Out of the Abyss - Gracklestugh problems (spoilers)

[Falcon X]

So, Buppido is normally supposed to be a minor character who we discover the lair of in Gracklestugh.

Well, in my game, he kidnapped Eldeth as the party was escaping Sloobludop. They went north, he went south. Through special divination-like abilities, they discovered what he did and two of the players swore to rescue her.
They now circled around and are chasing Buppido through the Underdark to Gracklstugh.
He has became the game's main villain.

This presents several problems:
- Gracklestugh is set up around chasing Droki down a rabbit hole. My players are not going to want to do this. They are going to want to track Buppido.
- Buppido's lair just doesn't seem climactic enough as written.

Any ideas of how I can pull off a strong climax with Buppido while also doing the dragon egg fetch quest that is core to Gracklestugh?

A few ideas I've had:
- move Buppidos lair to deep within the whorlstone tunnels, like at the shrine. Hint that uplift might be down here, then they take care of it after finding the dragon egg.
- Take care of Buppido before the other quest becomes a thing. Like his lair being outside the city, or have him be in a city building and the guard hires you to assassinate him as a cult leader.

Thoughts? New ideas?

[mgshamster]

Install Droki's character as Buppido. All the things Droki has done, it's instead Buppido (but make it more evil).

Plus, he's magically twisted all the resistance into his own schemes, and you can let the players figure it out and decide to rescue the resistance group from Buppido, giving them an extra ally in the city.

Now you have him as major boss in the city, and can turn the Whirlstone Tunnels into a strong adventure with the appropriate short rests and encounter design.

[Falcon X]

Wonderful ideas. I'm hesitant to merge Droki and Buppido, because it would kill the whole "white rabbit" chase. Seeing as my party is buying all in to the Alice in Wonderland vibe (someone is playing a Mad Hatter type character), I hesitate to get rid of Droki.

How about:
- Buppido is twisting the resistance, as you say.
- The players will connect Droki to Buppido because they are both members of the same organization.
- They will chase Droki, and when they catch him, or other members of the resistance, they will be pointed in the direction of Buppido and even encouraged to kill him.
- I have an established follower of Buppido (a goblin NPC who was traveling with the party). He will be the replacement fight in Buppidos old lair.
- Buppido's new lair is in the Obelisk room. There is a big fight there with a chance to save Eldeth and possibly other people who are to be sacrificed.

Any thoughts or foreseen complications with this plan?

[edit] Also, I want there to be a strong chance they find Eldeth alive. However, there is a good chance he has already started a dark, possibly multi-day ritual on her. Any thoughts on what might be appropriate to be her state of being?
Maybe she is being crucified (one player would love the imagery). Maybe she has been implanted with something creepy, or that will be a plot plant for later?
Any thoughts?

[Unoriginal]

You don't have to make him the main villain. You could make him the "villain the heroes have a personal stake in defeating before facing the main villain"

[mgshamster]

I like the updated ideas. That'll work perfectly.

For Eldeth:

If they manage to rescue her, have her go into fits of paranoia and rambling about "things to come."

Then, when you're ready to introduce the demon Lords, have her prophecy the fetid wedding or the destruction of Sloobludop. Then she can be instrumental to their decision to either go to Sloobludop or Neverlight Grove next.

What happened in my game was one of the players used the Mesa (pg 74) to ask about... Something, I don't remember. But the important part is that he failed his Wis Save with a Nat 1 twice in a row, so I connected his mind to the mind of Zuggtmoy and she new everything about him and he everything about her.

Since he was unimportant, she didn't really care (except for wanting to use him to spread spores). But since she was planning the fetid wedding, he knew about that and the party started plans to stop it. It really put their mission into focus.

You can do the same thing with Eldeth.

Heck, you can even have her give a warning as her dying words if they don't rescue her.

[Falcon X]

Being touched by madness, or even infected with spores, seems like a pretty logical idea. I will think on that.

We have already been to Sloobludop. That's where Boopido used the insanity to make off with Eldeth. It made sense at the time.
We also have a heavy dose of insanity gaining on within the party. Besides the obvious things of the NPCs, one of our players sees two versions of every person she sees. One is normal, one is dying gruesomely. Another PC is a fiend and has some rediculous dreams already.

That is to say, I'll want to make this one more than omens of the future.
Maybe I'll go with her being infected with spores. This will be potent as we are watching them currently drive Sarith all kinds of insane, and now Eldeth won't be far behind.

[Kintar]

I hated Gracklstugh as written so in my home campaign I made some changes. I also have run bupido as what started out as a minor villain (he killed Ront and Turvy in a serial killer sacrificial way early on) but now I'm toying with making him a bbeg also.

In a nutshell, I simplified grack to be mainly a under the surface battle between the keepers of the flame and the gray ghosts over the theft of the dragon egg. Bupido fled the party before Slubludoop, so I didn't have the issue you have with Eldeth but I did streamline the whorlstone tunnels to have a space in there with them. I developed a "holiday" that marks when themberchaud lights all the forces fire and that the keepers deliver wealth to him for his hoard, but have it that the keepers have an arcane dark ritual where they magically age a wyrmling to adult age in body, while keeping the mind of a wyrmling, making him easy to control. The egg was going to be his replacement as he's approaching adult age and getting harder to control when the thieves steal it.

When my party came across bupido, I gave him slightly necromantic powers and they fled from his skeletons initially so I allowed him to escape as well. Long story short, my party left Grack in utter chaos, with a Derro uprising and themberchaud laying waste to the city because he found out about their execution plan. The party failed to recover the dragon arcane book, so I am toying with forging an unholy Bupido/themberchaud alliance for if the party ever wishes to return.