Just wondering how other DMs ran the whole exploration of Golismorga part of The Lightless Depths.
My players will arrive at the start of the next session, and I was thinking of putting the map of the cavern (maybe with a fog-of-war to limit vision) up on a TV screen, and then answering any questions they had based on search checks to determine how well the PCs examine the landscape. But it seems the ziggurat and the crater will be readily apparent from a position 70 ft up where the party enters the cavern...
I want to have some exploration and investigation aspects to this, but not sure how best to handle this - and I dont want it to turn into a bland "You're wondering around an alien landscape and *blam* hey, there's a stone building that looks out of place over there. oh, and it's covered in kopru...."
My group have just (this week) hit Golismorga, I ran the discovery of noteable areas pretty much as follows :
- Firstly, most noticable were the pillars. The party investigated the nearest one, determined that they should be left alone and turned their attention elsewhere
- The group then attempted to scout the city from the vantage point of the entrance, this didn't go anywhere, as everything in the city was fairly unique
- The next plan was for the party rogue to scout with invisibility and fly spells. This was quick (due to the short spell duration) but the rogue has very high perception, so he picked out the other entrances, the chasms, the crater, the ziggurat and a large maw like dome in the centre of the city (this I added as my party will only go to ground when they absolutely have to, so them investigating this would be the only way for them to encounter anything wandering the city)
- They wanted to check the ziggurat, the crater and the dome more in depth, so another run there allowed the rogue to notice the inconsistent ceiling above the crater and ziggurat. This led him to investigate the crater more, where he spotted the Brain Collector and Tlaloc's Tear
That's where we left it. My group will attempt surgical strikes on various locations over the next few sessions... I'm ready to flood them with Kopru :)
This was actually the last place my group got to before our old ST game fell apart.
I described the undercity as alive. The walls were as much flesh and scale as stone. There were eyes, mouths, nostrils, and other organs of dubious nature everywhere. Parts of the walls and floor were covered in cilia or hair. Things moved that shouldn't move. Everything seemed to be watching them.
As far as what they could see, from a distance I didn't let them notice differences to that degree. The ziggurat was just another freaky building among many others when they first arrived, nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the overgrown city to the untrained eye - if they don't know what they're looking for, nothing is going to jump out at their attention. My group didn't bother with aerial scouting or anything so that wasn't an issue for me.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's dark, but there are enough eldritch lights and strangely glowing whatsits that they could reasonably see most of the city. I'd just print out the map and show it to them.
Other than that, play up the bizarre descriptions. They should feel really, really uncomfortable in Golismorga, as if the city itself is just not compatible with humanoid life.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My GM ran the city as warping all sense of space and time. Truly alien and almost impossible to navigate by conventional means. The party spent a fair amount of time trying to get from place to place. Sometimes something far away seemed very close, while other times things quite close seemed to be miles away. It was creepy as hell.
We also had weird effects in the underground that screwed with long range teleport spells - once we went down, we were committed. We didn't learn that though until much too late, when we were far underground and woefully unprepared for what we found. It got worse when our cleric bit the dust and we had no food or water.
My GM ran the city as warping all sense of space and time.
I may do something similar but with the proximity to the ground. From the air, the city only looks about a mile across, but on the ground it's almost infinite.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Golismorga Theme 1*
Golismorga Theme 2
Golismorga Theme 3
Blood Queen Statue
Depths of Orv
Living Walls
Strange Beings
Lightless Depths Theme 1*
Lightless Depths Theme 2*
Lightless Depths Theme 3
Lightless Depths Theme 4
Brain Collector Scion
Brain Collector Scion 2
Tear's Destruction
Boogabear's Last Stand
*Favorite piece for those without time to check them all out.
I described the air above the city as crawling with beholders, brain collectors and other dangerous airborne denizens. I designed shabboths to act similarly to the symbiote from Spider-man, placed the final ziggurat as an actual slumbering/imprisoned giant shoggoth (naturally it woke up, causing a chase scene where they had to escape...Boogabar's last stand mentioned above bought them some time), utilized colossal animated objects to represent 'living' buildings that came to life and attacked them, and turned the random encounter with Rakis-ka into something with a little more flavor and meat.
All in all, a pretty good chunk of the campaign.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I actually added some houses which were really alive, in the form of gargantuan and colossal mimics. These and the pillars freaked my players out.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Thanks for all the pointers guys
Kain - those songs are really atmospheric. Never used music in a session before but tempted now...
Running this on Sunday, so we'll see how things go!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I actually added some houses which were really alive, in the form of gargantuan and colossal mimics. These and the pillars freaked my players out.
Awesome! I should have totally used that instead of the animated objects.
Awesome music choices. Lots of familiar tunes in there =D
Saving all of those when I get home.
and turned the random encounter with Rakis-ka into something with a little more flavor and meat.
Do elaborate? =D Rakis-Ka was fun my first time through, being the erudite evildoer and all, but he went down like a chump when the party actually did fight him, since he was alone. (Though he managed to confuse the Crusader, which did buy him some time.) Definitely would be in favor of giving him more oomph, both RP-wise and combat-wise.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I gave Rakis-Ka a vampire minion Kelmon, who was the party's first contact with him. Kelmon showed up during a difficult combat against the symbiote, so the team was more willing to give a stranger a chance, especially when he seemed to know how to navigate and such.
Rakis-Ka did not appear as a devourer when he showed up, either. He had a host of urdefhan with him, and appeared to be an elderly loremaster. He gave them the stereotypical 'horror feast' from Temple of Doom, and generally shared information with them. A true seeing from the party's viking revealed his true nature, which he wisely didn't share with the group, since we have the world's biggest blabbermouth bard on the team. (Case in point, immediately after making a Knowledge check to determine that Kelmon was a vampire, she asked him "So you're a vampire, huh?" despite him obviously trying to keep that secret.) Rakis-ka was looking for the proper power to become a god, and sent the party after the brain collector scion, hoping to gain access to the lingering energy.
Past connections have appeared between Rakis-Ka and other elements in the campaign. Iakhovas was released by Rakis-Ka and Kelmon, over fifty years ago, around the same time the Crimson Fleet was formed.
Rakis-ka was also the Lord of Devourers mentioned in Iomedae's Seven Deeds, so he survived apparent death at the hands of a goddess...he might be coming back. Whether the PCs look more into Rakis-Ka and history will be up to them.
I'm not sure if this was the final version of his stats, but it's what I found in my notes.
Advanced elite devourer
XP 38,400
NE Large Undead
Init[/b] +11; Senses Darkvision, Perception +23
Languages Abyssal, Celestial, Common, Infernal; telepathy 100 ft.
_____________________________________________________________
AC 40, touch 17, flat-footed 32, combat 37
(+4 armor, +7 Dex, +1 dodge, +15 natural, +4 shield*, -1 size)
hp 203 (14d8 + 140); DR 10/good
Immune undead
Defense spell deflection; SR 25
Fort +13, Ref +11, Will +15
_____________________________________________________________
Speed 30 ft.; fly 20 ft. (perfect)
Melee 2 claws +22 (1d4 + 12 and energy drain)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Base Atk +10; Combat +23
Special Actions devour soul, energy drain (1 level, DC 26)
_____________________________________________________________
Spell-like Abilities (Caster level 20th, Concentration +33) 50 points
9th – energy drain
8th – mass inflict critical wounds (DC 27)
7th – control undead (DC 26)
6th – true seeing
4th – animate dead, bestow curse (DC 23), confusion (DC 23), enervation, inflict critical wounds (DC 23) lesser planar ally
3rd – suggestion (DC 22), vampiric touch
2nd – death knell (DC 21), ghoul touch (DC 21), spectral hand
1st – mage armor, ray of enfeeblement (DC 20), shield
_____________________________________________________________
Abilities Str 34, Dex 24, Con -, Int 23, Wis 22, Cha 29
SQ contingency
Feats Ability Focus (devour soul), Combat Casting, Dodge, Improved Initiative, Quicken Spell-like Ability, Toughness, Weapon Focus (claw)
Skills Fly +13, Intimidate +26, Knowledge (arcana) +23, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +23, Knowledge (history) +23, Knowledge (planes) +23, Perception +23, Sense Motive +23, Spellcraft +23
Possessions Robe of greater disguise, expedition pavilion; Chest – cloak of comfort (x2), jungle cloak of comfort, jungle boots (x3), Pathfinder pouch, armillary amulet, dream journal of the pallid seer, Preklikin's Book of Cults, Scarab of Kheppri, grave candles (x4), salt lamp (x2), wayfinder (mossy disk – History inside)
_____________________________________________________________
Devour Soul (Su) By making a touch attack as a standard action, Rakis-Ka can deal 12d6+20 points of damage as if using a slay living spell. A DC 28 Fortitude save reduces this damage to 3d6+20. The soul of a creature slain by this attack becomes trapped within the devourer's chest. The creature cannot be brought back to life until the devourer's destruction (or a spell deflection—see below) releases its soul. A devourer can hold only one soul at a time. The trapped essence provides a devourer with 5 essence points for each Hit Die possessed by the soul. A devourer must expend essence points when it uses a spell-like ability equal to the spell's level (for sake of ease, spell levels for its spell-like abilities are included in its stats in superscript). At the start of an encounter, a devourer generally has 11 essence points available. The trapped essence gains one permanent negative level for every 5 points of essence drained—these negative levels remain if the creature is brought back to life (but they do not stack with any negative levels imparted by being brought back to life). A soul that is completely consumed may only be restored to life by a miracle or wish. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Spell Deflection (Su) If any of the following spells are cast at the devourer and overcome its spell resistance, they instead affect a devoured soul: banishment, chaos hammer, confusion, crushing despair, detect thoughts, dispel evil, dominate person, fear, geas/quest, holy word, hypnotism, imprisonment, magic jar, maze, suggestion, trap the soul, or any form of charm or compulsion. While none of these effects harms the soul, the caster makes a DC 28 caster level check when a spell is deflected—success indicates that the trapped soul is released from its prison and the creature whose body it belonged to can now be restored to life as normal.
Contingency When Rakis-Ka is reduced to 100 hp, a harm spell activates on his person, and his DR changes to 15/good and adamantine as he takes his true form.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Let me also throw out - Rakis-ka appeared at the Tear immediately after the party defeated the Brain Collector, attempting to claim its power. This forced the party into a savage combat immediately on the heels of the Brain Collector, from which we still hadn't healed up.
The party picked no fight originally with him because they needed Kelmon's ability to navigate the city safely, and they bartered with Rakis-ka (trading some knowledge) for Kelmon's service.
Also, a point of order Kain. Einar did reveal Rakis-ka's nature to Katrina, who agreed to keep it quiet after identifying what he was. Alyssa did not discover Kelmon's nature on her own - instead Katrina revealed that to the party, at which point Heinrick AND Alyssa started blabber mouthing.
Let me also throw out - Rakis-ka appeared at the Tear immediately after the party defeated the Brain Collector, attempting to claim its power. This forced the party into a savage combat immediately on the heels of the Brain Collector, from which we still hadn't healed up.
The party picked no fight originally with him because they needed Kelmon's ability to navigate the city safely, and they bartered with Rakis-ka (trading some knowledge) for Kelmon's service.
Also, a point of order Kain. Einar did reveal Rakis-ka's nature to Katrina, who agreed to keep it quiet after identifying what he was. Alyssa did not discover Kelmon's nature on her own - instead Katrina revealed that to the party, at which point Heinrick AND Alyssa started blabber mouthing.
Details that don't specifically add to the general enjoyment of the story, Pete. Details that eluded me on my lunchbreak type up of a two year old event, at that.
The real story is the improved character of Rakis-ka, from what Orthos remembers likely as a random encounter. Rakis-ka was a throwaway fight in the original adventure, and not at all such when you guys met him.
It's kind of funny that you paired him up with Urdefhan, since I'm planning my second attempt at running STAP to be a mash-up with Serpent's Skull, the latter parts of which heavily feature Urdefhan. That makes this version of him all the easier to tie into my game.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's kind of funny that you paired him up with Urdefhan, since I'm planning my second attempt at running STAP to be a mash-up with Serpent's Skull, the latter parts of which heavily feature Urdefhan. That makes this version of him all the easier to tie into my game.
That's not funny at all...I specifically utilized a bunch of the materials from Serpent's Skull to great effect during TLD. The Temple of Doom dinner was a close if not direct mirror of the Gorilla King's own. Serpent folk showed up in the depths of Golismorga as well, disenfranchised members of an ancient alliance between sea (kopru), land (serpent folk) and air (mahar). In a similar fashion, their gods (demon princes) were aligned as well, Demogorgon, Ydersius and Pazuzu. As that alliance has frayed in modern day, Demogorgon has absorbed more than his share. The serpentfolk's land portion of the triumvirate has largely been replaced by troglodytes that worship Demogorgon, and they are not happy about that.
I approve heartily. Stolen. Pazuzu will be replaced by one of my homebrew setting's deities - Irshya, Goddess of Envy and Harpies - since I use the name Pazuzu for something else there, but otherwise I think it should scan over just fine.
If you have the mahar, it certainly would. Really, any cold blooded aerial race would do.
Sounds like the power levels of your teams were a fair bit higher than my players and their PCs. They're mid-level 10, but there are 7 of them.
I'm going to play Rakis-Ka as a sage, but tall hooded cloaked figure that has used planar ally to call in a formorian taskmaster to act as his scribe. Might offer scrolls and information, but will ultimately want to track the PCs to the Tear.
As it turns out, the PCs found the aboleth out, and have decided to try and take the moral high ground - but leaving the tear intact and killing all the kopru themselves. Did anyone else's campaigns play out like that and how did it go? I'm thinking with that many dominate persons flying around, there's a strong chance of TPK or Total Party Slavery....
Sounds like the power levels of your teams were a fair bit higher than my players and their PCs. They're mid-level 10, but there are 7 of them.
I'm going to play Rakis-Ka as a sage, but tall hooded cloaked figure that has used planar ally to call in a formorian taskmaster to act as his scribe. Might offer scrolls and information, but will ultimately want to track the PCs to the Tear.
As it turns out, the PCs found the aboleth out, and have decided to try and take the moral high ground - but leaving the tear intact and killing all the kopru themselves. Did anyone else's campaigns play out like that and how did it go? I'm thinking with that many dominate persons flying around, there's a strong chance of TPK or Total Party Slavery....
My party either found out or nearly found out the aboleth ruse, enough that they weren't going to be tricked into destroying the Tear. I had originally envisioned an earlier oracle party member having a divine mission from Tlaloc to destroy the tear, but due to her exit from the game (to be replaced by blabbermouth bard), that was unavailable.
Instead, I played up the entire bit about the souls being trapped here in perpetuity, and being tired from their long term of service. The PCs were then doing those souls a well deserved good deed.
Yeah in my prior game the group refused to destroy the tear, having figured out that it was responsible for the current state of the aboleth and fearing their return more than the current status quo. They were planning on mass-rushing the ziggurat when the campaign fell apart.
I'm hoping to have thought of alternate options for that section of the plot when my new game reaches that point. No rush though, I have a few years, between finishing the rest of Kingmaker and getting this far in STAP.
@Kain: What's Mahar? Not ringing any bells, and search-fu doesn't find anything D&D/PF-related.
My group was very concerned about the aboleth too, but they decided to free the souls anyways. Some of them are taking precautions about building up Farshore and the Olman Seven to one day fight a second Aboleth War. They realize it might be generations, but to prepare now means a more likely victory for the future.
The mahar are from Edgar Rice Burroughs' Pellucidar series. (Picture here)
In those books, they rule the humans, having powers of hypnosis and command of the sagoths, ape men who do their bidding.
I thought they also sounded like Sauron of the X-men. I didn't need sagoth stats, because we have girrilons which fit the bill almost to the T. But I did whip up some mahar stats, sort of a combination between the two sources. I'll PM them to you, since Pete is a player in my game and I'd hate for him to have spoilers.
Thanks muchly =)
There were a number of major factors in our decision to destroy the tear.
1. The threat of Rakis-ka seizing control of it and using it to become a god.
2. The sheer number of kopru / naga / trogs we were arrayed against.
3. The knowledge that the kopru would send out the majority of their forces to kill as many aboleths as possible.
4. Our lack of a cleric / food / resources.
This meant that leaving the tear also presented a danger, that victory without destroying the tear was going to be extremely difficult, and that the worst effects of releasing the aboleth's would be mitigated by their long slumber / ruined city / losses inflicted by the kopru.
All and all even after drawing off the majority of the kopru / naga / trogs and with serpent allies we were hard pressed to win. I'm pretty sure most of the party emerged from the Zig with single digit hit points, while none of the serpents survived. Your dice (Kain) were ridiculously hot that evening with that bloody x3 crit.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I did a few things to change the atmosphere of the game for Golismorga.
First, I bought a bunch of glowing ice cubes, which come in a variety of colours. I told my players that I would be providing the drinks - ice cold water. I turned off the lights, took away all of their sheets, lap-tops, mobiles, etc. All they had were their dice and a glass of cold water. I put the glowing ice cubes (neon lights) into their glasses and I put a fair number of them around the room as well. This gave enough illumination just to see each other's face and their die rolls.
I was the only one with a computer so I had set the screen illumination lower so that my face was illuminated as well but the screen's light wasn't overwhelming everything else.
I had written out a revised description of the city, using a different font, background, and etc. I played a soundtrack that was essentially random screaming and odd shuffling noises. All of this was to create the right atmosphere.
For the game itself, I incorporated game mechanics introduced in Dragon magazine #313 and #330. Essentially, the Tear was not actually in the "real world," but lying buried in the Far Realms echo of Golismorga. Thus, the pcs had to find the doorway to the Far Realm and defeat the neh thalggu scion before they could attempt to destroy the Tear.
I also really played up how the ziggurat was alive. When the pc who was scouting out the room of where the spawn of holnasher was, I used the ghost of a dead wizard pc (whose expertise was the far realms and the elder ones) to warn them that the spawn would kill them all. That freaked him out enough to vehemently convince the others to get out of the city. Oh, and I gave all of the kopru the psionic template from the Book of Templates, so they became more dangerous to fight.
In the end, I believe my group was quite happy with the adventures in Golismorga - they vowed to return one day to eliminate the aboleths and the spawn, heh.
CB out.
My group isn't keen on destroying the tear... three of them got dominated by N'glothnoru (in this thread), and subsequently 'cured', so they've all determined that the destroying of the tear will bring all the Aboleth back (quite rightly), and they're not keen on doing that. They also seem to think that destroying the tear will flood Golismorga in about 10 minutes (I have no idea where they got that from)... so all the more reason to leave it alone for the time being.
So, this week they investigated the Ziggurat, and got into a fracas with a few Kopru outside. Not too much of a difficult fight for them, (I'm using FilmGuy's Kopru stats from this thread) so the only real worry for them is making a DC16 Will Save from the one dominate attempt per day.
I also played the Ziggurat as a giant living being, with the bulk of it under the city (it needs more space to fit all those Kopru and Naga in it!), it's so large and ancient that it's effectively immune to damage, but it reacts to stimuli... a fireball on it's outside caused it to react violently, knocking down PCs that were stood on its 'shell' (the stonework partly covering it)
Once the PCs determined where the door was, the party Oracle was dominated by a Kopru inside and she headed in, door squeezing shut behind. Once the party got the door open again, and caught up with the Oracle, she was surrounded by nearly all the Kopru/Naga army, and the party realised that a direct assault on the Ziggurat probably wasn't a good idea.
They had a go at rescuing the Oracle, and with Dimension Door, Teleport and Hero Point usage, actually managed to get her out. However, the party Dragon Diciple and Inquisitor were both dominated and left behind to an unknown fate.
At this point (we meet next Tuesday) they've not come up with an idea for a distraction yet, but they know full well that taking on 50+ Kopru and Naga at once isn't a sound tactic.
As for playing up the wierdness of the city, I've played on strange distortion effects, nothing remains to size when viewed from different locations, causing mild bouts of nausea amongst the characters. I'd like to try something like CB did, but my players would just look at me funny
The party should not try to hurry to save their companions. Logically speaking, the captured pcs are good as dead and trying to risk yourself for the small chance that you can keep them alive is fool-hardy.
Instead, since they have an Oracle (I'm assuming the Life mystery), restoring dead characters to life should be a relatively simple matter (I say relatively, because it is unknown if the kopru tosses the corpses of slain outsiders to the purple pillars). The rescuing party should focus on developing tactics to divide and conquer the kopru army. If the kopru never leave the ziggurat, eventually they'll starve so they cannot stay inside the ziggurat forever. So they will leave the safety of the ziggurat and out into the open where the remaining pcs have a much higher chance of taking them out.
In fact, at this point, destroying the Tear is their best bet in order to flush out the kopru and retrieve their companions. As a GM, you can tell your players that based on how far they have travelled, and the numerous passageways to large caverns they passed by on their travels downwards, it would take at least a few hours before the waters reached Golismorga. Hell, tell them that it would take half a day since you're being generous. For reference, I told my group it would take about 4-6 hours. TBA, I hope your players are successful in whatever strategy they use - a TPK is rarely enjoyable.
CB out.
Pretty much close to the way I'm playing it. The dominated Dragon Disciple has been with the party since the start of HTBM, so Ulioth was able to get a lot of information from him (and then pass that information to Khala). During this time, he also learned a lot about the Kopru operation (they seemed to think that the Kopru and Aboleth were in cahoots before)
Once done, they beat him unconscious and threw him into one of the pillars. This didn't go as well as the Kopru wished, as he had the Tooth of Ahazu in his mouth (and you can't just destroy an artifact so easily!) so it caused a backlash and destroyed a small part of the city (and a bunch of Kopru in the process). The Dragon Disciple has been killed, the tooth survived, and as a certain creature has an interest in the tooth, she arranged it to be returned to the Oracle (back in Farshore right now) with a note telling her to not lose it again.
The tooth is still bloody, the Oracle will raise the Dragon Disciple from it. The rest of the party are planning on spending a couple of days doing some investigation into their mysterious patron, aboleths, kopru and Demogorgon
When they return, I'm going to have Ulioth assign more guards to the Tear, not actually in the crater due to the Scion there, but nearby to ensure the party cannot destroy it. As for the Ziggurat, it's still going to be heavily defended, but not quite the 50+ beings that they encountered before.
UPDATE
Well, the party's first reaction was 'Let's just leave', so that went right
But then... they proceeded to not bother doing any scouting, tried to turn Rakis Ka as he was just greeting them, party wizard died due to a crit from the Nel-thaggu....
.. and they they decided to alert the entire ziggurat to their presence. We left it with the party bruised after only killing 2 naga, 6 kopru and a few trogs, and 2 kopru behemoths (whose tail grab+constrict was REALLY nasty). Some very poor tactical choices
As far as can tell, the whole kopru army is on alert, and all of them are dishing out potions of fly to each other to tackle the intruders. So next session, I'm not sure how things will turn out. Unless the party flees (the cleric may have plane shift) - but what awaits them on the Ethereal plane around golismoga is another question....