So, the Spire of Long Shadows is a damn cool adventure, and as my group will soon be running through it, I thought I'd use a thread to contain my ideas on it. Expect modified statblocks, changes, entirely new encounters, and notes on my PC-specific plans.
Needless to say, if you're one of my players, this thread isn't for you.
A lot of these are just ideas. I'd appreciate feedback if you think something will or won't work.
Before the Spire:
The point is, though, they're eager to get back to the plot. So I plan to push them. When they emerge, Allustan will alert them to a potential danger: A retriever has been spotted about a day's journey away. There's no word on where it's headed, though, and they need to get to Manzorian.
During the journey, they'll notice the retriever on their tail off in the distance. They can attempt to outpace it, or (more likely) get ready to fight it.
I could easily make this retriever some sort of advanced specimen, changing the pit fiend seeking the rod piece into a calculating balor. Retrievers are dang cool (and always having it as a potential threat on the horizon would be pretty awesome). The only reason I decided not to give that a try was that I remembered a certain quasit.
In my game, Myrianas the drow priestess had a quasit companion compacted to her (she had a special drow cleric archetype, I believe). Iniane the quasit made a deal with the adventurers: They'd finish off the Zyrxog-controlled drow, finally giving Iniane freedom (and a valuable larva specimen). In exchange, she'd owe the adventurers "a favor".
So atop the retriever's back will be Iniane herself, substantially larger and more powerful but kept in wretched quasit form. Being an Abyssal spy, she caught wind of the pit fiend's plans and took the retriever to personally contact the adventurers and issue them a warning—a lot of people are after something the adventurers have. In her experience, that's a good reason to hold onto it. Her debt repaid, Iniane shrugs and teleports out with the retriever.
Her aid has some other reasons behind it, of course. The demons have no interest in allowing the Rod of Law to be united by mortal or devil. She's hoping that by encouraging the adventurers to hold onto it, they'll get massacred in their future endeavors, and the piece will be lost once more. She also thinks her advice is perfectly sound, of course.
Later, the devils attack as planned.
Cool Thread Links:
Ma'kar and his telepathy. This thread gives some great ideas I'll touch on later.
Spire at higher levels. Scaling it up. Also scaling it up. My group is large and powerful, so this is important.
Taint and the Spire of Long Shadows. I haven't used Taint much in this adventure (aside from one near-miss with a taint elemental), but I'm strongly considering brandishing it if anybody needs to be raised within the Spire. Manzorian will be gifting the party with a single scroll of resurrection in a special box. I'm trying to make death less an inconvenience and more a narrative shift. Instead of taking players out of the game, I'll put them back in with new problems. Taint is one way to accomplish that.
Some talk about a particularly deadly encounter. A generic advice thread. Obituaries!
I'm going to be featuring a lot more visions. Many of them will be incomplete, and most of them will feature more general backstory (the failed eladrin/spell weaver* assault and the discovery of the plates, for instance). Some of these visions will be triggered outside the Spire, in case the adventurers try to camp out.
Finally, I plan to feature an additional adventuring party in the region. They are slightly lower-level, but very focused on killing undead. They're more interested in money than knowledge and secrets, but might offer some aid—or at least the use of their base—as long as the PCs stay polite. Sort of like Peruhain's idea:
I also plan to have them run into another party of worm-hunter types from the Amedio Jungle. I'll hold this party in reserve until they are partway through exploring the Spire--if one of the encounters goes awry I'll have someone to bail the PCs out--if not I'll have a tense encounter when the PCs come back to camp with these "interlopers," who are a bit creepy (one has "wormhunter" PrC levels, one has the necromantic bloodline feat from Dragon) but not actually evil.
At some point, the camp might be conquered, and the PCs will be faced with the choice of trying to rescue the survivors of the other party or just trying to find another place to rest.
*Yeah, I'm switching spell weavers for wild elves. There is no reason to involve elves in this. Spell weavers had the magic and the motive to keep Kyuss's lot from spreading into their territory. Plus, this foreshadows Ma'kar a bit more.
Initially, they fared well. The Bloodhounds are a skilled group, and they easily defeated a pride of manticores before a more deadly foe attracted their interest: A demodand named Boshliwur, who had claimed the west quarter of the city. The battle with him was hard-fought, but they eventually stood victorious—thanks to more than a little luck.
Unfortunately, the adventures since them have not been kind to them. With Boshliwur dead, the creature he had forced out returned to the region. The hullathoin Cuauhtémoc (pronounced "Qua-uh-tem-oak"), an ancient enemy of tribes to the west, brought along his forces of vampire spawn to reclaim his old festering grounds.
The Bloodhounds were barely able to escape. Now, one of their number is out of commission, her entire arm cut off to save her from a worm infestation. Lacking the magic to restore their colleague, they've retired her to the new safe site they've managed to carve out (literally, as it's a little cave created via stone shape) and now rest and ready to mount an assault. They believe (wrongly) that they can destroy Cuauhtémoc with a little more preparation.
If the PCs allow the Bloodhounds to go to fight Cuauhtémoc, they'll find an empty shelter next time they return, and the Bloodhounds themselves will have been slaughtered. If they convince the Bloodhounds to stay put and wait for backup, the Bloodhounds may survive—or the PCs will return later to find the lair full of undead, and their fellow adventurers vanished.
The party consists of a TN Nerull-worshiping druid, a CN magus (currently missing an arm), a TN goblin barbarian/warpriest of Maglubiyet, and a LN Wormhunter ranger (the aforementioned guide). All three Bloodhounds have an immense distaste for undead, a redeeming quality in what's otherwise a pretty sorry lot. The guide isn't really very happy about who he's fallen in with, and is currently just trying to get back home in one piece with a decent haul.