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Hello all. As some of you may already know from previous threads I ran a short abortion of a campaign many months back when the original Whispering Cairn adventure first came out. The party in that adventure ran into the face trap and throughly explored the remainder of the cairn. However, they never got the last lantern and never got past the face (so they never saw Alastor and Filge, etc.) The campaign fizzled after a single session and the players decreed they would never visit "that damn dungeon" again.
Okay, fast forward to recently. I started up AoW again. However, this time the players started in Greyhawk and did some intro adventures. In another thread I introduced that idea that my players STILL hate the Whispering Cairn and thus refused to follow a rather tasty hook to it. Therefore I improvised. The party is visiting Diamond Lake on other business. However, along the way they will be caught in a storm and forced to take shelter in a nearby abandoned cairn. There they will meet Allustan who is also travelling back to the town. He will speak with them about things and in the middle of the night a lightning bolt will hit the hill that tomb is built under. My plan is for this lightning to cause a cave-in that reveals hidden rooms beyond the one the party is camping in. Allustan will want to explore them and will try to convince the party to help. In intend for the following things to be in this new area:
-Everyroom of the Whispering Cairn that is beyond the Face.
-Alastor
-All the neat items in the true tomb.
This should get my PCs back on track in the AoW while still avoiding the Whispering Cairn itself. However, I want there to be a few other rooms before the ones I mentioned. This will be an entire complex devoted to a Wind Duke. Does anyone have any ideas for additional rooms in this complex? I only need a few, but they can't be any that already appeared in the Whispering Cairn itself. Thanks in advance for anything you guys give me.
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This will be an entire complex devoted to a Wind Duke. Does anyone have any ideas for additional rooms in this complex?
Here is a room idea that has been rolling around in my brain:
A cylinder-shaped (about 50-60 ft high) room with a ladder running up one side, and a bar running alongside the ladder. PCs enter from the bottom, and have to climb the ladder to get to the top. The problem is that as soon as a PC gets to a certain point on the ladder (say 20-30 ft high) a gust of wind spell activates, giving them a penalty to climbing the ladder, and threatening to pull them off. In order to safely climb the ladder, each PC should use some rope (or whatever) as a secure line to that bar that runs along the ladder. Something simple that might actually succeed in damaging at least one PC.
To make it more complicated, you could have multiple ladders, each going part of the way, then offset slightly from the next ladder. The gust of wind could get worse as the PCs transfer from one ladder to the next. Or you could replace the gust of wind with an air elemental. Nothing like having to fight with one hand while holding onto a ladder with the other. And to make it worse, I believe the Libris Mortis book had undead air elementals.
Just a thought.
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This will be an entire complex devoted to a Wind Duke. Does anyone have any ideas for additional rooms in this complex?Here is a room idea that has been rolling around in my brain:
A cylinder-shaped (about 50-60 ft high) room with a ladder running up one side, and a bar running alongside the ladder. PCs enter from the bottom, and have to climb the ladder to get to the top. The problem is that as soon as a PC gets to a certain point on the ladder (say 20-30 ft high) a gust of wind spell activates, giving them a penalty to climbing the ladder, and threatening to pull them off. In order to safely climb the ladder, each PC should use some rope (or whatever) as a secure line to that bar that runs along the ladder. Something simple that might actually succeed in damaging at least one PC.
To make it more complicated, you could have multiple ladders, each going part of the way, then offset slightly from the next ladder. The gust of wind could get worse as the PCs transfer from one ladder to the next. Or you could replace the gust of wind with an air elemental. Nothing like having to fight with one hand while holding onto a ladder with the other. And to make it worse, I believe the Libris Mortis book had undead air elementals.
Just a thought.
You could also add a permanent heat metal spell to the ladder, not enough to damage them(much) but maybe with a Fort save to keep your grip. Beautiful room idea Aberzombie! Ima gonna use dat one.
FH
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The portals that appear in the Whispering Cairn is a thematic element that you should keep in your spur cairn. I've alluded that the portals {via Knowledge (History/Planes) checks of the PCs} formed a network for the vaati to visit the "shrines" to their esteemed dead. Thus you may want two portals in your cairn, adjusting their condition/functionality to fascilitate your PCs abilities. You also need to decide if these are the portals that Allustan explores in A Gathering of Winds and thus lead to Icosiol's tomb so you can adjust that scenario (*cough*Ilthane*cough*) appropriately.
I don't have any specific room suggestions, but one thing which disappointed me about "A Gathering of Winds" -- I haven't read "The Whispering Cairn" -- was that the tomb of the WIND Dukes was in the GROUND. Why not a castle in the clouds or a city in the sky? Original? Maybe not. Very cool? I think so.
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I'm going to be stealing Aberzombie's idea slightly. As the party gets deeper into the tomb, right before they enter the iron balls room they will hit my version of the face trap. The room is essentially a 40ft tall cylinder. The door enters the room at about 30 ft. with small metal bars jutting out from the wall producing a kind of downward ladder. On the ceiling (10ft. above the door) are spikes. A strong wind flows upward through the room. Now this wind is not strong enough to be anything but an annoyance to PCs. However, the room is trapped and the wind plays an important part. When weight is applied to any of three of the ladder "rungs" about 20ft from the floor it triggers a mechanical trap which retracts all the rungs into the wall!
Now this is only the first level of the trap. Should the PCs be unprepared they will simply fall to the bottom of the room. However, some PCs may use feather fall before they start their descent (or they may have a ring of feather fall) and thus will become light as a feather when they beging to fall. In this case the strong wind is now strong enough to blow them into the spikes on the ceiling! After their feather fall expires they are then dropped 40ft. to the floor of the room. Does this sound about right? Am I missing something? I once again thank Aberzombie for the seeds of this nice room.
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Compliments on the great way of reintroducing the adventure path. Nice way to get things going.
how about some rooms with messed up gravity and ceatures that aren't affected by it. (ie Cling to the walls, fly etc.)
a room with an invisible floor over something dangerous (spiked floor 10' down, Monsters) but sections are actually open. PCs have to avoid holes adn maybe things can grab at them
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Here is another simple idea. Even the simplest of rooms can be made more dangerous if the PCs can't see or if their visibility is reduced. Air elementals or wind spells can be great for blowing sand or dirt around, which won't necessarily hurt the PCs, but will make it more likely they are hurt by something they can't see. You could fill the room with traps, or maybe monsters that don't need eyes to find you.