I've been thinking about Dragotha recently. I'm coming up to the SoLS with Dragotha's first appearance. I recently had an Idea.
Make Dragotha the "final Boss."
The players are likely to believe it too. I mean, buy the Colossal red Dragon Miniature show them the cover with the Dracolich, stun them with the dragon. They'll level up to level 21, and think "oh, this is perfect. What a great way to end the campaign." The players are searching through the horde when Manzorian should contact them. Perhaps expecting to gain control of Magepoint, the players realize the situation is a lot more desperate.
Why? Well, of course, there is the whole messing with players aspect of it. Then there is the dramatics of "OH CRUD! We screwed up with Lashona! We've been working for the wrong side!" I think that the players believing that the Age of worms is averted would make them happy. Why not crush their joy?
Is this too harsh?
Is their any way to modify this encounter? Kyuss Knights? Spawn? Swords of Kyuss?
Be careful once your PCs notice the new spire in Alhaster being constructed, especially after their adventures in the Amedio jungle. The sight of this new structure should set off warning flags in their heads. Alhaster is a unique enough town that I highly doubt your players won't want to interact with and wonder about its current state, so once Dragotha goes down, there might be feelings of, "wait, what about..."
When my PCs saw the new spire, it took all the fine DM manipulation I could muster to keep them from an all-out assault on it. Even when Zeech momentarily stopped construction on the project to ponder the painting of the SoLS given to them by my PCs, they knew that something was still destined to happen in Alhaster. With this is mind, good luck pulling the wool over your PCs eyes!
That's totally plausible. But you may need to redefine Dragotha's role early.
If I were to do it, I'd give Dragotha the means by which to escape the fight at the conclusion to Wormcrawl Fissure--such as a contingent teleport/plane shift, depending on how powerful you make him. (I've already retooled his spell set to include this contingency trick.) It's not failsafe, but...
If you go this route, I recommend keeping Dragotha's phylactery as far from the PCs grubby little divinations as well as possible. The Tabernacle works well in this respect, but has it's pros and cons.
Finally, as a final boss, you may want to consider Dragotha becoming the deity instead of Kyuss. Rather, his interaction with the monolith has allowed him to usurp the demigod's power for his own. Perhaps give Dragotha the Worm That Walks template (Epic Level Handbook).
Ah.
Actually, that wasn't exactly what I meant. I wanted Dragotha to be the fake final boss. Like "oh, we've beaten him! We've stopped the age of worms! I hope people throw a parade for us." Then when they get back to alhaster, think "AW CRUD!"
Ah.
Actually, that wasn't exactly what I meant. I wanted Dragotha to be the fake final boss. Like "oh, we've beaten him! We've stopped the age of worms! I hope people throw a parade for us." Then when they get back to alhaster, think "AW CRUD!"
Well, unless you've put it in your players'/PCs' heads that the AoW can be averted by performing certain tasks, specifically the defeat of Dragotha, then this might not work. The cover to issue #124 shows Kyuss dripping with Overworms and issue #135 has Kyuss attacking the iconics directly, so unless your players haven't seen either of these issues, I'd say they will think that they still have to slug it out with the Wormy Wonder.