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Theres
2009-02-23, 10:56 PM
Well now that the whole super dwarf fighter is taken care of as the cleric in the party and his paladin/ cleric cohort took over as damage dealers in the party i need to make a better plot. so far they just left the major forest and are now entering dangerous territory (after fighting some ogre mages, gnoll horde and a raksasha plus the gnoll warlord). not the city there entering is supposed to be infested with a whos who of any evil related monster. the dwarf is lawful good and his cohort is a paladin/ dwarf and the cleric is the only one with flexible morals because he's neutral. any interesting dilemmas or conundrums i could throw at them? the city is long abandoned and anything is possible here. any help?

Wystrell
2009-02-24, 12:50 AM
Make the city inhabited. No matter what all the NPCs have told them about the city being infested with god knows what, they enter the city and they are greeted with waves and smiles by human peasants and human guards. The sun is usually shining and the taverns have good beer. Their good-naturedness appears genuine, and perhaps it is.

There are many ways you could play this:

-Perhaps there's an arboleth mage or psion that's learned to sap the mental power of humans for food instead of needing to actually eat them. It would be a pretty stable food source, as long as they were enslaved in such a way that they were allowed to go about their daily lives and reproduce. However, every night the townspeople have terrible nightmares, which represent their Will save attempt to free themselves of the arboleth. The enslaving could happen through something simple like ingesting the food of the town, or the PCs might have to encounter the arboleth somehow. Perhaps all the mental sapping reduces their ability to feel emotional pain while awake, which would be why all the villagers seem so happy during the day. What you have to do is create a situation in which the PCs really want to stay despite the evidence to the contrary. Either that, or one of the townspeople wants to go with the party on their adventures, which is actually the arboleth sending out a scout to see how many other areas would be easy to conquer in the same way as the "abandoned" one. (World domination?!)

-The town is just an average town. The villagers use the "screaming ungodly infestation" excuse to ward away common brigands.

-The town is inhabited by screaming ungodly things that have discovered that there are uses for all the things the humans had before the invasion wiped them out. The screaming ungodly things have replicated the human town to some extent, with taverns and shops and all that, and find the whole idea of a "town" terribly fascinating. They welcome the PCs with extraordinarily open arms, and ask them neverending questions about how "villages" work and how "farming" functions, and why "beer" makes them feel so funny. (replace quotes with whatever makeshift names the screaming ungodly things make up for these nouns)

-The town is inhabited by phasms. When wanderers arrive at the town, the phasms think they're being attacked, and transform into whatever screaming ungodly thing they think is scary. The phasms might be the ones refurbishing the town (above), since part of their behavior is to love new things, and also to get bored. Perhaps the PCs are called to the scene after a few of the phasms have left the town after growing bored with the routine.

-There is a Tarrasque that sleeps on the town. (Don't use this one.)

-The city is actually a hub for lawful, good, or otherwise pleasant necromancers. This would be wonderful for your group, given necromancy's tendency to be evil and a good character's tendency to judge quickly. They enter a tavern, and are served a hearty flagon of ale by a fairly well-kept zombie!

-The city is filled with extraordinarily powerful gargoyles, and all the buildings in the town are made of stone. The town would appear uninhabited, until of course the wall came out and attacked you...

-Combine any of the above.

d13
2009-02-24, 03:16 AM
-The city is actually a hub for lawful, good, or otherwise pleasant necromancers. This would be wonderful for your group, given necromancy's tendency to be evil and a good character's tendency to judge quickly. They enter a tavern, and are served a hearty flagon of ale by a fairly well-kept zombie!

-The city is filled with extraordinarily powerful gargoyles, and all the buildings in the town are made of stone. The town would appear uninhabited, until of course the wall came out and attacked you...


1) Combine this 2 and you have a really creepy, but wannabe pleasant Crypt/Necropolis.
2) Get ready to see mindscrewed players, and fallen paladins appear in your party xD.
3) ?????
4) Profit!

(I needed to do that, sorry xD)

Fortinbras
2009-02-25, 12:29 AM
Remember I use this forum too.

And I am still the main damage dealer, just as that Rakshasa.

Kyouhen
2009-02-25, 02:11 AM
-There is a Tarrasque that sleeps on the town. (Don't use this one.)



I vote for this. The Tarrasque was having a nice long nap and some people built a town beside it without realizing it. (It's on top of a mountain and the town is on the base, the Tarrasque was covered by something (ash from a nearby volcano?) and the town is actually mostly on it's back, etc) The people have since realized their plight and go about their daily business very quietly. They're unable to move out of the town because for whatever reason doing so will wake up the Tarrasque. (Maybe they've managed to keep it sleeping for so long by putting together a magical sleep spell that works so long as someone is singing to the Tarrasque. Nobody wants to be the last one to leave the town because they'd probably be caught.) Laugh as the PCs loudly greet the townsfolk to be met with silence and terrified looks. Laugh some more when they realize what they're standing on. For extra amusement, make it so they have to retrieve the item that allows the townsfolk to keep the Tarrasque sleeping. Laugh as they figure out how to do so and get away.

krossbow
2009-02-25, 02:19 AM
have a city street give way and collapse as they walk through the city; the resulting hole should reveal the sewers below and indications of an evil that once dwelt there.

Conversely, have them be attacked by assasins hired by the remnants of the previous villians; a cat and mouse game of stalker and stalkee in an abandoned city could be interesting.

Deepblue706
2009-02-25, 03:37 AM
I have a suggestion!

The PCs find a place to sleep, and when they awaken the next morning, they note a total lack of a sun. They'll notice there's a lot of moisture in the air, and there's a lot of rumbling going on beneath the streets.

Why? Because the entire city was swallowed-whole by a Tarrasque.

A really big Tarrasque. I mean really big.

Tengu_temp
2009-02-25, 03:38 AM
I might sound a bit arrogant here, but seeing that coming up with stories is what a DM does, isn't it better not to DM if you're terrible at it?

Ovaltine Patrol
2009-02-25, 06:29 AM
@Wystrell: Your concept reminds me of an old comic I read as a kid about an army that "Won every battle, but always lost the war." In that particular story, the army takes over a city quite easily, and finds their new subjects to be mild and accommodating; eventually the soldiers discover that the city itself seems to be picking them off one at a time, until only a handful remain. They set out to warn their comrades, their comrades find them dead and ride out to the city looking for answers...

Tyrmatt
2009-02-25, 07:04 AM
The use of a town of necromancers, free-willed zombies and undead such as that to form a functioning society that has no interest in death and destruction is something I've been wanting to try for a long while, especially if my upcoming group are as polarised as I've heard. We've got a very lawful good paladin at one end and the most mercenary and logical (probably) wizard at the other.
Seeing the two of them clash sounds like a laugh.

This can also serve as part of a grander overarching plot. For example, the lich in mine is going to upset both the Raven Queen and Orcus in his rituals but an interesting side-effect of that ritual is that Orcus's dominion of the undead is going to be disrupted, at least temporarily. Cue a mass number of "living dead", creatures with the full range of emotions and a functioning soul. That and any strong willed enough invidividual who can resist the pull of the Queen will be able to reanimate his or her own corpse through sheer willpower.

This also presents a dilemma for the followers of the Raven Queen (at least the cleric, maybe the paladin too since there's an undead theme on the go) and the god too: With her major foe weakened and unable to control his armies, will the offer of faithful servitude of the now free-willed undead be such a bad idea? All they ask is to be allowed to live out the rest of their unlives. In exchange, the Daemon Prince gets a mighty caning by his own former troops.
After all, heroes die all the time and come back. Why should these undead be punished because they did it through sheer stubborness instead of Raise Dead?
More on mindscrewing my party, after these messages.

Theres
2009-02-27, 01:50 AM
the whole good necromancers idea is just not what i was going for but thankyou for the suggestion. on some other forums they sugested i put someone the pc loves in danger. and this idea appeals to me the most as this gut has no charisma and whos gonna intimidate a pit fiend?

AslanCross
2009-02-27, 04:41 AM
I'd take a cue from The Giver: The citizens of the town are ruled by whatever rogue's gallery you have in mind, but guess what: They like it. They are likely brainwashed at every turn with every single aspect of their life, but they don't know much else apart from the "benevolence" and "justice" of their evil overlords.

The people in the town might be somewhat xenophobic since they believe the "outside" to be "unclean," and thus will not willingly associate with them.