I'm gonna go ahead and have my PCs fight the dragon turtle. I'd like to also develop his lair - I'm thinking a sunken temple that Emraag has claimed over the years. What are some cool monsters that you would use to populate the place? After killing Emraag I don't want to make his lair a death-trap per se, just something exciting and weird.
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I'm gonna go ahead and have my PCs fight the dragon turtle. I'd like to also develop his lair - I'm thinking a sunken temple that Emraag has claimed over the years. What are some cool monsters that you would use to populate the place? After killing Emraag I don't want to make his lair a death-trap per se, just something exciting and weird.
Well, I would imagine that his lair would be inhabited by two groups - scavengers that feed off of his leavings, and servants. With that idea in mind, intelligent scavengers like lacedons could work well. Of course, large eels, monstrous crabs, swarms of smaller crabs or barracuda would all be appropriate.
On the servant side, I could see a covey of sea hags being a nice challenge that would have provided Emraag some benefits. Some form of aquatic mephits (perhaps tied to the temple story?) could also be very annoying in this environment. Oozes also could be deadly and surprising, but you'd need to look up one that would be essentially transparent to evoke the proper fear.
I'd stay away from Sahuagin and similar servitors, as they'd probably be expected.
I hope this helps,
The 'Ling
If you have access to Stormwrack, you could also throw your PCs a loop by applying the amphibious template from that book to some of the Isle's native fauna. They could be experiments created by the sea hag covey, or by Emraag himself if you wanted to.
An amphibious T-Rex or a pack of amphibious Velociraptors could really freak the party out.... >)
Your Friendly Neighborhood Dalesman
"Bringing Big D**n Justice to the Bad Guys Since 1369 DR"
I was thinking of having a tribe of tasloi weresharks. So maybe that, some nasty aquatic animal baddies like giant eels, and the sea hags...I think that could be cool.
I'm gonna go ahead and have my PCs fight the dragon turtle. I'd like to also develop his lair - I'm thinking a sunken temple that Emraag has claimed over the years. What are some cool monsters that you would use to populate the place? After killing Emraag I don't want to make his lair a death-trap per se, just something exciting and weird.
I used the Temple idea for Emraag's lair, with no internal area, just an open structure encroached upon by coral. In the outer region of the lair, Emraag is served by a merfolk Wereshark (an outcast from people) in league with Dire sharks. They patrolled the area hunting for food and intruders.
The coral around the temple was inhabited by Coral Golems, also found in Stormwrack. They were a nice surprise at my table.
Cheers!
I'm gonna go ahead and have my PCs fight the dragon turtle. I'd like to also develop his lair - I'm thinking a sunken temple that Emraag has claimed over the years. What are some cool monsters that you would use to populate the place? After killing Emraag I don't want to make his lair a death-trap per se, just something exciting and weird.I used the Temple idea for Emraag's lair, with no internal area, just an open structure encroached upon by coral. In the outer region of the lair, Emraag is served by a merfolk Wereshark (an outcast from people) in league with Dire sharks. They patrolled the area hunting for food and intruders.
The coral around the temple was inhabited by Coral Golems, also found in Stormwrack. They were a nice surprise at my table.
Cheers!
You know what, I may kick it old school and use the coral city in the old module The War Rafts of Kron for the temple. Coral golems are definitely a great idea.
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You know what, I may kick it old school and use the coral city in the old module The War Rafts of Kron for the temple. Coral golems are definitely a great idea.
War Rafts of Kron! I haven't thought about that one in a long time. Gotta go dig it off the shelf and give it a read :)
Oh and if you use the sea hags, don't forget the extra spell powers that a covey of three get. That could prove quite a nasty surprise!
The dragon-turtle's lair could be on the beach too. Might be intersting for a handful of smaller turtles (large size?) that recently hatched as his offspring. One of the creature catalogues (near the end of the AoW) had a snapper turtle in it. Throw in a couple kopru skeletons just for foreshadowing or even use them as servants, (personally I would skip the servants).
You know what, I may kick it old school and use the coral city in the old module The War Rafts of Kron for the temple. Coral golems are definitely a great idea.
War Rafts of Kron! I haven't thought about that one in a long time. Gotta go dig it off the shelf and give it a read :)
Oh and if you use the sea hags, don't forget the extra spell powers that a covey of three get. That could prove quite a nasty surprise!
Sweet.
Yeah, I love a lot of the classic modules. I've been toying around with using the "sunken city" in Quagmire! as Emraag's lair, but I think designing it for this use may be a pain in the butt. I also think I want something a bit more wide-open.
(For those who never read Quagmire!, it's a great module in which the PCs find a message in a bottle from the king of the city Quagmire. He begs for help, as lizardmen have blockaded his city - which also happens to be slowly sinking into the sea. As the PCs muck about on a jungle isthmus they discover that there are three identical cities, each one shaped like a huge spiral shell. Quagmire is half-drowned, and one of its sisters has completely sunk beneath the waves; the PCs can explore it or not completely as their option.)
What are some cool monsters that you would use to populate the place?I used a fairly simple underwater cave filled with treasure, coral, and some harmless sealife.
Since Emraag had a nice collection of statues, I included a bronze-coated, aesthetically pleasing iron golem that stood guard amongst his other treasures. Be sure to include spiked gauntlets or a trident or somesuch, as its standard slam attacks do 1/2 damage underwater.
I also included a huge (14 HD) octopus (Emraag's pet).
I think I want to design something more exotic and fun, because I feel like the events leading up to the meeting with Emraag are pretty boring.
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Ixixtachitls!
I don't have anything more helpful to say than that (unless it's "vampiric ixixtachitls") but I think they should definitely be there.
A) they're awesome
B) they're traditional worshippers of Big D, so they can foreshadow
C) the backstory of the Isle has them as enemies of the kopru, so if the ones in the lair are representatives of a larger group - perhaps allied with Emraag to try to retake the Isle's subterranean waters - the PCs could wind up negotiating with them to strike against the kopru or aboleths down the road.
My PC's slaughtered Emraag last Sunday and braved his lair. Here's what I did:
I had Lavinia entreat the party to bribe the beast with the wealth she produces. But after the meeting, the party's wizard was approached by a hideously maimed darfallen leviathan hunter named Naikilu. The darfallen explained that several tribes of his people once lived in Maika'i-Ko'a, a huge city made from shaped coral deep beneath the waves of Gallant Cove. However, many years ago, a younger and bolder Emraag and several "followers" raided the city and routed the darfallen. This scattered the tribes, and many decided to never return to Maika'i-Ko'a.
However, decades later, Naikilu's father led his tribe back to the city to try and retake Maika'i-Ko'a. They failed, and Naikilu lost his left arm in the process. His tribe abandoned the idea of returning to Maika'i-Ko'a - but Naikilu, his heart burning with revenge, stayed behind.
So, how I ran it is that Naikilu had the sea skirl, and a small crew of hadozee henchmen in five war canoes. Naikilu convinced the PCs that Emraag could be slain if they took him by surprise, which they could do by spreading out in a circle in the war canoes. And Naikilu promised the PCs that if they killed Emraag, they could descend to Maika'i-Ko'a and take whatever treasure they found. Naikilu simply wanted the dragon turtle dead, and the chance to reclaim Maika'i-Ko'a later.
The PCs fragged Emraag in two rounds. They buffed and summoned like crazy. They blew the sea skirl and summoned him to the surface. While everyone else hid behind spells, the wizard negotiated with Emraag and actually got him to agree to take the bribe. And then everyone struck him from behind. He got a chance to pop off his breath weapon, and that was it.
His lair was a different story. I designed it so that Maika'i-Ko'a was a half-destroyed place, mostly empty yet still filled with deadly traps. I had the PCs fight dire sharks and two echinoloth "guardians" before they found their way down to where Emraag had his yugoloth pets store his hoard. The final guardian was a Caller Of the Deeps, who actually killed two of the PCs before they could take it down.
Very memorable session - I'm definitely glad I tinkered with the AP to add this option.
I'm thinking of adding an entire sidetrack here in that Emraag lives in a NOT so abandoned underwater city, where he has maybe subjegated a race of Merfolk or aquatic elves and has an entire force of Sahaugin (sp?) who serve him and maybe a Baron that acts as his general, and then the Coral golem. leading the pcs to basically free this civilization and kill the baron and golem BEFORE taking on Emraag, giving them some much needed xp and treasure to be reqady for him.
Then again I've also tinkered with the idea that he's actually the pet of something (Maybe a Lich?) and that opens up all kinds of nastiness.