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OK, I find myself in a major DM bind. My players had been looking forward to the Champion's Belt and some good arena combat, and so they were more than glad to sign up with Ekaym and take part in the games. They breezed through the first fight with no problem, bet on themselves, and came out victorious and with a hefty sum of cash. That was the last positive thing that happened. After that, things went rapidly to heck.

On the first night after their victory, Ekaym came to them with the story about his missing sister. So on that very night, without resting up from the day's exertions, they go off exploring the caverns. One of my PCs has a low-level ghost as an Undead Cohort (he's a dread necromancer/cleric gestalt), so he started sending the ghost off to scout the sealed-off areas undergounds (the plug in the water, the stairways in the circular hallway that were blocked by stone. The ghost passes through everything incorporeally, and happens upon the ruined training room of where the Morhg and the six spawns were stationed. When the ghost tells them of his discovery, they immediately decide to dimension door into the room.

At this point, they are still 9th level gestalts. There are only two players in the campaign, backed up by multiple summoned creatures and controlled undead. Well, what essentially happens next is probably lack of DM preparedness more than anything else, but they go many rounds with Bozal Zahol, and end up defeating him. However, in the last round before his death, he takes his standard action to release the ulgurstata.

The ulgurstata immediately surges its gargantuan form towards the nearest living thing, but by the time it squeezes its bulk near them, they've moved away and left several summoned creatures behind to act as meat shields. When they see how easily it swallows/cuts through the things they summon, they decide to get out of there with another dimension door (not before accidentally stumbling into the alkalith's chamber and being acid-slapped about, though).

The adventure ended with them dimension-dooring back to the Coenoby, where they hope to pick up some of the rest of their larger undead minions, then are going to use the last of their spells to dimension door out again.

OK, I'm rambling, but here's my problem: this effectively ends the Champion's Belt adventure for them. The ulgurstata will break through the ceiling in minutes, and will release a horde of Kyuss Spawns on a sleeping Waterdeep. The PCs are completely depleted, and will need 8 hours to recover. They are still only 9th level, and will now likely be faced with several mobs of Kyuss Spawns and Kyuss Knights before they can get out of town safely.

This is such an unexpected turn of events for me as a DM, I'm not sure what would be best to do next. Is this a job for the Grey Hand to deal with? And if the PCs just leave town, they still have insufficient XP to deal with Dragotha, much less the next of the adventure paths...le sigh. How do I keep them involved, now that they've inadvertently doomed thousands of innocents?

Well, we ran the adventure last night, and surprisingly the dopp'd PC managed to maintain the deception throughout the entire adventure. He intentionally faked die rolls when fighting against other known dopplegangers, led the other PC into being attacked by all the mimics, setting off every single trap (which didn't really work, since the PC was flying over all of the pits). He even made the point of saying "We must be alert against the machinations and DECEPTION of these dopplegangers" when he entered the Invisible stalker room, thereby preventing it from attacking (however, the other PC was using blindsense, detected the stalker, and initiated combat anyway...again, he was flying, so no real chance of getting knocked into the pokey-sharp water). They dropped an everburning torch into the water-hole, made good enough spot checks to notice tentacles, and proceeded to summon ogre skeletons underwater in sufficient numbers to eventually take out the Giant Octopus. They then set off yet another pit trap at the fake double doors, which the doppleganger studiously avoided...but the other PC was flying *again*...sigh.

Anyway, they pretty much walked straight into the Hall of Deception, when I gave the dopp'd PC the go-ahead to strike...he missed, of course, being but a weenie rogue, and melee ensued with the Dread Necromancer summoning Allips, Troll Skeletons, and manifesting his ghost-face familiar to paralyze everyone in the room. Combat was quick, short and brutal, and finally he figured out which of the many identical dopplegangers tied to the chairs was the real kidnapped PC.

The subsequent fight against Telaquin proved almost lethal, but their summonned minions were mostly dropped by the traps, fireballs, and walls of fire, then the raging Barbarian-form Telaquin when anyone got too close. They had almost depeleted their spells and stances when the Swordsage/Telepath dimension doored behind Telaquin and got in a lucky punch with his Insightful Strike, ripping the steaming heart out of Telaquin's chest.

They are tired, and have stopped there for the moment, blissfully unaware of what awaits them as they make their way back out...

Apparently this can be done with two players...

OK, so what about *before* the Hall of Deception? Wouldn't the dopp PC know about the mimics, the traps, the giant frikkin' octopus, and his fellow dopps in the cells? I still wonder how he should react to all of those. With lethal force? Feigned ignorance about the traps? Or should he just go ahead and blow his cover, since the other PC has now walked right into their lair?

I'm not running any other NPCs, but it might be a good idea to have one offer to join just before the Sodden Hold run, then have him killed off in the Hall of Deceptions. That way, if the dopp'd PC gets discovered earlier, the PC can then continue play as that NPC. Then, when he's released, he can revert to his old self.

My group has just started Hall of Harsh Reflections, and I'm using the "doppleganger takes over PC" subplot. However, our group is very small. There are only two players, both of whom are gestalts. It's been a little tough for them, but they've only had one death so far (against the grimlock leader of the Bhaal cultists), and one of the PCs is a True Necromancer/Cleric with a sizeable undead army to act as cannon fodder.

Anyway, the doppleganger'd character is a Swordsage/Telepath who is just entering the Shadow Sun Ninja prestige class. Since it makes it pretty clear that this is just a normal doppleganger that has taken him over, he won't get any of his special class abilities. This might get pretty obvious for the other PC in the group when the taken-over PC isn't able to use any of his powers or stances.

The next encounter is going to be the scuffle in the Crooked House, so it's entirely possible that the PCs can get by with not using any obvious abilities due to the laws of Waterdeep that prevent lethal force being used by anyone not in the watch or the Grey Hand.

With only two players, how would you handle this situation, and still be able to keep both of them involved? I figure that sometime around the prison/invisible stalker scene the doppleganger PC's cover will be blown, but if anyone has any ideas on how I can stretch things out more effectively, I'd love to hear it.

One of my PCs is playing a gestalt True Necromancer/Cleric of Velsharoon in my AoW campaign, and is bent on the liberal use of commanding and spells such as Undead Lieutenant and Animate Dead to amass his own army of undead. He already has an impressive array of large and huge skeletons he acquired by purchasing dinosaur and ettin corpses off some less-than-ethical normal necromancers, and with a control cap of around 24 HD in each of his classes, he's making his dreams of a shuffling, rotting legion come quickly true.

However, how should I deal with his attempts to control any Spawns of Kyuss (they're right at the end of Blackwall Keep and will encounter their first Spawn next adventure)? I realize that these are somewhat unique, "plot-significant" undead creatures, so in your opinion would his controlling several of them be in any way detrimental to the whole over-arching theme of preventing the Age of Worms (and the subsequent creation of countless other Spawn)? Alignment-wise, the PC is Chaotic Neutral with strong good tendencies, and he practices what he calls "ethical necromancy" where he is determined to show the world that undead can be used as beneficial tools in the right hands. Of course, so far, he has only controlled non-intelligent undead, and will regardless become the target of several assassination attempts by the Church of Lathander in due time. Still, should I steer him away from trying to amass his own Kyuss-spawned army and instead stick with a host of wraiths, shadows, etc.?

I just finished running this module, and I would suggest getting rid of the draconic kobolds guarding the egg chamber and replacing it with a slightly toughened-up young black dragon. The draconic kobolds were largely pointless and the PCs dispatched them in two rounds without taking any damage or even realizing what their purpose was as "guardians". Perhaps have this young black dragon could be one of Ilthane's children who has been coerced by its mother to guard the egg, and it could even drop its mother's name during the fight, to give the PCs a further clue.