I need brainstorming help creating a high-powered encounter for my long-running Sterich campaign, set in Sunsebb of CY595.
The PCs are all 19th or 20th lvl, an adventuring band called the Irregular Pentagon (Pentagon, for short), all but one of them Baronesses of the March. A generation ago, a previous band of adventurers were also ennobled by then-Earl Querchard; this group is known informally by the local people as the Croodlers, after the hometown of their leader Beek Gwenders. This NPC adventuring band is entirely based on the pregens from the old D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth module.
The Pentagon has had numerous, basically-friendly dealings with the Croodlers at Court, and the gnome favored soul PC has begun a romance with the Croodler gnome Keak Breedbate of Nithe (the Baron of Elnore). Some months ago, I decided that the Croodlers had uncovered evidence of drow meddling in Istivin, instigated by House Tormtor, and mounted another expedition into the depths of the Oerth to punish the drow. There’s been no word from the Croodlers since.
The Pentagon (the PCs) are finishing up an extended adventure in the Demonweb Pits (a scaled-up The Harrowing by Monte Cook from Dungeon magazine). During the adventure, they undertook a perilous negotiation with Eclavdra at her abyssal fane (mentioned in Fiendish Codex I & Expedition to the Demonweb Pits), exchanging powerful magic items for information and access to the portal to the Fane of Lolth in the Vault of the Drow in order to get home.
So the PCs are going to be entering the Vault via the astral gate in the Fane. What they’ll find there is the Fane sacked, with guards and clergy lying dead all over the place: This is the doing of the Croodlers, who have not only sacked the fane but mounted a successful hit-and-run on the Estate of House Tormtor itself before retreating across the flying bridge into the city of Erelhei Cinlu.
The epic encounter I want to run is that the PCs, retracing the devastation of the Croodlers through the northern Vault, follow their path into Erelhei Cinlu where the Croodlers are now holed up in a prominent building or location there, beseiged by a powerful force of drow, allies, and minions certain to destroy them—unless, of course, the PCs intervene and save them.
So this is the part where I need help. I’ve been studying the descriptions of the Vault and Erelhei Cinlu in D3 (CY576), Dragon #298 (CY 592), and Drow of the Underdark (CY 597, presumably), and I’ve wondered if it would be possible if some of the changes wrought between the latter two sources (for instance, destruction of the Spire of Encyclic by House Noquar, sorcerors demolishing the Third Level Inn, the torching of Silver Stage during riots etc. etc.), could be the result of this very encounter.
Most interestingly to me, according to Drow of the Underdark, the most powerful high priestess of Lolth, Matron Charinida (Clr21; Drg298,p86) no longer commands the Fane of Lolth, Eclavdra does. So, I thought, maybe this is how Charinida dies, in this very encounter. Maybe Eclavdra giving the PCs access to the Fane of Lolth was all part of her plan to seize the Fane from Charinida.
So what I’ve got so far is that Matron Charinida (who escaped the attack on the Fane) has gathered what allies she can and has the Croodlers pinned down somewhere in the city and will succeed in destroying them if the PCs don’t stop it.
Here’s my questions/issues/problems:
1) Where should the Croodlers be pinned down? Erelhei Cinlu is chock full of vivid and amazing locations, but I almost feel I have too many good options and am at a loss for where. (My first thought was the Spire of the Encyclic, because we know it’ll be destroyed, but that would put the entire encounter on the frontlines between House Noquar and House Shi’qos, with the Croodlers stuck between. Matron Charinida’s forces/allies would make a 4th hostile force on the scene, but I’m unclear if either Noquar or Shi’qos would be natural allies to Charinida, or exactly how the politics would pan out—so this is intriguing to me but I’m leery that it might get too complicated.)
2) Who should the beseiging force be? I need a challenge for 5 19th and 20th lvl characters, although I foresee their biggest challenge should be just keeping the Croodlers (lvls 10-14) alive. I definitely don’t want to create brand-new super-powerful drow never mentioned anywhere else. I’d prefer to either use powerful existing NPCs/monsters or lesser nameless monsters that would make sense in the setting. Charinida, for instance, might have gated in something truly horrible to help out.
I’m unclear on who among the drow noble houses would help Charinida in this situation. What lesser monsters of Erelhei Cinlu would she have at her disposal? Just who can Charinida get to help her attack a murder-hoboing band of surface elves?
Most importantly, the city itself is so backstabbing and chaotic that I don’t really have a good idea how it responds to a threat like this: would the citizens even care that these elves just sacked the Fane? (For instance, would Amalriv, the 19th lvl wizard tax-baron mayor in the Ghetto of Foreigners (Drg298, p76) get involved, given that his description stresses his pragmatism and need to survive, or just stay home?)
House Kilsek: All hail us and also Lolth.
Eclavdra: Excuse you. You're sitting in my chair.
House Kilsek: Haha you wish.
Eclavdra: Move your fat butt, fatty.
House Kilsek: Our posterior is vast because Lolth is with us.
Eclavdra: Oh yeah? Well this elder tentacle god is with me.
House Kilsek: Praise the Spider Queen!
Eclavdra: Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!
House Kilsek: This has gone on long enough.
Eclavdra: I agree. I'm evicting you.
House Kilsek: You and what army?
Eclavdra: This army of giants invading the surface world.
House Kilsek: ...damn. Wish we'd thought of that.
House Everhate: Hot dog we are all in on this.
Gleep Wurp the Eyebiter: Woo!
Frush O'Suggill: We're adventurers from the surface world, woo!
Fonkin Hoddypeak: Gnarly giants, dude.
Flerd Trantle: Awesome Fane of Lolth. Sorry we filled it with beer cans.
Faffle Dwe'o-mercraeft: Fane is Drow Elven for public urinal right.
Beek Gwenders of Croodle: This spider idol is gonna make the best bong.
Roaky Swerked: Spring break woo!
All drow houses: Eclavdra!
Eclavdra: What?
Drow houses: This is your fault Eclavdra.
Drow houses: Get out.
House Eilserv: (promptly eaten by ghouls)
House Everhate: This may not have been our best investment.
Lolth: So how is that thing going
Drow houses: What thing
Lolth: That thing
Lolth: You know
Lolth: Where giants invade the surface world.
Drow houses: Terrible
Drow houses: It attracted rowdy teens
Drow houses: Didn't you die at the end
Lolth: Well I want you to do it again.
Lolth: It was my best plan
Lolth: I'm so smart for thinking of it
Lolth: Zuggtmoy was so jealous
Lolth: So do it again.
Drow: FINE
House Kilsek: This plan went great. So glad we thought of it.
House Tormtor: Oh no you didn't.
House Tormtor: Pretty sure we thought of it.
House Tormtor: Get your fat butt out of our chair.
House Kilsek: Our butt is fat because Lolth is with us.
House Tormtor: Well the banshee goddess of vengeance is with us
House Kilsek: Who?
House Tormtor: You know
House Tormtor: Kiaransalee.
House Kilsek: That sounds fake.
House Kilsek: Pretty sure you made that name up.
House Tormtor: Well whatever who else wants in?
House Everhate: Hot dog we're all in on this
House Everhate: This is our best investment ever.
Eclavdra: Elder Elemental God, old buddy, do you have a guest bedroom in R'lyeh?
Elder Elemental God: Zzzzzzzz
Eclavdra: C'mon, at least a couch I can crash on.
Elder Elemental God: Zzzzzzzz... fhtagn... zzzzzzzz
Eclavdra: Graz'zt, old buddy. You have a guest bedroom in Azzagrat right.
Graz'zt: Eclavdra. Our son misses you.
Eclavdra: Haha what
Athux: Mother
Athux: Where have you been mother
Athux: You said you were stepping out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back
Eclavdra: Pretty sure if I had a son I would have eaten him.
Athux: Mommy why
Eclavdra: Did you know the Drow words for son and "snack consumed to provide energy to bear daughters" are the same?
Athux: Mommy
Eclavdra: You are seventy years old.
Graz'zt: You can be my ambassador to Iuz I guess
Eclavdra: You're going to teach me a lesson about absentee parenting by sending me to babysit the son you never visit?
Graz'zt: Pretty much.
Leda: Now I'm a clone of Eclavdra.
Leda: Gord the Rogue has taught me the ways of love.
Leda: I'm a separate individual.
Tenser: Not sure that's how it works.
Tenser: I've been cloned a bunch of times.
Tenser: After I was killed by Halmadar the Cruel, and after Rary killed me, and all those clones that Robilar killed, and that clone that was a dretch. Are they all separate people in the afterlife? The Seven Heavens must be getting crowded with versions of me.
Bigby: Pretty sure all clones share the same soul. That's why they hate each other if two are active at once. It's like Harry Potter and Voldemort.
Tenser: I don't think Harry Potter was a clone.
Bigby: No, but their souls were connected because Harry was a Horcrux.
Leda: So I am the original Eclavdra?
Robilar: Wait, I'm changing my excuse then.
Tenser: What are you doing here?
Robilar: I'm not a clone, I'm a mirror universe duplicate.
Bigby: Oh, that makes more sense.
Tenser: Then all is forgiven. Live long and prosper, Robilar.
Leda: Whatever, Sea of Death isn't WotC canon anyway. I'm out.
Athux: Father
Athux: Father
Athux: Daddy
Graz'zt: What.
Athux: Look what Mother has done.
Graz'zt: What.
Athux: She has keyed the family car with the words "Lolth rules."
Athux: How inappropriate.
Athux: I miss her so.
Lolth: Hahahahaha
Lolth: LOL
Lolth: That was awesome.
Eclavdra: I know right
Lolth: You're my new best friend.
Eclavdra: Of course I am.
Lolth: Everyone.
Lolth: Everyone.
Lolth: Meet my best friend Eclavdra
Drow houses: Are you kidding me
Eclavdra: I'm back, baby
House Everhate: We're never going to see a return on our investment are we
Eclavdra: Haha no
House Everhate: Well. We're broke.
Kilsek: Later, jerks.
Eclavdra: Bye Kilsek
Eclavdra: Have fun in your short-lived spin-off
Kilsek: The Chainmail miniatures game is an exciting opportunity for us.
Eclavdra: Pffthahahaha
Eclavdra: You're the Joanie Loves Chachi of the Vault of the Drow
Eclavdra: You're Saved By the Bell: The New Class
Eclavdra: You're the Bourne Identity movie they did without Matt Damon
Kilsek: Okay! We get it.
Laveth: Mother
Laveth: Mother
Laveth: Mommy
Lolth: Are you talking to me?
Laveth: You never came to my dance recitals
Lolth: I'm sorry, who are you?
Laveth: I'm Laveth, Mother. Your daughter.
Lolth: I'm pretty sure that if I had a daughter I would have eaten it.
Lolth: I'm an immortal demon queen. I don't exactly need an heir.
Laveth: You didn't pick me up from soccer practice, Mother.
Lolth: Besides, spiders are oviparous. I probably laid a million eggs inside a beanie baby and forgot about them.
Laveth: I waited for hours, Mother.
Laveth: It started to rain.
Lolth: The nineties were a wild decade for me. There was this drow ranger with two scimitars.
Laveth: Gross, Mother!
Lolth: That wasn't a euphemism for anything.
Laveth: You neglected me, Mother. I shall have my vengeance.
House Xaniqos: Hot dog, we're in.
House Xaniqos: This is an exciting opportunity for us.
Gleep Wurp: Woo!
Frush O'Suggill: Spring break!
Eclavdra: You clowns again?
Eclavdra: Tell you what, why don't you kill Charinida for me?
House Everhate: Oh no. Eclavdra has once again attracted the rowdy teens.
House Xaniqos: Who's Eclavdra?
House Everhate: Before your time. She always ruins everything.
House Xaniqos: Interesting. You know in Drow Elven, "always ruins everything" is the same word as opportunity.
House Everhate: No. Trust us, that is absolutely not true.
House Xaniqos: For Eclavdra, our new best friend!
House Everhate: For Charinida! She can't possibly be worse than Eclavdra!
The Croodlers: Spring break!
So this is the part where I need help. I’ve been studying the descriptions of the Vault and Erelhei Cinlu in D3 (CY576), Dragon #298 (CY 592), and Drow of the Underdark (CY 597, presumably)
Rasgon, That was wonderful. I intend to share it with my players if I can manage to obfuscate a few of the spoilers they might not yet be aware of . . .
Thanks also for calling my attention to the Hand of Vengeance. Funnily enough, they were the first nemeses I'd thought of, but then rejected, as I somewhere got into my head that they acted more like a party of adventurers, or perhaps spies, than a military force. But looking at them again, I can see I definitely should use them against the Croodlers, probably they are what comes through Charinida's gate, as the penultimate foes before Charinida herself comes against them.
Grodog, hats off for your reminder about OJ14, a source for Erelhei-Cinlu I'd completely forgotten about and haven't read since it first appeared. Did this come out before or after Dragon #298? Neither version seems to reference the other . . . (Oh, and by the way, I think I'm playing in your Castle Greyhawk game at Garycon next month.)
I'm still interested if anybody has good ideas for where the Croodlers should hole up--what's the most dramatic and epic location for a battle this big?--and especially for how Erelhei-Cinlu reacts to the incursion.
Would/should Charinida involve the Noble Houses to stamp out just 9 surface dwellers and their 2 mules? or would that make her look weak? Do you think she can muster the slaves and bugbears, goblins, yugoloth etc. into an attacking force to exterminate them? or would she be forced to make do with clerics of Lolth and their slaves?
I guess what's difficult when I think about it is that Charinida doesn't really have an overt power base within Erelhei-Cinlu (it's all controlled by the Houses) other than, of course, that she heads the church of Lolth. And so it's kind of like if the Pope raised an army to attack some enemies in Rome: would the Italian government be okay with that? would they help? could they afford to not help?
Wherever this siege takes place, it'll be in one of the ghettos controlled by one of the Noble Houses, which raises the question of how that House will react, and would they naturally ally with Charinida against invaders? or would they marshal their forces and just stand by and watch what happens? Surely none of the houses would be so brazen to openly oppose
Charinida, right?
So I guess I'm kind of thinking of attacking the Croodlers in waves--first slaves and expendables, then maybe undead, then maybe yugoloths, finally some drow, then the Hand of Vengeance, and if surface dwellers are still standing at that point, Charinida goes in personally with her retinue to mop up.
I just want to make sure this all makes sense, in a drow way.
Lolth: Wait
Lolth: What about that encouraging banner I wove for you
Lolth: I hung it up behind you at your school talent show
Laveth: Mother
Laveth: "Some pig" is not an encouraging banner
Lolth: I see. Charlotte does it and everyone loves her. I do it and I'm a bad mother.
Laveth: Charlotte had the courtesy to die!
Lolth: SHE WHAT
Lolth: Spoiler warning, please!
Lolth: I raised you better than that
Actually, if you can get the Croodlers through, the city, I would have them holed up in either the male or female fighters societies. Very defensible positions, but no way out without a rescue.
Would/should Charinida involve the Noble Houses to stamp out just 9 surface dwellers and their 2 mules? or would that make her look weak? Do you think she can muster the slaves and bugbears, goblins, yugoloth etc. into an attacking force to exterminate them? or would she be forced to make do with clerics of Lolth and their slaves?
I think she could muster slaves, extraplanar mercenaries and so on, either with her own funds or by borrowing favors from the nobility, but the price she'll have to pay may indeed weaken her later. It depends on how desperate she is. Since she's, at least according to the published canon, destined to lose, she's either very desperate or overconfident.
Since she's supposed to be an old, canny operator, I'm guessing she won't be overconfident and she'll pay whatever price, either in gold or reputation, that she needs to pay. If looking weak in front of adventurers weakens her hand in city politics later, maybe she needs to accept that.
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would they naturally ally with Charinida against invaders? or would they marshal their forces and just stand by and watch what happens?
Even assuming they're naturally inclined to band together against outsiders, I don't think any of the drow houses would pass up the opportunity to demand recompense for their aid. They'll help, but make sure they get paid for it. Again, one way or another: if Charinida is foolish enough to refuse to pay them then she's made enemies in Erelhei-Cinlu's game of politics, and that's a price she has to pay too.
As for who sides with Charinida and who sides with Eclavdra, I think the more powerful houses have an investment in the status quo, while the less powerful ones have less to lose and more to gain by backing an insurgent. Then again, those houses that are barely holding on to what power they still have will probably be more conservative too unless they truly think they're doomed without a significant change in the city's politics.
As I suggested above (I was trying to be humorous, but that all came from an attempt to get the history of the Vault and the motivations of its various actors straight in my head) those who feel like they've been badly burned by siding with Eclavdra before may be reluctant to do so again.
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