So, my players didnt save Auric. I had Kord tell a barbarian that it was of vital importance to save Auric. The party barely even tried to save Auric.... he died :)
So, I went for the big nasty, few thousand wights come down, Uglyrasta starts rampaging, some tough mages from the Circle of eight proceed to fight the Ugly and they call a total evacuation of the town!
So the original plan was for them to continue on to a gatherin of winds but... the players want to help save the town. I had Mordikainen (who is leading the reclamation of the town) explain to the PC's that they are to low level to solve this problem... but now that I think about it they are 11th level! They should be able to do something.
So I am trying to put together an adventure where they battle undead and help save greyhawk. I was thinking something like battle to the crooked in, defeat all the undead along the way and wait for reinforcements? Maybe there is some kind of artifact they could bring there to clense it. Maybe there is some boss in the crooked in that they can defeat.
Any ideas or help with this? Maybe there are prewrittin dungeon adventures that are similar to this that could be modified? I think this would be a cool resource for AOW DM's because in Champions Belt there is a signifigant chance that the players could fail, and the path really doesnt include anything about greyhawk after this.
Any help or ideas on this would be great
maybe they can find a way to open a rift to the positive energy plane, kinda like an undead nuke :)
my party hates auric and co. Don't really know why. Actually, it's just one player who hates him, and has been provoking the burly fighter with taunts that are far too profane for this board ;)
So, my players didnt save Auric. I had Kord tell a barbarian that it was of vital importance to save Auric. The party barely even tried to save Auric.... he died :)
WOW! This was the very scenario I feared would happen in my campaign but didn't (despite three PCs with fighter levels getting in the mouth...they escaped BY THE DICE!!-Nat 1's and 20's. )
Perhaps you could run something similiar to Dawn of a New Age but toned down slightly. Instead of rampaging Overworms and Kyuss Knights, perhaps one or two other Ulgurstasta's come to join in the fun (Normal ones are CR 11 I think) augmented by Spawn of Kyuss, Wights, or whatever undead you think is appropriate. Perhaps the ritual opens a partial planar rift to Kyuss's monolith that allows him to influence indirectly some of the structures in town, especially around the former temple beneath the arena.
What happened to Raknian? If he escaped after the ritual's commencment (he did in mine) he could show up directing the undead from the back of his nightmare steed. Also, maybe Ilthane has a second lair in the sewer system, and once they fight her, she flies away to the south, toward Diamond Lake..
Did any of your PCs actually survive the catastrophe?
Anyways, here's a few, hope they help..
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I'd probably go with the find an artifact/ritual to cleanse the Undead. Since it's tied so close to the campaign as is, there could even be something in Zosiel's tomb (i.e., AGoW runs as normal, next) to stop the process. After all, the Wind Dukes may have a trick up their sleeve for this.
That way, the campaign continues with very little alteration, the Circle of Eight basically just has to say "We'll hold them off, you guys retrieve XXX from the Whispering Cairn" or "We'll hold them off, see if Alustan has made any progress" and you're off.
What happened to the Apostolic Scrolls? Perhaps the key to saving the City would be to recover them from Bozal or Raknian to learn how to reverse the Ritual.
Make the undead tied to Kyuss so the only way to stop that many undead is by putting a halt on Kyuss' progress, atleast this is what the Circle of Eight says, stop Kyuss if you want to help us. This puts the campaign back on track the way you want it to be and then you can do any number of things at the end.
A) All the undead that were created against Ugly die, but all the undead created by them are still alive, enter high level big bad PCs now where the Circle of Eight can't tell them they are to weak now.
B) Same as above except, new lower level characters trying to do any number of things to help Greyhawk, like find positive energy artifacts/items to strengthen the forces of the Eight.
C) Greyhawk is returned to normally all the undead created by Ugly or created by Ugly's undead that haven't been made dead dead, are alive again (blessing from the gods?)
D) All the undead in Greyhawk crumble to dust, the city has suffered greatly but rebuilding can begin they hope. It will probably take alot of money and help. Years later (new campaign?) Greyhawk is nearing the same strength it had be before due to the aid offered by the Age of Worm heroes (no one mentions its their fault in the first place anymore after all the help they offered :D).
Just so food for thought, good luck!
Part of me wants to do this simply to ditch "A gathering of winds" I didnt really want to run that adventure anyways (Except for keeping the Ilthane parts and maybe the rescuing of Allustan)
All of my players survived except one dwarf who was later res'd.
I think what I am going to do is have them cleanse a section of Greyhawk and have the players know that some parts of the city are now out of their league (e.g. the arena, the slums ect).
I don't know if I am really following the adventure but how I am playing it is, once the Uuglurstata (ugly), swallowed Auric it became more powerful and allowed other more powerful undead to enter Greyhawk. Some of these undead are too powerful for the players and are being fought by NPC's.
Basically I want them to "help" clean up greyhawk, not do it all by themselves. I think I just might put together a simple smash undead in the street of greyhawk adventure. At least itll be fun for the Cleric!
I dunno, personally I think your advice (via Mordy) was correct: the PC's really cannot help the City, at least not materially. If your players are the stubborn type, realistically they could easily get themselves wiped out trying to save a city overrun with undead. Preferably, they try to help, and quickly realise the situation is hopeless, at least tackling it head-on.
I think James etc had some good advice some months ago on what could happen if the city gets over-run - it should be in the archives. From memory, the city should become a no-go zone for a long time, which has various repercussions politically for the region. But really, that's not the kind of thing most adventuring parties want to get into - best to leave the place alone, give it a wide berth. I mean, there's a good chance some people might actually blame your PC's for destroying the city, yeah?
I thought about what would happen in my own campaign should it get overrun by undead (as it turns out, the PC's easily defeated the Ugly before it got anywhere near a Fighter). I imagined the PC's running as far away from the city, as quickly possible; but then, prior adventures have left them respectful of the power of things they cannot overcome (like the local law enforcers), as well as generally disliking the Free City (party due to the slack and egalitarian attitude of its law enforcers). I'm sure they would have been saying something like "we destroyed a whole city!", but I just can't imagine them thinking they could somehow do anything to clean up such a huge mess.
For your group, if they really do want to help clean up the city, I thing you could do two things:
1. Impress upon them the futility of a head-on assault. Maybe if you hit them with enough level-draining undead, they will quickly realise they are in over their heads and escape the city before it's too late? (a restoration spell can always get rid of the negative levels before it's too late - finding a cleric to cast one can be an adventure where you lead them to where you want, e.g. Diamond Lake again, or even Magepoint).
2. Lead them to some form of quest that defeats (or even just contains) the undead indirectly. I like an earlier poster's idea of there being an item in the Whispering Cairn that can do this. For me, I'd make it something that can contain the undead to the Free City, but then I like a kind of gritty realism to my games, where sometimes bad stuff just happens and you do what you can but sometimes you can't fix it all. After all, so what if the Free City basically gets wiped out, it's a world-shaking campaign, so let the world shaking begin!
Dawn of a New Age is a smash-em-up fight zillions of undead to save the city adventure. Since you probably don't want to trump the climax of the campaign, I'd go with the "you must find the Staff of Pelor" (substitute favorite undead slaying artifact) approach. If you don't like "Gathering of Winds," you could use just about any adventure of appropriate level from Dungeon, or revive one of those Greyhawk classics like ToEE or Tomb of Horrors and put whatever encounters you want in there. Or put the artifact in the possession of someone interesting and far away and make the players earn it with roleplaying. The only real concern is whatever you do, you've got to have PCs at 13th level for SoLS and have a way to funnel them into it.
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I agree with Hastur.
"After all, so what if the Free City basically gets wiped out, it's a world-shaking campaign, so let the world shaking begin!"
My group is only on the verge of completing 3FoE but I have put a lot of thought into what happens to the Free City if they fail to stop Ugly.
The Free City becomes The City of the Dead. Some evil dudes, on par level wise, with The Circle of Eight (there has to be some or good would always win the day), compete for control of the city. The ultimate winner is going to be a 20th level Death Master (Dragon Compendium Vol.1) Lich and his horde of undead and the blessing of Orcus.
I figure by time the group has finished AoW, this lich will be solid control of The City of the Dead. I do not plan to go epic with my group so now they will have to settle Alhaster's problems and be content that they failed to save Free City. Not every story has all the loose strings neatly tied up. I am sure they will have their hands full there anyway.
The Circle of Eight on the other hand may be looking for a new set of adventureres to clean up and "free", Free City of it's undead plague.
Perhaps I will be content and just leave it that way for the time being, only time will tell.
Some evil dudes, on par level wise, with The Circle of Eight (there has to be some or good would always win the day), compete for control of the city.
I don't disagree with most of your post, but I'd like address something here. The Circle of Eight is a neutral organization. It is led by a wizard who espoces a strict philosophy of balance. Now, there is enough evil in Greyhawk that the circle often works for the good, but this organization would never intentionally unbalance the world towards good. Individual members may not adhere to the same goals.
The one additional effect I see happening in the Greyhawk campaign setting if the City of Greyhawk falls, is much of the Domain of Greyhawk falling to Turrosh Mak from the Promarj, possibly forces of Iuz, Rary the Traitor, or the lucky ones might be annexed by the Duchy of Urnst.
My party basically watched the urglathingy eat Auric. As described this unleashed a wave of negative energy hitting everyone in the stands for 1d4 negative levels. On average that meant that the majority of the 50,000 people gathered to watch the final fight died instantly and rose 1d4 rounds later as wights. They immediately turned on the survivors, killing them (to rise as wights in a few rounds) and then spilled out of the arena killing everything in their path.
As it stands the free city is about to succumb to the wights as it immediately became a magnet for every powerful necromancer and Kyuss aligned undead as well as clerics worshiping gods of death, undeath etc.
I personally plan to continue to allow the little nasties to rampage accross the countryside until and unless the party can stop Kyuss. It gives them a much needed sense of urgency.
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Some evil dudes, on par level wise, with The Circle of Eight (there has to be some or good would always win the day), compete for control of the city.I don't disagree with most of your post, but I'd like address something here. The Circle of Eight is a neutral organization. It is led by a wizard who espoces a strict philosophy of balance. Now, there is enough evil in Greyhawk that the circle often works for the good, but this organization would never intentionally unbalance the world towards good. Individual members may not adhere to the same goals.
The one additional effect I see happening in the Greyhawk campaign setting if the City of Greyhawk falls, is much of the Domain of Greyhawk falling to Turrosh Mak from the Promarj, possibly forces of Iuz, Rary the Traitor, or the lucky ones might be annexed by the Duchy of Urnst.
I thought there was a thread some time ago about this very topic. "What happens if they fail" I think it was called, but I could not find it.
At anyrate, your right about the circle, and I am sure in most games they would and will do something about this. I on the other hand do plan on having the players fix this at some point, but for now a little chaos in the world is a good thing. My players think they know all there is to know about the world so it is time to shake it up. I am sure that jaws will hit the table when the Free City becomes a ghost town and I don't wave the magic DM wand and make it all better.
I like the idea of a city of the dead. I think that the regions around Free City will get split three ways as you suggest. The city itself is going to be controlled by a lich with the support of Orcus. He should help keep the biggest of the bad at bay. I have always had a soft spot for Orcus.
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This has happened in my campaign as well. As soon as the ritual was complete and the dead started rising, my PCs made use of the flying potions they'd purchased to escape the arena. Trick was, some of them had already used the potion at the start of the fight, while others were marshalling theirs. With different, limited durations, they each went separate ways, which was a real pain to DM.
Two of them went back to Eligos' house and promptly set it on fire in fighting Orokal. Then they fled the now chaotic city to the east and hid for awhile. One of them was the cleric, and he removed the negative levels. They also had a little encounter with Raknian in Death Knight form before he fled on his Nightmare.
The fighter went her own way and eventually left the city to the west. She ventured around the outside of the city to join her friends after receiving a sending. She passed her ability loss save and avoided negative levels the old fashioned way.
The thief was the one in the most trouble, having taken her potion especially early. She had to make her way through the fleeing and drained crowd, half of which were turning into wights. Needless to say, her Shadowdancer levels came in handy and she was able to link up with Tirra, who was an acquaintence by now. She also summoned her shadow for the first time, which was an intersting twist to the character.
I figured with so many wealthy folks bearing negative levels in the city, there would be a rush on restorative magic, and fashioned a little side adventure centered on that (my wife is the thief, Tirra was an NPC). I figured the middle and lower cities were overrun by undead for the first day, but were driven down into the sewers by daylight after that. The ulgurstatsta would hide by day, ripening its payload, then emerge from underground unexpectantly at night to burp up its undead and kill some more. I figured Bozal would want to protect the critter as well. Basically, I portrayed the city as secure in the High quarters with the help of members of the Circle, but abandoned to the authority of the Thieves guild in the lower and middle city. These two sections have whole blocks that are burnt out or burning, and still are having problems controlling the undead in the sewers.
Tirra and the thief broke into a secret basement chapel to Nerul known to Tirra through her guild associations and stole the restorative potions to stave off their negative levels. The thief then received the same sending that led the fighter to join her comrades outside the city. Before she left, however, Tirra offered on behalf of the guild to restore the party's lost earning in the arena if they would come help deal with the worm and its cleric guardian.
The thief carried this message to the rest of the party, and they've now re-entered the city under employ of the guild for a small custom adventure before moving on to the Gathering of Winds. The undead, led by Bozal, are trying to breach the city tombs through a sewer connection. The guild is sending the party and a bunch of hires into the tombs to oppose them from within. I'm going to use the 'Chapel of Bones' Map of Mystery to represent a portion of the city's tombs, and instigate a battle royale against Bozal and the ulgurstasta at once, giving them another chance to fight the fight they initially ducked. If things go too easy for them, I may throw Raknian in again as well for another inconclusive encounter.
Couple more suggestions.. Consider very carefully the prophecy that Manzorian lays before them in SoLS. Thanks to the PC's efforts in TFoE(or later if they get that far..NO SPOILERS!), the part about the tripartite spirit has not occurred yet. This could introduce a large influx of the Ebon Triad cult trying to fulfill the prophecy at it's last. This could set up a variety of encounters to match different styles of play.. intrigue, straight-up slugfests, chase scenes, and other fun.. The Ebon Triad could have access to cultists of all varying levels as well of the children of Kyuss, allowing fights taylored to the PC's levels.
A number of very good suggestions have already been made. I like bits and pieces of several. As Hastur has pointed out already, this is a big campaign and a major event like Greyhawk getting overrun by undead should be a possibility, especially if the party did not listen to the advice of a GOD.
I would take some advice from the posters here. The Free City of Greyhawk should become a no man's land. I do not care how powerful the Circle of the Eight is, they do not have the resources to combat 10,000 wights in one day. The more critical part of this equation is that the number of wights is going to increase exponentially shortly thereafter as they break out into the city and start "recruiting." The best the Circle of the Eight could probably manage is to organize some kind of evacuation to get the spawn candy away from these horrible creatures (as it sounds like you have already done). At that point, Greyhawk becomes a city of the dead and reclamation a moot point, at least for the immediate future.
If/when the Circle of the Eight get involved, they are likely to become interested in this Age of Worms affair since the protection of Oerth from extreme influences is part of their portfolio. I would have them urge the PCs into investigating Kyuss, his history, his weaknesses, and his plans, so that the eventual coming of the Age of Worms may be thwarted. Meanwhile, the Circle of the Eight will do what they can to try to deal with the Greyhawk problem. But getting rid of thousands of wights in a heavily fortified city is the scope of an entire campaign, not a single adventure.
If you wish, you can use this event to create a sense of urgency for your campaign. Whenever the PCs start to dawdle, you can bring them news via an NPC that the wights of Greyhawk have expanded their territory. "They wights have overrun Hardby and claimed a bunch of ships in the process! They'll be setting out to sea now..." Wights are maliciously intelligent and capable of gaining class levels; leaders among the wights will undoubtedly rise. The whole situation is likely to quickly spiral out of control, unless the Age of Worms can be stopped. Once the PCs speak with Manzorian/Tenser about the subject, he hypothesizes that if the wights were created by Kyuss, perhaps Kyuss' defeat will herald their defeat as well. If the PCs really want to make the city of Greyhawk habitable again, then the best way to do that is prevent the Age of Worms.
If you do not wish to run the entire Gathering of Winds, do not. However, the adventure allows the PCs to gain several potent weapons that can be used in the final battle against Kyuss (not to mention being handy in and of themselves). You would be well advised to include some method of getting these items to the PCs another way unless you wish the final battle with Kyuss to be more difficult.
What came to my mind was something approaching "Marvel Zombies" - maybe even have one of the Circle of Eight fall. It seems that an army of wights expanding from Greyhawk into the greater world would be a great way to keep "epic" characters busy and out of the fight against Kyuss.