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Ok so in the reconfiguring Kingmaker for 6 players thread someone suggested buffing up Vordekai’s dungeon with “Vordekai’s Champion” a Cyclops with 4 Anti-paladin levels and the Grave Knight template. I liked the idea so I have him randomly patrolling the halls and making him part of whatever room encounter they find him in. Players got lucky and found him in an empty room and the Grave Knight has too much pride to run, so he fights them 6v1 and doesn’t last too long, but manages to put up a valiant struggle and putting 3 characters into negatives. They failed all Knowledge checks and assume the Large+1 Breastplate he wears is just normal loot and not his Grave Phylactery. Later on they put the Eye of Abadon in the same bottomless bag then take 3 days going back to Varnhold. During that time the Grave knight regenerates, implants the eye, and then sneaks away and rides off into the night.
I had plans to make this guy into one of Irovetti’s body guards, so through some DM Fiat I say he somehow starts working for Irovetti. Irovetti Gifts him a Helmet that also has a permanent disguise self to make make him just look like a very large and scary human. Irovetti also grants him the name Sir Thomas Strong. At this point this guy was just kind of an inside joke between my players and myself and wasn’t really all too important, but I wanted to see the look on my player’s faces when the villain recurs.
Ok cue book 4. So travels go well and Baron Drelev is taken out swiftly and easily. My players missed all the clues they could possibly find in Drelevs castle and really have no idea what to do. Their attempts at dealing with the small Barbarian army to the north goes FUBAR and a character dies, so they decide they’ll just call their Kingdom for some armies, fix the forts walls, and beat the Barbarian army up when they come back. Those of you who read book 4 know this is a bad idea as it would give Armag the ability to become Armag!
There was a miscommunication with my players and I thought they had a really strong army+they could turn themselves each into ACR 3 armies, so I buffed up Armag’s forces. Gave him 200 more Barbarians, had the Guardian Cleric join him, and had all the previous failures of the Armag test become an army of Bloody Skeletal Archers. Due to the miscommunication this was a really hard fight for the players. They held them off for a while and did some guerilla warfare in the streets to buy time for civilian evacuation, but eventually their armies and Fort Drelev fell. I decided it was good for the plot to let the players experience a loss, so I let everything happen and they returned to their Kingdom with heavy civilian and army losses.
Armag with his revived personality is not a smart man, or a clever man, or a knowledgeable man, and he hates anyone that isn’t a Tiger Lord. So he comes up with a plan. A calculated risk if you will, but man was he bad at math. His plan went something like this.
1. Get a meeting with Irovetti
2. Kill Irovetti
3. ???????
4. PROFIT!!!
Steps one and two go off flawlessly and it turns out step three is “Get violently murdered by Sir Thomas Strong and the other bodyguards.” Immediately after Irovetti’s death Strong seizes the situation, and the Rod of Rulership, to turn the situation to his own gain. He convinces the other guards that they don’t need Irovetti and they could rule as a council in his place. Sir Strong picks up Ovrinbaane and immediately upon feeling the sword attempt the take over the Eye of Abadon overpowers it and subjugates it allowing Strong to use it freely.
Using some choice spells, such as treasure map and speak with dead, Strong finds out that Irovetti is hiding a powerful artifact in the form of Briar. Sir Strong , having no problems navigating the castle, is easily able to obtain Briar in the form of a large shortsword and spends a lot of his free time using the Eye of Abadon and his Grave Knight powers corrupting the fey nature of the weapon. Through a combination of his charisma, combat prowess, and shrewd tactics Sir Strong is able to gain chair head of the council that leads Pitax.
One of the first things he does is send a letter and package to the players. He informs them of the “coup de ta” that took place in Pitax, apologizes for hostile actions on the part of Irovetti and Armag, and invites them to the Tournament. He also includes the Rod of Razors as a gift. Previously my players had no reason to ever step foot in Pitax without an army to march with them, so hopefully this will disarm my players for book 5.
If anyone has ideas on how I should modify book 5,what to do with the barbarian horde, ect I'd be happy to listen :)
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It seems to me that, if "Sir Strong" was able to defeat Armag in fair and honorable combat, then he is also strong enough for the barbarian horde to declare him their new leader.
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I like this :)
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If it isn't my brother's favorite DM! Hi Tony, this is Andrew :)
This campaign is going great and I hope next time I see you I can share more stories like this.
Gotta agree with Jedric. Especially with Armag out of the way and Strong having proven himself already before the barbarians, AND wielding their legendary weapon.
Easy enough to convince the barbarians that the Black Sisters had the wrong reborn guy.
Plus he has Armag's sword, which will be doing the usual slice-and-dice on his memory to convince him that he IS Armag... Should be interesting.
Might be able to do something one of these days, guys. Fiancées take a lot of time, though.
Will it? Or will undead immunities prevent it? Hard to say for sure without being able to look at the statblocks for both, since I'm at work.
I already decided the eye of Abadon would have a counteractive effect on Ovrinbaane.
I was planning to write out book 6 and skip straight to post game content, but yeah this guy will be the "final boss" of the plot thread.