So here it is: the players fight their way through the Demonskar, go through the Starry Mirror, find Alek, and fight Nabthatoron. Then some dude in a robe show up, in the middle of the freakin' desert, and says "hey guys, my name is Kauraphon, I radiate evil and I know lots about this big conspiracy that you're starting to suspect exists. I have an idea, let's go to Hell."
Yeah.
Well, if my mage player doesn't have Teleport at this point (which he will, because he's not a moron), the party can still call Meerthan to get them home. I just don't see the cryptic mutterings of a clearly dead paladin driving them into Kauraphon's arms.
Has anyone else had this problem? It feels a little too much like railroading.
How did you get your players to go with him? Keep in mind that we're about two sessions from this now, so clever foreshadowing that might have helped is not gonna happen.
Thanks,
Olodrin
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Karophon casts misdirection on himself so he radiates (insert sissy-PC)'s alignment instead.
Now, there's still railroading but it's a start. To fight railroading you can have Kauraphon ask if the PCs want to go straight to 507 or if they think it would be better to go to Sigil for some gather info stuff, first. Or maybe Red Shroud's city (the name escapes me, now).
Depending on where your PCs are -- if it's Anauroch, oops -- teleport may not work. If, however, they're on some other Plane, teleport won't do jack to help the situation.
Good luck. You should have time to come up with a few possible suggestions of places to go for Kauraphon to give. He could even tell the PCs a little about 507 and Plane Shift them to their choice (just not the skull) of geographical feature.
-W. E. Ray
It's not very logical is it.
I ran through this recently half expecting my party to just flick him the bird and take off back to Cauldron.... but they didn't.
The character who had been recieving the Haunted Dreams found the story very familiar and the name Occiptus was enough to spark his curiousity to go. Some of the party was worried about Redgorge at this point but the message from Nidrama made them feel obligated to go, so reluctantly and suspiciously they did.
Coming up with an alternate hook would be much easier than just throwing such an evil 'ally' at the party.
1 One such suggestion could be to have Alek rise from the dead and be 'possessed' by Korophan (sp?). 'Alek' will explain he has been sent back from the Heavens to free Occiptus from the abyss and the first step to this would be to finish the Test.
'Alek' can not remember anything about his past but knows he has been risen with the power of Occiptus flowing through his blood which has tainted him somewhat, but it was a sacrifice he had to make if he was to gain control of the plane.
When the party finally reach the final test Korophan either emerges or dramatically bursts out from the body of Alek to attack the party.
2 Another idea is to let the party return to Cauldron and be introduced to Korophan by their trusted mentor or even Lord Vhalantru?!
3 What about the party being contacted directly by Nidrama and being asked to take the test. She tells them that unless one of them claims Occiptus for good then the plane will be doomed. When they arrive they are greeted by a cleverly disguised Korophan who acts as their heavenly guide. Korophan disguise himself as Saurya (the fallen angel).
Anyway a few ideas off the top of my head. Hope they help.
Delvesdeep
Hmm, interesting suggestions.
It's not very logical is it.
I1 One such suggestion could be to have Alek rise from the dead and be 'possessed' by Korophan (sp?). 'Alek' will explain he has been sent back from the Heavens to free Occiptus from the abyss and the first step to this would be to finish the Test.
'Alek' can not remember anything about his past but knows he has been risen with the power of Occiptus flowing through his blood which has tainted him somewhat, but it was a sacrifice he had to make if he was to gain control of the plane.
When the party finally reach the final test Korophan either emerges or dramatically bursts out from the body of Alek to attack the party.
2 Another idea is to let the party return to Cauldron and be introduced to Korophan by their trusted mentor or even Lord Vhalantru?!
3 What about the party being contacted directly by Nidrama and being asked to take the test. She tells them that unless one of them claims Occiptus for good then the plane will be doomed. When they arrive they are greeted by a cleverly disguised Korophan who acts as their heavenly guide. Korophan disguise himself as Saurya (the fallen angel).
Delvesdeep
Of these, I think I prefer the 1st option, simply because it minimizes the number of changes that the players need to accept. My players will also demand an explanation why Cauldron is doomed if they don't go haring off to some (literally) god-forsaken place in the Abyss.
A 4th option: Nab & K are allies, have them somehow Magic Jar Alek's soul (some misinterpretation of K that a purely good soul is needed to finish the Test), then K bails to the Abyss, the party goes home and through various and sundry means discover the general location of Alek's soul.
Then... dammit, I'm out of ideas.
Olodrin
1. The message from Nidrama is pretty succinct: Cauldron is lost. The only hope for Cauldron lies within the Smoking Eye, or some such. My party had already met Nidrama, recognized the eyes, and went with it. I was kind of hoping they wouldn't so that she could meet up with them later and ask "which part of 'only hope' didn't you get?"
2. Place the desert well outside of teleport range. Say, 2,000 miles. Have a nice walk. Please also bear in mind that Redgorge is about to be besieged, so, walk fast.
3. In my campaigns, I have worked long and hard to get the message across that evil != stupid. Kaurophon has been researching this whole Occipitus thing for a long time and has a great deal invested in making sure this works, so he was on his best don't-make-waves behavior. He never did one single thing against the party until the fight at the very end (to be fair, if he had, they would have squashed him like a bug). There were several times he could have wiped them out: they were underlevelled for one of the fights, so the Blasphemy automatically paralyzed all but one PC who was high enough level, and another who ran as soon as the monster showed up so he was out of the area.
As has been pointed out in previous threads, my players understand that people who bend over backwards to help them are usually evil, so they're just constantly lying in wait to smack the bad guys, but in the meantime, if the bad guys want to help them out, that's great. My next campaign will be in the Moonsea setting, where they're working out of evil cities and for evil people the entire time.
I disposed of Kaurophon altogether, because I knew my paranoid PCs would never trust him, and his betrayal would surprise nobody.
Of course, that meant I didn't have a tour guide to invite them to Occipitus. So I railroaded them in the purest sense: I made the entrance to the Starry Mirror one-way, and put Nabthataron's shrine in Occipitus itself (details about Nab's exile on Prime also had to go. Nab has since become a recurring villain, so it's just as well that he can come and go as he pleases).
The effect worked well: the PCs think they're popping briefly into the Starry Mirror to retrieve Alek, but they end up stuck in the Abyss. They were obliged to undergo the Tests, if for no other reason than to gain enough XP that they could cast plane shift to get home!
Thinking back, I guess it was a little mean...but I think it's worse to give PCs the feeble illusion of choice, than to take it away from them altogether once in a while.
Wow, I'm almost overwhelmed by the flood of responses.
After reviewing all the ideas, I think the best solution in my case is to have Kauraphon use Magic Jar to possess Alek's body when he dies, tell them he's been sent back for etc etc. While they explore Occipitus he tells them about the Cagewrights, information he has gathered through "investigations".
When they get to the last task, he attacks the party. Just before the party kills him, he jumps back to the Jar (which he invisibly placed on Alek's body during the fight with Nab), then makes a launch for the party's meathead fighter, causing a huge amount of confusion.
Because he isn't competing with Alek's soul for posession of Alek's body, I will rule that he can use it indefinitely.
Any thoughts? Does this create any permanent damage to the Path?
Thanks,
Olodrin
I just had an interesting idea.
When Nabthatoron appears and attacks the PCs, isn't THAT the perfect time for Kaurophon to appear and assist them?
Kaurophon is confident the PCs can win against the demon general. In fact, he chooses them BECAUSE they are strong, and he NEEDS them to win this battle so he can use them to get through the tests.
Rather than using summoned babaus, just add some real ones to the battle with Nabthatoron. Then when the PCs are peeing their pants in fear, Kaurophon arrives in a puff of ninja smoke and uses a REAL scroll of dismissal! POW, babaus are gone. Then he helps by firing magic missiles at Nabby.
Making friends with the PCs in this way ensures that Kaurophon is trusted from the very beginning. Never mind his evil aura... he just saved the PCs from certain death!
Of course, that adds a deus ex machina to the existing problem of railroading... but you should've thought about that before buying the hardcover. :p
Luckily I didn't have the problem getting my PCs to go with him. I was rather suprised how easy it was, but it was late at the time and party would have gone with any suggestion I gave (Still regret not waiting until the next session to do this). The party didn't ask any questions really; when they all held hands I gave the two next to him a Will save to see past the illusion (Not sure if that was supposed to happen, but oh well). At least one of them made it and then struck him in the head with Alakast.
While quite devestating I described the fiend as non-aggresive and injured when he asked the PC why he did that. The PC answered that he was a fiend and then the fiend responded with a few of his prepared statements.
After that I got the PC to apoligize for his actions. Ha!
Skyknight,
You win the prize for most elegant solution. In fact, it is so elegant that I wonder if you might be a management consultant in real life.
Thanks,
Olodrin
I saw a really nice one that someone else did.
After the fight with Nabby, the party got Alec's message and teleported away to do personal projects, craft, and sell loot. While doing this they where attacked by a vrock.A few hours later they where attacked by 2 vrock. After that a random party member made a will save every hour and if they failed 2 or more vrock and some other demons attacked.
Then K shows up and claims he has a place where you can rest in peace.
You see, back in the demonscar there is a scrying pool. It doesnt matter if Nabby lives or dies, someone is going to want to hunt down and punish the party.
I like the simplicity of Gontoran's solution. No problem getting the party to Occipitus then!
Skylights suggestion also is excellent, at least for reducing suspicion regarding Korophan(sp?). Before I wrote up the Haunted Dreams for my party, the whole TotSE seemed out of place for the SCAP. Heading off to 'save' a part of heaven that has dropped into the Abyss is all good and well but it really doesn't have anything to do with what's happening to Cauldron.
In reality the party could quite easily return to Cauldron without any problems because what terrible disaster do they miss by travelling to Occiptus? An assassination attempt - no they cope that later anyway, a attack on their allies - nothing there either. The whole adventur hook is weak at best, illogical and insulting at worst.
If it hadn't been for me beefing up Adimarchus role in the overall plot for my game then I would have excluded the adventure altogether.
Anyway, the think your doing the right thing by attempting to make the hook more realistic and fitting rather than just using the existing version.
Good Luck
Delvesdeep
Hmm, both questions have complicated answers in my campaign.
The simple version is: Nab's backstory *did* relate to Surabar and the Demonskar battle, but it didn't rely upon his status as a banished demon lord. In my game, he's actually an upwardly mobile mover-and-shaker in the Abyss. The only reason he hasn't passed the Smoking Eye test himself is because Adimarchus designed it so that it wasn't accessible to evil outsiders.
Nab attacked the party several times, always teleporting out before suffering heavy damage: twice inside the Starry Mirror, and once during the final test (trying to coerce the party's evil character to sacrifice her allies). He'll be back later, too. Alek is still alive -- I kept him in reserve, in case I needed an NPC to martyr themselves during the final test (turned out not to be needed).
The spell weavers are so esoteric that nothing they did/do needs to make any sense to the PCs. Just look at Karran-Kural: a weird assemblage of cryogenic coffins and ultra-powerful bad guys guarding...pillars? Just get your wizard to make a Knowledge (arcana) check, and regardless of the result, tell them, "No mortal has ever been able to comprehend the motives of the spell weavers."
I hope that helps.
The magic jar idea is brilliant. My only caution would be: the campaign has Embril Aloustani use the magic jar spell at the end of Chapter 11, in order to bring the PCs to Carceri.
Thus, if Kaurophon tricks them once with magic jar, they may not fall for it a second time. Or else it may simply feel repetitive.
The magic jar idea is brilliant. My only caution would be: the campaign has Embril Aloustani use the magic jar spell at the end of Chapter 11, in order to bring the PCs to Carceri.
Thus, if Kaurophon tricks them once with magic jar, they may not fall for it a second time. Or else it may simply feel repetitive.
I have taken out the Magic Jar sequence in Strike on Shatterhorn. In fact in my version of the campaign I took out all of the Strike on Shatterhorn adventure altogether. I explained in in the 'Aternative Adimarchus and the Cagewrights' document (theRPGenius.com if your interested) but I just felt the whole adventure was purposeless and anti-climatic. The only reason the adventure appears to have been included is to get rid of the rest of the Nameless Cagewrights.
I removed Embril, the Spellweaver and Alurad from that adventure and placed in my own adventure revolved around rescuing Nidrama from Embril in the Kopru Necroplis that lies beneath the Haunted Village.
In this version Embril has used the Spellweaver to open a gate into the Dreamscape where she has taken Nidrama in an attempt to enter Adimarchus' maddening dreams.
Have a look at the document if you are interested but needless to say - the party would not be faced with two Magic Jar senerios if you were using this version.
Delvesdeep