for him! And maybe, just maybe, the pc's will be just dumb enough to do it. They'll think, "Hmmm, this little psychotic version of an alludium pu-33 thermonuclear explosive space modulator worked wonders last time . . . let's just keep popping them off!"
Oh, that's delighfully evil, EiIDSSM
My players ended up cutting a deal with Rakis-Ka (well, 'cutting a deal' is a bit on the generous side - he puppeteered them effortlessly, and got them to do all his dirty work).
Rakis-Ka certainly doesn't want the aboleths to come back - while he doesn't need to breathe, he's going to have a lot of problems prying into the secrets of the Elder Evils if there's a couple of dozen aboleth savants getting all territorial about the place. And he'd love to see Ulioth gone as well - because he knows that Ulioth stands a pretty good chance of rebuking/controlling him, and he's not all that keen to spend the rest of eternity doing menial manual labour for a priest of Demogorgon.
So he helped (with info, and by creating a distraction from a safe distance) the PCs off Ulioth, and then talked them out of breaking the tear. The PCs didn't find the Decanter in the Ziggurat, so I ruled that after they killed Ulioth the ziggurat filled up the water, overflowed, and woke up a couple of nearby petrified aboleths. They took to the ziggurat and dominated the leftover trogs and started waking up the rest of their fellow fish, and the PCs and Rakis-Ka had to go in once again, kill the aboleths, and turn off the Decanter.
So post-Lightless Depths, Rakis-Ka basically rules Golismorga, and the PCs seem content to leave things there. He's deeply evil, but he's civilised and he's done right by them so far. I'm sure this has got to come back and bite them at some point in the future, not quite sure how yet though...
Well, hmmmmmm. Okay, how about pre-mature release in the wrong location doesn't do anything for Big D. Kraken's Cove didn't fuel him because the shadow pearl was being transported somewhere else. But Gorgismorga could be an appropriately attuned location to funnel the energies of a savage tide to him.
If the DM wants. I mean, I know its not exactly as written, but AP's are always written with the expectation that they'll be tweaked along the way.
Heck, I'm running a group of elves through SCAP (one of the most go-go-go ones out there) and I've modified it to take about one hundred years.
I would let your players do it, since then you have an excellent reason to introduce extra savage creature encounters to the Isle of Dread, perhaps even a minor attack on Farshore if you want.
Also, don't forget that in Golismorga, the buildings themselves are living entities. So presumably some of THEM would go savage as well...
You are delighfully deviant and evil...
...I like you!
The Dire Weasel is not Fiendish for no reason. ;)
Our trip into Golismorga with him was quite memorable, with buildings whimpering and moaning as the elven arcane archer spiderwalked up one to avoid a patrol. Needless to say, it wasn't our most stealthy hour.
We never got this far sadly, but as a player I see a problem.
After maybe 6 encounters with savage creatures I'd be annoyed.
After maybe 12 encountes I'd be frustrated.
More than that and I'd start day dreaming or thinking about my next paper for school.Obviously at this level you hopefully have access to teleport, rope trick, stuff like that, but even then too much of the same thing eventually becomes boring.
Most of the savage creatures will already be killed by the remaining unaffected kopru and trogs. So there might be some savage creatures in Golismorga, but almost none in the ziggurat when the PCs arrive. Anyway, it should be a tad less boring than clearing the ziggurat without the savage creatures (which would mean wading through masses of troglodytes and kopru).
But I definately will let them encounter a single "savage building" just because I love that idea (thanks to the fiendish dire weasel for that!)
This saturday we'll (finally) continue this campaign. I'll let you know, how it worked out afterwards.