council and the necromancer

[Daddison]

Playgrounders,

I would like to get some advice from the DMs out there, please. I'm running a 3/3.5 loose homebrew game and have run the story into a situation where the party (APL 5+) is requested to meet with the local lord (Fraylarp) for a number of reasons.

Background on Lord Fraylarp: He comes from a long line of paladins. About 4 decades prior, their court wizard screwed up a major gate experiment and long story short, their entire keep in the forest was leveled and the demon escaped into the wilds. The keep had been in their family for a couple centuries and was connected (via massive tunnel system) to a series of very profitable mines off in the north. Since the majority of the family was killed, the rest were forced into hasty retreat. The paladin faith was somewhat discarded after that and since that time, Fraylarp has built a keep and presides over the entire eastern half of the province. He never speaks of what happened in the forest and shelters his only son from the world because of what happened there.

-- fast forward --

The party has been encountering a large host of orcs (at random) that are clearly part of a cult. A few sessions ago, they briefly encountered a necromancer as well. During that time, the other major town in the province was attacked by orcs/gnolls and essentially razed. They (orcs) abducted the local magistrate/lord (named Carthann), who presides over the western half of the province. The party, quite by accident, was able to survive a massive battle with this group and managed to rescue Lord Carthann who immediately begged them to take him to Fraylarp for council.

The group knows nothing about the keep in the forest.

The necromancer resides there with his gang and has hired a large orc host to guard and bolster it's defenses. The necromancer is secretly in league with some Illithids in abducting magic users from the surface and slaving them to a massive gate system to open a portal to the far plane, etc. (undeveloped filler story). The necro is using this old tunnel system under the forest keep to access the underdark and that's ultimately where I want the party to be.

My dilemma is this: I want the council (that they must have) with the Lords to be memorable, you know? On a council of Elrond kind of level. I would like for Fraylarp's son to be the one who ultimately tells the group about the forest keep and what happened there, as his father is extremely guarded and to proud to speak of the horror that befell his family. Obviously, the orcs are the immediate problem as not many people know about the necro...much less what he's up to.

In tooling around with some backstory, I've decided that the Necromancer at the old family keep in the woods is actually Lord Fraylarp's eldest son. When the demon (Hezrou) crashed the gate years before, the boy could not be found by the family in their haste to escape. Presumed dead or soon to die, the lord made the decision to run with his youngest son and what advisors/troops he could find still alive in all the chaos. The fact is, the boy wasn't dead. He was hiding and while the Hezrou was thrashing the keep, he tried to stay hidden.

QUESTION: Do you think I should have him possessed by this thing?

Here's some supporting backstory for that proposal (leading up to him being a necromancer).

A couple years after fleeing the keep Lord Fraylarp heard rumor that his presumed dead boy was seen in a town approximately 100 miles away. He sent his squire and a small group of soldiers to investigate, but they found nothing except for a horror story about an ongoing serial killing spree that someone had been committing over the past few months. They were targeting local clergy as there modus operandi. Lord Fraylarp, upon receiving word of this, stationed a group of soldiers there to protect the remaining clergy and opened an investigation. The murders stopped shortly thereafter, but the killer was never found.

His boy, Arlo was the killer and left for the old keep. In the tunnels underneath, he accidentally came in contact with an Illithid who saw a potential in him (possession)? The Illithid decided to use him as a vehicle to do surface work and in exchange gave him a host of orcs for protection and free reign of the keep and the tunnel system.

He's a necromancer of Nerull and a klepto for taking artifacts from other deities altars and placing them as trophies around his. He has killed a champion of Kord and Flarnaghan and they are his personal bodyguards (dread wraiths).


Thoughts? Is possession a good idea in this instance? Does it matter?

Thank you for consideration.

[Segev]

Personally, I wouldn't go with possession. I would go with the Hezrou having trained the boy to be a perfect tool and patsy, having arranged for him to obtain the books and teachers (who the Hezrou later killed, or had the boy kill) to learn what he needed to become a necromancer. But Hezrou, if I'm reading them right, are bruisers and sergeants in demonic hordes. They're smarter than most humans, and are probably used to out-witting the puny and weak-willed mortals of the world. But this is somebody he's (perhaps foolishly) trained up to be strong-willed and powerful. And the Hezrou may have forgotten how big of a grudge the necromancer may have for stealing his life, his family, everything from him.

I suggest Arlo be playing at the cringing servant around the Hezrou, feigning that his malevolent and masterful position with everything else is compensating for his sniveling in the service of his master...but that he has long since figured out how to trap the demon in a planar binding, and is just biding his time until the demon is no longer useful in the current role. For now, he's willing to play up "help me, I'm corrupted by a demon who has me in his thrall" to get adventurers off his back or even get them to turn on the demon (making it all the weaker for when he binds it to a deal of his choosing).

He is, of course, twisted and arrogant and hopes his father might forgive him but blames him for having chosen his younger brother and writing him off as lost. Going for the spare instead of the heir, so to speak. But give him a soft spot for his brother. Make him conflicted; he wants his father's throne, and is jealous that his brother is now the heir, but he knows deep down it's not his brother's choice nor fault, and...well, he's his little brother, for crying out loud.

Arlo is a devious schemer. His plan is to bind the Hezrou when the ruse that he's its slave is no longer of use. He's using the Illithids and their idiotic plan to conjure something from the Far Realms for a plan of his own, too. Maybe he has a use for mind-slaved spellcasters and a plan for taking them over from the Illithids, or maybe he thinks he can pull the same stunt with whatever they conjure forth that he plans to with the Hezrou. How big a big bad you want him to be should determine how right he is about that.

[Daddison]

So, you see it more fitting to have the demon still reside within the belly of the old keep? It's a good idea.

Really adds a new dynamic and richness of story to the complexity of the Arlo character. As far as levels/build goes. I see him at around level 15 or so...cleric/necro. The book rules I set up for this is Core + Complete Adventurer and PHB2.

What do you suggest for the Arlo build if he is, in fact the crafty 'cowering' tool that he seems (but of course, is not)?

[Segev]

I, personally, am always a fan of Wizard(Necromancer), though Dread Necromancer has planar binding and is pretty straight-forwardly awesome insofar as being a minionmancer goes.

If you go cleric/wizard, I suggest avoiding True Necromancer (as it's a bad investment of levels), but definitely do something to get that progression doubled up (even Mystic Theurge, if you must).

Though, hrm. You're Core, Complete Adventurer, and PHB2. That closes off a lot of the cooler things you can do with a necromancer.

Honestly, even with the rules you set up, I would recommend considering cheating on one thing: look into the Mother Cyst feat from Libris Mortis. The spells to which it grants access are perfect for a BBEG, even if he IS NOT a necromancer. They're particularly in theme (by design) for a necromancer.

Imagine sending hideous blobs of unloving flesh to skulk about towns and keeps (they're really quite good at the Hide skill) which infect people with hidden tumors (necrotic cysts). These then let you scry on anybody so infected. And kill them with a few options on how graphic it is, up to and including turning them into a fireball-like effect with necrotic damage rather than fire damage (which then infects anybody who survives the damage with more of these necrotic cysts).

Oh, and there's both a domination and a super-domination effect that you can use on these people in the necrotic domination and necrotic tumor spells. The former is just what it sounds like; the latter, if they SUCCEED on their save, they're affected as if by suggestion. If they fail, they become your eternal mind-slave.

One use I have for that is to do this to innocent townsfolk - women and children are particularly excellent to show off your evil chops - and then kidnap them. When the heroes come to rescue them, have them run up to them, begging for help or thanking them for the rescue...only to detonate them for that 1d6/level damage to a 40-foot burst which might infect the heroes. And then do it again with another one if you need to.

Even if you're "cheating" by using it as a unique thing only your BBEG has, it's thematic and fitting, I think, that it wouldn't be something the PCs can/would use. And it's so, so wonderful for a number of uses on a BBEG.


The skulking cysts - those undead things with hide scores - are wonderful for spreading terror and evoking a "horror" feel in the right places. And they're created by the spells that kill people infected with the cysts in question (like the aforementioned fireball-like one).

[Daddison]

I had a necro a long time ago that followed the pale master template and that was a lot of fun. I incorporated a lot of vile everything into his methods. Mother cyst is a good idea. The group is currently APL 5+, I think an intial encounter with Arlo is in order, but not the 'big bad epic battle'...that should come later.

Thoughts? Is setting him at around level 15/16 proper in this case?

[Segev]

With that big a level discrepancy, I would avoid having him show up in person. Send a proxy; if he uses Mother Cyst, he can have a number of them. Let him use a combination of necrotic scrying and necrotic domination to be simultaneously aware of what's going on around his proxy and have complete telepathic control of him. You'll have to check, but if necrotic domination lacks the "mind-affecting" tag, it can even be used on his own undead minions. If it doesn't, then he has to have a living mindslave he uses as his proxy. You can make the proxy be whatever race and class you like, built to be a challenge for the party at this level, and totally disposable because Arlo is pulling his strings but is not present to be destroyed.

[Daddison]

You can make the proxy be whatever race and class you like, built to be a challenge for the party at this level, and totally disposable because Arlo is pulling his strings but is not present to be destroyed.

I have 6 PCs (1 monk, 1 duskblade, 1 barbarian, 1 ranger, 1 cleric, 1 rogue/cleric) - what do you think....about CR9 on the proxy baddie? These guys fare pretty well in combat.

[Segev]

I have 6 PCs (1 monk, 1 duskblade, 1 barbarian, 1 ranger, 1 cleric, 1 rogue/cleric) - what do you think....about CR9 on the proxy baddie? These guys fare pretty well in combat.

I'd go CR 5-7 on the proxy, and give him 3-4 CR 4-5 minions. Action deficit is, in my experience, the biggest thing that makes "merely" inflating a single foe's CR less effective. Even if they're just bruisers or nuissances, the extra actions to engage in tactical maneuvering will make the encounter less certain.

Or 4-5 CR 5 proxies working as a unit. The other beauty of domination is that he doesn't actually have to puppet them (and, in fact, doesn't), but just gives them orders. Which can include "say this on my behalf," which is how he "puppets" them for communication purposes. But "kill them" is all he has to say to get the whole of a group he's got dominated go on the attack to the best of their ability.