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My group just made it into the grounds of Renchurch last night and after a few delightful encounters with an Augnagar Qlippoth, Caelandara the Banshee, a stable full of bloody skeleton Nightmares, two members of the Night Harrows, and a few haunts.
But to keep on point I want to make the Tyrant's Whispers especially memorable for my group and was surprised to find this haunt didn't already have its own thread on these boards. Let's fill this page with horrendously cruel torments for player's to experience!
I'll get the ball rolling with this one: When the haunt is triggered player's are immediately targeted by successive Sands of Time and Disfiguring Touch spells as if cast by Wish within the haunt's radius as their bodies are wracked with agony from aging decades in moments and twisted into vile shapes by the Tyrant's Whispers.
Dotting this for future reference. We're in book four, but the versatility of the haunts definitely gives impetus to get creative. While it might be a bit before I get into it, I was thinking of tying some of the WT's haunts to his backstory, perhaps imparting visions of his bloody climb to ascension even as he debilitates the PCs with its side effects. For example, the PCs could see his death at the hands of Aroden while experiencing a Flamestrike or other such effect.
Great idea with this thread!!
That's a pretty fun idea! I've been running with the Lector and Starling dynamic that Wes suggested with the party and while I don't want to give them to much insight into Adivion's plan for the Whispering Way a series of fragmented visions from his perspective or maybe a few other key characters could be very fun tools to use with this haunt. Maybe these visions could even be sent directly from the perspective of Tar-Baphon himself...
Dotting this for future refererence
Rakishaka now I have to go dig out age of worms
If you have Mythic Realms, the write-up on Tar-Baphon gives lots of flavor to his backstory. (His moment of ascension is getting Aroden to kill him.)
Joey, look at 'Spire of Long Shadows'. To date, I have not seen a deadlier dungeon (yes, that includes Tomb of Horrors), but the way the backstory of Kyuss is shown is really awesome.
Off topic: How did your group fair against the Banshee? This is a monster that looks awesomely horrifying on paper, a possible TPK waiting to happen..
Let's see... Stigr, my brother's ranger was dropped to -14 immediately by her wail and the babarian and the necromancer were sickened for six rounds on the first round of combat. With him dropped, she started going after the barbarian with her unbelievable touch attack. They fought back using a Horn of Judgement and the barbarian's Undead Bane Earthbreaker. It was a pretty brutal fight (even worse than the Augnagar was for them).
Joey, look at 'Spire of Long Shadows'. To date, I have not seen a deadlier dungeon (yes, that includes Tomb of Horrors), but the way the backstory of Kyuss is shown is really awesome.
That was a great adventure path we beat it many many years ago
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Keep in mind that the Tyrant’s Whispers haunts are supposed to “disarm and disturb” players, not directly harm them. Towards that end, I think one of the most successful of the published ones has to be the one that makes a character nibble on corpses.
Incidentally, though the haunt’s description says it works like a Wish spell, the CL of the haunt is 14; I think Limited Wish is the correct spell. To support this, I note none of the effects described in the adventure (confusion, dominate person, enemy hammer, moonstruck, telekinesis, etc.) are higher than arcane level 6. The lone exception is antipathy, which is listed as an example but not actually used in the adventure.
My Whisper suggestions:
A Veil effect makes the players look, feel, and smell like their own defiled corpses; the effect persists 14 hours after the Whispers cease. Players might overlook the horrific element of this effect and think it might be a useful disguise; I suggest having them trigger this haunt right before they encounter the Knights of Ozem.
An Impart Mind effect gives one of the party’s most powerful magic items Neutral Evil sentience and a disturbing prediliction for describing coming atrocities in whispered Necril. Determine the item’s ego score and inherent power beforehand--I suggest giving it the ability to cast Bleed, and have it target any unconscious but stable characters it can. The effect lasts 14 hours after the Whispers cease, during which time any non-evil character who carries the item gains a temporary negative level.
A Mirage Arcane effect makes the area appear to be a desolate and desecrated version of a PC’s home town, or alternately a game location the players were fond of, perhaps Ravengro or Lepidstadt. The complex illusion makes searching the area more difficult, a -4 circumstancial penalty.
A Vengeful Outrage effect makes one of the PC’s familiars, animal companions or cohort suddenly violent to one of the other PCs over some past slight. This works best if used to focus attention on an existing in-character personality conflict.
Vampiric Hunger from Faiths of Corruption could be another fun one for the this haunt to bestow upon unwitting adventurers. Experiencing temporary vampirism after going through Ashes at Dawn is bound to be unsettling.
I want this thread to thrive. More ideas, please.
In particular, I’d like to hear ideas that could be set up with early foreshadowing, increasing the emotional impact of the haunting. An example:
The setup: Early in your campaign, identify the character in your party with the lowest Constitution and/or Fortitude save. As a part of that character’s background, or as a plot development timed shortly after the end of Harrowstone, have that character’s hometown ravaged by the Withers, one of the diseases that constantly spreads out of Kavapesta. The Withers can be either Bubonic Plague or Slimy Doom reimagined as a disease that makes victims’ skins contract painfully--the first visible signs are lips and eyelids pulling back and not closing tightly over teeth and eyes, middle stages are marked by skin tears at the joints, and the disease is fatal when the entire epidermis splits and ruptures. The character should be left with the sense that the disease robbed him or her of someone dear.
The payoff: The Tyrant’s Whispers targets that character with a Greater Contagion of The Withers, putting him or her in the early stage instantly.
The Tyrant's Whispers could also cast programmed image in another area of Renchurch and give them visions of themselves failing to save the Count. The great part about this is that when the haunt initially goes off nothing happens... at least as far as the pc's are concerned. Red herrings can be really unsettling that way. Later on the Moribund Key can trigger the spell as the group nears it.
It doesn't have to be Count Galdana I suppose. With this spell the possibilities are almost endless, but if you really want to maximize the impact of these visions the party needs to have prior association with the Count. I ran Carrion Hill as a rainy day adventure to mix things up a bit between Broken Moon and Wake of the Watcher. When that party died the Carrion Crown party chose to make a stop in the eponymous city. There they met Count Galdana and accompanied him on a fateful hunting trip. After tracking a dire bear for a day they saw it get mangled in midair and had to fight the now advanced Spawn of Yog-Sothoth instead.
An idea of mine for the future is to somehow target the Dhampir in my party (assuming he's still alive and around by that point) with some sort of bloodrage that makes him roll a successful Will save or go vamp on the party. This will provide some echoes of the previous module. Of course, by then, my PCs might all be vampires anyways... I am not sure exactly what spell would duplicate this.
Similarly, since the Bard PC in my group was the only one who didn't get Lycanthropy in Broken Moon, targeting her with a Moonstruck spell would also be a good echo of past horrors. Since she saw the mindless brutality her allies inflicted, being possibly forced to undertake that could be subtly creepy.
Finally, I plan on having at least once PC insane by the end of "Wake of The Watcher" (which they'll be treated for in Caliphas), so having an echo of that insanity inflicted by the Whispers could also be good.
All of this is in motion since even I'm not sure who's going to make it to book 6...
Ah, overlooked yourt post DN. Faiths of Corruption isn't SRD though.. I imagine that's the spell I'm looking for...
Still hoping for more ideas! I therefore issue a challenge: Give us an unsettling use for a Tyrant's Whispers haunt that uses Modify Memory or Unconscious Agenda.
Here’s one for you GMs with Paladin or Inquisitor PCs that use detect evil often: Have the Tyrant’s Whispers cast a Misdirection effect on a member of the party, giving them the Whispering Tyrant’s aura of overwhelming evil for 14 hours. This works best following an encounter with Totenmaskes or other shapeshifters.