Dungeon 121: The Styes; Mr. Dory Escapes

[Gwenfloor]

My PCs are pretty clever and well-equipped for 9th level adventurers, so I supplemented Mr. Dory and several of his henchman to be equipped with non-magical explosive alcemy, being located in the Alchemist's Quarter and all. I have a Very Young White Dragon, Aasimar Druid, Stone Giant and Mind Flayer as Player Characters, due to a recent purchase of Savage Species. The Druid destroyed the chains holding the ship and demanded Mr. Dory to come out of the ship or else the Druid will use alchemist's fire to seet the surrounding mud, ship, and fire. Mr. Dory knew that if he was caught with incriminating evidence linking Tharaizdun's cult to him, Mr. Dory said "Go on, blow the ship up to high heaven, I dare you!"
The Dragon attacked mr. Dory, but the party was quickly overwhelmed by opposition from the skum, Dory, and Harid. The party retreated into the warehouse and barricaded themselves inside. The Skum Hid and Moved Silently to plant alchemical explosives around the ship and warehouse. The warehouse exploded and crumbled to the ground. The Druid was the only character to succeed on the Reflex save, the Stone Giant died, and the Dragon and Mind Flayer were dying. Mr. Dory, Harid, and the three remaining Skum fled to the Temple of Tharizdun. The party rested and healed their wounds. The tome and note in Mr. Dory's ship is now destroyed, and the party has no evidence of Mr. Dory conspiring to release Tharizdun against the Styes.
How should the adventure proceed?
Master Refrum was the character who hired the PCs. I am thinking of introducing Thornwell to congradulate the PCs and hire them to "finish the job."

[farewell2kings]

Thornwell played a major part when I ran the Styes. The PCs approached him before hitting Dory's ship and he hinted that there would be "a very delayed" response from the city guard if they took care of Mr. Dory.

So, yes, I think Thornwell, whom I ran as a sleazy politician type, would be inclined to approach the PCs to finish the job, as you say.

[Richard Pett]

Cool stuff!

I think Councilman Thornwell has some interesting potential too:)

I love the interaction DMs are making off-adventure between the councilmen and have a few ideas to create a whole new stream of unworthy candidates for the future which will hopefully see light in time.

Rich

[farewell2kings]

Yeah, I like Thornwell. I didn't know what the disciple of Asmodeus class did, since I don't have the book that the class appears in, but the party sorceror got killed during the adventure and the party took him to Thornwell to get raised. I ad libbed and figured that he was able to cast raise dead.

Well, he raised the party sorceror, but he required him to become a worshipper of Asmodeus and adopt the fiendish template. The player went for it, since the sorceror was kind of power hungry anyway. Thornwell told him that he knew the party's goal was to eventually assassinate the Hextorian archbishop of Pontylver, whose land the Styes are placed in in my campaign. This goal coincides with Thornwell's plotting, so not only did Thornwell gain 7500gp for the raise, he also got another agent for his own desire to do away with the Hextorian control over the City.

The sorceror managed to conceal his evil alignment and fiendish template from the rest of the party for a long time. By the time they found out about his fiendish curse, he had already saved the party a few times and the party was willing to "forgive and help him get rid of his curse."

The party's NPC cleric of Moradin was in an interesting dilemma, for just before he found out about the sorceror, that same sorceror had directly saved the cleric's life by risking his own.

The assassination attempt on the archbishop is coming up soon, so the situation is going to come to a head soon after that.

I thought the City council of the Styes was a great source of interesting villains and I'm glad the town will reappear in Dungeon again soon. I'd love to see it fully developed as a backdrop.