Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Radijs 10-03-06, 05:09 PM	Mwahahahahaha! I killed them all the fools who could not awnser my riddle! Seriously though it was quite fun for the players and me both tonights session. They explored the underground lair of a lich first entering a mausoleum where in a coffin made of crystal laid the remains of a beautiful woman protected from the decay of time with powerful enchantments. They explore on encountering a large amount of harmless undead. Mostly skeletal servants charged with keeping the place clean. And then they encountered the lich! He was completely taken up in his work and had been for so long that he had forgotten all his spells. So despite the party being level 9 and the lich level 11 there was no contest. What the lich had been doing all the time was writing a poem as a last ditch effort to return his beloved to the land of the living. It was in a way a prayer to the Evening Glory. ((This was because normal resurrection could not work for her anymore Complex reason not important.)) As the players continue to explore after they slew the lich and came upon a stone door wich they where unable to open for a while. A part of the party explored beyond the door using Dimension door where they came upon a second door which radiated VERY powerful magic. The door bore no lock or handle but only a brass knocker. They didn't dare to open the door but teleported back and returned 24 hours later and used stone shape to bypass the 1st door and then used the knocker on the second door. The door changed its shape into a gigantic skull and posed them a riddle. They had to awnser it in order to pass through. The riddle was this: "My first is foremost legally. My second circles outwardly. My third leads all in Victory. My fourth twice ends a nominee. My whole is this gate's only key." And he threatened that if they failed to awnser his riddle he would eat them. The riddle was too hard for them and the door devoured them one by one. TPK right? Well yes and no. I was thinking of turning this turn of events into its own adventure. A quest to escape death itself!
Kradlo 10-03-06, 05:20 PM	The key is love. Please post how the quest to escape death goes. It sounds like a fascinating way to turn a TPK into a grand adventure.
Radijs 10-03-06, 05:53 PM	Once they have succeeded I will most certainly post the adventure. The idea is basically that they will have to challenge Death in order to regain their lives. I've got about 3 weeks to come up with the first part of the adventure as the heroes arrive in Limbo.
Radijs 10-11-06, 09:53 AM	I've asked around to a few dm's for advice and I've found a good challenge. One DM advised that death would challenge them to snip a strand of fate. In fact taking a life at random in order to save their own. I felt that the paladins in my group would probably not do this. Instead I will let Death challenge them to convince six mortals to give up their lives. If they succeed in that they will be given their lives back.
LordBolt118 10-11-06, 12:53 PM	Hmm...that's one idea, but I have one too. You could have Death give them one last chance at life - he sends them back, and if they can stop themselves from getting killed, they can return. The trick being, it's all one of Death's little games - the other "them" aren't really "them", they're evil doppelgangers. Suddenly, a chase occurs as the PC's try to cheat death. ...have I been watching too much Doctor Who?
Radijs 10-11-06, 01:45 PM	I religiously believe that there's no such thing as too much dr who. But the way the party died doesn't really allow much of a doppelanger scenario. They failed solving a riddle it wasn't something that would be hard to prevent.
Arganis 10-11-06, 02:07 PM	Setting aside the whole "I fiat-killed my party not because their characters failed to live against standard challenges, but because my players failed to solve a ridiculous Letter-Riddle" issue... Spitting them out in Limbo sounds like a great way to go. A quest through the Underworld could involve anything from fighting monsters on the shores of the Styx to finessing the no-doubt cumbersome bureauocracy required to gain an audience with the oft-overbooked Death. There're also plenty of aimless souls wandering about to use as allies, enemies, or sources of information.
Celestine_AutumnStar 10-11-06, 02:29 PM	Now that they are in the land of the dead, one possibility would be to have the Lich regain his powers, but since he is a destroyed undead he can no longer return to the mortal realm. But! He can send the PCs back, on one condition. They must find a way to restore his lost love, for her soul is wandering lost beyond his ability to reach her. Once they are returned they will have only so long to accomplish this task, and as a reminder the Lich sends them back as only partially mortal, whispy shadow versions of their former selves. Just :twocents:
Arganis 10-11-06, 02:44 PM	What would you dooOOOooo for a klondike bar?
Archangel62 10-11-06, 02:58 PM	Ah, another player of the great kings quest series...or at least it was good until that idiotic mask of eternity...
Arganis 10-11-06, 03:20 PM	Ah, another player of the great kings quest series...or at least it was good until that idiotic mask of eternity... KQ 6 > All! Seconded on MOE, by the way, though I was not particularly pleased with KQ 7 either. The storyline was not that compelling (or epic), and the change of voice between Rosella and Valenice proved detrimental to establishing an engaging personality for either of them--or their respective villains. Plus Alexander was a dude, and we all know videogame heroes should be dudes unless the girl has big... guns.
Radijs 10-11-06, 04:44 PM	I never played mask of eternity. Heir today gone tomorrow was the last one I played.
FeceMan 10-11-06, 05:03 PM	The door changed its shape into a gigantic skull and posed them a riddle. They had to awnser it in order to pass through. The riddle was this: "My first is foremost legally. My second circles outwardly. My third leads all in Victory. My fourth twice ends a nominee. My whole is this gate's only key." And he threatened that if they failed to awnser his riddle he would eat them. The riddle was too hard for them and the door devoured them one by one. The riddle is clearly one of spelling, and the answer is 'love'. If your PCs could not figure that out, perhaps it is a good thing they did not progress.
Radijs 10-30-06, 08:50 AM	Tomorrow I'm finally holding my next session and this is what I've thought up: They arrive in a large damp cave glowing dimly with an incandescent light. Their bodies will be translucent and grey but otherwise corporeal. In the distance they can hear a sussuruss and when they move there to explore they will be greeted by a small creature who introduces himself as Girrick. Girric will give them his condolences and tell them that they might as well leave their posessions behind. They won't need them anymore. This is a lie he just wants the stuff gone from them if they decide to make trouble later on. Wether or not they decide to give up their things he will tell them that they should go on to the next cavern hall. The next hall will be vary full and obviously the source of the sussurus. Thousands or tens of thousands of souls are standing in line here slowly being helped given a ticket and then the souls move on to stand in other lines. Some souls look very much like they did in life while others seem to have faded losing their shape and becoming a vaguely humanoid shaped mist. On the other side of the cave there is a small table, like the flimsy kind you find in gardens, a recliner in the same fashion and a parasol which seems kind of superfluous since there's no sun in this cave. The cavern will be warm or hot even. The air despite feeling as dry as a desert will be filled slighly with fog. The small little imp Girrick will upon entering the hall lie down on the recliner and begin smoking a pipe. Observant adventurers may note that he doesn't light the pipe. Now the adventurers have a choice they can enter the cue and wait. It will take several days for them to reach the end where they will be helped one by one, given a form to fill out and then instructed to go to the next office where again they need to wait in line. If they decide to continue to wait they will quickly realize they would have to wait forever moving from one cue to the next. Questioning the other deceased will confirm this. Some of the more blurred ones are barely capable of speech but all of them have met Girrick when they arrived. Most of the more coherent spirits are despairing that they will end up formless forgetting everything like those other poor souls. Girrick in fact is quite a nasty fellow. He's conjured up the fake walls and stalls to keep the recent dead here where he can feed on them which leads to the blurring effect. Dealing with the imp is going to be simple. Killing him will break the spell revealing the river Styx. When Girrick is down to 1/2 his hit points he will offer them a deal. They can go and he will tell them of a way they can get their real lives back. If he reaches 1/4th of his HP he will surrender and promise to release the souls of the dead and if they spare him he will still tell them how they can get their lives back. The solution of course is to challenge death. Now it would be nice if I could remember the text written on the gauntlet in kings quest IV.
Radijs 11-18-06, 04:18 PM	They did pretty much what I expected. They saw through Girrick's little trick and slew him. And they proceeded to Death's fortress on the other side of the Styx and threw down the gauntlet. They challenged Death for their lives and Death gave them a challenge. In exchange for their lives they need to convince six people to willingly give up their lives. Upon stating his challenge Death immediately sent them to their first target. A peasant woman in a village. There's just one problem with all this. 2 characters flat-out refused to do this choosing death over life. Of course its quite well from a roleplaying standpoint but it leaves me with a bit of a dilemma. Normally its difficult to introduce new party members but during this adventure which can take quite a few sessions to resolve its going to be nigh impossible. I've got one ace up my sleeve. They are on a quest to ultimately destroy an evil demon-king who in his hunger for power wants to conquer the multiverse and who will burn his way through most living things to get it. Not a nice guy. Anyway Death (I) sent the party to the outskirts of a still nameless village and I was thinking to put them in the future so to speak. Maybe 50 or 80 years from when they died and they can witness the initial invasion of the demon king into a new world. They will get a guide, some formless imp who can awnser their most basic questions and guide them to their targets but more importantly tell them what happened with the demon king and what he's doing to creation and its inhabitants. Still there's a good chance that the characters will still choose death. So I need one of two things. I need a way to convince these characters to try death's challenge or I need a way to introduce two new characters into this adventure. If I can't think of a way then I'm going to have to either just say the Players that the last adventure or two did not happen or have two players not doing anything for several weeks while this story arc gets finished.