Infiltrators and Competitors

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Scouts

The halls to the bedrooms and rooms away form the party thrum with the noise from the feast. However despite the dim and the constant chorus of laughter the sounds of uncareful footsteps can be heard. Up ahead, a shadow of a human sized created lies against the wall. Approaching it carefully and drawing a weapon the party approach the figure, however there is a problem. The figure is a statue with a hat placed carefully on it. The astute in the party hear the faintest scrape from an oiled scabbard as daggers and blades are drawn from concealed places. It seems that the party have found the infiltrators and competitors.

The backup Plan

The infiltrators had run this way, past the doors to the kitchens, past the study and a meeting room and towards a large set of double doors. Careful to not leave a mess, as Park had instructed, the unconscious men were secured in a locked room. As they moved to the double doors they swung open and they found themselves staring at those who had escaped as well as a goliath of a man. Large rippling muscles gripped a crossbow in his hand. The darkened weapon was complemented with a black mace that swung from his hip.

The Boss

As the party turn to leave the room with the evidence that Park had asked them to retrieve they head the door open and close rapidly behind them. Este, the maid that they were introduced to earlier by Park looked terrified at them as she walked towards them. Looking nervous she wet her lips before checking behind the curtains, having noticed the unconscious bodies in the hallway. “I was being followed. But I thought I could lose the man on the way here but I lost them instead. I believe he was heading this way but I needed to confirm that he hadn’t made it into the kings bedroom.. But you are here.. Why are you in here?”

“Because they too are after what I am. They want to expose the kings madness for what it is. Truth.” a man said from the doorway, the latch hadn’t even made a sound. “The king does have a queen, Oh yes. A hidden Queen. One that hides in plain sight, one that delights in the infiltrators and competitors that she enticed to her web. A deceiver queen amongst all who poisoned the mind of a man she was sent to kill and instead wed him in secret.” the man said as he effortlessly drew out a longsword.

“I don’t know what you speak of…” the maid Este began to stutter “the king..”

“You don’t need to play coy with me Celeste. I am an envoy of the kings sanity. One who saw through your charade and who has waited for this moment. You are the assassin. You are the hidden queen!”

Thoughts

I honestly struggled to not reveal who the queen was on Wednesday. But we find ourselves in an interesting situation. The Queen has been revealed but some accusations have been laid on the table. But regardless who the party believe Lark wont let any of them leave alive.

The Raised Behemoth

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A sacred ritual, backfired.

The bodies of the cultists littered the floor. Most of them ripped to shreds as the necromantic energy still pulsed from the dais and massive altar. The ones that they saw shambling around the room looked to be the ones that got off better. Body parts littered the room, something had made a mess of those who had failed the ritual. If they wanted to stop the magic from the ritual from progressing they had better stop it and fast, but there were the zombies to deal with first. Then and only then this ritual that creates “The Raised Behemoth” as the city guard’s prisoner at the start of the descent would be stopped.

The Raised Behemoth – Allosaurus Skeleton

The scraping of something large and hard resonated down the ancient stone hallway in the darkened crypt. The unnatural presence that washed over the party from the beyond the smashed crypt door, within the dark gloom almost made the bodies from the cultists in the previous room almost pleasant. As something rushed forward the reflexes of the party took over and they dived behind one of the supporting pillars. A mass of magically imbued bones crashed into the space they were a heartbeat before and the undead mass screeched across the stone floor until it hit and collided with the dais.

Paper and splinters of wood rained down but the creature stood on two powerful back legs as bony forearms helped right it. A huge lizard, monstrous in appearance with the flesh long rotten away. Hardened bones, fossils they had heard them called once, created this giant creature. A terrible, dreadful king of all lizards.

Thoughts

Oh boy, this will be fun. The whole theme for this week was the story my delightful daughter dreamt up for me. A city next to a great dinosaur graveyard where when the magic moon shine the dinosaurs come back to life and eat everyone. I swear she is a sweet angel – but the creative apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

The Allosaurus is a beefed up one, the largest skeleton they had found, the strongest magic imbues it in a temple that was dedicated to it. This creature is not something for the faint of heart and its the first major boss that I have whipped up this year. It also gives me an excuse to brew up something relatively from scratch and throw a bunch of legendary actions onto a skeleton!

Carnival of the Damned

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Arbiter Zed

Arbiter Zeds carnival of the damned is just that. The people that have been enslaved to work as part of his travelling nightmare fuel for all eternity. That is until someone can kill Arbiter Zed. While not extremely durable, one good smite away from biting it he will hide behind props, in a wagon and use his performers as potential shields. He isn’t above losing one or two cast members to save himself.

Targeting as many people as possible with sleep those who survive the attack will need to deal with his other spells. Heat metal is brutal for any melee warrior. Command, Dissonant whispers and even phantasmal force are also not to be trifled with. However Minor illusion could be used to make it look like a zombie is him standing still, making a pseudo effective duplicate, if only for a turn.

The Carnival of the Damned

These performers will run forward, cartwheeling, laughing and juggling clubs (or limbs) in a morbid display of acrobatics. This should give them a creepy vibe when really they are just engaging into melee. Just because the creature is dead doesn’t crush their dreams of performing now does it?

A general meat shield for Arbiter these creatures are there to distract and provide bodies for the mage to use.

Sorcery and Scum

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Sarline

First off tonight we are looking at the main spectacle – The identification of the Feline Filcher through either attending a party as guards, if they set a trap for her or something else that we believe will work. The rule here is what ever the party want to do it needs to be within jogging distance of a street, be open (not an obvious trap) and be cool.

Sarline is a low level sorcerer with the ability to cast some minor illusions and a once-off ability to turn into a cat for an hour when things go really pear shaped. She will primarily move as fast as she can to get out of line of sight and then cast minor illusion to make a door way look like a solid wall, block off a narrow alleyway or the like. She doesn’t have offensive magic and at worst can cast Charm person once per day.

With the plan she can either get the item or not, but the moment she detects the party she will run off and attempt to hide. The party is meant to find her though, so it cant be too difficult. When the party find her she reveals the reason of her thievery is Seth and his kidnapping of children.

Seth

Now the simple answer here is that the party don’t believe Sarline and take her into the guards. But, we can’t have that. As soon as Sarline is coerced into revealing Seth’s behind it he appears from behind the party (nearby) “Well, well, well. We can’t have these vicious rumours getting our now can we boys? Best ensure that these sticky-beaks are quietened” he says menacingly.

Seth will be joined by a number of thugs to make it a fun and challenging fight. If Seth by himself is enough for the party (level 1 party) then he has one accomplice

(Bandit) and the others engage Sarline.

Sarline attempts to flee and hide from the fight, if she does escape she runs to free the kids before returning.

Seth is a powerful adversary so the party best be prepared.

Grut’s Warriors

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Now the backbone of Grut’s Warriors are the bugbear. Hulking medium sized humanoids they are ferocious and don’t underhanded tactics despite their strength. A volley of javelins will whistle through the air before the sickening thud of them plunging into allies marks the charge of the bugbear. Despite being larger cousins of the Goblin and Orc this particular breed of Bugbear share some resemblance of giants.

Grut – The Giant King

No matter what Grut’s warriors say he is paranoid. Being mislead and tricked by his own kind he has vowed to let no-one trick him again. this has lead his mind to become fractured with an ultra paranoid inner voice driving his decisions and siding against good, solid Giant logic. Perhaps this was the Hags doing, perhaps not.

A big meaty foot and a large club greet any who encounter Grut. Ferocious and fearless in battle he isn’t afraid the lead the charge and his bolstered armour and constitution provided by the mutated hide he carries is a badge of honour more than a curse to him now.

Thoughts

The encounter will be tough. 1-2 orcs per player OR 1 bugbear for the initial raiding of the camp. A mix of Orc and bugbear is probably ideal. When there is only one or two remaining they will call for aid from their king who will stomp forward. Balanced at a level 4 party this adventure is increasing the tempo once more – so I am calling some of the bigger shots with ferocious minions wearing the party down, and their resources, and even worse, the leader Grut himself.

The Princes Guard

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Now, for those who are not complete nerds like myself the kobold is a humble nuisance who plays a very important role for all campaigns. They teach the party to never underestimate the lesser races. While one kobold wont do much, a dozen will, and taking into consideration what the lord of monsters, Volo, has to say about them – they love their traps. You will never stumble into kobolds territories without a snare, a spike trap, a falling log, pit traps, badger in a cage or a bag of scorpions falling on your head. These little scavengers and tinkerers are something that’s great about low level D&D.

The other part about kobolds is their uncanny ability to flock to dragons to serve them – and what better dragon than a young male chromatic one. Dragons even in wyrmling states may try and build up their territory and treasure from a young age. The Prince in this story is no different and he happened to find a pack of kobolds in the hills he wanted to live in. What luck!

The Prince

Now this is a rather, err, DM sided adventure. What I mean by that is that these creatures are weak. If you don’t put yourself in their shoes, err, claws you wont challenge your party. The Wyrmling isn’t a terrifying entity, the size of a large dog but smaller than a horse the only thing that makes them truly terrifying is their fly speed and breath weapon. So IF we want to play to our strengths these creatures will swoop in low, breath a cone of cold then fly away. If and only if ground combat looks like its extremely favourable in their favour – or they have some minions to distract the interlopers do they go toe-to-toe.

That being said. The white dragon is note an intelligent beast. Wise enough to know to run it probably isn’t smart enough to work out traps, baits or feints and being a young prince it will probably be extremely proud of itself. This means that if the party can think outside of the box, play dead or set up a well planned or hidden trap the wyrmling will become a very easy fight. Abilities or actions to stop it from flying, or, to hinder its ability to move will ensure an easy victory.

Thoughts

The Prince and his guard have made an appearance and the numbers will be in the favour of the kobolds and their leige. However with clever planning and tactics this should be an easy enough fight. However, that is if the party doesn’t get cold feet… Yup a bad nerdy joke. In fact it’s so bad its good.

A Cursed Crew

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Tonight I want to broach the thought of hybrid monsters. I am not talking about the delightful owlbear or Seawolf or the like but the mix of two archetypes. The cursed crew that we will be encountering this week are a hybrid between a shadow and zombie. more nimble and spectral that a zombie, not as strong as a shadow but somewhere in between. So I will have a go at marrying the parts we need and see where we end up.

Thoughts

The idea behind these creatures is that they are the bound crew to the ship, except the captain of course and one other hidden one. But that’s for later.

They shouldn’t be able to do anything more than they could in life its just that they are affected by less. A normal strike, blow or cut from a normal weapon that would remove an arm connects but the semi-spectral body doesn’t appear to affect them as much. They aren’t meant to be strong as reflected by their actions but they are a pest that is hard to kill and they fight as they would be used to by now. By swarming and hoping their semi-spectral blades connect (reflected by poor to hit and damages).

Due to the increased durability they are more of a threat than a zombie but less than a shadow – but CR1/2 is probably the most suitable that we will come across.