greetings, I'm DMing serpent skull as my first AP to run. two of my party are basic new players, while the other two are experienced. So the concept of 'oh, just reroll a new character' is foreign to my newbies, so I noticed Zura was in the first book, with a ritual involved. now the experienced ones didn't want to do the tide stone ritual, but realized they were stuck and went for it after all. Now in the temple there are blood pools with no actual function in this AP. and as I am a bit off the normal, I incorporated that into a concept. given the bat change for opening the glyph of warding in the temple, I got the idea to make the group have to bathe in the blood, as did the original occupants centuries ago, to open up the doors in the trap room. then when they die, they take on the bat form and need to drain the blood of humans to revert back to normal. This way, no permanent death for my new players, but a hellava penalty when people start looking for vampires in the city. So, having play D&D back in the 70's and just taking it back up, with way more rules than the little 3 booklets, is there some concept I can use for the two expert guys in my group to sanction this concept?
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It has been a while since I ran Serpent's Skull and I don't have the books handy. Can I ask a couple clarifying questions?
I don't remember the specifics on that trapped room with the literal bloodbath. Does bathing in the blood kill them, or are you proposing having it give them a condition so that when (or if) they die in the future they will instead become Batman (as my players called the character who was cursed by the glyph you mentioned), basically giving them a one-time Get out of Death Free card that is accompanied by a hefty social penalty?
It has been a while since I ran Serpent's Skull and I don't have the books handy. Can I ask a couple clarifying questions?
I don't remember the specifics on that trapped room with the literal bloodbath. Does bathing in the blood kill them, or are you proposing having it give them a condition so that when (or if) they die in the future they will instead become Batman (as my players called the character who was cursed by the glyph you mentioned), basically giving them a one-time Get out of Death Free card that is accompanied by a hefty social penalty?
it is the room with the pendulum, and just a bath of blood two feet deep. they won't even know if there is a problem if they never die, it is just to keep their characters in the game with that hefty social penalty. I can only imagine how it will be if they die leading their safari and suddenly the natives find out they are dropping like flies to mysterious vampires bats in the jungle. I read to many tarzan stories as a kid to not think of natives abandoning their loads to flee into the jungle to escape.
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Alright right, great. I don't see any problems with doing this. I would be sure to foreshadow it though. Perhaps having the PCs occasionally dream of themselves as bat people flying through the sky and terrorizing villagers. Somebody might get a bat totem when they get to Nkechi in Racing to Ruin. Be careful not to overdo it though, as the overall theme should still be snake, not bat.
As far a your expert players sanctioning it, I doubt it will be a problem. The Zura cultists are an ancient culture and generally when it comes to ancient cultures anything goes magically speaking. The secrets of how to do that are lost to the ages. You shouldn't need to justify or explain anything. If it comes to it, I would say that this is a special Contingency Spell that triggers and Reincarnation spell upon the subject's death. The form of the Reincarnation is prearranged in this case, but that isn't out of the question for ancient magic.
thanks, ^_^