I'm just about to run the arena part of the encounter with Orcus in my next game session, and I decided to add some more detail to the encounter. Here's what I came up with. Feel free to steal anything you like.
The arena battle
Orcus has the heroes escorted into the arena by a pair of balors. The chosen champion is met by a hulking Nalfeshnee who leads him down into the lower section of the arena, where he will prepare to enter battle.
The heroes are led up to Orcus’ private booth where the Balor assume guard positions.
The back of the booth has seating area for guests of Orcus. Currently seated in the back booth are a dozen scantily clad female vampires. They are quite ravenous, and start seething as soon as the heroes arrive and take their seats. A couple of them surge forward, but a whip from one of the Balors staves them off, and the Balors howl with laughter.
Currently in the ring are a couple of major fights. One is Glabrezu doing battle with a horde of ghast gladiators. The second is a marilith fighting six skeletal wyverns.
The party is urged by the Balors to take seats on either side of Orcus’s throne. For several minutes they watch the spectacle, and the arena seems to be quickly filling up with more and more spectators. Finally, after a series of battles have taken place and the arena is full. Then several strange sounding trumpets echo and Orcus appears above the center of the arena. There is much applause. He flies down to the arena floor where he proceeds to battle and promptly destroy three hulking ape like creatures. After finishing the fight he teleports to his throne. The Balors and vampires bow deeply as he appears.
What do the characters do?
If the characters don’t bow he will likely be offended and crush the party.
He then takes his seat, asks them what they think of his arena.
Again if they aren’t properly fauning he may get angry and crush the party.
He proceeds to inform them that he grows bored easily, and that their champion better make sure that the fight keeps him entertained.
The PCs champion can then be brought out onto the field. There will be much booing from the crowd. Next more fanfare ensues and Orcus’ champions enter to great applause.
The fight then may begin.
Next Orcus starts telekinetically raising larva out of a pit in front of his throne. He tears into one, but demands that the heroes try them as well. He will also want to have those sitting with him contribute some of their own blood to bowls, which he will drink from.
If characters refuse to either eat the larvae or drink the blood, he gets very angry.
“WHAT? I offer you my hospitality and this his how you treat me.”
He then leaps to his feet and thumps the offending character with his wand, beating the PC to a bloody pulp. If the other heroes don’t help he is happy to continue watching the fight. If they do get involved then he kicks the s@!% out of the party.
Characters who do eat the larvae will risk contracting a disease, but will also risk immediate nausea, and be required to make a DC 25 Fort save to avoid vomiting.
Orcus will howl with laughter at anyone who barfs up their meal
Robed Bodaks will come around with ceremonial bowls and knives for PCs to cut their wrists and contribute blood to the bowls. These will then be served to Orcus by the bodaks. When they draw their blood the vampire women go mad with hunger, and they will surge forward. The Balors will crack their whips, but one or two of the vampire women will leap out of their box and attack a character. Orcus will either be amused or annoyed depending on how much he is enjoying the fight. If the fight is entertaining he will be annoyed and shout “SILENCE!” If the fight isn’t going so well he will instead just laugh and see what the character’s do. If he is annoyed and the PCs can’t deal with the vampire woman in a round Orcus may step in and slaughter the PC and the vampire woman.
Finally, if the battle isn’t proving entertaining enough Orcus will start to tap his fingers on his throne, and twitch.
He will then below out “I AM NOT ENTERTAINED!!!”
If he gets too bored he may grab another character and fly that character out over the battlefield and drop him into the fight. At which point a hulking Nalfeshnee Gladiator will be brought in to beat on the new gladiator.
Should he still not feel entertained he may just enter the fight himself and starting laying out heroes.
.
The spell avoid planar effects (1 min per level) and planar bubble (10 min per level) from the spell compendium could help with this. You might also rule that Orcus could suppress the negative energy effects in the vacinity of the characters to make it more hospitable for them.
My characters have plenty of magic (pretty much every party member is a spell caster). So if they start to suffer they can likely recast any spell they need to before they get into huge trouble.
Nice collection of ideas. I think I'll use some (as the adventure doesn't provide much detail here). I also plan on adding a few more roman arena details, and maybe some blood-bowl style cheerleaders.
One question though is how are players expected to avoid the 1d6 points of damage per round for being on a minor negative-dominant plane? Death-ward isn't likely to last more than 20 minutes or so, and the core rules don't seem to have another suitable method.
I'm skeptical about any encounter which pits the PCs against annoyingly powerful enemies that they aren't supposed to defeat. I would not suggest doing those things with Orcus.
Well the PCs can avoid having to fight him if they play smart and go along with his fiendish whims, and even if he kicks the crap out of a character the heroes have the magical capacity to bring the PC back if they want to. In my game they aren't penalized as heavyily for death, in that they only go back to the beginning of their current level in xp, so they don't lose a level. However they do lose one point off a random ability score, which can sting.
My opinion is that this is getting near the end of the campaign, and should be some of the most challenging gaming they have to do both in terms of role playing and combat. I don't feel that negotiating an alliance with a demon prince should be easy.
However, I do intend to play it by ear, and if it doesn't look like the players are having fun, I'll tone things back.
I'm skeptical about any encounter which pits the PCs against annoyingly powerful enemies that they aren't supposed to defeat. I would not suggest doing those things with Orcus.
Just echoing Delfedd.
I love the idea of favour being added to this section- in fact I intend to steal/modifiy some of your ideas for my own campaign.
However as presented it seems to be "Punishment" or "Punishment for no reason." Not sure what to think of that... it is Orcus.
If the characters don’t bow he will likely be offended and crush the party.
Again if they aren’t properly fauning he may get angry and crush the party.
He proceeds to inform them that he grows bored easily, and that their champion better make sure that the fight keeps him entertained.
He will also want to have those sitting with him contribute some of their own blood to bowls, which he will drink from. If characters refuse to either eat the larvae or drink the blood, he gets very angry.
If he gets too bored he may grab another character and fly that character out over the battlefield and drop him into the fight. At which point a hulking Nalfeshnee Gladiator will be brought in to beat on the new gladiator.
Should he still not feel entertained he may just enter the fight himself and starting laying out heroes.
Do you use Diplomacy and similar skills in your games?