After reading The Spire of Long Shadows, and the many threads about the deadly encounters therein, I wanted to develop the encounter with the beholder Ballaxxus and his troll hunters in the North Quarter to give the players some insight into what they will face.
The premise of the encouter is:
1. Ballaxxus is the only creature outside the circle that can easily investigate areas within the obsidian ring, but has not yet been successful in dealing with the creatures inside. He has recently discovered that the creatures are particularly susceptible to silver and has already created several doses of alchemical silver in his lab.
2. The visions that the PCs experience actually happen often, and are becoming more frequent as the begining of the Age of Worms nears. The trolls have started to join in with the "thousands of figures" that gather to venerate Kyuss each time the vision triggers.
3. The beholder and the trolls have set up defenses and patrols to guard their area. Each troll patrol carries a warning horn. Ballaxus will arrive in 3-6 rounds, followed by a second troll patrol 1-4 rounds later.
The Set-Up
Ballaxus has placed several cold suspension spheres (Dragon 313, November 2003) throughout the North Quarter so he can easily access three at any location using his telekinesis rays to lob at the PCs (10d6 cold damage, 30 foot radius spread, Reflex DC 15 for half).
A group of four troll hunters are on patrol as the PCs enter the ruins, triggering Vision 1. The trolls are completely hidden by the illusion (total concealment) as they stop to venerate King Kyuss.
The Introduction
At the end of the descriptive text in Vision 1, add:
"As the vision fades, four of the worshippers... trolls, armed with large battleaxes... turn towards you, and while one blows a long note on a horn, the others advance and attack."
Tactics
The troll hunters fight straight-forwardly, immediately moving into melee, trusting that another patrol will arrive quickly.
When Ballaxxus arrives, hovering 50 feet above the gound, he first flings an orb into the midst of the melee, catching as many PCs as possible, even if it means hitting some of the trolls. He opens his center eye at the end of his action, keeping bead on any apparent spell casters for one round.
At his next initiative, he closes his center eye and uses eye rays as descibed in the Monster Manual entry, tossing in a second orb as well. He keeps his center eye closed in subsequent rounds if he is able to subdue enough of the PCs quickly. If not, he opens his eye and keeps it centered on a spell caster while the second group of trolls arrives.
Once the PCs defeat the beholder, the remaining trolls flee for 1d4 hours before mustering around a strong troll leader, but by then the PCs may have already moved on.
The Pay Off
The PCs can easily find Ballaxxus' lair, which is simply a 15-foot wide, 70-foot deep crater with a tunnel shooting of at the 30-, 45-, and 70-foot deep mark.
In the first tunnel the PCs discover the beholder's alchemy lab and 5 doses of alchemical silver. On a table they also find a kyuss-worm infested troll arm. The worms are all dead, and the arm is not regenerating.
In the second tunnel, they find a study, where Ballaxxus was keeping a journal. If they can read the beholder language, they find out the basic information as presented in "Exploring the Ruins," and that the beholder has discovered that the creatures inside the obsidian ring are susceptible to silver.
They can learn the descriptions of the eviserator beetles and the Nezaarin, but none else. Ballaxxus also describes the ground inside the ring as "infested with the worms" and the occoasional appearance of swarms of them.
The final tunnel is the beholder's living quarters and treasure room. Roll random treasure, or add items you think will be usefull for the PCs.
I ran this for my party of 4 13th-level PCs + 1 10th level cohort.
They weren't phased by the first group of trolls, but became quickly nervous at the appearance of the beholder.
The party fighter failed his save against the sleep ray, and the party rogue was turned to stone in the first round. The second fighter hid behind the wall of a ruin, which was disintigrated.
The bard kicked the fighter for a round until he woke up, only to fall victim to the sleep in the next round as well.
The druid cast fire seed and gave them to the second fighter, who scored a hit, even with the -12 range increment penalty, then summoned a huge fire elemental to take on the second group of trolls (who quickly fled).
Between the fire seed and a couple of arrows from the fighter when he wasn't asleep, the beholder went down in four rounds, and routed the trolls with the fire elemental.
You might want to add something to reverse the flesh to stone spell, unless you want to make the PCs go back to Magepoint shortly after they left.
I still haven't determined the "random treasure" for the beholder's lair for use in my campaign.
Does anyone have ideas what would make good, interesting treasure that can tie in with Kuluth-Mar and/or the rest of the Age of Worms AP?
A few jars of Stone Salve would be appropriate. The beholder could have made/obtained them so that he can get interesting magic items off creatures that he's turned to stone. Just for fun, have a broken statue of a halfling somewhere in a rubbish pile - part of one hand is missing, as are the head and feet. A halfling skull also lies nearby, the upper portion encased in stone as if it were the top of the halfling statue. The PCs can realize that someone apparently took the petrified halfling and used stone salve only on her feet (to remove boots), part of one hand (for a ring), and her neck (to remove a necklace).