| tonyz |
Seems like a clever idea, and fits his mind-controlling powers with the Eye very nicely. I might have to try Vampire Vordakai sometime.
Though the part about always sleeping during daylight could make him too easy for the players to destroy.
| pennywit |
Indeed. I've started playing with the idea, and it seems to fit. IMC, my players paid no attention when Maegar Varn asked for help dealing with the centaurs. He eventually reached his own peace with the centaurs, and they have his son has a hostage. Now that Varnhold has vanished, my players are negotiating directly with the centaurs, at the direction of the Swordlords.
I just have this image of a vampirized Maegar Varn coming to the centaur camp with his retinue in tow ...
| kadance |
A pack of undead in the sacred boneyard would be fun too, and if that giant bone dragon were vampiric....
| pennywit |
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I introduced phase 1 today. Here's how it went:
In the Dunsward
Four of the players, thanks to the wizard's recently acquired teleport spell, were practicing diplomacy among the centaurs, using a variant of Dudemeister's Centaur Trust system. They were nearing the point where the centaurs spell the beans.
Meanwhile ...
In the capital
One of the players had been left behind in the capital to keep an eye on things.
So ...
In the Dunsward
In the evening, a particularly misty night, the wizard heard laughter and joy coming from the tent of one Turayan Varn, the only known survivor of the Varn family. Wizard went to investigate ... and there was Maegar Varn chatting with his kid.
The wizard figured immediately something wasn't right, so he used a Resilient Sphere to imprison Varn. Meanwhile ... one Willas Gunderson, thought dead, appeared behind him and stabbed him.
The battle was on!! Vampire spawn appeared out of the mist, surprising my players a bit.
Meanwhile, back in the capital ...
The Treasurer received word that an army of undead was approaching!! My players had defeated Hargulka long ago, but had never bothered to take his settlement. They knew that the trolls and goblins there had slowly turned to undead and worshiping the Cult of the Red Eye, and had previously repelled smaller attacks. But this time, the undead were attacking in force!!!
Meanwhile, a visitor in the night sought to persuade the Treasurer to invite him in, that he might show him something new ... the Treasurer realized that something was not quite right here, and told this visitor to leave ... only for the kingdom's spymaster, Dovan of Nisroch, to attempt to assassinate him!!! After a brief fight, the Treasurer sent the Spymaster to the dungeons while he sorted out what hat happened ...
And the treasurer sent out the kingdom's mighty cavalier army to do battle with the foul undead horde.
Meanwhile, back in the Dunsward ...
The Baroness recognized that these vampire spawn ... were former citizens of Varnhold, recently vanished!! Battle was joined, with centaurs fighting alongside our heroes.
Capital
The Treasurer called the lancers back to the capital city after they inflicted grievous harm on the undead hordes. The remaining undead, implacable, marched on the capital. Battle was joined!! Cavaliers and fighters defended their home city from the forces of darkness!!! Sword!! Horse!! Lance!!
In the Dunsward
The heroes drove off the vampire spawn and Willas, leaving only Maegar Varn imprisoned in the resilient sphere. Realizing that their former neighbor was now a foul creature of the night, they summoned a dire bear to hold the undead in place, and a centaur lancer drove a spearshaft into his heart, and the Baroness parted Varn's head from his body.
Meanwhile, in the capital ...
After fighting that lasted most of the day, the Treasurer captured the general of the undead army, a foul troll by the name of Deska-Tarr. The treasurer elected not to keep this creature prisoner, and dissolved him in acid.
In the Dunsward
The centaurs spoke to their new human allies of an ancient evil, a creature named .... Vordakai.
This was kind of fun. The kingdom rulers gathered and compared their experiences, and they realized the links between these undead attacks. and now ... they plan to go on the offense.
Little do they know what surprises might lie in store ...
| pennywit |
I'm actually digging the "Vampire Vordakai" thing. I kind of didn't like the soul gem motivation. Vordakai kidnapped Varnhold, ate some prominent people's brains, then put the rest into soul gems ... and then ... ??? Vampire Vordakai, on the other hand, kidnapped a village and turned the citizens into his undead pawns. It's working rather well, I think, although Vordakai's a slightly remote adversary at the moment. I think Vampire Vordakai is going to pay a visit to one of my players' settlements in the near future and lay down some carnage ...
| pennywit |
After futzing around a bit, I settled on the Dread Vampire template from Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary, along with two extra levels of wizard and several Archmage tiers to round out my Vampire Vordakai.
I also decided that the Valley of the Dead hosts a rather large army of cyclops zombies. My players have tangled with Vordakai by proxy a few times now: His raven familiar has met them occasionally, and thanks to the Sensory Link archmage power, Vordakai has channeled some pretty serious mojo at them (a dominate person spell on the party druid last time). I think I've established for my players that he's a pretty scary customer, and they've gotten the message. It will be interesting to see what my players do now.
| pennywit |
Here's how things have shaken out so far:
My players scouted the Valley of the Dead. In short order, large hands broke up from grave markers, and my players found cyclops zombies all around them. They fled the valley and camped nearby. The group's druid decided to fly into the valley in bird form. Vordakai's familiar met him in the air. Vordakai, using the Sensory Link archmage power, threw a dominate spell on the druid and sent him back to the PCs.
The druid wreaked havoc on the party until somebody had the wits to trap him and dispel the Dominate effect.
And that's how the last session ended.
Here is the political situation:
Troll Kingdom remnants. These folks, turned undead, were under Vordakai's thrall and hounding the kingdom's Western flank. My players put the undead down with extreme prejudice.
Kobold Kingdom of Sootscale. Players sussed out that Vordakai was behind plagues of leprosy that popped up both in their kingdom and in Sootscale. After negotiating, Sootscale agreed to join the PCs when they march on the undead.
Nomen Centaurs. My players built goodwill with the centaurs through an extended diplomacy skill challenge, defeating Kerezar (a GM-customized centaur graveknight) and by introducing the male-minority Nomens to a band of centaurs they met during Realm of the Fellnight Queen.
Meanwhile, Dread Vampire Vordakai has access to his army of zombies cyclopes (a formidable force), some vampire and vampire spawn "elite mooks" harvested from Varnhold, some beheaded (mainly because I find the beheaded creepy), a zombie roc, and his own considerable mystic talents.
I have a few ideas for next session. I am thinking that Vordakai is going to go on a more overt offense. He's tried to destabilize the kingdoms with disease and subtlety, but my players foiled that strategy.
So I think the next step is for Vordakai to go on the offense.
A few ideas I have:
The players receive simultaneous communications (magically, if needed) from one of their settlements and from the centaurs. They learn that Vordakai is attacking one of their settlements (a small settlement that is home to a watermill) in person. Meanwhile, the centaurs send word that their hallowed graveyard is under attack.
My players (now hovering at 9th level) have a choice: Defend their settlement, or defend the centaurs. If they defend their settlement, Vordakai will play hide and seek with them for most of a night, while his forces attempt to overtake the centaur graveyard. If my players go to help the centaurs at their graveyard, Vordakai will use his magic to destroy their watermill and possibly enslave the citizens in that settlement.
My players could go any which way, but there will be consequences for each choice.
I'll also see if my players can find a way to attend to both situations.
This is going to end in war one way or the other. If my players attack, then Vordakai's armies will meet them at or near the Valley of the Dead for battle. Centaurs, kobolds, and the kingdom military. It ought to be a hell of a combat. Eventually, this is going to end in the Valley of the Dead, possibly with Vordakai himself taking to the field for nighttime combat.
The Big V's not going to die in the field of combat, oh no. He'll retreat to his tomb. Now comes the big question ... Should I run all of the dungeon as written, or should I chop off part of it? I'm leaning toward abbreviating it. My players like a good dungeon romp as much as the next gaming table, but I think that doing the whole dungeon kind of doesn't make sense. After all, if we do the whole dungeon, Vordakai will have time to recover and attack again.
I THINK I might compromise by allowing my players to bring members of their military with them to Vordakai's island, then handwaving much of their invasion of the tomb itself, with soldiers fighting undead hither and yon in the tomb as my players make their way to the Big V's inner sanctum.
What does the peanut gallery think?
| Philip Knowsley |
If you're looking at abbreviating the tomb, you can chuck out the bit around
saving Xamanthe altogether. I would also perhaps limit the tomb to the 'ground'
floor being mostly empty - perhaps spookily so, with lots of evidence of recent
undead activity...
Also - you can get rid of the huge water elementals, as whilst they are a battle
they won't add anything thematically to what you seem to be going for...plus,
from what I've read of your game - they'll be WAY to easy for your PCs.
Then just add in thematic components from your game to populate the tomb. (i.e.
potentially get rid of any other guardians or ex-Warnhold residents & swap in
zombies/wampires/wampire spawn etc.