Peruhain of Brithondy |
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Numerous people have complained on the boards about the way Eligos is handily killed off and quickly brought back to life--it's a plot hook that seems very forced to many of us, even those who are used to regular raisings of the dead.
I just had an inspiration that will eliminate this hiccup in my campaign without messing up the attached plot hooks, and thought I'd share, for those who are still looking for a satisfactory alternative.
encounter description-- When the PCs arrive at Eligos' house, they find that no one answers the doorbell. The exterior doors are locked, but a first floor window on the side of the house shows clear signs of a housebreak. Inside, the PCs find Pollard lying dead in the kitchen, with his throat cut. A pie is baking in the oven and a cucumber lies on the cutting board, half of it cut into thin slices. Pollard's master is nowhere to be found, but he must have been in his study recently, as a candle of sealing wax still burns at his desk, where he was writing a letter. There is a copious puddle of fresh blood on the floor, and a bloody trail of footprints leads across the room, ending in front of a tall scroll-rack. *encounter description ends.
The letter on the desk is the unfinished letter to Allustan, and next to it is the pile of evidence that he was planning to return to the PCs this evening. Okoral beat them by a few minutes. Eligos was badly wounded, but survived Okoral's death attack, and used a teleport scroll he had handy in his study to escape to Magepoint. At the DM's discretion, Okoral might still be hiding in the house. This would be a good encounter--potentially deadly but not excessively challenging. If you need a mansion floorplan for the combat, use the one in the Mad God's Key (Dungeon # 112 IIRC), removing the features that make it a run-down and abandoned gang-haunt instead of the well-maintained mansion of a respectable citizen.
This solution avoids the need to have Eligos resurrected, but preserves the incentives for the party to travel to Diamond Lake (assuming they don't already know Allustan used to be Manzorian's apprentice--but news of Ilthane will almost certainly trump an early trip to Magepoint), and on to Magepoint afterwards. It also reminds the PCs that just because they killed the Ulgurstasta doesn't mean they won--there are still people who want them dead, which means there are still important secrets to which they must discover the answers. And it adds a potentially interesting additional encounter, if the DM wants it. Maybe Okoral knew the PCs were coming to Eligos's house and planned it all so that he could take care of two problems at once. He's ready for the PCs when they arrive, and after he strikes the first time, they have to find him before he catches the next one off guard! (If you choose this option, you can have him hide Pollard's body and use disguise self to get the drop on both Eligos and the PCs, then use invisibility to escape and set up his second ambush.)