I know Filge has made a few appearances on these boards already--as well he should, being one of the most provocative villains I've seen in a while--but I was wondering if any groups have done anything more with him. Here’s my group’s experience with everyone’s favorite necromancer.
His zombie dinner party and idealized statue of himself made him seem like a lonely and pathetic man to me. So when the group got him down to a smattering of hit points, he fell to his knees blubbering and begging them to spare his miserable life. When the heroes did just that he told them they would always have a friend in the Free City. They sent him packing sans-spellbook, told him to change his evil ways, and gave the matter little more thought.
When they realized someone had hired doppelgangers to kill them after arriving in the Free City, Filge was at the top of the suspect list for a while. They talked about looking for him, but never did. They were very surprised to find him waiting tables via Tenser’s Floating Disk at the Free Dinner on the eve of the Champion’s Games. He explained that he was indeed trying to turn over a new leaf, and as such was having trouble finding respectable work. My group felt bad for him so they pooled their money and gave him a 100gp tip, telling him he would do well to bet on them in the games.
During the fight with Pitch Blade, the party wizard fell. Filge saw it all from the stands and snuck under the arena to help. He explained that the only cleric in town that could restore their ally in full was the High Magus of Boccob, he offered to sneak out and have their friend resurrected. They were a little leery of forking over a 2000gp “offering,” but they agreed. After realizing there would be no way to smuggle the mage’s whole body out, Filge (being Filge) suggested cutting him into smaller pieces for easy transport, and eventually they hacked off a single leg for Filge to take to the temple. The group is now in his debt.
I am considering having him play a role in helping people escape the arena once the apostle is revealed, and possibly even joining them in Redhand when they assume the thrones. Anyone have any other plans or suggestions for a reformed Filge?
I like your idea alot and plan to try to use him in the same way (if he loses all his minions before biting the dust that is)
But as my players prefere to kill Mages first and speak with dead later im not sure thats going to work out for me..
My party just finished WC and are starting 3FoE. The party fighter got them to not kill Filge even though the party sorcerer (having struck a deal with Kullen to bring back the head) wanted to decapite him after the battle. They got all the info from Filge about the cult and all in my best NPC rendition ever (IMHO) of a rambling Filge going crazy an proclaiming the Age of Worms (warm memories here). So not wanting to kill a unarmed and (going crazy) guy they knocked him out and were about to bring it to the constable (they knocked on the door and he answered) when the made a 180 thinking that the constable would let Filge go knowing he was a friend of Smenk.
So they hauwled him back to Alustan who said "he would take care of it".
After finishing up WC they came back to Diamond Lake and were intercepted by Kullen demanding the head... not having it Kullen brought them to Smenk and sold them out to him. He requested that they produced Filge. They said they had sent him packing to Waterdeep. So Smenk requested that they go in the mine to destroy the temples or he would expose them to the local constable. They reluctently agreed (wanting to go in anyway).
Next came the rendez-vous with Alustan, when they got there they heard noise (breaking glasses) from the top of the tower, they ran to investigate only to see a cloaked figure start a fire in the study and jumping out the window with a lump on his back (Filge). Alustan had his throat cut and was bleeding to dead on his desk. They stopped the fire and rescued Alustan and one of them started chasing the Cloaked Figure on the roof.
In fact the cloaked figure is a Kenku that was sent by the faceless one to get Filge. He got a vision by Gar saying that Filge was important to resurrect the green wormed undead.
So Filge will definately come back later in 3FoE and I plan on keeping him around he is very intent in "participating" in the unfolding events of the AoW.
I like your idea alot and plan to try to use him in the same way (if he loses all his minions before biting the dust that is)
But as my players prefere to kill Mages first and speak with dead later im not sure thats going to work out for me..
It wasn't easy, my crew was pretty appalled the dinner party thing, but I really played it up. The minute his last zombie died he dropped his weapon, fell to his knees and started sobbing. He said he'd do anything--and I do mean anything (wink)--to live. He offered to... well, you know... with such desperation and suppressed revultion that everyone just had to stop.
If that won't work with your group, try a teary-eyed monologue about his sad and abusive childhood. Or there's always: the only work I could find to support my seven starving brothers and sister after the folks died was as a necromancer's apprentice, as soon as little Timmy's finished seminary, I'm finding a new line of work. Or there's the old stand-by: I thought necromany would be a way to bring back my poor mother (sister, wife, etc.) who died horribly.
My players also forced Filge to surrender in a pitched battle that could have gone either way. What happened next surprised me, as after explaining what he was doing for Smenk and why, they paid him 500gp to hire living assistants and to report any findings to them first, before reporting to Smenk. He said to check back in a week... They returned the next day and found him gone of course.
We had a good laugh about that one... but the best part is that I can have Filge return. Thanks for the ideas...
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I too have one of those groups that kill mages first, but they don't even bother with speak with dead. Since I run Age of Worms on Eberron, I ended up with two players with warforged characters. One is playing a warforged scout (think of a halfling sized warforged) with ninja levels and the other is an artificer with adamantine body. The party made the decision to send their two 'forged into the observatory alone. So, the dinner became completely pointless [sigh]. They ended up treating the whole thing as a smash and grab. The ninja was able to sneak up pretty close to Filge before he noticed his big ol' adamantine buddy. Filge called up his minions, and the warforged freaked out and pulled out all the stops. The ninja went after Filge, while the big guy did his best to keep the undead at bay. He actually did a very good job because the undead couldn't do a single point of damage (admantine body pretty much makes a warforged's body into a suit of adamantine full plate, but can only be taken at level 1). However, the ninja got really lucky and thanks to use of his ki ability to go invisible for a round, finished Filge off very quickly, knocking him down to -1 hp. And the next round when they decided to use their totem pole maneuver, Filge stabilized. The totem pole maneuver I refer to involves one of the 'forged delaying their action till they both go on the same initiative count and then the ninja jumps on the other 'forged's shoulders and then spends most of time balancing and hanging on or making attacks against an incoming minion. Pretty much after Filge appeared to bite it, they moved enough to get the minions to chase after them and grant the ninja his full spread of attacks of opportunity.
But luckily for me, they never bothered to check to make sure Filge was dead.
I think there was an earlier thread along these lines in Dec. or so that you might want to check out.
My party's paladin critted Filge, dropping him to -8 hp. I ruled that he had cut off his arm at the elbow and cut into his ribcage, based on their relative positioning. The cleric dove across the operating theatre to apply a Cure Minor Wounds to stabilize the poor villain for later interrogation.
Once they had wrung him dry of information, they realized the local cops would just set him free on Smenk's word, and might give them a hard time for breaking and entering (they came in through the bedroom window) and assault. It being a bit morally dodgy for the paladin to be complicit in a summary execution without due process, they sent him down the Greyhawk Road, sans spellbook and treasure, and threatened to kill him if he came back to DL.
So Filge is in Greyhawk, missing a hand and his spellbook, but carrying a huge grudge against the party. I plan on having him hook up with Zyrxog, get some sort of nasty graft on the stump of his arm, and be involved in Zyrxog's minions locating the PCs when they come to town. I can hardly wait!
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This is something I'm definitely looking forward to with my group. They are at the point of investigating Kullen's Gang to find the Land bones. However, the party wizard (the only apprentice of Allustan), knows through the "smartest man in town" that there have been whispers of a new resident of the dark arts at the Old Observatory.
My approach for this encounter has been somewhat different with my group of five PCs. I have bumped Filge up a level and made him a Dread Necromancer from the Heroes of Horror book. This will make this encounter significantly more difficult and actually opens up the possibility of Filge capturing the PCs. It should go right down to the wire. However, as Filge is a miserable wretch, he'll surrender if he's got the slightest inkling he's in trouble. I'm pretty sure my players will interrogate him mercilessly as is their style.
I'll just have to see what heppens but I'll certainly be hoping I can keep Filge around to return at an opportune moment.
Best Regards
Herremann the Wise
The PCs took Filge's head and confronted Smenk with it.
Smenk said they shouldn't let anyone speak with dead
on it.
Smenk ran out of town with it.
I'm looking for the headless undead.
What book is it in.
My party's paladin critted Filge, dropping him to -8 hp. I ruled that he had cut off his arm at the elbow and cut into his ribcage, based on their relative positioning. The cleric dove across the operating theatre to apply a Cure Minor Wounds to stabilize the poor villain for later interrogation.
Even better that getting a graft...
THE HAND OF VECNA!
No wait! Imagine it! They can meet Filge throughout the campaign and he appears to have turned over a new leaf... but then...
I plan to have Filge make his reappearance as the "director" of the undead play at Zeech's dinner party.
My party's paladin critted Filge, dropping him to -8 hp. I ruled that he had cut off his arm at the elbow and cut into his ribcage, based on their relative positioning. The cleric dove across the operating theatre to apply a Cure Minor Wounds to stabilize the poor villain for later interrogation.Even better that getting a graft...
THE HAND OF VECNA!
No wait! Imagine it! They can meet Filge throughout the campaign and he appears to have turned over a new leaf... but then...
Well, no one stops you in using Filge with the Hand of Vecna in the Library of Last Resort, having gained levels as cleric of Vecna in the meantime...
That would be quite a reappearance !Stefan
In Races of the Dragon there is a magic item called
Angriz's Chest.
It perserves anything put in it, especially meat.
If you put it in a bag of holding or portable hole
you could put Filge's head in it.
It's a 4foot wide cube so you could put it in several containers.
I plan to have Filge make his reappearance as the "director" of the undead play at Zeech's dinner party.
My group let Filge live after defeating him and his zombies. Convinced he wasn't trying to harm anyone, but just doing his job, the PC's debated turning him over to the authorities or just cutting off his hand (I was excited about the possibilities this offered). He kept pleading that he had not done anything wrong so the PC's, not knowing what to do, locked him in an Inn room while they finished WC. Of course when they got back he was gone, Smenk released him and he went back to the Free City. I plan on bringing him back into the game during the challange.
My campaign is set in Eberron. Filge cowered when brought down to 4 hp and begged mercy. The every charismatic paladin convinced the party to spare his life and they got all the information on Smenk and the cult out of him. They had him set up a meeting with Smenk who made a deal with the party to take out the cult if he could sneak them in with the supplies. As part of the deal to spare his life, Filge agreed to go with the party.
Filge was made out to be Karnathi and one of the PC's being from Aundair decided he fought against the Karns through most of the Last War and hated them. Wasn't that a sticker then when Filge pretty much saved the parties hides in the Mockery (Hexor) temple by using his scroll of animate dead to hold off the clerics long enough for the party to heal.
For a number of reasons specific to my game, at the end of 3FoE the Dourstone mine collapsed in my game as the Aspect followed the PC's out of the temples. The PC's barely take the Aspect down with the help of Alustan, but there are major political ramifications. The PC's & Filge get blamed for the mine collapse which plays havok with the economy of Diamond Lake & thus Sharn. Filge takes off and the PC's take a hint from his play book and head for Sharn.
Smenk sells Filge out and it comes out that he was once a member of the Emerald Claw. Now the PC's are accused of being Karnathi terrorists with Filge as the ring leader. By the time Blackwall keep comes around the ground is set for more political upheaval.
The party retreats from the spawn in the basement of the keep and plans to rest the night and recover. The spawn take advantage of the evening and jump from the balcony, spreading out in multiple directions. Now there's a zombie plague hitting the countryside between Sharn and Wroat. The prime culprit is Karnath. First a terrorist attack that dirupts the economy of Sharn (Diamond Lake supplies the Free City/Sharn after all) and now a plague of undead. Breland starts talking about going to war.
Various other thing have happened since and we're now at the Champions Games. At the end of HoHR Filge makes a reapearance. He's gone back to Karnath and rejoined his buddies in the Emerald Claw. Eligos runs into him during his research for the party as Filge is part of a strike team that steals the only known copy of the "Way of the Ebon Triad" from the Library of Korenburg. But Filge has a change of heart after this theft.
He discovers that the Emerald Claw is getting its orders from outside Karnath. He might be an evil pale necromancer, but he a evil pale necromancer patriot. He believes in the old school of the Emerald Claw and decides to defect.
He takes what knowledge he can and finds Eligos to compare notes. He shows up when Eligos is taking the PC's through his research. He explains about how the Claw is taking orders from outside Karnath and that most recently he'd seen orders for an expedition of Xen'drik (set up for the 7th adventure Spire of Longshadow). When he mentions that he's currently attempting to get to Xen'drik before the Claw's expedition the PC's invite him to fight in the games with them in order to raise the money. He accepts and that's where we are.
Probably the most interesting things of all this are A) the paladin who's fighting for the party to treat the evil necromancer fairly monitarily speaking and B) the Aundarian who hates Karnathi finding out he and Filge are more alike than he would care to admit (both fought in last war, both are spontanious arcane casters [filge has become a dread necromancer in my game], both use similar tactics...
Later,
Shade325
One of my players is a paladin of Heironious, one of the others is a cleric of Heironious.
They turned Filge over to the authorities in the garisson.
We're just getting ready to kick off 3FoE. I dunno what I'm gonna do yet, but there's a lotta potential there for a recurring villain.
Filge didn't make it out of the encounter with my PCs. The cleric of Tempus beheaded him and removed his eyes and gave them to Kullen the half-orc. This is the same cleric who saved an orc on the way to the Land's family graves. The Ranger wanted to kill it since orcs are his favored enemy. Because the orc told the party they were searching for food. He healed him and left. The ranger an a problem with that needless to say.
My players killed Filge, he never had a chance to surrender. Then, for not losing the plot line, they found his journal, with most of the information he had for the campaign. But they burned the observatory later, so I think Filge returning in my campaign will be a push over! :)
My group managed to subdue and capture Filge. After pumping him for info, they decided (rightly) not to take him to the local authorities but to the clerics of Wee Jas. Once the Wee Jasians (?) learned Filge's "occupation" they were ready to sacrifice him, but the party convinced them to simply hold him alive in case they needed him further. So he's been kept imprisoned in a mortuary ever since.
I like the losing-a-hand-to-have-it-replaced-by-Vecna's idea. In fact, I'm now considering having the Wee Jasians amputate one of Filge's hands as punishment for practicing necromancy then having him escape in the confusion of Ilthane's attack on Diamond Lake.
I like the losing-a-hand-to-have-it-replaced-by-Vecna's idea. In fact, I'm now considering having the Wee Jasians amputate one of Filge's hands as punishment for practicing necromancy then having him escape in the confusion of Ilthane's attack on Diamond Lake.
There an idea crosses my mind: In real-world history, magic is often referred to as the "art of the left hand". left is a synonym for bad or evil in this context. Now, the priesthood of Wee Jas might have a religious commandment to mark known practicioners of black or criminal ("left-handed") necromancy by removing the left hand of the culprit. That makes it difficult for him to cast spells, as well. They might add a magical symbol for marking, and perhaps even a necromantic spell to prevent regeneration of the hand (this spell might be a black necromantic spell as well, but it would be a fitting punishment).
Not by chance, I think, is the Hand of Vecna his left...Stefan
In my campaign, the party also let Filge live, and let him go with a promise that he would never show his face around Daggerford again (my game is set in FR). Then, in Gathering of Winds, they also set Moreto free upon the world. They have just started Price of Redhand (Dragon Coast), and I have concocted an idea that Moreto and Filge hooked up and are now a team. They will most certainly be in attendance at Zeech's party, having followed the Ebon Triad trail to Alhaster (Starmantle). I have advanced Filge and Moreto as follows: Moreto is now a Sor12/Ftr2, and Filge is a Wiz (necromancer)5/Clr3 (Velsharoon)/True Necromancer 7. If anyone is interested in copies of these stats, I would be happy to share them.
maxed out critical hit on him in my campaign... and failed to stabalize in time.
Wouldn't have mattered. the cleric of heronious in the group was playing the "inquisitor" type of personality, and he damn near derailed the entire plot (by destroying every clue I threw at them) before I just gave up and killed his character off.
His new character is much easier to work with.
I'm taking over for my old dm, who regretfully had to move, and to top it off i had to work the night they encountered Filge.all i know is that they killed him and took the worm in the jar. I don't even think they looked at the journal. This group is more into straight up hack-and-slash. I've got my work cut out for me.
maxed out critical hit on him in my campaign... and failed to stabalize in time.
Wouldn't have mattered. the cleric of heronious in the group was playing the "inquisitor" type of personality, and he damn near derailed the entire plot (by destroying every clue I threw at them) before I just gave up and killed his character off.
His new character is much easier to work with.
I think lots of roleplayers don't get the whole inquisitor thing. Inquisitors are, after all, out to root out heretics and evil cultists. To do this, they have to uncover clues and evidence, and typically there is a set of ecclesiastical court procedures that must be gone through before anyone is executed. If you kill off the little bad guys and destroy the evidence on them, you get nowhere in trying to find the BBEG behind the whole conspiracy. So, you may confiscate the evidence and hide it away so that the plot doesn't become widely known, and you may arrest the culprit and throw him in an oubliette at the bottom of your dungeon until he confesses, but you don't just hack and slash at everything suspicious.
The most effective inquisitor borders on being a spymaster, gathering info, manipulating people, etc., so that he can get a whiff if there's the faintest hint of corruption around him. Indeed, the inquisitor is perhaps the most vulnerable type to corruption himself, because it is the nature of his work to cut deals with evil in order to root out the worse evil. For the inquisitor, the ends sometimes begin to justify the means.
Maybe your player was a "puritan" instead?
I am going to introduce filge right in some inn, in the free city. He will have turned over a new leaf and thank the pcs for their mercy. Later in the adventure if they need help in Sodden hold I think I might get Filge to provide it... (Especially if they discover the doppelganger and one PC has no one to play...)
So I finished running the Champion's Belt a couple weeks ago, and I must say that my vision of Filge's return went better than expected. I had thought the PCs would seek out Filge while in the Free City, but it never happened. I wanted them to meet up with him, but I couldn't figure out how. Since turning over a new leaf Filge has been down on his luck--raising zombies for the sewermen's guild being the only legitimate work available. So I poured some salt in hte wound and had ol' Filge bussing tables (magically of course) at the feast before the start of the Games.
It was great, as my guys recognized him by voice alone when I ropleplayed him asking one of the other teams if they needed more wine. Though suspicious at first, the group eventually accepted the idea that Filge may have reformed. When a member of Pitch Blade killed the party mage, Filge snuck in to their quarters afterwards and offered to smuggle the body to the temple of Boccob to get ressurected (being Filge, he told the fighter to just hack off the leg as it would be easier to carry).
Later, when the dung hit the fan and Apostle ate Auric, Filge was in the stands, ushering people out. At one cruical point he used Command Undead to help the PCs and others escape. Many lives were saved by Filge, and our heroes now regard him as a trusted ally!
For his next appearence I am thinking about Filge replacing the ghost of young Mr. Land in KotR, magically communicating what he has leaned to the PCs. Much as having Filge go for the Hand of Vecna would have been cool, I think the reform route is a cool change of pace. The player of the cleric said it has become one of his favorite moments in gaming ever.