| Douglas Muir 406 |
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Don the Diabolist has a problem. Some years back he took an apprentice, Sally the Sorceress. Don is LE and Sally is NE, but that didn't seem a big deal at the time and, gosh, that Charisma score!
But alas: people change. The two evil casters have grown apart. Don has a public identity as a respectable member of the community -- the whole devil-summoning thing is a deeply secret sideline. Sally, on the other hand, has become more malevolent and sadistic over time; she's taken a couple of levels of Souleater and is getting into the whole soul gem thing in a big way. Don has become seriously worried that she'll blow his cover. He's decided that it's time to terminate the apprenticeship. Unfortunately, being Lawful Evil, he has a contract with her, so he can't simply kill her himself. So instead he's bending over backwards to give her free rein, trusting that the usual plucky band of heroes will show up to etc. etc. etc.
This assumes a group of PCs around level 5-7, but can be adjusted for higher levels easily enough.
Encounter 1: the PCs encounter a couple of swaithe demons running amok in the countryside, terrorizing animals and what not. Don summons these guys regularly to "help" Sally; in fact he's counting on her losing control of them, which is exactly what has happened. If the PCs are higher than 6th level, give the swaithes class levels or a template.
In town: the PCs are harassed by Sally and her coven. The base version of this is Sally (sorc 5 / souldrinker 2), a green hag and another swaithe, for a total CR around 7. Fending off Sally's attacks could be a quick encounter or two or a mini-campaign, depending, but this is a chance for you as a DM to give the list of hag coven abilities a real workout. Previous enemies of the coven have ended up Balefully Polymorphed, killed and reanimated as zombies, or stuck in forcecages. Innocent townspeople are being affected by curses and bizarre weather. There are all sorts of weird options here. Note that it's easy to upgrade this by giving Sally more levels, promoting the hag to an annis or even a night hag, and giving the swaithe levels in rogue or assassin.
Don can't act directly against his wayward apprentice, but nothing prevents him from working indirectly to help the PCs: he's a respectable local figure who is worried about these strange events, harumph harumph. Meanwhile, he'll encourage Barbara and her coven to attack the PCs, but in ways that are unlikely to succeed.
Boss fight: the coven should make an interesting tactical challenge for a group of PCs, especially if you play them intelligently and throw in some minions. Again, this can be a straight simple encounter or the end of a dungeon crawl as the PCs fight their way into the coven's headquarters in the town's sewers, in a cave complex a mile outside of town, etc. Note that the coven's treasure will include some soul gems, which could present an interesting problem -- good aligned PCs should want to smash them to free the souls, nongood PCs will know that those things are worth serious cash, man!
Of course, Sally isn't really the boss; that's Don. Whether you want to pick up that thread or not is up to you.
Thoughts?
Doug M.