My concept for the adventure this evening stemmed, partly, from the fact that my players had been enjoying their fame. Now there is nothing wrong with that, they should enjoy it. What it let me do was take something that my players enjoyed (being recognized as good) and take it away from them briefly.
Episode 9:
Durn and Kong head up north to Garrets reach to deal with the problem with Durn's father. The rest of the party stayed a few days to gear up, rest, and prepare to head out to Wisthaven to chase down Belfast.
As they got on the road they started to notice that the townspeople they were running into were scared of them and more than happy to do what the PC's wanted. Well this clearly struck a chord with them and they decided to investigate. At the first town the people are scared, but subservient. They won't accept money from the pc's, but insist they have seen them before and they are willing to do whatever they need to so that the pc's get on their way again.
Here I gave the players a little information. I could tell they were nervous. They actually took watch in the tavern they were staying in because they thought the townspeople had it out for them.
They left the first town and caught made it to a second the next day. This town was much more angry with the PC's, the constable came and spat on them and told them to leave. At this point Typhus showed up with his big war stallion and his shiny inquisitor badge. With some diplomacy checks (and a few intimidate checks) the party figures out that the group that was here was there old group- including Durn and Kong. And that these guys were here only a few days before. With a few more diplomacy checks (and maybe another intimidate check) they are pointed in the right direction the bad guys took off. Oh, and they got spat on 2-3 more times.
This was cool part to play, I got to show the gamut of reactions to being bullied. And it let me take the players in a more roleplaying direction. Role playing sections can be difficult, because your party can often surprise you. I was not 100% that they were going to take the hook here. So I had some predetermined consequences ready if they went the other way.
After 3 days of tracking the party finds a sinkhole in the middle of the woods the bad guys dropped into.
What they found was as classic a dungeon crawl as I could come up with for a 1 session game. I am in the military and spend a good amount of time on the road. So most all of this dungeon was created in a hotel room with horrific internet.
The guys they are after are a group of doppelgangers. They have made their home inside of this cavern and have a few pets they use for defense, or whatever else they need. The players enter at the bottom of the map. I have a series of traps here that the players could get caught up in. The room to the left is a Dire Wolf and her two cubs. The room with the chests in it is guarded by two assassin vines past a dead fall of rocks, a poison dart trap, and a 20' pit trap.
The pit trap made for some comic relief, so Lina was disabling it and Urz says "I'm going to peek around the corner", at which point he falls into the pit. He was mostly fine. He then climbs up on the other side and is immediately grappled by the first vine.
To me this ended up being the most fun encounter of the night, the party had to figure out how to get past the pit, kill the vines and then get into the treasure room.
They made it into the treasure room... the chest with a lil' cloud on it is poison gas. They triggered it, they were fine.
The room labeled "body room" is exactly what it sounds like, a room of dead bodies. They have parts cut off and butchered- this was used to feed the monsters.
The back left room had a Giant spider and two baby spiders in it. Again, not a difficult fight, but it was interesting with the spiders web and a little poison.
Lastly the Doppelgangers. There were 6, 1 of them had a few PC levels. he was a 2nd level wizard. no big deal. The party had purchased a amulet of fireballs and used 2 of the balls in this fight in the first 2 rounds. That really turned the fight easy.
The interesting thing in this fight was that the players thought that they were going to face mirror images of themselves, stat for stat, so they came in ready to kill. So while the fight was easy, it also forced them to use resources that have value- and in the long run that's just as good as challenging.
Once the dungeon was clear the party head out and let the townspeople know the doppelgangers are dead. As they head north there is a familiar blond 1/2 elf in a black cloak. Leanna, the assassin was waiting for them. There is a little unfriendly banter and right before the party is ready to kill her she says that she has information they may be interested in. At that point she throws a bag with Durn's finger in it in front of them. "Look after your friends, or come after us". Now the party has a choice, up north to save Durn and Kong, or east to Wisthaven where the search for Belfast continues...
Until Nest Time!
-Ubercroz
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