I seeded an adventure idea for my PC's last week and they jumped on it.
I gave the premise and told them what they "knew" but need help actually fleshing it out...
They have uncovered a piece (one tear) of an amulet called the "tears of Bal-Thor", An amulet that opens up the dungeon/tower/whatever to Bal-Thor manor.
Basically, each tear is a magical key that opens up the entrance to one floor of the dungeon/tower, and they (conveniently) have the key to the first floor.
Here is what they know:
Bal-Thor was a wizard who lived way out in the marsh w his family. They came in to town periodically, and were generally decent people, until one day (upon the completion of his tower perhaps?) they stopped coming out.
No one has heard from Bal-Thor or his family in decades... but why?
SO what do we learn on floor one of the tower?
Who is Bal-Thor, and why exactly does he have a dungeon?
What type of ecology/encounters should they find in this dungeon?
Any help, ideas, suggestions, or advice is very welcome! Thanks in advance.
Hmmm...well decades implies he had this tower recently (30 years I would guess). I suppose his tower would be his research laboratory and living quarters. Since people know of him and not hearing from him is unusual, it's likely it wasn't a retreat. More likely he was practicing dangerous alchemy or magic and didn't want anyone either getting hurt or finding out based on his alignment, or perhaps both. I would assume the first floor of the tower would be an entryway of some sort, not much of importance there except perhaps a clue about what's going on or where the other pieces could be.
I would assume since the tears are scattered the tower was sealed by Bal-Thor himself and is either dead/in hiding, so more likely than not Bal-Thor isn't even in the tower. I would make it either a bad evil outsider summoning in which the monsters are trying to keep the portal to hell open or whatever or a bad alchemy experiment in which something mindless gained sentience, took over the tower and slaughtered his family.
ohhhh.... I like that!
Family Slaughtered, mindless sentience, Bal-Thor in hiding, or maybe something worse on the top floor...
but for now, seeding the idea of the slaughtered family due to alchemy/magic gone wrong fits very well.
What encounters could they run into, other than maybe inanimate objects toruring them, etc?
Any idea on how to leave a clue and leave them wanting more?
Thank you!
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Bal-Thor is an illusionist. There is some kind of illusion on every room in the tower. Switch it up by having illusions that you don't want to disbelieve. (Invisible medusa, or an obvious illusion covering a symbol of weakness with a shadow hiding in a shadowy corner. Simulacra of the wizard with mirror images.)
For the end battle, let them fight and kill the illusionist. Then you describe how they see the tower around them becomes transparent, slowly fading into nothingness. As they run down the stairs, let them make will saves each round. The ones that make their will saves fade away. As the last hero fades away, explain how he realizes that everything was just an illusion...
No problem. It's pretty easy for me to come up with ideas if I have a little background info so I'm happy to help.
Encounters other than golems can be haunts or spectres of the former occupants as well as oozes. Golems and Carytid Columns...anything you can make with Crafting, really. Maybe poltergeists or shadows? Or perhaps the creatures inside were affected by evil outsiders or are evil outsiders...there's quite a few options.
As for a clue...hmm. Scattered pieces of a Macguffin hidden where only true heroes can find it is a useful trope. Journals pointing to where Bal-Thor is hiding, a ghost you can calm to get information, or even a homunculus that was accidentally left behind. I know I'd want to know what was going on if I unlock a tower and run into the minions of Hell or psycho golems.
Bal-Thor is an illusionist. There is some kind of illusion on every room in the tower. Switch it up by having illusions that you don't want to disbelieve. (Invisible medusa, or an obvious illusion covering a symbol of weakness with a shadow hiding in a shadowy corner. Simulacra of the wizard with mirror images.)
For the end battle, let them fight and kill the illusionist. Then you describe how they see the tower around them becomes transparent, slowly fading into nothingness. As they run down the stairs, let them make will saves each round. The ones that make their will saves fade away. As the last hero fades away, explain how he realizes that everything was just an illusion...
I have to disagree with this one on two points. First, most of your standard illusions can be soundly trounced by the cantrip detect magic. Detect magic, wait 3 rounds, point out all the illusions. Now, when used sparingly you can apply nystul's magic aura to prevent detect magic from lighting up all your secrets, but if it is consonantly used it starts to feel like a middle finger to your players, even if it makes some sense. The second point is that it is even worse to make the entire thing a dream sequence. "You kill the final boss, then you wake up." is never a fun thing for players, and using "It was all an illusion" doesn't make it feel better. Is their loot illusory as well? Did they lose all their loot? What about their xp?
I have to disagree with this one on two points. First, most of your standard illusions can be soundly trounced by the cantrip detect magic. Detect magic, wait 3 rounds, point out all the illusions. Now, when used sparingly you can apply nystul's magic aura to prevent detect magic from lighting up all your secrets, but if it is consonantly used it starts to feel like a middle finger to your players, even if it makes some sense. The second point is that it is even worse to make the entire thing a dream sequence. "You kill the final boss, then you wake up." is never a fun thing for players, and using "It was all an illusion" doesn't make it feel better. Is their loot illusory as well? Did they lose all their loot? What about their xp?Bal-Thor is an illusionist. There is some kind of illusion on every room in the tower. Switch it up by having illusions that you don't want to disbelieve. (Invisible medusa, or an obvious illusion covering a symbol of weakness with a shadow hiding in a shadowy corner. Simulacra of the wizard with mirror images.)
For the end battle, let them fight and kill the illusionist. Then you describe how they see the tower around them becomes transparent, slowly fading into nothingness. As they run down the stairs, let them make will saves each round. The ones that make their will saves fade away. As the last hero fades away, explain how he realizes that everything was just an illusion...
Agreed, it is rather mean, but if only the tower, not the loot or PCs, was illusionary it could make a fun "race to escape" kind of thing
I could also see done fun in making specific parts of the tower illusory, those stairs you try to walk up? Make a will save, they succeed and fall through the illusion stairs but the ones who fail can drop a rope or something to help them get up, illusions are solid for you until you disbelieve them, you can have fun using that >:)
Although I will probably go w more of a "tower has been taken over by the perils of magic gone wrong" scenario, and not the illusionist idea; I am fond of that idea...
Anyone else remember the Circus Tent quest early on in Baldur's Gate II? Some of it was real, but the grandeur of everything was the biggest illusion. Very Similar idea.
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Ok, let's try...
The PCs enter the first floor, a vast but fairly standard entrance hall to a manor. It is mostly empty, dust accumulating on the floor, save for a tattered diary left in open. It is mostly illegible, save for a few lines "...How is this possible...already here...Venedaemon..."
Now, any character with Knowledge (Planes) worth their salt will think that either Bal-Thor had made some sort of pact with a Venedaemon, or that he became a Venedaemon himself and came back to kill his family, retaining in some way his mortal memories...
Or maybe not?
When they were at home, they frequently sneaked in Bal-Thor's laboratory, earning a scolding more than one time.
Then 30 years ago the tragedy happened. The children started fighting while after entering in the laboratory and, without thinking, the son threw the closest wand to the girl. She died on the spot and his brother, panicking, accidentally shook one of the bookshelf, making the dangerous chemicals stored up there fell on him. When Bal-Thor and his wife came to see what was happening, it was too late for both of the kids.
Bal-Thor abandoned his magical studies and grew more and more depressed, never leaving is tower again.
It will have all ended here if Bal-Thor, sworn to the cause of good. didn't make in the past numerous studies to battle evil outsiders, ironically seeping all of his house in negative energy. Because of this, the process to create two Daemons was accelerated, and years later a Venedaemon and a Temerdaemon were born for the daughter and the son, respectively. Now being of pure evil, they even retained miniscule bits of memories from their past life, so they set for Bal-Thor house. While the Temerdaemon watched in hiding, the Venedaemon went for the kill, slaughtering her ex-mother first. Then he pursued Bhal-Thor, weakened by the years of not practicing magic. He still knew his manor well tough, a masterpiece of demi-planar creation, so he managed after days of pursuit to entrap himself and the two daemons. He managed to toss the key, the Tears of Bal-Thor, away and isolated himself from the daemons, slowly dying alone of starvation. Later, he was reborn as a Daemon, too, a Meladaemon: now trapped with the two other daemons, with no memory of the past, he patiently waits for someone to free him (and the other two).
Now you're asking: why the extremely long background? I'm asking to myself that, too. :P
On a serious note, you could do lots of cool things: instead of doing a simple dungeon crawl, you could threw into the mix investigation, traps, and extra dimensional hazards.
All of the three daemons don't work with one another, and each of them remembers only a part of what happened, so the PCs will have to defeat all of them and gather information from both the townsfolk and the pieces of diary they find in the Manor. You could make that the Temerdaemon ( a perfect excuse to do a whole floor of deadly traps) likes to play cat and mouse with his preys, scattering the pieces of the journal to make them go deeper. He probably doesn't realize who he and the other daemon were.
The Meladaemon (maybe you could give him some levels of Magus? he was a powerful wizard, but now he's a skinny dog daemon :P) adores to kill his enemies by starvation, so a floor could be a desert/jungle/taiga where the players have to search for provisions and stuff not to die.
You can't exit from the manor with teleportation and things like that: the PCs have to complete a floor to exit.
Obviously, you could make everything episodic: a session they find a a piece of the amulet, they explore a floor, exit, they goon their merry way for a few sessions, rinse, repeat...
Also, Daemon being the ULTIMATE EVULZ, you could fit them i some way in your overall storyline.
For references:
Meladaemon
Venedaemon
Temerdaemon
Just my 2 cents
Hope I've been helpful ;)
A low-level take on it I had:
Bal-Thor and his family, while building the tower, made the acquaintence of fey in the marsh. The night he finished the last room Bal-Thor's faerie friends came to celebrate. A full on, dark fairy tale level revel ensued. Even the wizard succumbed to the illusions and phantasms of the fey.
The faeries in the meantime had among them a jealous, spiteful fey (insert big bad here) who twisted the festivities to nightmare. As the revel reached its most debauched depths the wizard mistook his own family for monsters. In his madness he slaughtered his own kin; only the baby was saved by a single old fey who absconded with the child into the marsh.
When morning came the wizard was overcome by grief and guilt (hence the Tears of Bal-Thor). He set about sealing each member of the family into a different level and then went into the marsh to have his revenge. He subsequently hunted the fey mercilously for a year and a day; his magiks scoured the wilds and blighted the land.
In the end he rounded up the chief revelers and sealed each in with the family members. The wicked one who had started all this was discovered by the wizard and her torment was to be legendary. The wizard then subdued her and began digging down, into the cold dead bedrock where nothing green or bright could ever be found. Within these dungeons he imprisoned this faerie where her vile nature and rotting torment removed from the wilds has driven her mad and turned her into (insert level appropriate BBEG here).
Bal-Thor couldn't bring himself to take his own life. He also couldn't bear to be among civilization again. Instead he sealed himself in with his final enemy, as much her warden as he is a prisoner. He has subsisted on meager fare first generated by his magic and, over time, has degenerated into a malformed creature as well, feeding on rats, spiders and lichen.
Each Tear actually refers to a Tier, or Level of the tower or prison below. The first level was the great hall and living quarters where the original revel was held. Over time monsters have burrowed into this level through other means and now stalk these halls. Several chambers however are still stained with the ecstatic torment and grief of the revel and its aftermath (insert a couple encounters, either non-threatening flashback story scenes or haunts) that hint at the true evil perpetrated here.
But what of the babe in the wilds? Bal-Thor's infant daughter was raised by the fey and has only recently learned of her family's fate. She has grieved and now wants nothing more than to find her father and try to give him some peace. She can either then be an NPC that accompanies the party or someone the PCs find inside the tower.
In the version I submitted I'd have monsters such as CR 1-4 fey creatures as well as vermin, plant or ooze creatures, and sparing use of undead or haunts. As I mentioned you could have scenes that illustrate what happened but then you could also have clues such as journals, paintings and discourse by imprisoned fey. The general feel of the place would be a prison-like tower in the midst of a blighted swamp; the PCs however should have the opportunity to befriend the kindly old fey that raised the girl in the wilds and utilize him as the keeper of a home-base camp they can retreat to while exploring the dungeon.
Right, I didn't think that my advice could be too high level. :/
What I suggested is for an 12-13 level party (the three family members are), but you could make some lower floor accessible at earlier levels.
In the version I submitted I'd have monsters such as CR 1-4 fey creatures as well as vermin, plant or ooze creatures, and sparing use of undead or haunts. As I mentioned you could have scenes that illustrate what happened but then you could also have clues such as journals, paintings and discourse by imprisoned fey. The general feel of the place would be a prison-like tower in the midst of a blighted swamp; the PCs however should have the opportunity to befriend the kindly old fey that raised the girl in the wilds and utilize him as the keeper of a home-base camp they can retreat to while exploring the dungeon.
maybe instead of a wizard he could be an arcanist with a high charisma as well as high int, he then used a powerful artifact he recovered to help in trapping the evil fey, an Id Portrait.
In the version I submitted I'd have monsters such as CR 1-4 fey creatures as well as vermin, plant or ooze creatures, and sparing use of undead or haunts. As I mentioned you could have scenes that illustrate what happened but then you could also have clues such as journals, paintings and discourse by imprisoned fey. The general feel of the place would be a prison-like tower in the midst of a blighted swamp; the PCs however should have the opportunity to befriend the kindly old fey that raised the girl in the wilds and utilize him as the keeper of a home-base camp they can retreat to while exploring the dungeon.maybe instead of a wizard he could be an arcanist with a high charisma as well as high int, he then used a powerful artifact he recovered to help in trapping the evil fey, an Id Portrait.
imagine the confusion when they face a fighter version of him, then a druid, then a gunslinger, and so on, bonus points if the portrait is the centerpiece of a sitting room on the prison level :D
A young woman named Anastasia meets the PCs. She introduces herself as well as her companion Ginder, a greying fey knee-high to a human with worn but kindly elfin features (Knowledge: Nature DC 11 reveals he is a brownie). She tells the party a sad tale of woe. 30 years ago when she was just a baby the cruel Gathlain Sorceress Verdentia attacked her father Bal-Thor's tower. In their ensuing battle most of the family was slain; only Anastasia and her father survived as well as the villainous faerie.
Ginder stole the infant away from the battle and kept her safe. Bal-Thor scoured the marsh for his daughter but Verdentia's spies and magic kept the distraught father from Anastasia. In the end her clever father lured the wicked sorceress into the tower once more and sealed them both inside.
Ever since the marsh has languished. Poor Ginder, removed from the primal power that once ebbed from the wilds has been aging these last 30 years and is now too weak and frail to care for Anastasia. However the girl has sensed that somehow, beyond all hope her father is still alive and residing somewhere in the tower.
Anastasia begs the PCs to help rescue Bal-Thor. The girl is not an adventurer but has some skill in eldritch power (NG female human adept 4) and she and Ginder have a modest farmstead on the far edge of the marsh. In return for their service the PCs would receive a small cache of faerie treasure from Ginder as well as free room, board and healing from Anastasia.
Of course once the PCs enter the tower's first level and find some of the story scenes they will find the inconsistencies in the sad tale. All of this was the fantasy woven for Anastasia by Ginder years ago. He designed the tale to make her father appear the victim in all of this.
The truth is that Ginder was there all those years ago, the night Master Bal-Thor went mad. When he fled with the baby he hid in the marsh. When Bal-thor went hunting for Verdentia and the other fey the brownie used his powers and skills to keep them both safe; not only from the wicked Gathlain sorceress but also from the madman hunting her.
Clues in the first level should point to Ginder's presence at the original revel. The brownie wears a tattered waistcoat with very distinctive buttons, one of which is missing; the toggle could be found amid the detritus on the main level. As well Ginder can be seen capering about in the haunting flashbacks as a young fey. You might also have him play a jaunty tune on a fiddle; the same song can be heard echoing in the halls of the first level of the tower. Feel free to add other clues as well.
The point of this is to provide Ginder as a link to the darker info of the place. He might also be used to give insight and advice to the PCs for their explorations. Finally Ginder can be made to have some kind of means to undo some of the damage done to both the mad old wizard and the marsh.
The marsh itself may be an encounter zone in itself. Anastasia and Ginder reside in a home large enough to accommodate the PCs sleeping on the floor or in an attached barn. She has a few animals and her familiar is an owl that helps keep watch over the place by night. The farmstead though is 12 miles from the actual tower and the marsh terrain between them is twisted, haggard and stagnant. Monsters and assorted nasties roam these blighted wilds explaining how the girl has earned the levels she has.
How about each floor of the tower being a portal to a different plane,the completed amulet with all tears a gateway to hell.Plenty of variety for the party and yourself,lots of different encounters and treasures,great potential adventure path.The rest I leave up to you.Have fun!
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I have to disagree with this one on two points. First, most of your standard illusions can be soundly trounced by the cantrip detect magic. Detect magic, wait 3 rounds, point out all the illusions. Now, when used sparingly you can apply nystul's magic aura to prevent detect magic from lighting up all your secrets, but if it is consonantly used it starts to feel like a middle finger to your players, even if it makes some sense. The second point is that it is even worse to make the entire thing a dream sequence. "You kill the final boss, then you wake up." is never a fun thing for players, and using "It was all an illusion" doesn't make it feel better. Is their loot illusory as well? Did they lose all their loot? What about their xp?Bal-Thor is an illusionist. There is some kind of illusion on every room in the tower. Switch it up by having illusions that you don't want to disbelieve. (Invisible medusa, or an obvious illusion covering a symbol of weakness with a shadow hiding in a shadowy corner. Simulacra of the wizard with mirror images.)
For the end battle, let them fight and kill the illusionist. Then you describe how they see the tower around them becomes transparent, slowly fading into nothingness. As they run down the stairs, let them make will saves each round. The ones that make their will saves fade away. As the last hero fades away, explain how he realizes that everything was just an illusion...
My bad. With everything I meant EVERYTHING. That would include his own existence. When the PCs make their will saves they disbelieve themselves. It is kinda mean though, and I would never use it for a campaign. In my group though, this would be perfectly acceptable for a one-shot adventure. (A one-shot like that also allows us to go crazy on character creation, so we can optimize every copperpiece or play that wacky build that you otherwise wouldn't play.)