I'm needing to throw something together for my party for Thursday's session (Unless the fight with the Ebon Aspect will go for WAY LONGER than it should).
Has anyone done anything with sending Dourstone and Smenk to justice? Anyone use anything from Dungeon?
Right now, I'm thinking of someone stealing the 60-or-so potions that are clanking around in the fighter's backpack.
Looking for some ideas, that's all... Thanks.
Wayland, the extremely unprepared...
A few questions for you.
How far into the Dourstone mines is the group?
Did they kill everyone and leave them lying in the caves?
When my group finished with Hextor and moved onto the other caves I had outside followers of Hextor come into the temple (remember Hextor was the temple who dealt with the outside world) on a routine supply or goto run, and find the Hextor leader dead. They resurrected the leader and he felt that the PCs were hired by Balabar to betray him (partially true in my case). He left the temple (leaving traps along the way... trapping the lift was alot of fun) and had Balabar killed for interfering.
When the PCs finally emerged from the mines there was a lot of chaos in town because of the assassination of Balabar.
Alot of these ideas have been detailed and suggested in other posts.
A few questions for you.
How far into the Dourstone mines is the group?
Did they kill everyone and leave them lying in the caves?
We finished when the Faceless One died. The only thing left is the Ebon Aspect...
It was 11pm when we finished, on a work night... we were all bushed.
Decent idea RE: Balabar... Hmm...
I'll have to dig some more around here...
Shoot me an email at my hotmail account (khays3). There was a thread here where someone posted a good encounter at Smenk's house. I collected it all into a file (and tweaked it, of course). I'll be glad to send it to you.
(Now that I read it, this may be Peter's idea).
Well, the combat with TFO and minions and the combat with the Aspect both went upwards of 25 rounds in my campaign, although with 2 party members down within 5-6 rounds, the latter didn't take that much time.
I had a lengthy roleplaying session between TFOE and EBK in my game. First, my group killed one of the guards on the way into the mine, to keep him from raising the alarm. So, when one party member ran into the sherriff he was arrested. Smenk paid him a midnight visit to tell him not to tell anyone what the party found down there--he didn't want to be implicated. Smenk then bailed him out of jail, with the intention of having the party done in at some point. Ultimately, they had to do some negotiations with the mayor (using Allustan as go-between) to get the murder charges dropped. I also had the cultist guards at Dourstone run off to Greyhawk to report the destruction of the triad cell to Bozal Zahol, who sent an assassin to spy on the party. There may be more, I can't remember--you can look in my campaign log (The Company of the Light) and get more details.
I also had the big throwdown with Kullen & Co. after TFOE and before EBK--I bumped the gang up a level, which might have been a mistake, as it resulted in my only party death so far.
I had some information gathering sessions--the party bard went pub crawling and tried to find more leads on the green worms--which gave me an opportunity to do some interesting encounters with the various personages in the DL town write-up and pass out a few rumors--red herrings, foreshadowings, and set ups for upcoming adventures. It's all in the campaign log, so you can get an idea how I did it.
In my game, Smenk tried to assassinate Theldrick (who was held prisoner by the priest of St Cuthbert, as the PC's didn't trust the town law), basically to silence him and any implication as to Smenk's activities with the cultists. In the process, Smenk got killed, and Theldrick escaped (to the Free City, where he re-surfaced as part of Pitch Blade in the Champion's Games). So Smenk got taken out in the background, which my players were pleased with.
Dourstone panicked and fled town, never to be seen again, and the local law put up Wanted posters everywhere looking for his head (being lazy, they figured that running away meant he must be guilty, so they didn't bother trying to work out the real stories behind everything). Actually, the PC's kind of collapsed Dourstone's mine (when they killed the Aspect), and never figured out if Dourstone was guilty of anything or not, so me getting rid of Dourstone and Smenk for good just made it easiest for everyone. The PC's then purchased the remnants of Dourstone's mine, as well as the Whispering Cairn, under Allustan's name (who leases it back to them), and are busy trying to extract the iron balls from the Cairn and use Dourstone's mine as a front for "laundering" the iron without letting on its true origin. So the mining hierarchy is very much shaken up now, although miners politics is not a focus for my group ongoing (they are often out adventuring, only coming back to town from time to time to get things back on track and make sure the building of their new manor is progressing well).
I posted something(s) about some of these events some time ago, it's probably in the archives now.
Remember that Smenk brings another conflict into the module. It's not just a cult stirring in the passages beneath Dourstone. It's also Smenk squeezing the town like Brad Wesley from Roadhouse. The PCs need to expose him and either bring him to justice, run him out of town, or in extreme cases, kill him (preferably by snatching out his throat like Patrick Swayze).
The PCs also need to maneuver around Lanod Neff and his goons. He has the authority to arrest the PCs, so use that, and have the PCs decide that he's corrupt. Get Tollivar Trask and Valkus Dun of the Garrison involved. Consult with Allustan and gain his aid (he's Neff's brother, IIRC). Definitely push Kullen and co. Things could really boil over.
Also remember that Smenk is supplying the cult, and has Ragnolin under his thumb so to say, so work that into it. Have Ragnolin plead with the PCs to help him out of this mess, not just concerning the cult, but also concerning Smenk and his dirty dealings.
Smenk should be taken care of before the PCs leave for Blackwall Keep. Squeeze as much as you need out of him.