One more encounter for the Mournland road

[Kol Korran]

Tomer, Alon, Guy and Ariel please don't read this.

due to recent development in my game (there is a link in my signature, but it's not important) i need to revise some long road in the Mournland (Eberron's land of bizarre and wierd) and i'm lacking one- two encounters to make enhance the feel of the place, but also have it be interesting and interactive.

yes, i know about the "1001 Mournland Horrors" thread but for some reason i don't find it satisfying- those are atmospheric ideas, not game encounters ideas. (though i'm still reading through it, i thought to aks for ideas here too)

the encounters just before include:
- a complicated battle with some warforged, including small living siege engines (Ballista and the like)
- a meeting with an "organ seller" wanting to trade their organs for those of beasts (including some powers). there wasa different thread for that, though the encounter developed quite a bit from that.
- a possible battle/ possible discussion with a spirit guarding passage over a brooke (a mistling nymph and her half elemental beasties).

tl;dr- i need some idea for a bizarre but play worthy encounter. everything goes.
oh, the party is level 8.

anyone? :smallconfused:

[dsmiles]

Want some Far-Realm-y ideas? I'm full of those.

Want some "normal" strange encounters? I'm not very good with those.

[LansXero]

Living spells could be both difficult to deal with and surprising if you first introduce them as random atmospheric phenomenon. that jet of lava from the ground or that cloud of mist suddenly turning around and trying to kill you is bound to surprise them, no?

Then going with your living siege engines idea, maybe these:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&text=+[living]+[weapon]
will give you some ideas? (they are basically constructs manned by stunted growth bioengineered critters).

What about a detachment of warforged / karnathi undead who dont know the fight is over, as they never got orders about it?

[Kol Korran]

@ dsmiles: i never read about the Far realm, i imagine it to be something like Xoriat from Eberron? a realm of incomprehensible madness? i'm not sure i'd like something overwhelming in it's terror/ Cthulu (did i spell it right? i'm probably about to get head chopped) like, just something bizarre and quite disturbing would do the trick.

an idea or two could would be welcomed, if you're willing.

@ LansXero: the party had met a few living spells so far, and when met alone they were butchered pro-haste. those were the most dissapoiting combat encounters so far. they are SOOOO vulnerable. i'm mixing one up with a Mistling nymph (forge of war)

as to the living engines, i can't access the link you posted. sorry.

the party is going to meet a Karrnathi battalion later on (who like it in the Mournland, built up a small base to defend themselves, long story)
as to warforged still fighting the last war? hhhmmm... maybe. the warforged i mentioned are worshipers of the lord of blades, so it's different, i'll think of it.

[dsmiles]

@ dsmiles: i never read about the Far realm, i imagine it to be something like Xoriat from Eberron? a realm of incomprehensible madness? i'm not sure i'd like something overwhelming in it's terror/ Cthulu (did i spell it right? i'm probably about to get head chopped) like, just something bizarre and quite disturbing would do the trick.

an idea or two could would be welcomed, if you're willing.
Well, according to this article (http://www.scribd.com/doc/35192772/Accessory-Dragon-Magazine-330) (on page 20), this Xoriat (not ever having played long enough in Eberron to know what it is, as I didn't like the premise of the setting) and the Far Realm are the same (with slightly different fluff).

If you continue reading said article (which happens to be my favorite Dragon article of this whole crappy WotC era), you'll read about cerebrosis, cerebrotic blots, and Far Realms monsters.

My suggestion: Put a blot in their path. Throw an encounter or two at them, and have them come out the other side, a little worse for wear (mentally and emotionally).

[Kol Korran]

hhmmmm... read it, and i find it interesting, just not that fitting what i'm aiming at. an interesting read though, i'll probably implement some of these things in other adventures.

[Prime32]

One encounter I wanted to place in a game: a sahaugin spellcaster with four-armed warforged bodyguards. :smalltongue:

I guess in this case he'd be a crazy researcher.

[Grendus]

An encounter I used in a previous game that worked well: have the players hand their character sheets to the person to their left (not the right, that would just be gosh :smalltongue:). Makes for a fairly memorable encounter, especially if they end up playing a character who's playstyle is completely different. Knock back the CR about 1/2 because of the confusion, and go light on the encounters for the rest of the day in case the beatstick who got to play the wizard decides to play around with all the pretty powers and burns all his high level spell slots.

Bonus points if they keep their mental stats, so the wizard -> barbarian has uber stats in everything but the fighter -> sorcerer lacks the charisma to cast a damn thing. Might want to go easy on that one (or say that the barbarian -> wizard can cast the spells because they're already keyed to the wizard) or it ends up being yet another case of melee can't have nice things even when bodyswitched with a god.



Another one I've always wanted to try is random portals that change destination once per round. The portals can be found with detect magic (they radiate very strong transmutation magic) or a spot check (they randomly teleport dust). The portals move at a speed of 15 feet/round, which shouldn't be a problem unless you have a halfling running around in full plate. Each destination has a mini-encounter, the idea is to split up the party at random and make them fight it out solo or in smaller groups.

[Kurgan]

For some reason, when I saw this thread, I thought of a scenario like this:

The characters are coming along the road, and see three men hanging (in the noose sense) from a tree. When the characters walk by, the men talk to them, speaking in riddle. The truth is that one speaks only lies, the other speaks only lies, and the third speaks only lies. Of course, they will try to pass it off as the classic "One of us only tells the truth, one only lies, and the other can do both."

One thing they are all insistent on is that there is treasure to the east, and that the characters should go and dig it up. They cannot agree on how far east. This also acts to see if the players are paying attention: it is something they all agree on, when at least one of them should be saying something counter to it.

If the characters decide to follow up on it, they find a grove of trees with a log cabin in the center. One thing of note is that all of the trees in the area all have nooses hanging from them, some of which are occupied.

The cabin is empty, though it looks like it was formerly a lab of some sorts. A journal is sitting on a table, opened to the last entry, which reads: "I think I've got it! I'm going to go test it now." If they decide to read through the rest of the journal, they find that the writer is a wizard who is bent on creating an automatic execution system with magic, so that man would no longer need to sully its hand with the dirty work.

The wizard is still in the area, and actively searching for test subjects. If he finds them, he will attack, as will the trees in the grove!

For the battle, I imagine something like:
Wizard: a chain devil (monster manual 1), with every instance of "chain" changed to "rope", and casting as a wizard of equal level to its hd (so 8th level casting).
The nooses: Here I am having trouble, I don't know if the Hangman Tree was ever updated to 3.5. If it has, use that as it is perfect for the situation. If not, just say each tree has X nooses and treat each individual as an assassin vine (monster manual 1).
If you want the battle to be more challenging, add some other creature(s) that seems fitting into the mix, perhaps something like a Tendriculos (monster manual 1) or the like.

The basics are: the experiment went wrong, turning the trees he used for them into sentient beings driven to execute people and morphing the wizard into some sort of abomination.

Not sure if this is what you are looking for (seems far to combat heavy for me, since the only talky part would be with the initial hanged men), but figured I would share it just in case. Has that weird sense to it, though by the end everything is perfectly explainable and mundane (MAGIC!).

[Kol Korran]

@ Prime32: 4 armed warforged and a sahuagin caster. the strangest thing would be to explain what a sahuagin is doing in the Morunland. hmmm... not sure about this, but i'll think about it. thanks!

@ Grendus: i like the idea of switching bodies, but there might be a whole mini adventure a bit later on where the party jump into bodies of various non adventurous people, i'd lkike to keep that as a strange novelty. but i'm curious- can you tell me a bit more about the encounter? what triggered the situation, how did the party solve it?

as to your second idea, about the random teleporters- that might be quite cool. but i'd like to build it on a sort of a theme. was this a random area? how did the party get away from it? what prevented them from holding hands when moving through a portal?

@ Kurgan: interesting premise you got there. i'm just afraid that due to some other "intriguing" encounters i've set for the party, and the Mournland's reputation of weird stuff, they will simply walk on by, prefering not to be lured to it's madness.

but perhaps the encounter can come to meet them instead?perhaps a chasm with two of these hangman trees at it's opening? (i'll need to have something else to worry them though, to divert their attention from the tress till it's a bit too late...

thanks for the ideas all! they rekindle the fires of creativity (i wish i hadn't said something as cliche as THAT). thanks a lot! :smallwink: