| zir39 |
Hello everyone, I've been running Slumbering Tsar for about a year now, and I just found this thread. This has been a great resource, and helped me convince myself that I have been far too lenient to my players. My group has several very inexperienced players, only two had played prior to this campaign. So I allowed them some leniency to make the game run more smoothly. I haven't wanted to get bogged down in surviving the environment, and I've been very liberal giving them information.
I allowed the party necromancer to raise Malerix as a bleeding skeleton, and they spent a good bit of effort giving it the ability to fly. They use him to travel easily around the city, and I think that has made things far too easy for my party, leading to the 15 minute adventuring day where they fly in, clear a few rooms, then fly out.
Their last few sessions, they had been working through the Crooked Tower. They had looted Belishan's treasury, then, looking for more treasure, they decided to investigate the Drawing Room with the Purgatory Frieze for a third time. There must be something hidden behind it, or else why would I (the DM) keep reminding them about it... The party's Fighter and Paladin ended up getting absorbed. The rest fled promptly.
They were able to restore their party by making a wish with the Dweller at the Crossroads, but the wish did not restore their gear. They retreated to the Camp and spent several weeks securing replacement weapons and armor.
I figured that Belishan spent that time planning his revenge. I had him spend his time acquiring Arrows of Slaying (Undead). He popped in to see his next door neighbor, the Stalker, and hired the Stalker to pepper the skeletal dragon with slaying arrows. The dragon quite predictably went down, leaving the party stranded well behind enemy lines. When we play this week, I plan to have the Stalker fly over the party and deliver a formal invitation to the party from Belishan inviting them to the Crooked Tower for a light dinner. I was going to have Belishan send Turkaen and Vlad Alimar against the party to harass them, as well as the Stalker taking pot shots.
I figure Belishan now believes the party to be a true threat to him, so he is actively working to have them killed.