So I am drawing to the point where the BBEG is in position to make his first major move (becoming a Lich) but due to narrative as he has made the pact with Orkus he is being required to do it in a ancient, underground temple to Orkus.
I am thinking I would like the temple only open to those who either have a specific spell, ritual, or magical item. I wanted to do a little session or two where the party finds this out and seeks out what they will need to gain access to the temple to thwart his plan. My conundrum occurs when I am trying to figure out what manner should be required going into the temple.
And I would like for them to encounter a henchmen either trying to gather the entry spell, item or whatever, or simply where it is to try and block the party from getting it as the Necromancer is wise to them working against him.
If your villain has people working for him it could be the gathering of information, maybe the location is blocked from divination magic so they gotta get the location the old fashioned way. so they go find his #2 pump him/her/it for info then off they go. set traps and maybe a riddle room on the way down to the temple, if he's doing the ritual to become a lich then he would have set up defenses. let me know the level of play if you need more specific ideas.
6 Level 5 players and 2 level 6 players. For the actual temple that will be a several session mega type dungeon where they enter a cave, which leads to the Underdark, which leads to the temple.
Having divination magic be blocked and they need to find the location the old fashioned way is pretty awesome. But I do still like the idea that they will NEED something to open the gate, it is just the catch 22 with that is the villain would also NEED the same thing, hence why I was leaning towards a specific ritual or something, or maybe an item offered in sacrifice?
Pumping the #2 for information might work but he has a Death Knight as his right hand and a host of undead lieutenants and I am not sure it would make reasonable sense to be able to make them betray their master and spill the beans, so to speak.
I am kind of thinking of possibly having an ancient text with the location, or the item, ritual info etc they need be in the hands of an old vampire they have to either parlay with, steal from, or destroy to accomplish their goal.
With all of the fun lore about Orcus it wouldn't be a stretch of the mind to use something from there to be the key to opening this temple. Sacrificing something to Orcus is the easiest way to do this. From here it would be interesting to really pull from the lore and have them find something from the Darakh, and sacrifice it. Almost all of the children he sired were from the Darakh line and their mothers sacrificed after giving birth. Otherwise they could be charged with making a replica of the Wand of Orcus, it would then act as a key to gain entry, similar to the pipe in National Treasure.
they can always cast speak with the dead on the remains lol, or take it to a temple and have someone do it there if no one has the spell, also secrets are a great intangible thing to trade for entrance to a secret temple, 8 people in the party surely someone has something juicy they could offer up.
Secrets, that's more along the line of Vecna than Orcus, but if you wanted to go that route, you could always have them try to find the name of Orcus's divine vestige...
they can always cast speak with the dead on the remains lol, or take it to a temple and have someone do it there if no one has the spell, also secrets are a great intangible thing to trade for entrance to a secret temple, 8 people in the party surely someone has something juicy they could offer up.
This is a solid hook. You can structure it so that there is a gatekeeper to the temple. The gatekeeper is a corpse that has been preserved by the door for ages. This would give you a knob to drop hints as the corpse could light up to detect magic so they can find the gatekeeper.
They need to cast speak with dead to hear the gatekeepers riddle, preferably something morbid, and upon answering correctly the party gains entry to the temple. Solves your problem of two parties needing the same key and gives you a location for the BBEG's guards to set watch. The guards could try to stop them before, during or after they speak with the gatekeeper.
They can race against the henchmen to the ancient tome that has the knowledge. The henchmen get there first, read the book and send the knowledge to your BBEG via a spell or magic item. They walk in as that happens, realize the BBEG has what they need and they need to get it too to figure out what they can do about it. If you want to save the death knight, he can order other minions to stop them while he steps through a portal the BBEG conjurs up to teleport him out or something like that. Or they fight him and maybe they get the magic item he used to talk to the BBEG - the BBEG can now talk to them and taunts them whenever he wants. Ratchet up the tension and the desire to defeat him.
Also love the idea of the corpse guardian with riddles they can only hear with Speak with Dead if someone in the party has that spell or that consumes a secret from a party member. Good stuff you can do with that.
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So I am drawing to the point where the BBEG is in position to make his first major move (becoming a Lich) but due to narrative as he has made the pact with Orkus he is being required to do it in a ancient, underground temple to Orkus.
I am thinking I would like the temple only open to those who either have a specific spell, ritual, or magical item. I wanted to do a little session or two where the party finds this out and seeks out what they will need to gain access to the temple to thwart his plan. My conundrum occurs when I am trying to figure out what manner should be required going into the temple.
And I would like for them to encounter a henchmen either trying to gather the entry spell, item or whatever, or simply where it is to try and block the party from getting it as the Necromancer is wise to them working against him.
Thoughts?
If your villain has people working for him it could be the gathering of information, maybe the location is blocked from divination magic so they gotta get the location the old fashioned way. so they go find his #2 pump him/her/it for info then off they go. set traps and maybe a riddle room on the way down to the temple, if he's doing the ritual to become a lich then he would have set up defenses. let me know the level of play if you need more specific ideas.
6 Level 5 players and 2 level 6 players. For the actual temple that will be a several session mega type dungeon where they enter a cave, which leads to the Underdark, which leads to the temple.
Having divination magic be blocked and they need to find the location the old fashioned way is pretty awesome. But I do still like the idea that they will NEED something to open the gate, it is just the catch 22 with that is the villain would also NEED the same thing, hence why I was leaning towards a specific ritual or something, or maybe an item offered in sacrifice?
Pumping the #2 for information might work but he has a Death Knight as his right hand and a host of undead lieutenants and I am not sure it would make reasonable sense to be able to make them betray their master and spill the beans, so to speak.
I am kind of thinking of possibly having an ancient text with the location, or the item, ritual info etc they need be in the hands of an old vampire they have to either parlay with, steal from, or destroy to accomplish their goal.
Trying to have it all make sense so they don't go "Well how the hell did the BBEG get in if we needed this to open the temple"
With all of the fun lore about Orcus it wouldn't be a stretch of the mind to use something from there to be the key to opening this temple. Sacrificing something to Orcus is the easiest way to do this. From here it would be interesting to really pull from the lore and have them find something from the Darakh, and sacrifice it. Almost all of the children he sired were from the Darakh line and their mothers sacrificed after giving birth. Otherwise they could be charged with making a replica of the Wand of Orcus, it would then act as a key to gain entry, similar to the pipe in National Treasure.
they can always cast speak with the dead on the remains lol, or take it to a temple and have someone do it there if no one has the spell, also secrets are a great intangible thing to trade for entrance to a secret temple, 8 people in the party surely someone has something juicy they could offer up.
Secrets, that's more along the line of Vecna than Orcus, but if you wanted to go that route, you could always have them try to find the name of Orcus's divine vestige...
This is a solid hook. You can structure it so that there is a gatekeeper to the temple. The gatekeeper is a corpse that has been preserved by the door for ages. This would give you a knob to drop hints as the corpse could light up to detect magic so they can find the gatekeeper.
They need to cast speak with dead to hear the gatekeepers riddle, preferably something morbid, and upon answering correctly the party gains entry to the temple. Solves your problem of two parties needing the same key and gives you a location for the BBEG's guards to set watch. The guards could try to stop them before, during or after they speak with the gatekeeper.
They can race against the henchmen to the ancient tome that has the knowledge. The henchmen get there first, read the book and send the knowledge to your BBEG via a spell or magic item. They walk in as that happens, realize the BBEG has what they need and they need to get it too to figure out what they can do about it. If you want to save the death knight, he can order other minions to stop them while he steps through a portal the BBEG conjurs up to teleport him out or something like that. Or they fight him and maybe they get the magic item he used to talk to the BBEG - the BBEG can now talk to them and taunts them whenever he wants. Ratchet up the tension and the desire to defeat him.
Also love the idea of the corpse guardian with riddles they can only hear with Speak with Dead if someone in the party has that spell or that consumes a secret from a party member. Good stuff you can do with that.