Christmas Game-Building a creepy twisted christmas mini adventure

[krevon]

My bi monthly game I run is falling close to Christmas so I thought I would do a warped Christmas game.

My group founded a kingdom using Ultimate Campaign rules at the end of the game last session. So the next session will be going to the first turn of the kingdom running.

I want to have a crisis scenario where the children of the kingdom are being kidnapped by fey. The group is 7th level consisting of an alchemist, MOMS monk, paladin, inquisitor, and archer ranger. Non optimized.

I know I want to use redcaps that clues to where Santa Clawz is hiding the children. Maybe gremlins and I haven't come up with a Santa type fey yet (maybe thin man?)

I am thinking about having the lair in an unexplored hex. The time of year will be winter. So what do you guys think about the forest being enchant with a sleep like spell or hex with ghost sounds maybe mischievous will o wisps?

Any ideas and input will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Joex The Pale]

Baobhan Sith as Mrs. Clawz? A Stroke Lad as Santa?

[Eltacolibre]

Personally for Santa Clawz, for an epic fight at the end, I would use a bogeyman:

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary3/bogeyman.html

Just make him look like Santa Claus, plus in the fluff, they do say bogeymen capture children and make them become bogeymen as well. It could be pretty creepy.

Bogeymen are cr 10, so perfect for your group of level 7 as an epic fight at the end.

[krevon]

What about the idea of an enchanted forest?

[XMorsX]

Bogeyman is a great final enemy. He is not enough alone by himself though, remember that CR assumes 4 PCs. You need at least a CR 14 encounter to make it challenging, I hesitate to say more because you say that PCs are not optimised.

An appropriate encounter could be:

Santa: Bogeyman

His companion: Grimm

His servants: Frosty Chiseler x3

[krevon]

I think as long as the paladin stays up it will be a fair encounter. I forgot to put the paladin is a warrior of shining light. The alchemist has one level of barbarian, and the ranger opted out of spell casting for hunter tricks(can't think of the archetype now)

[krevon]

I think I will also re skin the Grimm to be the Abominable Snowman lol.

[cnetarian]

Oooh, pick me, pick me.

The trees in the enchanted forest are decorated with colorful lighted globes and strands which glisten in the light, up close these prove to be skulls covered in phosphorescent mold and strings of teeth placed on the trees to mark Santa's territory. There can be traps where mistletoe is hanging overhead, when a character stands under the mistletoe a nymph appears and attacks the party.

[XMorsX]

You mean the skirmisher archetype. Well, you know better their power, but if they are decently built and they don't do something really stupid they will eventually win over santa.

Abominable Snowman sounds like a cool idea. Looking at it more closely, you may want to change improved feint with improved grapple, seeing that devour is a unique feature when he pins someone but he has no way to initiate a grapple without provoking an AoO, which feels akward. It might even be a mistake that they forgot the feat as it has a +4 bonus on grapple checks that is not justified without improved grapple. If you do not want to give it Improved Unarmed Strike, consider giving him the grab ability on his bite like most monsters do.

Tell us how the battle turns out, I will be interested to read.

[lemeres]

krevon wrote:

I want to have a crisis scenario where the children of the kingdom are being kidnapped by fey.

Ooooo! Instead of the standard "I'm Santa...but EVIL!!!" type character (which is hard to make 'creepy', as your title indicates, rather than goofy), you could try using the Krampus

It is a preexisting Germanic fairytale creature (let's be honest: if you have ever read the original Grim's tales, you know this is the go-to place for creepy fantasy stories) that has a satyr/devil type appearance, and comes to beat bad children with a birch branch or take them away to hell if they sufficiently obnoxious. He is bound in chains that he rattles for dramatic effect and he has a tongue that goes on for freaking ever (which can be used for all sorts of horrible, horrible implications for a creature that abducts children).

So this character could easily be made for pathfinder. As I mentioned, its Satyr-like appearance already lends well to being a fey. The birch branch already reminds one of the kind of divine foci used by druids, and giving it druid spells could help to improve its abilities.

Having the flame blade spell as an at-will SLA (maybe with the empower spell like ability feat for more power) would allow a creature of the fey type to reasonably threaten your PCs in melee since it hits touch AC (so the 1/2 BAB of fey doesn't matter as much...although throwing some class levels for more iteratives might be nice) and since it doesn't apply strength damage, the monster does not need too much strength. I can readily see the fiendish figure of the Krampus lashing flames from its birch branch at both children and PCs alike. Other fire and smoke centric abilities would be thematically appropriate, and could give the PCs a run for their money if you have mostly thrown winter themed enemies at them (making their attempts to throw up resist energy or the like versus cold useless). Flame related abilities also gives an easy excuse of how it retains control over the various cold-type creatures you might have as its minions.

To connect its abduction of children back to its original routes, you could have the Krampus as a fey that sacrifices children to Devils in return for various nebulous benefits.

[ErockB]

Frost fir's would be good for the enchanted forest

[Weaponbreaker]

Watch the Big Bang Theory with the D&D christmas...planty of ideas there

[nate lange]

i was just talking about this on the general discussion forum yesterday (didn't get as much traction there though).

i'm with lemeres- go with Krampus (or some kind of pack or whatever of them). for the 'santa' figure have a significant NPC with some holiday flavor (i like a father christmas inspired dwarven ranger- reindeer companion, brews festive ales, and puts on great feasts after hunting trips). they show up to investigate the crisis, the NPC offers some helpful advice (maybe some legit Krampus lore) and stays in town to protect the remaining children- PCs kill the Krampus (and whatever other non-goofy challenges you plan), save most of the kids, and then return to the town where everyone celebrates with a huge feast (no loot during the adventure: PCs receive gifts from NPC at feast as reward)

edit: for an enchanted forest... you don't need to focus on APL+ CRs just make it an unusually high number of encounters (or just of creatures/encounter) and it will still be challenging. appropriate enemies (depending on the feel you're going for) include: winter wolves (cr5), ice golems (cr5), large ice elementals (cr5); young white dragon (cr6), will-o-wisp (cr6); frost drake (cr7), huge ice elemental (cr7), ghost (cr7), spectre (cr7); cold rider (cr8)- could be your Krampus, treant (cr8). some of these could make interesting combined fights... for example, a young (pine/fir) treant with a couple will-o-wisps (and a dancing lights spell/effect for decoy wisps) would look like a christmas tree and be a worthwhile encounter; the winter wolf would be a pretty sick mount for the cold rider.