My group is halfway through the Champion's Belt adventure. They easily survived the first gladiator fight and Ekaym spilled the beans on what his real motives were. The party agreed to search for his sister.
After finding the palace too heavily guarded, the decided to look around the arena understructure. With the help of the deaf mute, they found their way down to Bozal's hideout. The Spawn of Kyuss and the Mohrg were easily dealt with. The fight with Bozal was almost even easier than that.
Bozal started with a number of spells up, including Anti-life Shell. One natural 20 Dispel Magic check and that was gone and the party's meat shield was up in his face. Bozal's first action was to bring out the big guns, Harm. I proceed to roll a 1 on the Concentration check, the spell fizzles and he takes 40 points damage from the AoO.
This is followed up by a Nat 20 critical hit with an axe that is confirmed with a second Nat 20 (making it x4 damage - house rule). This left Bozal with just enough hit points for the Wizard's Enervation spell to take him down so that the Crusader could then smash his unconscious body to death.
I had decided before the combat even began that the Ulgurstasta would be awoken if Bozal was killed (or he could activate it early if he wanted to). So, the party heard a loud roar and the sound of something being smashed coming through the double doors.
They opened the doors and saw the Ulgurstasta down the hallway. Immediately they realised that it was too big to escape the room it was in. However, for some unknown reason the Crusader still decided to charge it (without even bothering with a Knowledge: Religion check to see what exactly he was up against).
He didn't even get close as the Ulgurstasta chomped him with an Improved Grab bite attack, grappling him in it's maw. The Knight then charged down and attacked, only to have his damage completely negated by the 10/Magical Piercing DR. The Crusader managed to avoid being swallowed thanks to a Nat 1 on the Ulgurstasta's grapple check but copped 30 points damage when the Wizard decided it was a good idea to hurl an Orb of Force into a grapple (the attack is randomised).
At this point the party was nicely in place for a Necromantic Acid breath weapon attack. The attack hit everyone in the party, with only the Rogue and the Cleric making their reflex saves. I then proceeded to roll 16 Con damage on 3d6, killing the Crusader, Knight and Wizard outright! The Rogue and Wizard (wisely) fled at this point.
That stopped the session for the night and we talked about what the party could have done differently, and where to from here in the campaign. We eventually decided that we wanted to continue the campaign and the party (well the 3 that were left - the Bard was left back and the Conoeby as his player was absent) would try and get the 3 that were killed resurrected.
That part I have figured out. I'm going to hand wave the 3 remaining members killing the Spawn of Kyuss that their fellow party members have turned into and then recover their bodies (or part of them) for resurrection. They will also recover the (now powerless) Apostolic Scrolls and find Lahanka's zombie coprse.
The question is what happens to the Ulgurstasta? After it killed half the party it then burst upwards into the arena, where it would continue its rampage. It is about midnight, so the arena is empty. So I figured that the Ulgurstasta would continue on wreaking havoc and turning people into spawns until it was finally killed by some of the higher levelled NPC's that live in the Free City of Greyhawk.
So, what sort of damage should the beast be able to do before it is finally killed? I don't think it will be anywhere near as bad as turning 20,000 people into Wights, but it still should do quite a bit of damage and create a fair few Spawns of Kyuss that then need to be killed.
Any suggestions? My next session is a week away, so I have until then to decide just how much destruction it causes before being destroyed. This will all be handled out of game as the party will not be taking it on again, they will be recovering the bodies of the PC's who were killed.
Olaf the Stout
Well, I guess it will make quite an impression in the dorms of the Grey College before the tutors of the nearby University of Wizardly Arts react to the "necromantic radiation alarm" and stomp/disintegrate/meteor swarm it to ash.
The Church of Boccob is quite near too, and this 19th level head cleric (in second edition ! That could easily translate into an epic character) could be handy too, with a Miracle or two. Who knows how long it would take for such an ubercleric of the greater god of magic and prophecy to react to such a threat at its literal doorstep ?
Why the dorms ? Because it's the nearest and biggest concentration of population in the neighborhood. It would make no sense for the Ulgur to rampage through the Great Library, for instance. You could modulate the body count according to your Pc's actions : if they raise the alarm, it wouldn't be the same that if they try to slink away and forget about it.
I'm not fond of NPC's doing the PC's work, but it would make absolutely no sense to have known powerful ones twiddle their thumbs. I say, now is your opportunity to bring out the big guns. Ans of course, dear Raknian would not miss the opportunity to skip town, to better make a comeback in RtRGH.
You might find some inspiration in this thread:
What happens if they fail?.
You might find some inspiration in this thread:
What happens if they fail?.
Well, unless I missed something, that thread is about the consequences of old Ulgur gobbling up the Champion and triggering its Necrotic Radiation Outburst power (tm).
Here, it's all alone in the night, without any Champion to snack on, and no chance to fulfill its glorious destiny. Just a plain old rampage for compensation.
And it's up to the DM to decide if he is 'ripe' enough to vomit spawns of Kyuss instead of the regular skeletons (or zombies? Can't remember). Depends on the level of challenge you wish (or in this case, on the level of destruction you wish to describe, as the PCs won't play any part in its demise).
Um ... a 60' cone that makes Kyuss spawn? The critter'd be barfing into every house in the neighborhood around the arena. The city would be overrun by Kyuss spawn in a matter of hours unless there are VERY powerful people in town able to stop both it and a few hundred to several thousand super-zombies...
You might find some inspiration in this thread:
What happens if they fail?.
Well, unless I missed something, that thread is about the consequences of old Ulgur gobbling up the Champion and triggering its Necrotic Radiation Outburst power (tm).
Here, it's all alone in the night, without any Champion to snack on, and no chance to fulfill its glorious destiny. Just a plain old rampage for compensation.
And it's up to the DM to decide if he is 'ripe' enough to vomit spawns of Kyuss instead of the regular skeletons (or zombies? Can't remember). Depends on the level of challenge you wish (or in this case, on the level of destruction you wish to describe, as the PCs won't play any part in its demise).
You are correct Smarnil. I saw and read that thread, but it is about the Ulgurstasta being released during the final of the Champion's Games. So partially useful, but not really that relevant.
In my campaign the Ulgurstasta has been released on the night after the first round of combats have been completed (so just before the rest day). Being night time, no one is in the arena, so it will cause a bit of damage to the arena itself, before moving on to people it can feast upon.
Olaf the Stout
Um ... a 60' cone that makes Kyuss spawn? The critter'd be barfing into every house in the neighborhood around the arena. The city would be overrun by Kyuss spawn in a matter of hours unless there are VERY powerful people in town able to stop both it and a few hundred to several thousand super-zombies...
The 60ft Cone is a one a day thing. So it can't do that for another 24 hours.
It can still swallow people, kill them with the necromantic acid and then spit them out as spawn though.
Olaf the Stout
I think the larger questions beyond the Ulgurstasta's rampage are:
(1) how will this effect the games, the arena will have been pretty well smashed by the beast breaking out and rampaging through of this monster and
(2) what does Loris Raknian do now?Certainly Raknian will know that someone went somewhere they shouldn't have but would he even stick around to find out who? No doubt the authorities in Greyhawk will consider the presence of the Beast underneath HIS arena to be a questionable activity after all the beast is much more dangerous than the Froghemoth :-)
Interesting dilemmas to solve Olaf!
I've decided that the games will be called off and Loris Raknian will flee. There's too much dodgy stuff going on down there for him to risk being able to explain it away. Best just to escape while he can.
It has certainly shortened this adventure!
Olaf the Stout