Canonfire! Forums-viewtopic-Sea of Dust adventure

Mon Nov 12, 2012 2:48 pm

As for the pact, I suggest you cook up an offer that provides a constant benefit, not a one-time benefit.

For example, the PC could gain a 10% bonus on all experience points earned in any encounter in which he performed some evil act. Or, the PC's prime ability score improves by 4 for 10 rounds each time he performs an evil act. Remember, the devil wants to seal the contract by tempting the PC to actually become evil. In a fantasy world, it may be possible that a PC who has lived a virtuous life after signing a faustian pact could have some divine being intervene and rescue his soul. If, however, the PC has given in to temptation and commited so many evil acts to gain the benefits of the pact that his alignment becomes evil, no such intervention is likely to occur.

If you want to be more sneaky, the pact could provide the PC with an intelligent, evil, magical item with an ego high enough to control the PC ocassionally. Thus, the PC is forced to commit evil acts by the item whether he wants to or not. The PC need not be informed of the evil intelligence of the item even. The devil offers the PC a +3 Defending Frostbrand with a special purpose to destroy all Demons. He doesn't tell the PC the weapon is intelligent and lawfully evil aligned. Evil Grin

SirXaris

Mon Nov 12, 2012 10:31 pm

Sander_Ka

The reward can be anything you can imagine. Heck, the by product of the deal is this. The demon will not be sent back to its home plane. Instead he can deal a pc's soul which takes his place. The only true way to send the demon back mis for the PC's to defeat him. Then all will be sent to its home plane. Where a climatic battle ensues. PC's who die on the demons home plane are stuck their for eternity. While those that defeat him or it are free of their pact and lose whatever power they attained.

However, they must now rule in the demons place. While they are free to travel back to the prime plane if killed or banished they return to the demon's home plane until another demon defeats them and assumes power in that plane.

I know its evil, but thats what happens when you make pacts with demons.

Later

Argon

Tue Nov 13, 2012 1:10 am

@Argon: you're talking about Demons, I do not know so much about them.

@SirXaris: Love your ideas.

Tue Nov 13, 2012 1:14 am

Sander_Kaa,

Just replace Demon with Devil. They both fight against each other in the Blood War. Demon are the chaotic side of evil Devils are the lawful side of evil.

I hope this helps.

Later

Argon

Tue Nov 13, 2012 3:30 pm

Sander-Kaa,

Do you happen to own a copy of the Monstrous Compendium which contains the Outer Planes fiends? There is a veritable treasure trove of nasty yugoloths (daemons), gehreleths (demodands), tanar'ri (demons), and baatezu (devils) therein. One of those foul beasts may strike your fancy and the information entries are useful with respect to their powers, immunities, and general characteristics.

Covert, manipulative, cunning evil is always more insidious since it corrupts slowly, without any signs, much like Emperor Palpatine (Darth Sidious), rather than the brutal, overt evil seen by Darth Maul.

I also like the idea of an intelligent, malevolent item (weapon, armor, jewelry, whatever) being the agent of evil instead of some being of the Lower Planes.

-Lanthorn

Tue Nov 13, 2012 3:43 pm

Sander_Kaa,

Mentioned the Devil. I just wanted to give him the idea on what approach he may take, as he likes a Faustian type pact. Who knows the party might actually wind up helping to resurrect the Horned Society.

Later

Argon

Tue Nov 13, 2012 4:02 pm

Devils aren't the only fiends that make pacts...just ask Iggwilv and Iuz.
In fact, that is the primary role of glabrezu (and they are demons)!

The main difference between devils and demons is their alignment, and thus, their hierarchical structure and how they operate between themselves and conduct 'business' with others...always to their own benefit of course!

Evil Grin

However, if you (Sandar_Kaa) insist on a devil (Lawful Evi), then your best bet as a wheeler and dealer with corrupting mortals is the erinyes.

-Lanthorn

Tue Nov 13, 2012 4:23 pm

Great minds think alike Lanthorn.

I mentioned the demon and Sander-Kaa was not familiar with demons so I went back to his Devil choice.

Later

Argon

Wed Nov 14, 2012 1:59 am

Thanks for helping me understanding the difference between devils and demons.

I'll stick with Devils as we already explorerd chaotic evil in our campaign alot. Yesterday I've read Fiendish Codex II, a 3.5 book full of hellish material. I do not own Monstrous Compendium but have the impression both books cover partly the same ground. I favor Erinyes too, as they can present a faustian pact.

Obmi, the dwarf which they 'rescued' out the prison of King Snurre is one the main enemies of this party. It would be neat to have him captured by the Erinye in order to tempt the PCs into torturing him. He has enough information about the whereabouts of Roonwicket (the former PC which they want to save from doing great evil!) and the party will be keen on paying him back for his betrayals.

Some questions: Can this Obmi be a disguised person as I do not plan to have him really captured by the Erinye? Does the devil have enough powers to do such a thing?

And how do the devil know the background of the PCs?

It come slowly to my mind that the sea of dust I created is already pretty evil, the nomads hold slaves, Xavier the Rich sells for ridiculous prices (and maybe is paying the devil society as part of his Faustian pact?).

Wed Nov 14, 2012 10:17 am

I occurs to me that Obmi already fooled the party into thinking he was a captive once before (of the fire giants). Wouldn't it be cool if he pulled off such a scam again on the same group? Evil Grin

Obmi is in on the plan with the Erinyes. He wants to trick the party into evil acts in order to blackmail them with it later. He has an escape route planned, so they can't kill him or keep him hostage, but he will allow them to torture him a bit. According to the Gord books, Obmi owned a Ring of Vampiric Regeneration. He'll have it hidden somewhere on his person (though not worn), so that he can use it to fully heal himself as soon as he makes his escape. That way, he isn't worried about whatever kinds of torture the party may inflict upon him.

SirXaris

Wed Nov 14, 2012 5:32 pm

Obmi is also an agent of Iuz as cited in Iuz the Evil on page 90 as a member of the secret group known as the Boneshadow. According to this (AWESOME) guide, the dwarf is an 11th lvl fighter, owns a dwarven throwing hammer (magic item), and is a brutal warrior.

It is true he is featured in the Gord books, serving Iuz.

I will check out the powers of the erinyes devil and fill you in on what I discover. That may help me to answer your other questions...

-Lanthorn

Wed Nov 14, 2012 6:49 pm

S_K,

Regarding the Erinyes (seems to be both singular and plural), here is some information that you may find useful with regard to their powers and abilities to further your own nefarious designs: Evil Grin

They can telepathically communicate with any sentient being, but prefer direct speech.

At will, they can cause anything viewing them to save vs wands or flee for 1-6 rounds. They also carry a Rope of Entanglement at all times.

They possess a very potent Charm Person ability allowing them to affect any being THEY glance at (do not need to lock eyes) to save vs spells at half their level! The range is 60 feet. Only one victim can be affected at a time (luckily), but they will serve the devil to death, or until released (there ya go, buddy!).

Erinyes possess the innate abilities to perform the following feats of magic, at will, one at a time, one per round: Detect Invisibility, Invisibility, Locate Object, Polymorph Self (another great way to fool your players!), Produce Flame, Advanced Illusion (!!!), Animate Dead, Infravision, Know Alignment (always active), Suggestion, and Teleport without Error.

They can also gate other devils to their aid, if needed: 1-8 spinagons (50% chance) OR 1-4 barbazu (35% chance) but only once per day.

This should give you a good idea what they can do! If you need more information (there's more to offer about special immunities and other stats), let me know.

-Lanthorn, from the Planes of 2e

Wed Nov 14, 2012 8:12 pm

Erinyes,

Can cast minor image and have True seeing active constantly in 3E. Telepathy 100ft can also charm monster, greater teleport, unholy blight. Damage reduction 5/good immunity to fire and poison resistance to acid 10 and cold 10. Spell resistance 20 and dark vision 60ft.

They have a Charisma score of 20 and Diplomacy skill +7 also any two knowledge skills at +14. Not that it matters with PCs though you can see how persuasive they can be.

On another note since Obmi serves Iuz it would make sense that the Erinyes would like to take him out of the picture. Iuz is the son of a demon and a witch after all.

Later

Argon

Thu Nov 15, 2012 6:03 am

Nice catch regarding Obmi and the connection to Iuz. The Erinyes clearly have the powers to handle Obmi. As he is a fighter type guy he will be easily catched by a charm spell.

So let's try to make it all a little more solid. The 5th door is opening towards the premises of this Erinyes. She lives there and is most probably surrounded by some of her minions. The most powerfull one being an old Suel wizards who signed a faustian pact with the Erinyes. He has a safehouse and receives pleasures of the Erinyes but he has to serve her and is slowly corrupted to a lawful alignment. Of course she created some devils to accompany and serve her.

Eclavdra, Obmi and Roonwicket had to clean room 5 in order to enter the 6th door, futher into the Null Obelisk. Eclavdra negotiated with the devil a deal: she will enter the Null obelisk freely in return for Obmi. The deal is: The Erinyes is to keep Obmi for the same time Eclavdra spends in the Null obelisk between now and her stay. A deal which has abusing mechanism due to the fact the Null obelisk potentially allows timetravel. Obmi will not agree to this (of course) but is no more than a meatshield for Eclavdra. Besides Eclavdra is not working for Iuz but for her own purposes. Obmi will be charmed by the devil and is suddenly agreeing to the deal. He will stay for a while with the devil. He has a nice room, with two doors, one to the main room of the devil, one to a torture chamber as Obmi is promised to receive visitors which might need to use this room at one day. It will be a nasty surprise if the room is used for torturing him. Cool

As Obmi is a powerful guy the Erinyes wants him either dead or converted to LE. She will try the second thing for sure. The first she asks is to fool the PCs into letting him be tortured in return for a nice amulet to recover from his torture he is only to let him tortured in return for the gift. (he doesn't possess the amulet in my game so this is a good way of giving it)

A nice set-up for evil deeds of the PCs isn't it?

Please come up with suggestions. As I hate railroading I want to stay open for unexpected things. What will happen if the PCs use zone of truth and the like in order to question him?

Thu Nov 15, 2012 7:59 am

S_K,

Don't underestimate the powers of Obmi. As a dwarf, he gets a serious bonus to resist magic based on his Constitution (which I wouldn't put any lower than a 16).

-Lanthorn

Thu Nov 15, 2012 12:52 pm

We play 3.5 where Obmi has it's own will save and another +2 bonus against magical sources.

Thu Nov 15, 2012 8:07 pm

I wonder if Obmi hammer does extra damage to Devils or maybe he is secretly transporting an object that does harm devils which would make it pertinent that the Erinyes prevents Obmi from delivering his cargo.

Later

Argon

Thu Nov 15, 2012 11:48 pm

This is a nice source for some of our thoughts: http://home.comcast.net/~chris.s/iuz.html

Fri Nov 16, 2012 4:50 pm

Sander_Kaa,

Nice find! I wonder if I read that before seems weird it follows my suggestion quite well. Wink

Later

Argon

Tue Jan 08, 2013 5:30 am

After months our group was finally able to continue this campaign as our main DM wanted some time for preparing his own campaign.

What happened so far:

Roonwicket, Eclavdra and Obmi ran into mansion of the Erinyes and her followers and lover, a Suel wizard. The Erinyes (with class level, hell yeah) tried to detect thougts Obmi, and succeeded. As Roonwicket and Eclavdra recognized the devil (they have loads of ranks in the relevant knowledge skills) they didn't feel well to deal with the devil. Obmi was charmed pretty easily but Roonwicket managed to release Obmi from this enchantment and they got away. No deals, no Faustian pact.

The group managed to continue to the center of Null Obelisk and finally reached the colossal harmonious gate. Eclavdra retrieved her captured bard by some greater teleport spells and forced her to play the gigantic musical instrument (see the Age of Glory fanmade adventure for details, it's worth it). The group saw itself moved to the times of the Suel empire, eager to map the environments and find the original location of the Suss Theorparts.

The party of PCs tried to chase the evil party into the Null Obelisk, and ran into the Erinyes too. Very nice roleplaying occured and especially Sam Shortwick a halfling and Alex the cleric were eager to see what the devil had to offer. The devil bluffed them into having captured people (after detect thought on them) and that she has Obmi in the torture room, available for some retribution acts. Thorgan and Roondar were upset and walked away, finally able to keep the others from bargaining with the devil. Especially Sam seems eager to return.

The managed to solve the riddles of a sfinx and defeated a massive game of chess. They chased the group of Roonwicket as they found a way to see the music last played on the harmonious gate. They stepped into an old Suel city, full of pureblooded Suel. As they are no citizens of the Suel empire they will have problems soon with the authorities.

What comes next: The PCs have plenty of money, different from the coinage of the Suel. They will find ways to buy stuff. As this is the age of glory I want very alienate magic items. I plan to go full stop with this :)

Secondly they are not welcome in the normal districts of the Suel cities but only in the humanoid district. Catching some lvl15 adventures will not be so easy though. Will invisible city guard wizards fly above the city quarters or will the guards have magic wands of whoop **** (antimagic field cages or the like?)

Wed Jan 09, 2013 10:30 am

Sounds like fun, Sander_kaa. Smile

If you haven't seen Maldin's Greyhawk, I highly suggest you check out the links to The Scoll of Dust and Secrets of the Twin Cataclyms found here: http://melkot.com/epic.html.

SirXaris

Thu Jan 10, 2013 4:19 am

Thanks for pointing out Maldins Greyhawk. I already checked his site and have chosen to implement some of his ideas into our campaign. I like the cube with the shadow inside and the magic items presented.

The page with the scrolls of dust are new to me and I will give it a read.

Some problems which may occur are related to timetravel. The PCs with great knowledge are informed that they have to be very careful with changing history. I mean: what will happen if they buy this very magical sword which was used to slay a villain. Will the villain still live but was it slain by another sword (I rule: could be), but what if the parents of this the hero wielding it are slain before the hero was born? (I rule: very dangerous, cracks and breaks may occur in time which cause major problems. I plan to represent these kind of problems by real cracks which occur in the view of the PCs (think of glass plate with a crack in it, placed between you and what you look at). By this the PCs can decide how far they go.

But: I don't want to railroad them so if they decide to mess around and negating the cracks I want them to be able to. Will they make saves? Will the gods interact? What do you think?

Thu Jan 10, 2013 5:07 am

Okay, I thought that the link I provided above led to a synopsis of an adventure, but having read through Maldin's pages again, I can't find what I thought was there.

What I wanted you to see was what someone wrote up long ago about taking his players through an adventure he wrote wherein they travel back in time, find themselves within the Suel Imperium a few weeks before the Twin Cataclysms, and attempt to prevent the catastrophe from happening. Unfortunately, in warning both the Suel and Baklunish governments of what they claim is a future event, they convince both that the other nation is really about to launch a catastrophic magical assault upon their own nation. The Suel utilize the Codex of Infinite Planes to launch a pre-emptive strike against their enemies and the Baklunish, who were trying to do the same thing, launch their own strike (the Rain of Colorless Fire) in retaliation. (A fantasy version of nuclear war.)

The PCs may magically escape before being consumed by the twin cataclysms, but they return to their own time with the sickening knowledge that it was their naive attempt to change history that actually caused the Twin Cataclysms to occur. Shocked

I loved it. Evil Grin

If someone knows where I can find a copy of that synopsis, I'd sure appreciate a link.

SirXaris

Thu Jan 10, 2013 5:54 am

SirXaris, the fan-made adventure Age of Glory actually overlaps with the story you recall very much: http://www.greyhawkonline.com/canonfire/RR_001_Suel_Imperium_-_Age_of_Glory.pdf

I run this and swapped the Scarlet Brotherhood for the group of Obmi, Eclavdra and Roonwicket. I have those three looking for the original location of the Suss Theorpart in able to retrieve this in the current year.

Thu Jan 10, 2013 3:31 pm

Thanks SK! That is exactly the adventure I recalled, but could no longer find. I even remembered the steel dragons at the end. Smile

SirXaris

Sun Jan 20, 2013 5:59 am Re: Sea of Dust adventure