Regarding a Fey and a Seal

[Abzalon]

HI Playground,

I come to you in this hour of need. I'm the DM in a game of 3.p highish level (ECL14/15) gestalt and I'm stuck.

So here's the situation : My players have been exploring Undermountain (mega dungeon under the city of Waterdeep in the Forgotten Realms) for a few sessions and they are almost reaching their goal. But at the moment they are "stuck" within a monster gallery. Made by the Mad Mage himself (Halaster Blackcape).

The idea behind it was at least in part stolen from Kaveman26 awesome necrorancher's campaign recap, so a place where the Mad mage had "displayed" a number of different interresting creatures he had tangled with other the years.

So classified by "type" (game term used loosely here) and divided in different zones are a Fey, Fiendish, Celestial, Aberrant, Elemental and Dragon displays. The creatures are under a stasis effect modified by DM fiat that is slowly breaking apart, releasing creatures at random.

So while the population of each zone has been decided, I'm facing an "issue" of my own making. One of my players is a half fey bard from the unseelie court with access to song of freedom (which enables him to use break enchantment using his bardic song), him and the party found themselves in the "fey" galery where powerfull entities are kept, including an aspect of Mab queen of Air and Darkness, the Unseelie Queen (I treat her as a minor deity who can split into aspects). He wants to break her free, and while it's totaly doable I want to make it EPIC for him (and not just a roll that takes 30 sec to resolve). Now as to not bother the other two players I want to make a solo session with the bard to play this (while I'll do another session with the other two players to show what they did during that time).

I was planning of having the bard and the petals (small feys) they encountered earlier do a ceremony with chant and danse around the queen to release her, but I'm stumped with the Challenges for the bard, I was envisionning battles against the seal, manifesting as creatures and fighting against the bard in 1v1 (the bard is also the newest player at the table and needs to learn how to use his character without the support of the other two players). But the battle thing seems dull. He could use the Petals as a pool of sort, sacrificing some to get bonuses on checks or situations.

So here I turn to the Playground for inspiration. What good challenges fey themed would be nice to break an epic seal?

tl;dr : high level bard wants to break an epic seal with break enchantment what challenges could be played out to do that?

Thanks in advance for your help :D

[Andor13]

Tricky.

This is not, unfortunately, the kind of thing D&D does well.

My gut is that the way to do it is as a combination puzzle/riddle game and song writing contest.

Ideally you would write a song/poem that has the queen trapped , but it's fraying and some of the words have gone blank, so if the player can sing the right words into place to change the meaning of the song, she goes free. Of course, that shifts the skill burden from the character in the game to you and the player, so...

To kind of D&D that up, maybe the song has 3-5 stanzas and each one is actually a creature (fey/demon/celestial/etc) which is trapped in the song and it's power used to form the seal. So as the Bard tries to break it each creature is released. For each creature there was a clue in it's stanza about something it needed or wanted, which trapped it in the fist place. The bard can either fight each creature, or bargain with it. If they fight it (and win) that level of the seal breaks. If they bargain with it and manage to solve it's riddle/meet it's price then not only does it break that section of the seal, but they can get either another clue for the next section, or it's aid in the next fight.

[Ken Murikumo]

The battle thing could work if you add some flavor to it. Personally i would involve the whole party, ut thats just me. If the other are OK with a solo challenge, then go for it.

The way i might run something like a battle challenge would be done mechanically as follows:

1) The save to break the seal is normally insurmountable. So much so that he couldn't hope to break it with his songs. It, however, acts as follows.

2) The seal produces multiple enemies. The enemies are tough and plentiful, like 3 or 4, but not so much as to drastically overwhelm him. This may take some tweaking and planning on your part. Something like a high to hit, but low damage makes him take a small amount of damage consistently. Low AC/saves and medium HP means he can hit them with relative ease but it takes a little work to drop them. Intelligently placed spells can take out multiple enemies at once. This will need some adjustments if you involve the party.

3) The real challenge is every time he drops a guy, a new one takes his place. The seal creates a new enemy (or more if you're mean), but doing so weakens the seal. Give him a check every time this happens until he gets that it's weakening because of him.

4) The weakening seal means the DC drops a little for each enemy defeated. Give him opportunities to try the song again when the DC is lower.

I don't actually know how this song of freedom works, but i sure the above scenario can be built around it. While more flavorful than just a normal battle, it's still grounded enough to engage a newer player. Multiple enemies as mentioned above would force the player to act more tactically to avoid defeat, but wouldn't kill him outright if he did screw up (trial by fire).

Hope this gives you at least some inspiration.

[SimonMoon6]

As he tries to do music stuff to break the seal, the seal creates distractions (non-combat distractions) to try to stop him from succeeding. These distractions could range from unpleasant sounds or visuals, requiring Concentration checks to proceed, or even environmental changes, such as rippling waves of earth that must be tumbled past or even the creation of rivers that he can only bypass by riding in one of several "fey canoes" to avoid being pushed back by the rushing water too far for his music to succeed.

Everything seems to be called "fey canoes" these days anyway...

[Troacctid]

Sorry, I keep reading "epic seal" as the animal and I'm like, are they fighting an epic-level selkie?

Anyway, the traditional way to make an epic quest out of this type of thing is for breaking the seal to require an additional MacGuffin, like the truename of the caster, or the focus used to bind her, or a rare component to strengthen the countercharm. It could even be as simple as a scroll of freedom or Mordenkainen's disjunction—high-level magic the players don't have access to. Since it's a megadungeon, said MacGuffin would probably also be in Undermountain. It might even be in an area they already passed, and they saw it without realizing it was important. Maybe the first thing they try to free her instead allows her to communicate and explain "You need X to break the final seal" and the players are like "Wait we saw X" and they go back and there's a new monster that's moved into that room and pow, you got yourself a proper battle.

[Nifft]

- In order to use one key artifact to unlock the magic wizard door for the Chaotic Evil demi-goddess, you must be a willing servant of Asmodeus and/or Primus.

- In order to use the second key artifact to unlock the magic wizard door for the Chaotic Evil demi-goddess, you must be a willing servant of Bahamut and/or Amaunator.

- In order to use the third key artifact to unlock the magic wizard door for the Chaotic Evil demi-goddess, you must be an Ur-Priest and/or Faithless.

The Bard's epic task is to either become these three people (simultaneously -- which may require some deception), or to find three of them and get the three to work together for this purpose (which may require some epic diplomacy and deception).

[Mars Ultor]

I happened to read this just as I heard some Led Zeppelin, so I'm thinking if you deconstruct the song "Stairway to Heaven" you can come up with something. Maybe each verse of the song breaks the seal to some degree, or opens a crack.

The first verse says “there’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold,” while the saying is actually “all that glitters is not gold.” Maybe there’s an object or item that seems to be gold but isn’t, or vice versa. It’s somewhere nearby and it’s necessary for the ritual.


The next verse is about words that have two meanings and a songbird that sings. Perhaps there’s a songbird in the gallery, either real, stuffed, mechanical, or an illustration, and if you talk to the bird, he’ll “sing,” as in give over information about something the bard will need to do. The bard can come to him for clues over the course of time if he gets stuck. Depending on how new the player is, and if they’re having a hard time with it, the bird can even accompany him and offer advice or makes suggestions.


Next verse says “and my spirit is crying for leaving.” That sounds like undead fightin’ to me. Some sort of apparition shows up that must be defeated.


“The piper will lead us to reason,” could be one of those logic puzzles with the grid and the clues. 1. The red piper has a feather in his hat. 2. The piper without a hat is either the green or blue piper. That sort of thing.


“If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now,” and “Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, There's still time to change the road you're on.”

Some animal or creature is in the gallery and he will go down certain hallways and not others, or step on some floor tiles, but not the ones with a different color. The bard should fight the creature but eventually notice something about its behavior so the bard gets a clue that he can actually avoid the thing and not have to fight it. Maybe there’s a way to get the creature caught in an area where it can’t attack.


The next verse says that “The piper's calling you to join him.” The bard hears a song and he’s got to duplicate the song (DC of your choice, increasing over time). Eventually when he plays enough of the song, or nails it, the seal cracks almost entirely.


Final verse:
And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul.
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll.
And she's buying a stairway to heaven.

The queen starts glowing as the seal is almost broken, maybe there are locks or puzzle pieces on the wall and the bard can't actually reach them, but if his shadow touches them, then he can move them. They're all out of reach, but he notices that if he tries to touch them, and he's standing directly between the now-shining queen and the object, his shadow will reach.

The tune that comes at last is the song the bard needs to play to complete the ritual and break the seal entirely.

[Abzalon]

Well Thank you very much to all who answered this, you gave me a lot to think about.

The seal was very much a pun, and I'm glad you liked it :D

now, I really dig your take on Stairway to Heaven Mars Ultor. It fits in a lot of ways to the themes of the character so I think I'll developp things in this sense for now.

What I think I'll do is to set the DD to break the seal to something absurd like 130 for example. Each time he manages to pass a trial (one "verse") he will be able to lower the DD by a set amount. at the moment I think he has something like +30 to his perform check, for each petal alive he gets a +1, +5 with their leader. There are currently 40 Petals and the leader, for a grand total of +75, there is 7 verse, meaning that -15 per verse broken is a -105 to the final check. so he can get out with breaking 4 verses (-60) without having sacrificed any Petals and auto succeed.

To help the player I will probably enable him to sacrifice 5 Petals to get a hint for the current verse (English is nor mine nor the player's first language, so he might need it simply for comprehension). it means he can have up to 8 hints over the course of the song.

For the non fighting parts I think I'll add a timer, so he has risks of failing. in this case, he might sacrifice Petals to extend the time (if I go for 10 minutes / verse, he might get 5 minutes more with 5 petals). I plan to do it an everning so 3 to 4 hours of play at most.

Now here is my take on each verse :

First one : there is a pool filled with what looks like gold pieces, but in reality it's hoard scarabs (from draconomicon). there is only one real gold piece in all of that which he'll need to find while being distracted and attacked by swarms.

Second one : seeing the verse, I think I could go with the bird, but a lying one ("words have two meanings" and "all our thoughts are misgiving") but make it obvious.

Third one : flaming spirits (and it opposes nicely with the Queen of Air and Darkness) (Effigy comes to mind, or a Forgewraith from Sharn, city of tower).

fourth one : Riddle time, need to find one, but there are enough of it on the internet to manage it.

Fifth one : taking your take on it.

Sixth one : harpys! or sirens, or something that calls to the listener (I think there's also an undead that does that). They try to make him come through a wall of fire that would simply blow on it or use a gust of wind effect. (your stairway lies on the whispering wind).

Last one : Logical puzzle + shadow, great.

Please let me know what you think of it, would you, as a player, be entertained by it?

[Bronk]

Sorry, I keep reading "epic seal" as the animal and I'm like, are they fighting an epic-level selkie?


Regarding a Fey and a Seal: isn't that where Selkies come from? :smalltongue:

Hah! Nice. I assumed I was entering a thread about becoming a selkie!


The seal was very much a pun, and I'm glad you liked it :D

I did!

And I think the Stairway to Heaven take could be fun for a bard, but if it were me, I'd go another way. I don't think Song of Freedom would really work as is anyway. It references 'break enchantment', which, while pretty powerful, still has limitations like only working on 5th level spells or lower if the spell effect can't be negated by 'dispel magic'. But....On the other hand, the whole situation is based on failing magic with unknown effects, and you want this to be epic. So, I'd start at the beginning, then get weird.

First, it makes sense that a member of the Unseelie Court would want to free their leader (or part of, or an aspect of, or an avatar of their leader?), but this bard needs to sell the idea of letting loose an evil god. I guess it wouldn't be a hard sell if they're all evil though.

Next, they should have to study the effect. All these prisons are broken somehow, so how is this one different? You can have all sorts of skill checks here... Knowledge Religion to find out about Mab (for those who might not know about her), Spellcraft and Knowledge Arcana to check out the prison, Perform and a few tests with the Song of Freedom to see how that reacts... I'd have them find all sorts of defects in the magic prison, and have the Song of Freedom have the effect of widening them.

Third would be setup, where the bard and whatever other magic users in the area start making preparations: I'm thinking mages or clerics could start making checks to draw magic symbols on the ground as part of an altered magic circle while the bard makes checks to come up with a special song that fits with the event. But! They are attacked, either because of a random encounter or because someone noticed they were going to free an evil god, and the fighter types have to fend them off. This would put pressure on the bard and magic users, so they couldn't just take 10 or 20.

Fourth would be: The song starts! The bard makes a few awesomeness peform checks, the magic users do their thing, the prison widens and everyone's pulled inside, even the fighters! Now they're in a demiplane - or maybe the dream realm - where they fight a monstrous representation of the prison itself. Maybe some kind of hydra with chains for necks but the heads have Halaster's face? They could cast spells too. Now all the PCs can fight the heads, and with their defeat the beast's body splits open, revealing the thing's weird shining magical heart which the bard needs to finish off with one last Song of Freedom.

So then Mab's free. The old adventure 'For Duty and Deity' has PCs going on a giant quest to free the goddess Waukeen from Demon Lord Grazz't, and if you're successful, she takes everyone back to her deific realm and gives them boons. You could do something like that with Mab... Maybe she could give the Bard extra Unseelie rank or something, give the others magic items, or grant some kind of quick with deific magic that they couldn't get otherwise. She could then charge the bard with getting revenge on Halaster (maybe she can't interfere in mortal affairs despite being angry or has other pressing things to do, basically we don't want to take action away from the PCs) then takes off to do evil god stuff which you can bring up in a future game.