So what are all the ways that the Party can learn the location of the Sunken Queen in the Mushfens?
a) Togomor's notes in the Seneschal's apartment don't mention anything other than Ileosa's interest in blood magic, and he doesn't actually seem aware of her location if the Party happens to leave him alive AND free him from possession.
b) Venster's spirit, if they retrieve his bones, can inform them that Ileosa is at a location called the Sunken Queen but not where to find it.
c) The "Truths of the Sihedron" in Domina's study also references the Everdawn Pool and the Sunken Queen but not its location.
d) Togomor's map hidden in the Scriptorium is the only source that places the Sunken Queen in the Mushfens.
Am I missing anything? This seems like a lot of pieces to pull together that can easily be missed. So basically if they bypass the Scriptorium, they have no way of knowing where the Sunken Queen is without the DM stepping in and changing something?
Any other ways to handle this? Thanks!
Sermignato's book the "Truths of the Sihedron" has notes written by Ileosa specifically searching for the Everdawn Pool and elsewhere in the book, Sermignato mentions in infernal that the Sunken Queen is where it can be found. It should be the last, most obvious hint that points them there besides the other clues you mentioned, and Ileosa's notes as well as the leger of all the people's blood she has sampled should tell them they need to learn what is in that book (sell their soul to an imp to translate if they have to).
Sermignato's book the "Truths of the Sihedron" has notes written by Ileosa specifically searching for the Everdawn Pool and elsewhere in the book, Sermignato mentions in infernal that the Sunken Queen is where it can be found. It should be the last, most obvious hint that points them there besides the other clues you mentioned, and Ileosa's notes as well as the leger of all the people's blood she has sampled should tell them they need to learn what is in that book (sell their soul to an imp to translate if they have to).
Yup, that seems to confirm what I found, but it only seems to be Togomor's map in the scriptorium that actually places the Everdawn Pool/Sunken Queen in the Mushfens. If they don't find the map (which seems easily missable), how are they supposed to find where the Sunken Queen is actually located? I guess if they miss it I can always have Neolandus or someone suggest they search the map collection in the scriptorium?
The map is pretty open and available. They can only miss it if they don't search the entire castle, but that should be something they do as soon as they are done with the entire castle anyway.
At the very least, after they clear out the castle I'd assume that rest of the rebels would come in and start going through the place so you could have one of them present the map to the PCs.
Yeah, I know, I'm overthinking this. I just like everything to "fit" and having the only map to the final location hidden away in an easily overlooked spot seemed a bit off.
Again, there are several other ways they could learn through roleplay: capture an imp, trick sermignato into spilling the beans, cast discern location once the fake queen is dead, etc. but the map is just a guaranteed last resort.
Yeah, I know, I'm overthinking this. I just like everything to "fit" and having the only map to the final location hidden away in an easily overlooked spot seemed a bit off.
Players are clever. They can also use magic to find her, or question allies... trust your players to find a way to overcome the problem. Sometimes they'll come up with really creative ways you wouldn't've thought of.
Players are clever. They can also use magic to find her, or question allies... trust your players to find a way to overcome the problem. Sometimes they'll come up with really creative ways you wouldn't've thought of.
Yes. Yes they are! Case in point - following up on the kidnapping of Vencarlo, Trinia, and Jasan's children I mentioned previously, my players used scrying to find where the children were being held at night, teleported in, and hid them using Rope Trick. Using a combination of Invisibility Sphere, Muffle Sound, Teleport, Dimension Door, and the cleric's Dimensional Hop ability, they managed to infiltrate the lower level dungeon cells where Vencarlo and Trinia were being held and teleport back to the kids without alerting any guards.
Now, do they take the opportunity to teleport out without literally alerting a soul in the Red Mantis hideout? Of course not! They want their pound of flesh so, after silently taking out a lower level Red Mantis guard but inadvertently setting off a Glyph of Warding and alerting everyone in the complex, they're in the middle of John Wicking their way through the waves of Red Mantis assassins responding to the attack, and loving every minute of it. As the sorcerer put it, "They think we're trapped in here with them, but they're the ones trapped in here with us."
Expect them to be enjoying even more of that when they start hacking through what remains of the Grey Maiden holdouts in the castle. That or maybe the party has realized through the Deathshead Vault that these women are tragic and will totally be merciful and save them, but still easily dispatch them.
So after meeting with Cressida and the other resistance leaders, my group is planning to take on Zarmangarof and Sabina (who will NOT switch sides, for multiple reasons). Instead of attacking the dragon at Castle Korvosa, where they think Ileosa's minions are likely to come to its' aid, and also risk civilian casualties if the dragon lands/crashes into the homes and buildings around the castle, they have a plan to lure Zarmangarof to the abandoned Citadel Volshyenek, where they can prepare for it. No prob, I created a map for that.
But, since Chapter 6 really doesn't have any larger scale battles, I'm planning to turn the encounter into the Battle for Citadel Volshyenek. Accompanying Zarmangarof will be several "swarms" of charmed pseudodragons, and a force of Grey Maidens will gather outside the Citadel and attempt to storm it as Zarmangarof, Sabina, and the pseudodragon swarms provide air support.
Any other ideas to make this more interesting and/or how to handle this? I don't want to get the devils involved, since I made clear that they're only seen at night and I want to keep them for the assault on the castle.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Togomor could also provide air support and just Greater Teleport away after an opening volley to create a breach for the Grey Maidens to enter the citadel. Then the Pseudodragons act as distractions and delays to the normal guards (as their sting can also put them to sleep). The Grey Maidens could go for Coup De Grace's against the rebels that are sleeped so some of the party has to intercept the advancing Grey Maidens and the entire party can't solely focus on Sabina or the rebels will be decimated.
The Ultimate goal for the Queen's forces should be to eliminate Kroft. Sabina can single handedly beat her in a melee, but with her dragon, she can melt holes in the walls and any other defenses to get to her if she isn't leading from the courtyard. The Grey Maidens couldn't win in a one on one with her, but they can beat her if they outnumber her and swarm her, and they can certainly beat the typical rebel. They just need the party to not divide and conquer for their strategy to win, as if the party doesn't go after Sabina or leaves Kroft unattended, Sabina can cut of the head of the Rebel's leader, and if the party abandons the citadel to go wholly after Sabina, then the Rebels will lose the citadel. Kroft is probably smart enough to realize this and can maybe hint at it, but Zarmangarof has plenty of tools to actually execute this plan and keep drawing attention to himself from party members that aren't fighting Sabina or himself.
Another benefit would be if the party could get the pseudodragons uncharmed (they should be high enough level to cast dispel enchantment, but do they prepare it?). Though they are unlikely to sleep many Grey Maidens (the guards from book 4 has +8 vs DC 14, and the elite palace guard has +11, and the pseudo dragons have +6 to hit vs AC 24, +8 with flanking), they can still skew the battle back in the favor of the rebels so that the party can go after Sabina all together. I would however keep this as a hidden objective, not hinted at at all by Kroft, just let them come up with it or something similar if they do.
Lotta good stuff there! Yes, an appearance by Togomor for a couple of rounds might be just the thing, setting up a showdown with him in the castle.
Not sure how much they intend to rely on Cressida and the rebels. They want to simulate an uprising/riot at the citadel to draw out Sabina and Zarmangarof. Their sorcerer has Major Image so he can create a heckuva ruckus if he wants to. If they don't involve the rebels I'll have to scale it back a bit, but I do want multiple threats so they can't just focus on the dragon. As for Cressida, I could have her offer to lead a reserve force hiding in a nearby warehouse in case the s**t hits the fan and leave it to the Party to decide. If she's there, she will certainly be a very tempting target for the Queen's forces. Let the chips fall where they may!
Thanks!
So, there is an almost throwaway line in Crown of Fangs about Ileosa commissioning four giant statues of her about Korvosa. I don't think there is anything done with any of these statues and I believe it's mentioned they're all 20-40% done or less (just the feet and shins at this point).
Let's change that detail and make it a relevant plot point by saying that the four statues are under varying stages of completion, with the least done being 20-40% and the most done basically at 100%. And then let's change that detail further by saying that they're not just statues - when they're done, Ileosa is going to animate them into Colossal Stone Golems using ancient Runelord b@++~*&* magic.
So the PCs are all gathered in Citadel Volyshenek, and they see the ranks of Grey Maidens come marching up the streets to surround the fortress but then they just mysteriously stop, as if waiting for something. And then the PCs feel the tremor in the streets, and hear its thunderous footfalls - BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! And then from above the Korvosa skyline of nearby buildings, comes the gigantic statue of Queen Ileosa to smite her enemies, and breach the castle walls as a mobile siege weapon. Or from out of the Jeggare River at the BACK of the fortress, to give the PCs a second front they might not have considered a problem!
The stone colossal Ileosa can be just a standard stone golem with a couple "Giant" templates thrown onto it if you want something quick and dirty, and you can go to the trouble of scaling a stone golem up with more HD and the like. There is a "Stone Colossus" monster, but since it's from Mythic Adventures and is CR 19 even without the mythic parts, its probably more than you want here unless it's as some sort of plot-point where the objective is to disable it, not fight it outright, Shadow of the Colossus style.
If you really want to put the boot to your players, there is a 2nd level bard spell "Enter Image" that allows the bard to place their consciousness into anything bearing their likeness - painting, sculpture, whatever. It is fairly short range (50'/level), leaves the bard's body helpless while they're inside the image, and doesn't permit the use of spells or abilities from the image. So it would not be good as anything more than a mouthpiece that would allow Ileosa to threaten and talk with the PCs through the golem directly.
However, if you want to bend the rules, you could create a custom spell/magic set-up to these golems, using the ancient Runelord b%@~~%#@ magic angle to say that Ileosa can possess these statues at range from anywhere within Korvosa, and use her full abilities and spells through them - this is why the statue golems are being made to begin with, so that she can squash any future rebellions personally in a gigantic stone godzilla body (or four). If you go this route, I would say that it's the imposter Ileosa using this magic and thus she only has access to the 10th level bard worth of spells and is buffing all the Grey Maidens with +2 Inspire Courage. This gives an additional incentive for the party to smash the Colossus ASAP, on top of it curbstomping down the walls of Citadel Volyshenek.
Other less spectacular inclusions could be additional large flying monsters that Ileosa charmed - classic ones like manticores and wyverns, which could be used to either ferry Grey Maidens up onto the walls or provide an honor guard screen for Zarmangorf/Sabrina.
If you want to hint at the Ileosa in the throne room being a fake clone ahead of time (at the cost of losing much of the impact of "Queen Ileosa" dissolving into a pool of blood after a WAY too easy "final boss" fight in Castle Korvosa's throne room), you could have a simulacrum of either Ileosa or Togomor (who would be an 8th level mage I think? Not much of a threat but could provide some nasty AoE/Buff spell potential to make him a worthwhile target) be present at the Battle. To keep up the illusion they could also attempt to escape/teleport (From a scroll) away if the PCs actually risk breaking through the Grey Maiden lines to get at them.
Last option would be to have some sort of surprise attack from the Jeggare River at the back of the Citadel, either in the form of the colossus, Zarmangorf (with a Water Breathing buffed Sabrina clinging to his back), or some bullywugs/Beirawash the random intelligent devilish sorceror (who doesn't seem to have a point to his existence outside of being just another random monster to fight in the Sunken Queen).
Love it! Will definitely be using this. The problem I face with them is that, with 7 PCs, they almost always have the advantage in action economy. I need multiple threats to challenge them that aren't overpowering in of themselves, but when combined it pushes them to fight intelligently or pay the consequences!
For reference, Beirawash is the punishment for failing to find Ileosa's blowout entrance to the Sunken Queen (as the bore hole is covered both in vines and illusion magic). The bigger problem would be how they got him to Korvosa, but if the party wastes enough time, Ileosa could have told Togomor (Sermignato) to get his ass back to the Sunken Queen and collect the fishy for the surprise attack. The smaller problem is now we have Beirawash here, but his move speed is still 10ft on land... Kinda a non-threat in such a big arena.
That said, I actually really like Inspectre's idea for the colossi. Instead of having 2 fully done ones, maybe have one be complete and the other be almost complete ala Deathstar 2 in SW episode 6, with half the HP that it should have, but it is the one that comes out of the river with the rest of the surprise assault. Only the complete one would have the magic for Ileosa to broadcast, and you don't even have to reveal the second colossus/the entire second attack one until the first one is destroyed.
I would definitely not use Ileosa's full stats tho if you do have her work through the colossus. Perhaps they also act as a conduit through which she can assume direct control of her lesser simulacrum and when the party defeats it, that is what causes the false queen in the castle to become less conscious and more robotic. You can maybe use that as a catalyst to have the party break the resolve of the last Grey Maiden holdouts within the castle when they see their Queen start behaving strangely and then suddenly when the party defeats her, she is just a blood monster. (This of course assumes your players would want to rehabilitate the Grey Maidens after freeing Korvosa.)
Ah, I suppose that makes some amount of sense for him being where he is, then. I agree he wouldn't be good at actually invading the castle, but he could be a nasty surprise for someone trying to follow Zarmangorf down into the Jeggare River or popping up from the water to blast the back half of the fortress with his various sorceror spells (as a support perhaps to the colossus that appears from the River).
You could, theoretically, move the Sunken Queen somewhere closer to Korvosa, perhaps somewhere down beneath the Jeggare River, as I know some people have done that as they didn't like yet another trip outside of Korvosa. Your mileage may vary on doing such a move, but it would obviously explain how Beirawash got there (he just swam up from where he was guarding the front door). Which could also give the PCs an idea that there's something weird going on with the Jeggare River now, although you definitely want to avoid them following a fleeing Beirawash back to the Sunken Queen if you do this!
I like the idea of having a full-health colossus show up at the front, and then have a second one that is incomplete (perhaps missing an arm or its head or something) attacking from the river later.
Agreed that I would use caution on the real Ileosa taking time out from her thing to personally intervene as +4 Inspire Courage in a mass combat on top of potentially devastating 6th level bard spells could be too much when placed alongside all the other threats. On the other hand, 7 PCs can handle quite a bit and if you stagger things so that they're in waves rather than all at once they could probably handle even that.
The nice thing about 7 PCs is that you should be able to fairly easily have a two-front battle where the party needs to split, but with 7 PCs this is not as overwhelming a challenge as if the party has doubled up on roles they can each have a melee tank/caster/healer/damage dealer basically handle each half of the encounter as if they were a full party. It can be hard to manage that widespread of a battle with essentially two normal-sized battles going on side-by-side, but it can be especially memorable and is something you can only really do with so many PCs (a normal 4-person party split in half is 2 people, which doesn't give a lot of wiggle room on saves and probably means it's the rogue and wizard types getting jumped by the dragon . . . which is probably not going to end well for that half of the party. The cleric and fighter duo will be just fine though! ^^ )
I'm not sure what else Queen Ileosa has to throw at them from her existing resources outside of the devils, which you have already ruled out (and teleporting at-will enemies would make this whole defense effort extremely annoying). You could consider having the Acadamae or the Temple of Asmodeus step in to provide spell-casting support to the Grey Maidens although I don't know if Toff Ornelos nor Ornher Reebs would risk their own skins on this mission. That could be a resource that Lorthract maneuvers into position to support Ileosa since the devils themselves are ruled out, if you really want some sort of infernal contingent here.
Going further afield, you could also have the Hellknights' Order of the Nail make their "triumphant" return to the screen here as Ileosa hires a contingent of them to come back in and do what they do best - crushing rioters. It could be a nice way to come full circle with the contingent of Hellknights getting crushed this time around instead of curbstomping the rioters, and depending on whether or not the PCs have had any contact with the Hellknights and how they feel about them this could be your last opportunity to have them show up in the AP. They just sort of disappear after the very start of Book One, so if the players haven't had any real contact with them since then they may have no idea who these lunatics in black demon armor are or why they are on Ileosa's side, thus making their appearance here a little random and pointless. But if the players DO know who these guys are and don't like them, giving the PCs a chance to finally kick some Hellknights around could be fun, even as just a small random squad of nobodies who show up to put down the "rioters" and immediately get curbstomped out of existence by a single Fireball.
Thank you both for the great suggestions - really appreciate the thoughtful responses! Even after uncovering the torture treatment the Grey Maidens go through under the Longacre Building, my group hasn't shown a whole lot of sympathy to them, although they did free the ones being held there. So while a contingent of Grey Maiden foot soldiers will respond to the "riot" they'll still only be basic 3rd level fighters and easily wiped out. Still, they're smart enough to split into groups so they can't all be taken out with a single fireball, and it's something else the Party has to worry about with everything else that will be going on.
The beauty of it is this will quickly escalate beyond what the Party originally anticipated. This all goes down tomorrow so I'll let you know what happens!
Well that...did not go as expected!
My group has moments of brilliance, and moments of not-so-brilliance. Despite having oodles time to prepare and ballistae on the towers of the Citadel, they didn't have much of a plan for engaging Zarmangarof once they lured him there. The dragon flies in, uses it's acid breath on the illusionary rioters, and the Party springs its ambush. Sabina summons reinforcements with her horn, but things were going pretty badly for the Party as Zarmangarof was rolling well and just mauling them.
The Party was kind of in chaos. Some of them belatedly thought about the ballistae and started loading them, even though I told them it would take 2 rounds. But right before Togomor appears, the sorcerer gets off Forcecage, which ignores spell resistance, on Zarmangarof and they use their Harrow points to make me reroll until he fails.
I had completely reworked Togomor's spells, so when he shows up and the sorcerer tries to Feeblemind him it rebounded from Spell Turning and the sorcerer failed his save. But their cleric zooms over and uses a Heal scroll to undo it. Togomor gets off Horrid Wilting but almost all of them save and the damage roll is pretty low. The sorcerer uses a quickened magic missile to take out the rest of Togomor's Spell Turning, and since the sorcerer has Shield active the rebound doesn't affect him. He casts Feeblemind again and Togomor fails. They also manage to shoot him with one of the ballistae that they had finally gotten loaded.
Zarmangarof and Sabina slowly start breaking out of the Forcecage, while the Ileosa statue golem arrives and gets in some heavy damage. Their barbarian flies to Togomor and wails on him. Togomor, now stupid but very afraid, turns to flee, gets wailed on again by the attack of opportunity, but has a Contingency spell teleport him back to his study.
That is where we left off. Despite not having much of a plan other than Forcecage and nearly losing their monk in Zarmangarof's initial onslaught, they're doing fairly well. But Zarmangarof and Sabina are about to break out and are still pretty healthy, and the Ileosa golem is dealing out damage and also pretty healthy, with a second (incomplete) one about to emerge from the bay. There's a unit of Grey Maiden foot soldiers set up outside the Citadel as a blocking force, but this is way above their paygrade and most of the combat is happening up in the air.
Thanks for all the good suggestions. The open air combat is a nice change of pace and they had fun flexing some of their powers (the sorcerer is really vested in his draconic bloodline and enjoyed being able to use his Form of the Dragon II body) but they've also had some close calls. Poor Togomor, will have to find a way to rehabilitate him for round 2 in the castle.
Did you roll Togomor's will save for the Feeblemind or Sermignato's? Technically, as it would be targetting Sermignato's psyche, it should have been against his save and SR, but you can roleplay it off as they actually scrambled Togomor's mind, but now Sermignato has taken more direct control and is literally puppetting Togomor (able to use his spells etc. as Togomor learned them all while possessed by Sermignato anyway).
But yeah, sounds amazing. Now that the caster is gone, you could maybe have the Grey Maidens begin to leak into the citadel and start cutting a path to Cressida/just trying to capture the citadel so they become not necessarily a threat, but another objective the party has to manage.
Sounds like it was amazing fun either way!
We just finished up the combat, and poor Zarmangarof never made it out of the Forcecage. She nearly broke out of the first one, but the sorcerer hit her with Icy Prison and another Forcecage and I continued to roll crappy. Their cleric of Desna actually abundant stepped into the Forcecage and teleported Sabina out, only to realize that was a mistake when she dealt out some major damage, but they managed to incapacitate and capture her.
The Ileosa golems were the stars of the show. An unfinished, one-armed golem rose up out of the bay to join the first, killed their slayer and nearly killed the cocky sorcerer in dragon form who forgot about its reach. But they too eventually succumbed.
The poor Grey Maidens tried to move on the Citadel but the druid had cast Spike Growth, and as they attempted to extricate themselves the sorcerer Fireballed them. Nope, the party has no sympathy for them.
They had the option of moving on Castle Korvosa while the defenders were still surprised, but the party had to regroup and rest due to the slayer's death. So Togomor will be healed and the castle's defenders will be a little more organized.
Thanks again for all the great suggestions - much appreciated!
Sounds like a blast (especially that fireball)! Unfortunate about the Grey Maidens but not all evil is done by evil people. Good luck with the castle and then the Sunken Queen.
Zarmangarof is huge, so did they use the barred force cage to capture him?
Plus that spell uses 500gp of rubies to cast, a very cool tactic though, I also like the idea of the statues…
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My group finished CotCT a couple weekends ago. Everyone had a good time playing it. We took about 4 years to play through the whole ting, although we did take off for a year to play another adventure between Chapters 3 & 4.
My only criticism is that the plot and Ileosa's plan is a little convoluted and it takes a while for all the pieces to come together. That was exacerbated by running the campaign over several years and taking a break in the middle, so some of that criticism was a self-inflicted wound.
I had fun running it and my players had fun playing it, so good times all around. Abomination Vaults (a 1e conversion) is next!
-Skeld
Sorry for missing this. My computer destroyed itself and I just got *most* of my data recovered from the harddrives (rip a decade of Crimson Throne notes for like 10 different complete runs and many more the didnt complete).
A good thing to always keep in mind if you ever run this again is that each of the books is essentially just about Ileosa through several stages of her story.
Book 1 is all about seeding the doubt both in her ability to lead and in her care to help the Korvosan people, that will eventually come to fruition in the later books (of course this means if you break for a year, players are likely to forget these seeds with their tiny squirrel brains). The party is solving all these problems while Ileosa dawdles and even directly causes a few of them.
Book 2 is the actual plague that Ileosa created to cull her new kingdom and the revelation that she is at least knowingly behind this. Book 3 is her overt or covert retaliation to the PCs' and other NPCs' revelation and their resulting flight from the city.
Book 4 and Book 5 are all about questing to eventually get the power needed to stop Ileosa, all while being harried by her minions, and then by the minions of those who's power Ileosa now wields (or is wielded by). Then finally, book 6 is all about confronting Ileosa, the discovery of her plan to immortalize her beauty (this is probably something that should be played up much earlier, that Ileosa *is* beautiful, uses it actively as a weapon such as when she seduced Eodred, and becomes obsessed with it), and then stopping that plan.
Good luck with the vaults!
So my group is finally in the castle, working their way from top to bottom, bypassing an enhanced encounter with the False Ileosa in the throne room. One way or the other, they're likely to end up in the dungeon next session, and I'm a little concerned about the potential encounter with the shining children. Even if they can each use their blinding light aura once (since a successful save makes you immune to a particular aura) I can imagine a good chunk of the party is going to fail at least one of those four saves! (Not to mention the Hold Person trap that initiates the encounter). And, finally, is the 2d6 Burning Touch damage cumulative per hit?
Almost seems more deadly than the Zev Ravenka encounter if they don't get some sort of energy protection up!
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So my group is finally in the castle, working their way from top to bottom, bypassing an enhanced encounter with the False Ileosa in the throne room. One way or the other, they're likely to end up in the dungeon next session, and I'm a little concerned about the potential encounter with the shining children. Even if they can each use their blinding light aura once (since a successful save makes you immune to a particular aura) I can imagine a good chunk of the party is going to fail at least one of those four saves! (Not to mention the Hold Person trap that initiates the encounter). And, finally, is the 2d6 Burning Touch damage cumulative per hit?
Almost seems more deadly than the Zev Ravenka encounter if they don't get some sort of energy protection up!
Cut a shining child from the encounter. Or however many you deem appropriate. You don't even have to make the decision until they enter the area. I know the 4 shining children wrekt my party, but I wanted to wreck them a little. It's good for keeping the players humble. ;)
-Skeld
Honestly, the party should have access to major curatives and the cleric or similar role should have high enough fort saves by now that he can just pass the DC 25 on a 5 or higher. If the party is carrying Laori around (they might not be based on what you said before) she should have the darkness spell necessary to extinguish the burning, but assuming at least one offensive character is unharmed, shining children are really fragile for a 15/16th level party.
2d6 damage (10d6 but over 5 turns, but also extremely dubious it is intended to stack per touch both by its descriptive text and the actual way the rule is written) is really not much for a party at this level either.
And, if your scout/trapfinder has darkvision, the trap is completely avoidable as they wont be holding a torch or similar when they enter the room, completely bypassing the trap until they fully disable it.
Just finished a great session that culminated with the Harrow Deck of Many Things. One of them drew the Tyrant, which will no doubt be used against Ileosa. One question about how it works. The description reads:
"The character gains the one-time ability to issue a single command to any creature in the multiverse and have the order obeyed. The target is affected as if by the spell dominate monster, and even orders for the target to kill itself are followed."
Does this mean that the targeted creature gets a Will saving throw as per Dominate Monster/Person? That seems to contradict the previous sentence about issuing a command "...and have the order obeyed." Which takes precedence?
Thanks!
Just finished a great session that culminated with the Harrow Deck of Many Things. One of them drew the Tyrant, which will no doubt be used against Ileosa. One question about how it works. The description reads:
"The character gains the one-time ability to issue a single command to any creature in the multiverse and have the order obeyed. The target is affected as if by the spell dominate monster, and even orders for the target to kill itself are followed."
Does this mean that the targeted creature gets a Will saving throw as per Dominate Monster/Person? That seems to contradict the previous sentence about issuing a command "...and have the order obeyed." Which takes precedence?
Thanks!
That's not what it does in the campaign though... Look at page 429 of the collected edition; Crimson Throne has campaign specific results for some of the cards:
But, if you're running it as the regular Harrow Deck of Many Things then, yeah, I wouldn't allow a save and the target does as described, otherwise the PC took a big enough risk for likely no pay-off and will probably be incredibly disappointing to the group.
Thanks for the heads up, I totally missed that. I've been using the online campaign on Fantasy Grounds, which is great for running the combats, but I often forget to go check the appendices for more background info.
They can still reinterpret the results based on the specific request. The original solution to "kill yourself Ileosa" was to just have her kill one of her six simulacrums. She also still has regeneration 20, so even if the party notices the simulacrums and has her hits herself with a death effect, or just Coup De Grace's the real herself, she's just start regenerating from -Con. I've actually had a party both fail the wisdom check to remember her surviving a lethal bolt to the head from Endrin between book 2 and 3, and they tried to scry and fry her to death immediately with that card. They at least got to see her survive instead of assuming it worked and just leaving all the simulacrums, devils, and everything else to their own devices.
And even still, should all else fail, when Ileosa dies, she just turns into Kazavon, so if they do nothing, Korvosa should still be attacked eventually by a fully restored Kazavon.
Okey dokey, so my crew is ok with retconning the Harrow Deck effects to what's recommended in the appendix. They had some very lucky draws and have nothing to complain about.
They are heading into the final encounter. Does anybody have any tips or recommendations to make the encounter more interesting?
Here's the current situation. I have the Everdawn Pool located directly beneath the Korvosa Dungeon, as the Sunken Queen just didn't resonate with me. I found a new map to use that's much more spread out and interesting, with several blood pools conveniently linked to the skeleton of dragon. I'm planning to use the sorcerer version of Ileosa, without Timestop and Wish. In order to have several waves of combat, in addition to Ileosa, the false Ileosas, an Erinyes, and the taniniver, I'm going to have Togomor, a warpriest of Asmodeus (the church is one of her allies in my campaign as they stand to gain from her infernal contract), and some Nessian hell hounds teleport in to help her. It sounds like a lot, but I have 7 PCs, and with the action economy problem challenging them is well, a challenge! Oh, and since one of the PCs drew the Betrayal card, I will most likely have Vencarlo (the NPC most closely tied to her) swing in and backstab them.
After they defeat Ileosa, I will have Kazavon awaken, with his hit points tied to the number of rounds it takes them to defeat her.
So any additional wrinkles, effects, or ideas to make this truly epic? We have been playing this for 5 years (play was very sporadic while they were away at college) so this is a huge deal for us.
Thanks for all the help along the way!
I get how you don’t feel the sunken queen. Are you going to run the encounters from the sunken queen in the castle instead? How about a little grind down in the basement of castle korvosa and then a gate or teleport circle out to the sunken queen?
As for the encounters illeosa has the same weakness, anti magic field. One spell makes her completely useless. I would think of contingency’s for that. My group of four always keeps an AMF in their back pocket
I read on here before about a large golem that illeosa had “made” from another persons campaign that I always liked the sound of as well! Who does not love a golem or two
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It just feels extremely disjointed to me to battle through Castle Korvosa only to take another journey out to some remote location for the finale. Korvosa's fate hangs in the balance, so having it resolved elsewhere just doesn't feel right. And there's nothing really special about the Sunken Queen - no puzzles or traps, just several pretty meaningless encounters.
And don't get me started on the final room! The culmination to the entire AP is a 30 x 30 featureless room with a pool of blood? No room to maneuver, columns or ledges to hide behind, etc. It was just a disappointing final setting for me. I'm using the Save vs. Cave Bloodshrine.
Also, in my campaign, Ileosa has started the ritual and citizens are randomly dropping dead one per minute, leaving desiccated corpses drained of all blood, as she claims another soul, so there's an element of urgency. And when all is said and done they can (hopefully) emerge triumphant from the castle to the newly liberated city!
The Havero is a CR 24 with constant regeneration and damage resistance better than Ileosa herself. It could be its own final, optional boss fight to go back to the Acropolis, wake it up, and make the site safe for future Desnans.
Back to the normal final boss: What did you do with the simulacrums? Are they now weaker sorceress versions of Ileosa, because if so, that could just become a DPS cluster f~*! for the party when 6 cone of colds (or any other 5th level AOE), the taniniver breath, and actual Ileosa's own spells all come crashing in on the party pretty much every round. The other problem is that now only the Taniniver can act as a real stop gap from melee party members from stopping the Iloesa(s) from acting, where as before the Ileosa herself was very formidable in combat. The other simulacrums before, especially if you keep them as bards, and maybe her sorceress powers came from Kazavon's crown, can act as wells for buffs for Ileosa and her allies, and debuffs against the party. Also why only one Erinyes, where is the immortal ichor and Ithier, all of which are meant to join Ileosa if the party bypassed/missed/ignored them?
While I don't on its face really disagree with your plans, it seems completely different from the normal plan to the point that the Erinyes and Taniniver are the only things that I know the stats of to even make recommendations off of.
The Havero would have been great but they already encountered it, and I used Ileosa golems (her statues) during their battle against Zarmangarof. :(
So I agree that I need more Erinyes. In addition to them and the Taniniver, there's a 16th level warpriest and 3 Nessian hell hounds for melee. Ileosa, the false Ileosas, and Togomor would be spellcasters. I'm not using the Sunken Queen at all, but the immortal ichor and ithier could be interesting additions. And of course Kazavon at the very end - so the Ileosa battle is really just a precursor to the true finale. But I'm very open to suggestions!
I still think having 7 sorcerers and Togomor could just gib the party in a turn by raw AoE damage. Lets say Ileosa just opens up with Stormbolts, then has her 6 clones hit with Controlled Fireball, and Togomor his Horrid Wilting. Lets also be conservative and only give Ileosa her 18 bard levels as sorcerer levels, the simulacrums half for 9, that's 18d8+6*(9d6)+16d6=81+6*31.5+56=326, or 163 with all saves. I don't know how tough your party is, but losing initiative could just be game over for half the party, which is more than likely if the sorcerer version of Ileosa preserved Overwhelming Presence (which is a really good forced rp moment).
If you do include Ithier/the immortal ichor, make sure they are given a chance to find/deal with them before hand, as Ithier is basically just a hidden dispel and debuff trap and reinforcements if nobody has trueseeing/see invisibility up, and the ichor is part of the soul gem trap (kinda sucks she doesn't have a good suggestion DC to command a party member to go collect the gem, since she isn't a bard anymore, but oh well).
Assuming the party does survive... The Hellhounds will just be short term hurdles, and when they are gone, the warpriest will likely crumple next without any support besides the Taniniver which might be able to actually keep its distance given the more open terrain, but that just means the warpriest is even more on an island. The Taniniver can regenerate (twice I believe) from the blood pool, which is something I honestly forget, so there is the possibility that the party can't instantly grind away the front line instantly.
Again, can't really speak much to what the sorcerer Ileosas/warpriest could really do, but best of luck!
Hmmm. You may well be right. So the solution might be to make the simulacrums something else. Perhaps some sort of regenerative, vampiric variation, something to help tie up the party along while Ileosa and Togomor work from a distance, and the Erinyes swoop down on spellcasters to disrupt them. I opted for the sorcerer version of Ileosa as in 25+ years I've never played a bard or had a bard in a party - this doesn't seem like the time to experiment!
Thanks for the feedback!
Bards actually play pretty much like fighter/sorcerer gestalts at this level. You have control spells, but will all your buffs up, you can outpace a fighter. If anything, I would just keep the false ileosa's the bards and just have them performing for buffs and casting the occasional disrutpion spell. Even if they cycle in for inspire greatness on a single target, they give that character a refreshing 11+2*their Con mod temporary hp per round with their move action (which for the Ileosa is a friggen lot), but they can also dirge of doom so shaken the party, or just cycle fascinate attempts to pull someone out of the fight until someone else frees them. The "fight your way past the Taniniver and real Ileosa to kill her buffing clones" to me seems really iconic.
One question about the taniniver. Does the saving throw against the breath weapon negate both the strength drain and the disease, or just the disease? It seems really underwhelming if a single save counters all the effects.
Poor taniniver. Finale Part 1 went pretty well for the party, except for the druid who found her wolf companion dominated and herself down to 7 hp. The taniniver found itself matched up against their barbarian who used Come and Get Me to counter its full attack with 3 criticals, and that was before getting at least 1 more crit when she full attacked on her turn. She was rolling really well. Unlike the druid.
Overall, they've taken very little damage, as they have Protection from Energy, Communal, against both electricity and fire. That will get whittled down before the battle with Kazavon but in the interim all that feared AoE damage is doing very little. Other than Ileosa dominating the wolf companion and Togomor hitting the druid with polar ray and cloudkill, they've pretty much had their way so far.
Might be a while until Part 2 due to scheduling issues but they're having fun "flexing".
You technically are supposed to roll 2 checks, one for the drain directly on the breath and one for the disease rider, but you could just decide to make it one.
And nice, the 1 and 6 halves sorcerers could definitely dunk on the party if they came unprepared, but if they don't both collective botch (with 7 players?) initiative and come in naked as far as buffs go, they have themselves at least a couple rounds of cushion which can be refreshed if their cleric is even more well prepared.
I might just be dumb, but I have a map question:
Area A13 of Castle Korvosa has a hallway that leads west to....nothing? Does it connect to area A12? Or does it connect to one of the towers?
If you look at the map and side profile on page 349, it's essentially one of the secondary entrances that is currently not in use. A13 was the chapel to the now dead god Aroden, so obviously no one comes for service anymore. Ileosa even made it extra defunct at the start of her reign, so while I would say its a possible entrance, no one outside the castle probably knows about it or its layout or connection to other parts of the castle. But if your party chooses not to take the main stairs, but a set of side stairs, I'd put them here, probably as well as have the castle guard have a chance to spot them (assuming they don't hide themselves at all).
Out of curiosity, did anyone who converted Ileosa from Bard to Sorcerer try it with the Maestro bloodline (UM)?
It seems like a possible compromise between the Bard and Sorcerer classes.
Is there anywhere in the module that discusses the fact that Illeosa has to perform the ritual for multiple days? I’ve been looking through it but have not seen anything of note. My group is currently fighting her and it is not going well due to how drained they were fighting the Scarlett walker and immortal ichor. The slayer with serienthial grabbed the gem and and was trapped inside it so when the group finally made it to the ichor and smashed the gem the slayer appeared with none of his gear on in the end battle which as you may know was not in his favour for sure.
Yep, on page 388 of the hardcover.
Sorry, I meant that the group would know she has to perform the ritual for multiple days. I may just end up telling them.
The book found in Queen Domina's Study (they should have found it to know to go to the Sunken Queen) tells the party that she has to bathe in the blood for 100 days to do the ritual start to finish. Depending on how long your campaign went and how much you "yada yada'd" over travel time, it's assumed that she has around 10 days. The party could also reasonably guess this number, albeit with a wide margin. You might even offer them a retroactive spellcraft, Kn (arcana), or UMD roll to ascertain it from when they saw her in the blood.