So I'm looking for some advice on the the thawn. I thought they were cool enough to warrant adding to the random encounter list, and the party of course happened across one. I played it up as a faerie trick, at first, since Perlavish and Tig-Tittier-Tut are still pranking the PCs, but it ended up taking a sinister turn and them chasing the thawn through the forest (and through a bunch of traps it had set up beforehand). The random encounter was memorable enough, and the thawn got away, so I decided to have it start stalking the party. It's become obsessed with the party's cleric, loving and hating her for her beauty, and it's now following them, and messing with them. The party woke up last night to find small hides and feather littered all over their camp, and the ranger one of her own arrows (the one she shot the thawn with earlier) shoved into the dirt next to her. The cleric had had her backpack dumped out, but it didn't appear to be empty. When she opened it, she found it had been stuffed full of freshly skinned squirrels and birds, their heads twisted around. Needless to say, the party was pretty creeped out by this, and are joking about burning down the forest to deal with whatever is stalking them. Maybe I took it a bit too far, but I want your help in taking it further.
First of all, am I using the thawn correctly? Secondly, I'd like your input on this dilemma. I really like the idea of having the party's cleric wake up next time they camp in the wilderness to find the thawn hunched over her, stroking a cheek with her claw, but it might scar the actual player, and then they'll kill it, and the thawn is done. I was thinking of having it continue to stalk them, playing more creepy pranks, and leave it as a loose end that continues to harass their kingdom over the years until they manage to hunt it down. Thoughts or suggestions?
You'll get more mileage out of your besotted thawn if you don't put her in a situation where she's liable to get killed (ie. caught invading the camp). It's also bad form to traumatize players (as opposed to characters), so even if that level of stalking seems appropriate for the thawn, it's probably inappropriate for your game.
Perhaps she could escalate to larger kills -- eg. wolf, bear, or thylacine? She could also attach semi-literate love notes to the bodies, which could provide the PC with some creepy handouts. Ultimately, I could see her disguising herself to enter the PCs' city, then maybe getting spotted by horrified townsfolk and chased with torches and pitchforks into a church or a burning windmill...? Wait, I'm getting deja vu...
As an aside, do your PCs not set up watches while they camp? I would think that by now they'd definitely want someone awake at all times!
They do not set watches. This is a way to harass them without simply having something coup de grace them in their sleep.
I think that sounds like a wonderfully appropriate way of using such a wicked creature as the Thawn.
They confuse me though, the sidebar from Ed Greenwood seems to imply that they are actually somewhat sneaky and tricky. Yet they have low intelligence, bad stealth checks and no supernatural ability to help them stalk/trick/deceive.
Am I missing something here?
I don't think so... I've bumped up their racial bonus to stealth checks, which really doesn't affect their CR in any significant way, and reallocated some skill points to make him craftier. I think I'm going to start giving him levels in rogue or ranger as well. He's enough fun that I'm pretty sure he'll become a recurring creature. I think I'll have Perlavish and Tig-Titter-Tut leave a little poem of warning for the party. What do you think of "Jokes are great fun but watch out for Ol' Muddy. You've drawn his attention, and his pranks are bloody?"
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First thing, great use of a low level creepy monster with no hard rules to back up its wickedness. DMing at its finest.
If you'd like to use it further during the campaign (which is a great idea: not only the legend of the PCs is growing, but also the shadow of their enemies), I'd suggest to avoid any direct showdown - or at least any definitive one - but rather use the developing thawn (rogue and ranger levels, maybe even an ineffective witch for a completely different ballpark) as an harasser during their movements and as a bogeyman for the fringe settlements of their kingdom.
Whenever they're in the wilderness, bad things happen to the creatures and the land surrounding them; if they stay for too long distant from a border hex with people living in (farms, watchtowers), creepy and bloody messages summon them... and so on.
If the PCs don't pay attention, the creepy messages transform into bloody attacks meant to punish them for their indifference. So, they have no easy rest during adventuring downtime, or the kingdom's Unrest (no pun intended) may grow suddenly.
The thawn could even develop unwillingly a cult following of sorts from displaced humanoids defeated by the PCs during their colonization of the Green Belt (a very long-term effect). A motley crew of vengeful monsters idolizing the mostly indifferent shadowy nemesis of the rulers of the land.
You could even work further some future connection with the main BBEG of the campaign, whose interest is piqued after a number of unsettling effects that the thawn manages to impart on the PCs.
Well, unfortunately, our game this morning saw the end of the Thawn. They started actively hunting it down after they noticed it had tried to sabotage a vital bridge, and their survival checks were just too high for me to work around. I went ahead and used the encounter in which a player wakes to find the thawn standing over them, and it had the desired effect. They're also setting watches now. Sad to see it come to an end, but since thawn might be distantly related to ogres (and since my PCs don't have the guide, and don't know how much thawns hate one another), maybe they have a similar form of social organization? I think that in the next adventure, I might rip out one of the kingdom problems, maybe the werewolf attacks, and replace it with an infestation of a vengeful thawn family. Similar tricks to the first one, but now they're organized. Maybe a few of their early settlements start disappearing, which will add a little bit of deception when they reach Varnhold Vanishings, since the party will assume it's thawns yet again!