Overzealous players vs Depora


Second Darkness


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So in the game I'm DMing, my players are categorically overzealous, I know this. They're a great bunch of guys, just they go above and beyond to try to get their way (as no doubt every player group does.)

I just finished wrapping up Book 1 (Shadow in the Sky) with them. The fight with Depora got above ground, where they were fighting Depora on top of the cyphergate. I had wanted to have Depora's body wash away with the tsunami, but these guys dragged the body up with them when they were escaping the tide.

I told them that the drow (Depora) is dead, and they had the cleric cast gentle repose on her body, they fully intend on (possibly raising her as undead) and interrogating her.

How would you as fellow DMs handle this? Would you let them interrogate Depora? If so, what would she even know? And besides escape and return as an undead villain, do you see any other way?


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Do they have the capacity to raise her? Raise Dead doesn't work if she's either unwilling to return (which I doubt she'd be, given who's raising her) or if Pharasma has already judged her soul.

Animating her as a lower level undead - a Skeleton or a Zombie - has little value, as it's a corpse rather than her soul, and it's not intelligent enough to disgorge her plans. You need Create Undead, a 6th level spell, to get an intelligent enough undead to actually share her plans. (A nice Speak with Dead would be a lot easier and provide useful if cryptic answers). If they raise her as undead, she's under their control, so no escaping.

The AP gives a very good idea of what Depora knows (much of which is covered in her journal), and filling in the rest isn't going to wreck the campaign.

Also keep in mind that the meteor has fallen on Devil's Elbow immediately at the end of the AP - are the players going to lug Depora's Reposed Corpse around with them on the island all through Adventure 2? Let them, by all means, if they want to waste spell slots and a lot of time protecting it - that's earning their prize.

If they just throw it in a corner, though, some wandering monster's going to eat it.


That could be their thing, they carry the skulls of their defeated foes around with them. They are...The Grimdarkians!


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As a general rule, I don't think it's problematic for the PCs to try to gain information from the corpse. Speak with Dead is probably the most likely spell to get information, as I doubt Depora would willingly be raised from the dead. A lot of GM's fear Speak with Dead, but should not. Here's a good article on its general uses:

http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/39003/roleplaying-games/random-gm-tip-s peak-with-dead-mysteries

If they use that or a similar method to gain information from her, use her journal as a baseline.

If they turn her into an undead minion, she'd be mindless. And probably a liability once they get to the Devil's Elbow.

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