What if No One Has the Smoking Eye Template?

[Exquisite Dead Guy]

What if the character with the smoking eye template dies and isn't raised/resurrected (player rolls up a new character)? Has anyone had this happen? How did you deal with it?

[Chef's Slaad]

The HC has some sugestions. Basically, decide which player is able to open the cage, based on his background or something that PC achieved in previous adventures. Make sure it's connected to Adimarchus or Occipitus. For example, a PC that has taken posession of the statue of Adimarchus (previously owned by Fetor Abrasius (sp?)), or a PC that killed a large number of cagewrights (or perhaps Dyr'ryd), or that wields Alakast. Anyway, be creative. The more you tailor this to your pc's achievements, the better.

[evilash]

Maybe the most fitting would be if the PC that could open the cage is a Shackleborn.

[Colin McKinney]

I haven't read the ending lately; what happens if nobody can open the cage? Does Adimarchus just sit there for all eternity as the gods intended? Does the wave of madness continue to increase? Does the party need to break him free so they can kill him and make him shut up with the voices in the head already? Or, if nobody can open the cage, they get there, hammer on it ineffectually for a while, then say, "Okay, I guess it's Miller Time..." and head for the barn?

[Nurgan]

Colin McKinney wrote:

Does Adimarchus just sit there for all eternity as the gods intended? Does the wave of madness continue to increase? Does the party need to break him free so they can kill him and make him shut up with the voices in the head already?

That seems to be about it. It's a bit odd that an Adimarcus trapped in a box is more dangerous than one with a subplane of his own, but his lunacy spreads through the world.

OP, if noone has any other reason suggested by other poster, you may need to *give* them some link. Perhaps have Adimarcus "creating" some beastie or challenge that is linked to the smoking eye. Echoes of the Cagewrights attacking the party all at once with smokey eyes would be about right (though that would be a bit scary, so maybe make them weaker, or not simultaneous).

I'd only do that if they knocked Adimarcus about enough for him to notice, though, and if the party didn't come to better conclusions ("Hey, maybe we need to go back to that place").

[office_ninja]

If they haven't killed the marilith Byakala, she could open it for them. This is how it went down in my group, actually: they had to promise to give her Occipitus in exchange for opening Adimarchus' cage.