My group really screwed up this time. Perhaps the situation can be salvaged. To give a quick background, my Age of Worms campaign is set in Greyhawk and the party includes a monk, a fighter, a healer, and a druid.
The party entered the Champion's Games and easily pushed their way to the final match. However, they became heavily side-tracked by the quest to find Ekaym's sister and the night before the big game they decided to breach Loris Raknian's palace. I figured I could find ways to subtly nudge them away from this rabbit trail, but they were persistent. Guard patrols did not dissaude them. Numerous locked doors fell to rusting grasp and stonebreaker acid. They were quite determined to get into Raknian's palace one way or another.
Once they were inside the mansion, I had to put on my poker face of bluffing because as you all know it isn't detailed. I began mapping out the place like it was all in the adventure (I had already had to do this with the ghoul warrens near the Coenoby so I had had some recent practice; lol). Of course, perhaps my deception lulled the PCs into thinking they were doing the right thing so they continued. After exploring much of the mansion successfully by taking 10 on Move Silently (the fighter wore a chain shirt) and making sure there was distance between them and any guards, they finally messed up. They decided to enter Loris Raknian's bedchamber (although they didn't know which room it was at the time). I set it up as a room with an antechamber which was being watched by a pair of his bodyguards with another four bodyguards stationed a few hallways down in a guardroom. The PCs didn't enter the antechamber sneakily enough, and on the first round of combat, the guards sounded the alarm.
Things went from bad to worse to terrible after that. At first things looked ok. The healer managed to calm the bodyguards from the guardroom with calm emotions and the fighter and monk made short work of the pair stationed in front of Raknian's bedroom (using non-lethal damage). Raknian stepped out with buckler and sword, not having time to don his breastplate, and went toe-to-toe with them. Meanwhile, Captain Okoral in an adjacent room preparing to head out to assassinate Eligos came to aid the situation by casting invisibility and trying to nail the healer with a death attack. Although his attack failed, it put the PCs on the defensive. The PCs had knocked out Raknian and were preparing to finish off the bodyguards when the death attack came. They had left Raknian's unconscious body in the room with the healer, and after the healer beat a quick retreat, Okoral began to administer a potion to him. The following round, Raknian pursued the healer himself while Okoral and another bodyguard attacked the fighter, bringing him to low hp. The fighter managed to take Okoral out, but after the healer put up a rejuvenation cocoon (Spell Compendium), Raknian went back to finish off the fighter, killing him outright with one last blow. The battle just went downhill after that. Raknian finished off the healer when she came out of her cocoon (non-lethal damage), then knocked the monk out as well even as the druid managed to knock out the last bodyguard. It fell to the druid and a very wounded and unarmored Raknian to duke it out, and needless to say, the druid won.
Despite the eventual victory, the long combat and the alarm had alerted the Nightwatchmen of Greyhawk, who were quickly converging on the palace and the PCs had to think fast after the druid quickly revived those still alive. They snuck back into the Coenoby with Raknian and the dead fighter's body and then tromped back to one of the abandoned caves where they couldn't be found easily. The tried to look for alternate ways out, but eventually decided that going back down the ghoul warrens (which they had cleaned out before, but hadn't fully explored) and eventually came to a passage to the sewer.
They finally found a manhole exiting the sewer and after scrubbing up at a nearby fountain (luckily they had soap) the healer rushed off to find Eligos for help. Since Okoral had been killed, Eligos had not been slain in his sleep and had already heard of some ruckus in the city involving a break-in to Raknian's palace. I decided Eligos had some contacts with the Thieves' Guild and managed to help sneak the PCs to the Temple of Boccob where they could have the dwarf raised. They interrogated Loris Raknian and were unable to learn much from the stubborn fellow who insisted he would soon be found and the lot of them punished. However, he did become quite the braggart about the coming Age of Worms and how he would be its harbinger and gain everlasting life. The PCs didn't quite know what to make of this, but put two and two together when reminded about the Apostolic Scrolls. They deduced that Loris Raknian was attempting to release an ulgurstasta made with the Apostolic Scrolls and release it into the arena during the final fight.
FINALLY! I thought to myself. I never imagined they would go on such a wild goose chase. They had been searching Raknian's mansion in the first place to find Ekaym's sister, having forgotten all about the scrolls. I shot this bunny trail down when the first thing out of Raknian's mouth regarding her was that he killed the @#$%& long ago. Now their plan is to recuperate at the Temple of Boccob for the night (which has temporarily agreed to hide them at Eligos' request since Raknian seems to be a menace to society). They realize they will be disqualified from the tournament once all the unconscious guards are revived and rat them out, especially since killing Okoral constitutes murder. So the next morning, before the final fight (between Auric's Warband and the runner-up to the finals), the PCs plan to infiltrate the Coenoby one more time and find the ulgurstasta. They have no idea where it is, but this time, I plan to send Eligos along with them. I've given him spells like knock and detect secret doors to help overcome their lack of a rogue in the party. Plus, his arcane talents will help them in other regards. They are hoping that finding the Apostolic Scrolls and destroying the ulgurstasta will exonerate them of Okoral's death (although the assassin's guild is likely to be pretty damn pissed). Think this plan will work? I hope so. It's been like pulling teeth to keep them focused.
Sounds great to me, although I'd add one tiny wrinkle. By the time the PCs make it down to the ulgursasta, Zahol is in the process of releasing it. That way, they get to crash the final fight in order to save the clashing gladiators from the undead horror.
Your post highlights one underestimated aspect of this mod: Why for gods sake does the Free City council tolerates a ghoul invested warren (even if it is sealed away from the Cenoby)? Following the rules of D&D Game Mastery there will be at least one other entrance to the warrens and sometimes it will make another exciting adventure having ghouls invading the city streets.
After fighting a few ghouls my players group explored the warrens and I had to portrait horribly scenes to prevent them from exploring deeper and fighting ghouls for the next few playing sessions. However, the players connected the warrens to Raknians plans. I picked up this idea and am about to flash up the final battle a bit:
While some players are operating from within the arena, two (one exiled from the arena after disqualification and one dead-PC replacement) are acting from outside. These two are about to mobilize the Free City military and warn them of a forthcoming apostle climax plus undead invasion. Sure, nobody trusts their words but anyway the officials are at least a bit warned and prepared. So for the final battle, not only the Ulgurtasta will emerge but also the warrens gates will opened into the cenoby releasing hundreds of undeads to the arena complex. It will result in a major battle men vs undead and PCs vs Ulgurtasta and this scenario really helps to give all the gladiators and Auric´s something to battle with while the PCs can concentrate on the real evil here, the Apostl.
If you ask me, I think you handled that splendidly, and I applaud you for not issuing a TPK.
I plan on preparing for my group sneaking into Raknian's estate.
I got lucky with my group. The ghoul warrens were avoided after the first room. They un-did the stone plug and fought the few ghouls there but once they got inside I told them it narrowed to single file passageways which caused them to turn around and go back.
They also found the passageway into Raknian's palace, but this was after the creature had been released and they were low on spells. When they opened the door and realized they were in his palace they turned right back around.
Currently we have the last two fights to go. Zhorl is dead and the creature has already been released and destroyed. Raknian covered it up pleading ignorance of the creature and the players are not ready yet to call him out. They have instead started to get the team managers talking about Raknian's conection to the creature and using they're political influence to get him arrested rather than attack him.
What will probably happen is Raknian will either try and flee or be arrested on the day of the last fight. The referee guy will hand out the prize. Eligos will still die since Raknian will really have reason now to stick it to the players.
Your post highlights one underestimated aspect of this mod: Why for gods sake does the Free City council tolerates a ghoul invested warren (even if it is sealed away from the Cenoby)? Following the rules of D&D Game Mastery there will be at least one other entrance to the warrens and sometimes it will make another exciting adventure having ghouls invading the city streets.
The City of Greyhawk ("Free City") has all manner of sewers and so on underneath it, including the homes of the local Assassins and Thieves' guilds. So there's a history of bad stuff living under the city. Generally it doesn't get out (I'd assume the ghouls are trapped underground), and the city's rulers tend to have an "out of sight, out of mind" type of policy, in regards to all manner of evils that lurk within the city (above and below ground). After all, their interests lie mainly in commerce and making money, very much a True Neutral outlook.
To me, that's all the explanation I need, but then I have run multiple campaigns in the World of Greyhawk including many in the Free City, and the Champions Games fitted in pretty well with the existing way I'd been running things (one old group even ran into a mind-flayer with mimic guards in the sewers a few years back, talk about coincidence!)
LOL, Hastur. My PCs were joking about not killing the sewer maintenance personnel while tromping around in the Greyhawk sewers in the Champions Games as a nod to a previous campaign in which they discovered that some of the sewer workers in Greyhawk are actually zombies! (cheap labor)