In my latest campaign based on Tomb of Annihilation, the final battle will be against Atropus, the World Born Dead. Since killing an actual planet is a bit hard, the actual boss fight would be against a Lich who tried to control Atropus, but ended up being absorbed by him, becoming his avatar instead.
My dilemma is which Lich to use. I can make up a new one, but considering that Acererak already is a central character in ToA, it would feel a bit confusing to have two super-mega-ultra liches in one campaign. Problem is, having Acererak just be absorbed by Atropus without the players even fighting him feels underwhelming
Do you think I should use Acererak, even though it means he'd go out like a b*tch, or make up/use a different Lich character that the players might get to know better, like Valindra?
Acererak has lots of Phylacteries in the ToA. It is almost a certainty that there would be another Lich that may be working for him. Valindra is also a good choice, but as she is a major character in the forgotten realms any fate that befalls her in your game wouldn't be permanent - mostly because 1. she has allies and 2. WoTC released a document about playing in the sword coast and one of their guidelines was "It all goes back to how it was". Perhaps one of the mages working for Valindra could be an excellente stand in? One of the wizards that is roaming the City just outside of the Tomb could make an excellent choice. They could journey with the party into the tomb, try to betray them and seize the power for themself only to be swallowed by it instead.
No reason to not use Acererak. What I would do is let the party fight him for a few rounds and when he is either defeated or almost defeated have him be absorbed by Atropus. Basically the players are responsible for weakening the great lich to the point that he would fall victim to the World Born Dead.
Now the players have a much bigger problem. Even better if you can drop a few hints that Atropus is involved with Acererak and the two do not have a good relationship. Possibly Acererak used Atropus in some way to create the Tomb of Annihilation. Depending on how you want to play it the newly improved and possessed Acererak might reform and immediately attack the party or it may go off to another complicated Tomb of the Dead World to await the players attempt to foil its new plan to consume all of Abor Toril.
In my latest campaign based on Tomb of Annihilation, the final battle will be against Atropus, the World Born Dead. Since killing an actual planet is a bit hard, the actual boss fight would be against a Lich who tried to control Atropus, but ended up being absorbed by him, becoming his avatar instead.
My dilemma is which Lich to use. I can make up a new one, but considering that Acererak already is a central character in ToA, it would feel a bit confusing to have two super-mega-ultra liches in one campaign. Problem is, having Acererak just be absorbed by Atropus without the players even fighting him feels underwhelming
Do you think I should use Acererak, even though it means he'd go out like a b*tch, or make up/use a different Lich character that the players might get to know better, like Valindra?
Acererak has lots of Phylacteries in the ToA. It is almost a certainty that there would be another Lich that may be working for him. Valindra is also a good choice, but as she is a major character in the forgotten realms any fate that befalls her in your game wouldn't be permanent - mostly because 1. she has allies and 2. WoTC released a document about playing in the sword coast and one of their guidelines was "It all goes back to how it was". Perhaps one of the mages working for Valindra could be an excellente stand in? One of the wizards that is roaming the City just outside of the Tomb could make an excellent choice. They could journey with the party into the tomb, try to betray them and seize the power for themself only to be swallowed by it instead.
No reason to not use Acererak. What I would do is let the party fight him for a few rounds and when he is either defeated or almost defeated have him be absorbed by Atropus. Basically the players are responsible for weakening the great lich to the point that he would fall victim to the World Born Dead.
Now the players have a much bigger problem. Even better if you can drop a few hints that Atropus is involved with Acererak and the two do not have a good relationship. Possibly Acererak used Atropus in some way to create the Tomb of Annihilation. Depending on how you want to play it the newly improved and possessed Acererak might reform and immediately attack the party or it may go off to another complicated Tomb of the Dead World to await the players attempt to foil its new plan to consume all of Abor Toril.
Current Characters I am playing: Dr Konstantin van Wulf | Taegen Willowrun | Mad Magnar
Check out my homebrew: Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Feats
Just to be clear: I'm playing in a home-brew world, and even if I didn't, I wouldn't give a damn what wizards said
Dms word is final. Sounds like you made a decision.