My group ended their last session in the sargasso, so there's only a few fights before they're out of Dark Mountain Pass. I've been wanting to make Olangru a villain to remember, so I've been reviewing some of the previous threads on this topic, so I have a fairly action-packed seven days between Dark Mountain and Fogmire. A rough schedule is as follows:
Day 1: During camp, the fire is twice plunged into Darkness for one hour or until dispelled, meanwhile random NPCs are hit by Cause Fear. Steal some supplies during the distraction.
Day 2: A native elven woman stands on the road ahead, watching the PCs. As they approach, she draws a ceremonial dagger and cuts her own neck. Her body rots with unnatural speed, and her spirit points and curses the existence of the survivors. While the PCs are distracted Thunderstrike is hit by Cause Fear, possibly knocking some NPCs off the cliff. That night, a log with a centipede swarm is dropped into camp at night, and at same time the supplies are returned with the food replaced by bloody meat.
Day 3: Decapitated bird carcasses are discovered in the middle of the campsite arranged to match the sleeping arrangements. During the day there is the skull slide. A suicidal elven native stabs himself and dives off the cliff from above; where he stood they can find a throne with a misassembled elven skeleton. While they're looking, Telekinesis shoves an NPC off the cliff.
Day 4: The head of a gargoyle is discovered in the middle of camp in the morning, warning "The winged ones come tomorrow. Do not die yet, meat." Sabotaged lift. After making camp for the night, individual fiendish baboons rain monkey scat onto the camp. The illusory ghost of a dead NPC gives false warning of betrayal from within.
Day 5: Combined gargoyle ambush by Quotoctoa's forces. A minor NPC is abducted and then tortured within earshot overnight; if they try to find the victim they run into an illusory half-eaten yet still breathing body that explodes into gore and green maggots. The illusion then rots away with unnatural speed. More abductions occur while the PCs are away from camp.
Day 6: A backpack is dropped into camp containing the organs of the kidnapped NPC, tied with article of his or her clothing. They discover a path heading into the jungle. Ahead, an illusory pathway covers a ruined section of causeway, and after the illusion is uncovered the path is found to be impassable.
Day 7: Fogmire. The native zombie is replaced by a zombie of the undoubtedly-dead-by-now Thunderstrike, which has its legs broken in order to be nailed spread-eagle. If Thunderstrike is taken down before being destroyed (and Avner will foolishly try to order somebody to do so, or eventually do it himself if nobody else will), the horse will immediately try to eat some delicious brains. At dusk, Olangru starts picking off NPCs in earnest, although he's careful not to overwhelm the abilities of his naga healer.
I'm looking for fun/creepy things to do that I missed, of course. I'm also thinking it might be possible to rearrange some of the events to make it flow better, but I thought the eyes of other DMs would be helpful. Also, I'm a bit concerned that I might be going a bit too far at certain points, running the risk of becoming tedious rather than creepy, so if something seems like too much or otherwise not worthwhile, I'd like to know.
Note that the group of PCs will probably have a large entourage of shipwreck survivors, since I'm planning to have almost everybody survive. All of these survivors have names, and there are quite a few noncombatants (three of which are children, including Tavey). There are quite a few red shirts to burn through, but I'd prefer to make it possible to save some.
We have one PC who can detect invisible creatures, but she doesn't have any ranks in Spot. So Olangru can come and go pretty freely.
Until the group reaches Fogmire, the standard operating procedure for abduction will be to hit an NPC with Cause Fear from three different casters. Any NPC with 6HD or less will automatically be panicked for one round even if they make all three saves, so they will be abducted as soon as they run out of sight.
All right, comments?
That all looks pretty good. If you group is anything like mine the thing that will scare them most is when an NPC gets pushed off the cliff. After that happened my group tied themselves together with a rope!
They didn't fail to realize there was only one failed save between them and death...
there is fun to be had at the lift via O's telekinesis. I had him draw taveys knife and begin cutting through the ropes of the lift about 3/4 of the way up. This ended up an aerial combat between the flying wiz and the animated knife.
Looks like good stuff. If i run it again ill use your post as a guide. Very nice.
Orlangru is trying to collect sacrifices for the temple. Anything that kills NPCs or PCs doesn't quite make sense then. I wouldn't use O to drop people off the cliff for example. Besides, there's plenty of gargoyles available to do that.
O has Major Image, which is visual only. You can't use that to give warnings. It could be used many ways:
* Image of a cave along the cliff with a troll emerging. Just to keep the party on edge and use up resources.
* Image of large sections of the road missing just to slow the party down. (More opportunities for abductions)
* Image of a cave opening high up on the wall. Image of stone pillars flanking the opening. Hopefully some PCs investigate, thus splitting up the group, and providing another abduction attempt.
As written, O doesn't try to abduct anyone until they reach Fogmire. I don't see why that is. If given the chance, O abducts people earlier. At Fogmire, he starts to get a bit desperate. If he does abduct someone, I'd give the PCs a couple days "off" from his attacks while he deals with the sacrifice. If he does manage to abduct someone, he can return a couple days later and use the body part ideas above.
* At night, turn invisible, close to 120' (extent of vision), create an image to distract the party. Then Cause Fear on NPCs. If an NPC runs off by himself, teleport down and abduct.
Orlangru is trying to collect sacrifices for the temple. Anything that kills NPCs or PCs doesn't quite make sense then. I wouldn't use O to drop people off the cliff for example. Besides, there's plenty of gargoyles available to do that.
This is an excellent point. I'll make sure to intentionally throw an NPC off when the ledge is closer to the water, so the NPC is more likely to survive. If the PCs rush down to check the body, Olangru will abduct somebody at the top. If the PCs are more cautious, Olangru will just abduct the one that fell.
Alas, most of the NPCs are disgustingly survivable. Amella and Urol, for instance, will survive an 120-foot fall into the water more than half the time (2d3 nonlethal for first 40 feet due to water, 8d6 lethal for remainder, or an average of only 28hp lethal).
For what it's worth, the sabotaged lift suggests that Olangru is already a bit cavalier about collecting sacrifices.
O has Major Image, which is visual only. You can't use that to give warnings. It could be used many ways:
No problem with the warnings:
Major Image
Illusion (Figment)
Level: Brd 3, Sor/Wiz 3
Duration: Concentration + 3 roundsThis spell functions like silent image, except that sound, smell, and thermal illusions are included in the spell effect. While concentrating, you can move the image within the range.
The image disappears when struck by an opponent unless you cause the illusion to react appropriately.
As written, O doesn't try to abduct anyone until they reach Fogmire. I don't see why that is. If given the chance, O abducts people earlier. At Fogmire, he starts to get a bit desperate. If he does abduct someone, I'd give the PCs a couple days "off" from his attacks while he deals with the sacrifice. If he does manage to abduct someone, he can return a couple days later and use the body part ideas above.
If they only had the four in the module, I'd agree. But they'll probably have around 30 named NPCs following them around, and Olangru only has seven days to work with. I do want to save the big reveal if at all possible, though; they shouldn't actually see the predator until Fogmire. This complicates the process some; it would be pretty lame to pick them all off one-by-one with the same Cause Fear trick.
How are random encounters done in your game? We go around the table rolling %. The in-game actions are creepy enough, imagine how much creepier when outside the game you can play up the 'random' encounters. "woah, another 57%? *rifles some papers, pulls out the monstrous book of monsters, pulls out tiamat's mini* OK roll a d12..." *grin*
>> This spell functions like silent image, except that sound, smell, and thermal illusions are included
Oh, duh, sorry.
* Red eyes and heavy breathing during the night in hopes someone goes off to explore.
* Illusory rockslide to separate the party.
* Dryad/nymph tries to coax the party away.
* Illusory boat wreck below. Maybe a sailor laying down there.
>> Amella and Urol, for instance, will survive an 120-foot fall into the water more than half the time (2d3 nonlethal for first 40 feet due to water, 8d6 lethal for remainder, or an average of only 28hp lethal).
Have them land on the rocks below, not the water. Evil.
>> For what it's worth, the sabotaged lift suggests that Olangru is already a bit cavalier about collecting sacrifices.
Yeah, don't care for that. My lift fails just cuz it's old, not due to sabotage.
>> But they'll probably have around 30 named NPCs following them around,
I suppose O doesn't even have to use the Cause Fear. He could go invisible, walk into camp, put his hand on a sleeping NPC, hope to win init, and then teleport away. The PCs awake next morning to find an NPC missing. (I've only got 4 NPCs at this point, wouldn't do that myself).
Once the PCs adjust to that tactic, he upgrades to the Cause Fear to try and spread them out.
Dang, wish I had more NPCs at this point.
My players reached Dark Mountain last night, I did two things:
* They had to sleep one night in the tunnel on the way. O hung out far behind the party and tossed a rock for each set of PCs on guard duty. Some heard it, some didn't. Those that heard it felt they were being lured away from the camp and refused to investigate. One PC cast light on an arrow and shot it down the tunnel. It revealed a small pile of reddish material (terror bird feathers), but they refused to investigate.
* O cannot enter the complex itself for my game. At the entrance, he scrawled in terror bird blood "Turn back..Do Not Enter". A survival check revealed it was written by a large, meaty clawed hand. A congealed pool of blood on the floor with 9 feathers sticking up (PCs + NPCS) completed the scene. My players were a little freaked.
Next week, they'll be on the gargoyle road and O will get more aggressive.
Except Olangru doesn't have much Concentration skill. He's got a pretty good failure rate when using his Spell-like abilities.
Ah, well, that is where a post-it note comes in handy ... to deal with pesky screw-ups like that ... say, by way of a certain home-brewed template ... tack on a +2 or +4 to his INT and the Concentration problem is 'dealt with' quite handily...
How did Olangru fare in your encounters?
He's a terror with his skirmish and pounce abilities, but it is totally dependant on his mobility.
A web, net, or tanglefoot bag could easily screw up his strengths...
Without the Olangru chapter in hand, I couldn't really comment - although IIRC he has pretty good save bonuses as-written and is a bar-igura to boot, so I suspect most such mobility-dampening tactics may not be terribly efficacious ...
Your point is very much on the money however lin_fusan. Many thanks! (My players may have something else to say on the matter however...)
well, Olangru fared pretty well in the initial encounters when the players and charcaters were not really wise to him yet.
Once they figured out his "pounce and port" tactics, they hit him with a "Ray of Dizziness" buffered by a "truecast" to pierce his SR. Being effectively slowed and limited to a single attack, and unable to port away since they took pains to envelop him with two chars preventing a 5' safety step before teleporting (lacking the concentration skill, he is unable to teleport out safely from AoO distance, requiring a roll of DC 22 without a rank in the skill ) he went down in 2 rounds after that.
But that was deep inside the temple (and I have the nagging feeling someone might have read up on the most recent incarnation of that cherished 1E monstrosity... hehe ), so things were properly terrifying before. Although, in all honesty, I never intended him to be a "combat monster" tearing the party apart, but rather a constant, terrifying menace of unknown capabilities...
DMFTodd: I think I might work in the bit about the bloody chocobo feathers; it seems like a good idea. As for why Olangru won't go into Dark Mountain Pass... I'd just assume he knows there are monsters in there, and they're scary. He wouldn't want to risk his equipment against the Black Pudding, for instance.
vikingson: Mercifully, the only true caster in the main party doesn't have the Spell Compendium, and none of the NPC casters know that particular spell. It's definitely a fantastic spell. Was the ceiling too low for Olangru to use his Boots of Levitation, though?
Anyway, I tweaked Olangru a bit because some of my players are using Bo9S stuff. Only fair if the monsters use it too, right? Note that I kept Olangru CR9; I'd prefer to keep it that way. I decided Pearl of Black Doubt would be too mean-spirited to give him, but there's still plenty of viciousness to be had. I'm not sure the Bo9S was ever intended to be applied to monsters…
Olangru the bar-lgura
medium demon (outsider, chaotic, evil) scout 2/swordsage 2
init +8, Listen +14, Spot +14, darkvision 60ft, see invisibility, telepathy 100ft
40ft speed, 20ft climb, 20ft levitate, greater teleport at will, dodge, mobility, run
Balance +21, Climb +29, Hide +23, Jump +33, Move Silently +19, Tumble +21, Intimidate +14
hp 95, Fort +13, Ref +14, Will +8, SR 20
AC 27, touch 17, ff 27, uncanny dodge
DR 10/cold iron or good
resist acid/cold/fire: 10
immune: electricity and poison
full: +17/+17 claws 1d6+8/1d6+8 and +12 bite 1d6+4, can pounce
abduction: +17 touch against victim, victim gets DC20 will save or be teleported along with Olangru
bab: +9, grapple: +17, bull rush: +8, Power Attack at 1:1, 1d6 skirmish
summon bar-lgura: 1/day, 35% chance to summon another bar-lgura
SLA, caster level 6
at will: darkness, cause fear (DC14), dispel magic, telekinesis (DC18)
2/day: disguise self (DC14), invisibility, major image (DC16)
martial maneuvers, initiator level 6
maneuvers readied: burning blade (1d6+6), counter charge (+8), zephyr dance, feigned opening
stances available: holocaust cloak, assassin's stance
other maneuvers known: cloak of deception, fire riposte, wind stride
str 26, dex 22, con 20, int 13, wis 12, cha 16
loot: ring of the ram, bracers of armor +2, sandals of levitation, cloak of resistance +1, amulet of tears
If there's any comments or concerns, I'd love to hear them. Although I'm interested in any errors I made in the process, keep in mind that I'm using fractional bab/save advancement, while Dungeon did not.
So far I've done the bloody feathers, decapitated birds, the "something out there in the night". My PCs now think that this mystery stalker is.... a big coward. Rather than instilling fear, my players think O is a joke. Crap.
How can I get the party to fear this guy? Ideally, I'd have many NPCs and O could start abducting. Unfortunately, I only have 3 NPCs at this point - Tavey, Amelia, and Urol. Do I start abducting even before I get to Fogmire? Do I need O to make an appearance?
Bear in mind, your players may be whistling in the dark. In Jollydoc's Savage Tide campaign, one of the PCs loudly and repeatedly declaimed the group's tormentor as a coward who resorted to futile tricks because he was too weak to confront the group directly. That particular PC was torn apart and killed by Olangru in the very first round.
Anyway, if you want them to be more obviously fearful, start hurting them. Telekinesis Urol or a small-size PC off the cliff. It's survivable, but only just, and they don't know that the 150-pound weight limit protects almost all medium PCs from the violent thrust function. Cause Fear Tavey away from the group, abduct him, and then torture him for a few nights within earshot of camp, dropping progressively larger body parts into the middle of the group each morning. Since you have so few red shirts, you just have to make the absolute best use out of each one.
I'd avoid letting them see Olangru until Fogmire, though, just like in the module. The monster is always scariest if you can't actually see it.
I can hardly wait for this part. My group is just about to start Dark Mountain Pass, and I don't expect that to take too long.