During this weeks gaming session, my brave band of adventurers will most likely meet and kill the tiefling Bozal. Its only the 2nd day of the Games, but they managed to bluff/bribe/slip past the guards to make their way down to the secret chambers that hold the growing ulgurstasta.
My question is this: The adventure has a cool ending planned, with the ulgurstasta bursting forth from the ground during the final fight, the adventurers having to fight it on the floor of the arena. This scene will happen only if Bozal willfully drops the wall of force surrounding the monster on time. According to the Apostolic Scrolls sidebar, if he (as the original reader of the scrolls) is killed, the ulgurstasta will lose 1d8 hp/day until reverts back to an average version of its type, and then be released. According to the Fiend Folio, an average ulgurstasta has 110 hp. That means it needs to lose 94 hp - assuming an average 1d8 roll of 4.5, this means in roughly 20 days it will revert and then be released "in an extraordinarily foul mood".
I would like somehow to keep the final scene and have the thing released in just a few days, as it is much more dramatic. But how can I do that if the person who can release the ulgurstasta at will, Bozal, is dead? I guess I could have Raknian homself release the thing during the last fight using one of the ways listed in the sidebar, but I don't know. I'd appreciate any help or suggestions.
I would like somehow to keep the final scene and have the thing released in just a few days, as it is much more dramatic. But how can I do that if the person who can release the ulgurstasta at will, Bozal, is dead? I guess I could have Raknian homself release the thing during the last fight using one of the ways listed in the sidebar, but I don't know. I'd appreciate any help or suggestions.
I don't have the magazine in front of me, and we are on HOHR, so bear with me.
Remember, of course, that your players don't know how the Scrolls work. I would just say that the thing is a ticking time bomb, and that the ulgurstasta is not willfully released, it keeps growing until it reaches maximum potential, and then the containment ends. The Scrolls become a sort of fire and forget weapon. The players decide to finish the games and what do you know, on the last day it bursts up on its own, fully empowered. Later, you can perhaps have Eligos explain the whole thing to them, if they have questions.
I tried a similar approach, but my wizard player pointed out that with a DC 30 Spellcraft check he could figure out unique magical effects that were already in place. Since that was a difficult roll for him at the time, I let him try it, and he succeeded. He figured out how the urlgustasta *might be released (I hedged everything with theory and caveats: "Of course, doing what I suggest *might just open a rift to the Negative Energy Plane, I'm not sure."), and we played it from there.
While keeping the climactic scene is cool, letting the players use their abilities is even cooler for them. In the end, my players thoroughly trounced Loris ir'Raknian's plans, and he wound up going to the prison Dreadhold for quite some time, but rather than being anticlimactic, they had a blast and still talk (and brag) about it to this day.
The module actually states that if the party kills Bozal before he can release the Ulgurstasta, Loris Raknian discovers the death when he checks in with Bozal the night before the grand finale. When he finds Bozal dead, he uses his connections to procure a rod of negation, and uses that to release the beast as the championship match starts. (Presumably, the wizard referee sends him a message spell to allow him to time it perfectly.) Even if the Ulgurstasta shrinks by a few HP (you only have a day or two to wait for the finale by this time), it's still a tough encounter.
The module also states that if Bozal is dropped below a certain number of HP (15?) he loses his nerve and lets the creature out early. So, if the party doesn't take Bozal out with a big hit, the Ulgurstasta might bust out into the stadium in the middle of the night while they're fighting Bozal. They've got to rush off to chase the thing down as it rampages through Greyhawk in the middle of the night--this isn't quite as climactic as the thing busting through the Arena floor in the middle of the fight with Auric's Warband, perhaps, but you could make it memorable. The thing might even try to slither back down to the Coenoby to devour Auric as he sleeps, and if the PCs don't get there in time to defend him, the consequences might be nearly as dire as in the written scenario. (Presumably it knows who Auric is because Bozal has been communicating with it telepathically, and it's certainly smart enough to track down the champion it needs to turn itself into an uber-beast.)
While keeping the climactic scene is cool, letting the players use their abilities is even cooler for them. In the end, my players thoroughly trounced Loris ir'Raknian's plans, and he wound up going to the prison Dreadhold for quite some time, but rather than being anticlimactic, they had a blast and still talk (and brag) about it to this day.
VERY true, and I probably should have mentioned that as well.
My party also snuck into the hidden temple and defeated Bozal.
They brought him back to consciousness long enough for him to release the Ulgurstasta.
The fight was much less deadly than I had originally anticipated, because the Goliath barbarian charged down the tendril filled hallway to engage the massive creature in toe-to-whatever-combat.
Goliath barbarians are very, very......effective in combat. The ulgurstasta spent a few rounds trying to consume her, but I failed the grapple checks to eat her.
I would have had the Ulgurstasta surge into the arena above...but it was the middle of the night and the only thing that made sense was for the thing to try and fulfill the prophecy by eating a 'champion' of some kind.
I figure that the last few fights of the arena will prove to be pretty ugly for some of the players. The smaller fights tend to be tougher for my party, anyway.
Age of Worms is going great for me :D