That... is a very busy statblock. A good antagonist for a more political Kingmaker, though. With all the Great House rivalries in Brevoy, a vilderavn would have no end of opportunities. One could be behind the creation and rise of the PC kingdom with the aim of eventually triggering a civil war. Which would be a perfect time for Nyrissa to seize the Stolen Lands for herself.
My first thought is that he'd be a nifty intruder into the PCs inner circle for the last couple modules. He could slay one of their NPC council members, then insinuate himself in the ruling council and agitate for war ...
A vilderavn's bite attack threatens a critical hit on an 18–20. If a vilderavn kills a humanoid foe with a critical hit from its bite attack (including a coup de grace), it can tear out the victim's heart and consume its soul. Creatures that witness this savagery are frightened for 1d4 rounds, or shaken for 1 round if they succeed at a DC 27 Will save. Also, the vilderavn gains the benefits of death knell, and the slain creature is affected as per rest eternal (caster level 18th).
While the target remains dead, the vilderavn gains access to that creature's memories and can use its change shape ability to assume a perfect likeness of the slain creature, gaining a +10 bonus on Bluff and Disguise checks made to impersonate it. The vilderavn can store any number of souls.
A vilderavn's bite attack threatens a critical hit on an 18–20. If a vilderavn kills a humanoid foe with a critical hit from its bite attack (including a coup de grace), it can tear out the victim's heart and consume its soul. Creatures that witness this savagery are frightened for 1d4 rounds, or shaken for 1 round if they succeed at a DC 27 Will save. Also, the vilderavn gains the benefits of death knell, and the slain creature is affected as per rest eternal (caster level 18th).
While the target remains dead, the vilderavn gains access to that creature's memories and can use its change shape ability to assume a perfect likeness of the slain creature, gaining a +10 bonus on Bluff and Disguise checks made to impersonate it. The vilderavn can store any number of souls.
"Perfect likeness" extends to the clothes as well? Or does the raven knight special ability overwrites the clothing?
Fine enough, otherwise it would be cool, but much less so, especialy for an infiltrator type of antagonist.
Looking at this, I think I would say that if it assumes the form of a humanoid, it gets that humanoid's normal clothes. It would also have to procure armor and weapons. I would rule that if it uses raven knight, then it drops its disguise.
So I'm playing with this guy again for my mythic Kingmaker game. I'd probably give him some form of mythic abilities to make him a real humdinger of a challenge.
Right now, my players are in Courts of the Shadow Fey, which I have largely substituted for Blood for Blood. I'm thinking of making the Vilderavn the "Regent," a creature who will rule Fort Drelev if my players muff it in Courts of the Shadow Fey, but who will be cheated of the domain if my players win out in Shadow Fey. I'm thinking he'll be the hidden hand in an altered, combined version of War of the River Kings and Sound of a Thousand Screams.
I am using it as the primary agent of Nyrissa on the Mortal Realm (after all, it was the raven that was captured by Nyrissa in the tale by Zuddiger).
It posed as a loyalist to King Irovetti by assuming the form of a raven-haired witch (think Morrigan from Dragon Age). It later assumed the form of Grigori (failed at his task there), assumed the form of Willas (to break into Vordakai's tomb to awaken him, and give the bracelet to the real Willas while modifying his memories). Immediately after that, it pretended to be an awakened raven to serve Vordakai to keep him misinformed. Then it assumed the form of the mistress of Drelev and gave him all sort of bad advice. Following the defeat of the Baron, it will return to Irovetti's hand as the witch, only to betray him when the pcs come for him.
He will be waiting for the PCs in 1000 thousands screams.
If my players weren't already late in the AP (book 4 ending soon), I would have used that. Ingenious. Make sure they see all of his former shapes before he dies.
I might do something similar; I may sub him in for a major NPC in Courts of the Shadow Fey, then have him show up in my book 5/book 6 extravaganza.
I would like to use him in Courts of the Shadow Fey to do more foreshadowing of Nyrissa's hand in everything, but I am not sure how precisely. I know I do want to foreshadow his martial prowess via someone telling the pcs that The Raven Knights in the courts are but imitators of the real Raven Knight, a being that cannot be trusted by any save its master. And if the real Raven Knight is not be trusted, perhaps its pale imitators are not be trusted either, hrm?
Luckily for me, my players imprisoned Grigori, which allowed him to escape without revealing his true identity early on.
Oh, one other thing; I ran Realm of the Fellnight Queen before book 3 and placed the first random page of Zuddiger's book in the palace, along with a small how-to book on the etiquette of the fey courts. That will also let me explain in a fashion the ranking system used in Courts without letting the players metagame it too much.
I think a Vilderravn would substitute very nicely for the Ayishigal, Lord Suvid, or the Black Prince in Courts of the Shadow Fey. If you want to be extra manipulative, he could be Ambassador Thelemadrine.
Hm, the Ambassador is a possible option, although he cannot take the form of another fey via his change shape ability. I have to see if its disguise hex will cover it. Alternatively, it could just take the form of the raven-haired witch or in raven form, be present at the courts and impart advice, in the form of riddles and poems, to the pcs (because Nyrissa wants the pcs to foil the Queen and King in their plan to reclaim the areas around Fort Drelev as they would hamper her own plans and they were among the fey nobles who participated in the removal of her love).
A final thing that I am using him for is particularly cruel. The Ruler PC married a Lebeda female from one of the minor branches of House Lebeda. The raven knight will pose as a minor noble to gain minor access to the Regent King, and charm him. Afterwards, he will use the Speak in Dreams hex to repeatedly and subtly convince the Regent King that he has always been in love with the PC Ruler's wife. A modify memory later, and it becomes part of the Regent King's past. The Regent King pushes for civil war to unify Brevoy and then march on to wage war on the pcs' kingdom much like Homer's Troy.
Hm, the Ambassador is a possible option, although he cannot take the form of another fey via his change shape ability. I have to see if its disguise hex will cover it.
Well ... my reading is that he can't eat a fey's memories. But take the form of another fey? What's to stop him? Ambassador Thelemadrine looks and acts like a haughty humanoid, for all intents and purposes. Or Perhaps he isn't impersonating the ambassador. Maybe he IS the ambassador, manipulating the PCs for his own purposes!
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A final thing that I am using him for is particularly cruel. The Ruler PC married a Lebeda female from one of the minor branches of House Lebeda. The raven knight will pose as a minor noble to gain minor access to the Regent King, and charm him. Afterwards, he will use the Speak in Dreams hex to repeatedly and subtly convince the Regent King that he has always been in love with the PC Ruler's wife. A modify memory later, and it becomes part of the Regent King's past. The Regent King pushes for civil war to unify Brevoy and then march on to wage war on the pcs' kingdom much like Homer's Troy.
I assume by "Regent King" you mean Noleski Surtova?
If you're going for cruel, you're not trying hard enough. The Vilderavn could consume and impersonate the PC ruler's wife. He should reveal himself at a dramatically appropriate moment, then intimate to the player that Mrs. Lebeda is safe and sound and will be returned to him if the Vilderavn's orders are followed.
Then twist the knife. Whenever the PCs finally battle him, once he's down to few HP, he reveals Mrs. Lebeda is really dead ... and that they can't raise her unless he frees her soul from Gentle Repose. He won't release her if they kill him ...
its change shape ability does not apply to assuming the forms of creatures of the fey type. Only Small and Medium humanoids, plus the specific animal forms listed. That being said, there is no reason why it cannot adopt a human or elven form (my campaign doesn't have elves or half-elves due to the homebrewed setting) and then disguise itself as a shadow fey (there are penalties but not as bad as it might seem at first).
I thought about what you suggested for killing the pc's wife but knowing the player, it's too much, lol.
The pc's wife is currently pregnant though. Hmm, Nyrissa has been sending dreams to the PC. Perhaps the wife is impregnated by the raven knight who impersonated the PC while Nyrissa becomes pregnant with the pc's child after she impersonated the wife? The old switcheroo?
I am also running a Kingmaker campaign with modified mythic rules. The raven knight is mythic, and I am thinking that one of his mythic abilities will be being able to become a swarm of ravens. I am looking into changing his feats (Critical Focus and Lunge are mostly useless for him; I'm thinking Hex Strike and maybe a blood hex feat). Adding levels of swashbuckler or vigilante seems right. By the time my players meet the raven knight in combat, they are likely 14th-15th level with more or less about 6 to 8 mythic tiers.
Having him fighting alongside Nyrissa should help with the action economy that would otherwise plague the final boss.
I'm toying with making the Vilderravn the regent who was going to rule Drelev in the Shadow Court's name. But after talking with you, I'm thinking of reskinning him into the Black Prince.
A vilderavn as the Black Prince would be really cool. I cannot do that for my campaign due to (a) how I introduced the Black Prince (I introduced him well before I am due to run The Courts of the Shadow Fey, via a reskinned Entombed with the Pharaohs adventure) and (b) it would not fit the background history I made for the Raven Knight.
As the Black Prince, a vilderavn could wreck a lot of havoc. If it is the Black Prince, perhaps it became the latest fey noble/power to become infatuated with Nyrissa? Or perhaps it colludes with Nyrissa for now because it intends to betray her to avoid the return of Count Ranalc. Or maybe the vilderavn is a proxy sent by the Count himself?!
I love how flavourful and easy to build storylines around new fey creatures that are released for our enjoyment.
I wish there was a fairly good means, both flavourwise and crunchwise, to have the vilderavn mimic or utilize the runes magic of Norse mythology. My players are all fans of various mythologies, and they liked how I have peppered various mythos in the campaign.
Maybe we should start a thread on a collection (via links) of ideas, home-brewed content, and published materials (by any company developed for any game setting) that any GMs/DMs can peruse for inspiration or adapt from for their own mythic Kingmaker (I know I have already adapted stuff from Dragonchess and Dudemeister)?
The Kingmaker forum has a lot of threads that features/discusses various ideas and contents for a mythic kingmaker but many of them are either currently inactive or a bit tricky to find; it would be nice just to collect it all in a singular place, and serve as a repository for ongoing and new materials, as well as discussing possible means of incorporating the materials into a mythic kingmaker. It's an idea worth ruminating on (although it does sound like a lot of work to implement in practice, heh).
I just re-read the entry into the vilderavn again and it made me realize that I must formally introduce it in Raven Knight form during the tournament that King Irovetti will hold in War of the River Kings. Either as the champion of Pitax or as an independent competitor. (I adjusted the tournament slightly to allow independent competitors for some of the games.)
Consider entering him as a mystery knight. Set up three or four people as possible mystery knights, then have him enter and move his way up the contest. Your players might have fun trying to figure out who the mystery knight is. Maybe (thanks to his change form ability) he's all of the candidates. At the end of the tournament, but before Irovetti announces the big betrayal, he should reveal he's a fey ... and that his mistress is coming soon. (bum-bum-BUM!!)
I was thinking to make him an emissary to Irovetti from nyrissa, only lately arrived in town, because nyrissa is obviously tired of waiting for Briar. Also i was thinking about a forbiddance effect into the lower floors of the palace, placed there by the previous owner to keep out those pesky fey pranksters ( - modified forbiddance to keep out a specific king of creature instead of alignment).. wich would explain why the raven knight has not yet found the sword. The knight would be presented in the tournament as an independent and approach the players by revealing his true identity..and asking for briar!
Hm, if you have him/her approach the pcs and revealing himself/herself as a fey, perhaps he/she could lie and say that he/she needs Briar to remove the curse that transformed him/her into a fey (claiming that he/she originally was just a raven). If the pcs give him/her the sword (or if they liberate it from the Abbey, he/she can met them outside of the Abbey), the vilderavn then absconds with Briar back to Nyrissa. If need be, the vileravn can use a disarm attempt and flee with the sword.
Then, when they battle Nyrissa, the vilderavn could show up to initially fight the pcs, only to betray Nyrissa by stabbing her with Briar so that he/she could then become the master of the realm and absorb Nyrissa's power so that it would never have to serve another master again.
I was thinking to make him an emissary to Irovetti from nyrissa, only lately arrived in town, because nyrissa is obviously tired of waiting for Briar. Also i was thinking about a forbiddance effect into the lower floors of the palace, placed there by the previous owner to keep out those pesky fey pranksters ( - modified forbiddance to keep out a specific king of creature instead of alignment).. wich would explain why the raven knight has not yet found the sword. The knight would be presented in the tournament as an independent and approach the players by revealing his true identity..and asking for briar!
Oh!! This sets my wheels spinning!!!
I'm sort of brainstorming here. I'm trying to combine books 5 and 6 into one slam-bang end to Kingmaker. After my players finish out Court of the Shadow Fey ... they're officially Hot Stuff, very very eligible bachelors and such.
So ... what if the PC Ruler faces marriage suits from both Castruccio Irovetti (on behalf of his son) and Noleski Surtova? And what if the Black Prince/vilderavn has secretly replaced Noleski at some point?
Now, the queen accepts Noleski's marriage suit, she's going to be married to the Vilderavn, and a Castruccio Irovetti (a LE guy is ruthless but dedicated to Pitax in my campaign) gets desperate. "Noleski" convinces the queen to recover Briar ... and he pulls some kind of nefariousness in her absence.
If the queen accepts the Irovetti suit, then "Noleski" attempts to rally Brevoy against the PCs' kingdom ...
Interesting, pennywit. So the kingdom that the Black Prince officially rules on the Mortal Realm was Brevoy all along but the fey courts always referred to it by its fey name instead? Hm, and the vileravn/Black Prince could also have been behind the disappearance of the Rogarvia family?
Done that way, it would be responsible for the downfall of not just one or two kingdoms, but at least three! (Brevoy, Pitax, and the PCs' kingdom.) This reminds me of the military conspiracy in the Fullmetal Alchemist manga.
Hm. Actually, this might not be the best course. If I do this, I have to stat up Brevoy as a kingdom (or at least the Surtova lands), and there's a chance my players get the resources of all of Brevoy, or at least House Surtova's holdings, at their disposal. Do I really want that? I'll have to ponder.
However ... I do kind of like the Rogarvia angle, which I hadn't thought about before.
So here's what I might be juggling:
Pennywit's plans:
The Autumn King. I already plan for the "King of the Stolen Lands," as far as the PCs are concerned, to be an erlking who has long been slumbering at the Castle of Knives. A coterie of adventurers will accidentally awaken him while they explore the Castle of Knives. And he calls out to fey across the Stolen Lands to return to serve him. The secret: He serves Nyrissa because his wife, a hamadryad, is being held hostage within Thousandbreaths. If the players can rescue her, he'll turn against Nyrissa.
The Thousand Screams. I've introduced Nyrissa by title only so far. My players have heard about a powerful fey known as the Lady of Dreams. She wants to bottle the land to impress Count Reynalc, and to possibly steal power from Erastil to take as her own.
Castruccio's Choice. Castruccio Irovetti's own intelligence has told him that powerful fey will soon move against him, based around the Castle of Knives. He's looking for allies, and he's starting to get desperate. He hopes to ally with the PCs (via a marriage) to get support for Pitax. If the players don't ally with him, then he will cut a deal with a coterie of contract devils to gain power (specifically, the devilbound template).
Noleski's Pain. Noleski Surtova has a civil war brewing on his hands. In the "downtime" between the end of Shadow Fey and the beginning of the next adventure, things are going to go badly for him, and he (and possibly other Houses) will send envoys to the PCs, seeking political support or an alliance (again, through marriage).
The Black Prince. This fellow wants nothing more than chaos. He might be playing two or more roles in this saga, impersonating one or more entities in various places in an effort to whip up war (and a more bounteous harvest for himself). I may actually have one role for him already. Some time ago, I ran a plot wherein my players thwarted and investigated an attempted assassination of Noleski when he visited their capital. They befriended a gnome "jester" (read: illusionist) named Telobere. He's one of my players' favorite NPCs. So ... what if we use Jubilost Narthropple? Three gnomish bodies turn up, horribly mutilated. One of them is positively identified as Jubilost Narthropple, and the others can't be identified. In reality, the Black Prince has replaced Telobere. I think I will also add a mysterious NPC known as "the Raven Knight" to the adventure ... perhaps he will appear as an vassal to Tenarius Varn (the teenage son of the departed Maegar Varn). My players are going to suspect him immediately. I may need to introduce some other NPCs as cover.
You are right about needing cover/patsies to deflect suspicions onto. My planned storyline works because I'm stringing multiple npcs across different regions but through different time periods. Is Tenarius a bastard son of Maegar? What about deflecting blame onto one of the pcs' cohorts (if they have any)?
Hm, have you tried running the "Venture Capital (aka a Deal with the Devil)" community mod/add-on? That is where I introduced a large number of suspicious power-players in my campaign setting.
Perhaps the Raven Knight could pose as the representative from Mivon, wanting the pcs' aid in deterring Irovetti's expansion.
Alternatively, instead of using a mythic verson of a single vilderavn, perhaps instead a flock of regular vilderavns are working together in concert across all of the lands to foster chaos to simplify Nyrissa's plans to bottle the Stolen Lands? Actually, a group of them working behind the scenes like that facilitates some of the issues and lets you run multiple sabotage plots at the same time.
All of this has potential, although a flock of vilderavns would be a bit much. I'm sketching out a bit more:
The End of Courts of the Shadow Fey:
My players are almost to the point where they're going to go hunting with the Black Prince, but I want to give them most of one more session to interact with the court. They seem to be having fun with it.
Eventually, they're going to get the task to go battle the Moonlit King for his orb and what amounts to regency over the Shadow Court. I'm thinking of having several groups approach the players for the orb:
The queen (IMC, the daughter of Nyrissa) wants the orb so she can free herself from her mother's influence. She intends to use her power to seal off the Shadow Court. She promises to release her claim on Drelev if she gets the orb.
The Black Prince desires the orb so he gains more power for himself and can spread chaos. In addition to releasing his claim on Drelev, he pledges the shadow fey will aid the party once, and once only, in their coming battles.
Ravich the Blind Seer wants to turn the Shadow Fey to a brighter path, and he wishes the orb so he can marshal the shadow fey into an army.
Finally, the court mage (can't remember her name) wishes the orb so he can gift it to the princess (can't remember her name). He fully intends to rule the court in her name only, and possibly wed her so he can become king as well.
Getting to the king: My players haven't really noticed it, but there are no children in the Court of the Shadow Fey. I've decided that the children in the court (such as they are) are in thrall to Sagroc the Ugly, a mythic bogeyman who has been a recurring frenemy for a while -- my players think he is a god of fear, and I haven't disabused them of this notion. They live down in the labyrinth along with Sagroc. I intend to make this as creepy as possible.
I intend to populate the labyrinth with a few haunts, a smattering of human children (led by a creepy child oracle), a young bogeyman who's jealous of the kids, some Will 'o' wisps, a bevy of cannibal children, and a souldbound doll or three.
At the orders of the queen, Sagroc has been told he can do what he wishes in the caverns, but he is not to allow anybody to see the Moonlit King. My players are going to have to either defeat him or bargain their way past him. Not sure which of these will happen first. I kind of hope they go for combat, if only because I want to see the visual of a bunch of these cannibal children hurling themselves at the PCs.
As far as the king himself, I'm actually thinking about having him be virtually non-existent. He'll appear in a suit of finely wrought armor, at the end of a hallway filled with suits of armor and cloaks. If my players try to negotiate with him, he'll just ignore them. If they get insistent, he'll point to get them out. If they turn belligerent, the armor in the haul attacks the players. I'm figuring on using the monolith footmen and empty cloaks as templates for the minions, while the Moonlit King himself will enter the frey only toward the end.
In the final touch, though ... there's nothing inside the armor, aside from the orb representing the Moonlit King's power. A metaphor, obviously, but I'll let my players decide what conclusion to draw from it.
...
And then there's going back. Haven't figured that one out yet.
You are right about needing cover/patsies to deflect suspicions onto. My planned storyline works because I'm stringing multiple npcs across different regions but through different time periods. Is Tenarius a bastard son of Maegar? What about deflecting blame onto one of the pcs' cohorts (if they have any)?
The PCs don't have many cohorts, but they do have a council. Dovan, Akiros Ismort, Dame Yeana (a custom paladin of Erastil), Kesten Garess, and Loy Rezbin are all part of their council. Of these individuals, Kesten, Akiros, Yeana, and Dovan are the best developed. Jhod Kavken, Svetlana Kavken, and Hannis Drelev's courts are also in play.
Tenarius is not a bastard, but he is 17. And he is married to Donara Kerelov -- a VERY hasty arrangement. She carried Noleski Surtova's bastard child. My players arranged a quickie wedding to placate Natala Surtova and Noleski himself.
The more I think about this, the more I like the idea that the Black Prince is impersonating several people -- Telobere is a really good candidate, and I like the idea of Kesten, Akiros, or Jhod being the Black Prince. And then the Prince might also be (or have an agent in) Irovetti's court.
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Hm, have you tried running the "Venture Capital (aka a Deal with the Devil)" community mod/add-on? That is where I introduced a large number of suspicious power-players in my campaign setting.
Didn't run that, unfortunately.
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Alternatively, instead of using a mythic verson of a single vilderavn, perhaps instead a flock of regular vilderavns are working together in concert across all of the lands to foster chaos to simplify Nyrissa's plans to bottle the Stolen Lands? Actually, a group of them working behind the scenes like that facilitates some of the issues and lets you run multiple sabotage plots at the same time.
Hm. This could work from one standpoint, but from another standpoint, I think my players would have a lot of trouble with a whole flock of these things. Perhaps he has fey doppelgangers or a troupe of Skin Stealsrs working for him?
Early on, the party's baroness made Dame Yeana her heir, and my players kind of like her (although they consider her pretty uptight). At the end of our last session, we discussed possible ends for the campaign. The Ruler's player said that she thought the kingdom might be better off if she abdicated the throne and gave it to Yeana. I said, "Actually, that's a perfectly valid ending. You protect the kingdom, then you ride off into the sunset ... "
I've decided to give the Black Prince three identies: Telobere (the gnomish advisor to King Surtova), Dame Yeana, and Irovetti's bodyguard. I already used this theme a little bit -- Vordakai with a Hat of Disguise, manipulating the players' kingdom and their neighbors into war. But I think I can reuse the trope with a fresh angle. Before, my players figured out Vordakai was at work pretty quickly and their task was to convince others to turn against the players. This time, my PCs would have to find the traitor in their midst. And since they know Dame Yeana is a paladin, they might turn to her Detect Evil powers to help them. Oh, oh. I am looking forward to this.
I just finished running Realm of the Fellnight Queen and for the most part, they kicked butt. Unfortunately, the Queen never really got the chance to show off her nasty spells (they got really lucky with their Perception checks to see which tree column she was in, and the party rogue managed to hit her with a mythic sneak attack [with the feybane sword!], thus one dead fey queen by round 3).
I managed, beforehand, for the Queen to speak a bit about her past, including mentioning how the fey noble courts betrayed her and her twin sister, charging her with the "crime" of experimenting with shadow magic (only to experiment with shadow magic themselves, eventually becoming the shadow fey). They don't know that her twin sister is Nyrissa, ;)
They managed to lock up the Fellnight Realm, but Nyrissa was waiting for this opportunity: when they killed her twin sister, they left the body behind while they went on to seal the demiplane. But before the portal could close, Nyrissa used a plane shift spell to sneak in the demiplane (it wasn't sealed again yet), take her twin sister's body with her, and leave to go back to her own demiplane where she will cast cyclic reincarnation to bring her sister back to life. The twin sisters will have their revenge against the Shadow Courts and the PCs one day! *evil grin*
The one-eyed raven knight is watching them from afar.
Is it really bad that we enjoy weaving tales of deception and plots within plots to confound our players? :)
Good players throw monkey wrenches in the GM's plans:
They cut a deal with the Black Prince to get him the Moonlit King's orb. As part of the deal, they got the Black Prince to promise he won't interfere with their kingdom. If my players keep this bargain (hey haven't encountered the Moonlit King yet), this complicates my plot ... although I have a backup plan. First off, the Prince promised not to interfere with their kingdom as long as he doesn't interfere with their plans. Second, if the PCs elevate the Black Prince, then Queen Charystra becomes their enemy, and Ravich the Blind Seer won't be too happy either. And third ... well, my players might welsh on their deal with the Black Prince. they've surprised me before.
And things got even weirder. I replaced the eye golem in the labyrinth with Sagroc the Ugly, a bogeyman who's bedeviled my players for a while. Last month, they had an extended combat with him, finally beating the bugger.
At yesterday's session, they went to the tower of the Moonlit King. I heavily modified it.
Setting up the pieces:
I decided that the Moonlit King, using Sagroc as his agent, has over the years made deals with mortals. They would offer him their minds and sanity, and in exchange he would grant them whatever.
I had an umbral dragon flying around outside (mainly for atmosphere). He would have played a game of chance with my players or fought them, as my players chose. My players saw the dragon and headed into the tower immediately.
Inside the tower, they faced the Moonlit King's jester -- a Red Jester who was trying to tell jokes to a group of low-level humanoids with the broken soul templates. These represented people the Moonlit King had made deals with before. Also, hanging from the rafters were about a dozen corpses. These were hanged men -- not really a challenge for my party, but a great little bit of atmosphere.
On the other side of the Wall of Force was the Moonlit King. For my game, I decided to make him a shadow fey fighter with mythic tiers (champion) and the Blood Knight template, although my king used chainmail rather than full plate. He was armed with a human-bane rapier and an elf-bane dagger. Meanwhile, in lieu of the lunar devil, I had a Demon Knight, and a Broken Soul version of Hannis Drelev was there. Also, I had statted up the Moonlit King's shadow as a separate entity, and I had decided there were about 15-20 vanilla shadows hanging out in the tower along the walls
Epic encounter was epic:
So, during conversation with the Moonlit King, I played up his insanity a little bit, including him having conversations with his shadow (and the shadow answered back). One of the players checked her notes, and she theorized that since somebody had told her the Moonlit King was bond to his tower by "word and blood," the REAL Moonlit King was actually the shadow, and they needed to slay the blood knight to free it ... and they agreed to do so in exchange for the Moonlit King releasing his claim on Fort Drelev. Totally not what I planned. But it made sense and the player had clearly paid attention, so I went with it.
So it turned into a huge combat that took us about four hours real time to resolve. Among other things, my players blew through most of the their mythic points, they got weird effects from the Red Jester's cards, the wizard and the druid had fun clearing out the mooks with AoE spells, and the barbarian got skewered several times while the druid frantically patched him up. Meanwhile, the alchemist buffed everybody and laid about with his rapid-firing bombs (among other things, demolishing the jester)
Late in the combat, the Moonlit King did the blood explosion thing, and suddenly the barbarian kept dropping his mighty axe because it was too slippery. He couldn't hold onto it. Which led to a little desperation as the party rogue/chevalier (and queen) tried to duel the king, but couldn't get through his armor. Finally, the druid decided to use a Knowledge skill to try to figure something out. He learned the king was undead and had a couple weaknesses ... so he let loose with a Cure Serious Wounds, enhanced with his mythic Faith's Reach power. The druid spent his last mythic point to surge ... and he hit him. BOOM!!! Blood flowed out of the armor, and the Moonlit King's shadow was free. He dipped down into the armor to take the orb as his tower began to collapse. One of my players asked, "Could we take the orb?" I just looked at him and I said, "Well, you could fight the shadow for it ... "
They just kind of looked at each other and decided not to.
And we ended the session with the players dodging tower parts and collecting treasure. Incidentally, along the way they betrayed the Black Prince. This is going to get interesting.
So tonight is the night, after a loooong hiatus my campaign is starting again and i am looking forward to introduce the big feathery guy to my players! I am going to make him pose as no other than GRIGORI! my players told him that he was basically exiled from their kingdom but otherwise left on almost amicable terms...
