Chapter 7 was all home-brewed, good (Sir) Charles. I put in a LOT more work than I used due to the "they have 3 sessions, max, to do-or-die against Sorshen".
Chapter 7 was all home-brewed, good (Sir) Charles. I put in a LOT more work than I used due to the "they have 3 sessions, max, to do-or-die against Sorshen".Reading about it again, I just picked up that the Arboretum/Menagerie area was apparently 'multi-level', which by the sound of it should have offered lots of scope for strategic positioning of characters/monsters.
It seems almost a shame when a detailed location only gets one brief - albeit for an epic fight - outing.
Ah well.
My original rough for the Arboretum/Menagerie was a semi-open multi-leveled environment. Flash-bang stuff would trigger other clusters of monsters. Some of which have nasty long-range goodies. Certain auditory effects from the earlier monsters would have permitted the later big nasties to "buff" before seeking out adventurers to nom on.
After kersplatting into Death's arena - which I originally envisioned as the repository for the umpteen-thousand skeletons' worth of bones - the opening moves were not by Death but by super-nasty blood-based alchemical golems with "necrobombs".
The other thing I wanted to have as a "time dependant" optional element was an intrusion by Shub-Niggurath worshipping class-leveled Mi-Go. They and their intellect devourer minions would have taken advantage of the initial "cracks" in the mastaba's 'seal' to set up shop in the menagerie and implanted their pets into the monsters, giving them controlled attack monsters. The "forested" parts would have been supplanted by Dark Spawn (very advanced Dark Spawn) and "Alien"-style Moit 'eggs' of various sorts in some of the monsters.
The blood magic was even nastier, keyed to how much each PC bled in the mastaba. The more they bled, the greater the suck on certain magical trap DCs and of course Sorshen herself was to have garnered benefits from the blood ... a combination of save DC improvements, senses gained ("bloodsight") and a LOT of temporary hp.
Adding injury to injury, the blood magic would empower traps at certain chokepoints. The blood shed designated the traps' targets. The amount of bloodshed increased trap location and disable DCs.
Take a bog standard mechanical trap, infuse it with blood-themed extras based upon how much the party has bled. The swinging scythes trap gets a lot less pleasant when kraken-scale tentacles of blood lash out and drag characters into the oversized blender. As the trap itself inflicts gruesome wounds upon the victim, blood "elementals" form from their own blood and attempt to drown the characters by forcing themselves back into the body they were hewn from.
The original vision for the "welcoming committee" were vampire drow bards that were in four groups keyed to assorted themes: dance, song, 'courtesanship' and blood. For example, the song group had "mooks" that were song striker bards, the lieutenants were maestro sorcerers and the song "boss" was an Oracle of the Dark Tapestry.
All in all, this would have easily taken a large format module to present to the general public.
1,760 clockwork soldiers, anonymous mooks, lurk beneath the floor to Xin's throne room. In the spirit of Feng Shui, I suggest that 55 starmetal plaques strategically placed are inscribed with 32 names on each plaque, with a blank 56th plaque at the end of the row of plaques.
Why the names? If the PCs should happen to peruse the plaques, there is a concealed magical "trap" is for each individual name, activating a magic mouth that enunciates the name in Thassilonian for all to hear in the chamber below.
As each "mook" is named by the reader, the clockwork soldier activates, quietly, as if wound by the guardian key, now granted its own name, sentience, the "character class ability score array" in conjunction with having received the equivalent of an awaken and at least 1 level in something appropriately nasty, say, Phalanx Fighter.
In another chamber are 1,760 dossiers with said names and backstories contained thereon. Should these be perused, another concealed magical trap [or nastier mechanism] activates the personality that goes along with the name. Queue additional class levels ...