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    Canonfire :: View topic - Doom 3 in the Flanaess
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    Doom 3 in the Flanaess
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    Journeyman Greytalker

    Joined: Nov 14, 2008
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    From: Modena, Italy

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    Wed Jan 27, 2010 1:53 am  
    Doom 3 in the Flanaess

    Well not exactly but I got your attention.
    Recently my characters, wandering in the Perrenlands, have wandered on the borders of the Mounds of Dawn and were caught in a snowstorm. They asked for hospitality in a huge Abbey, technically in the area of Nederboden, but actually too far from civilization. The abbey is a big star shaped wooden construction, built over an ancient ur-flan tower of rock where a druidic cult of Nerull spread. The Abbey is fortified and is used as a sort of protection for the ancient Ur-flan necromantic magic developed by the old shamans.
    The abbey is run by clerics from the whole old Kerk. Mayaheine paladins patrol the surroundings, overseen by Pelor initiates who also take care of health and exercise. Zodal clerics tend the wounded and offer food to the surrounding flan tribes during times of famine. Beory clerics go hunting and berry-picking on the mountains, while clerics of Berei tend to the farm animals, orchards, smoking meat, beer making etc. Clerics of Allitur manage all the bureaucracy and relations to the Perrenland landlords, and also accomplish routine work of administering law in the surrounding flan tribes. Clerics of Rao hold the library and scriptorium. Clerics of Nerull manage embalming and funeral rites. While the other religions occupy one of the star points, the Nerull cult is located below the Abbey, they occupy the center tower, the Ur Flan black stone construct, and make sure that none of the ancient seals are broken.

    Unluckily, someone want the PCs to be in trouble. An assassin crept in the courtyard and killed the Abbot making it all work as if one of the PCs actually killed it. The trial is quick and ended in having the party go down under the Abbey far below the "Nerull rooms" where some important documents about the real identity of the abbey is stored.

    What i was thinking now is having the assassin that killed the abbot, also break free some of the seals in the Ur Flan dungeons.

    This is where i need help first. Some nice, necromantic dungeon full of nasty undead. Any suggestions?

    Second... I was thinking about one of the seals as holding an ancient plague that attacks just flan descendants... none of the PCs are flan so they think the door behind the broken seal is empty. In truth, a sort of transparent, imperceptible bacterial infection has spread rapidly upwards, making every single priest up in the abbey become some sort of twisted undead creature.

    How would you develop this? Or do you think the priests should have some sort of defense against this undead plague? What about some inner faction war?
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Apr 08, 2008
    Posts: 116
    From: Australia

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    Wed Jan 27, 2010 5:58 am  

    Hmmm, fun, fun, fun! Much of my response is 3.5 ed but I'm sure you could tweak this for similar results no what edition you play.

    First of all, I'd have the assassin be employed by a mastermind necromancer working behind the scenes to get some knowledge of the ancient Ur-Flannae necromantic lore. He could be scrying from afar just to see what happens and then swoop in to gain some vital nugget of power while the players are busy battling the strange and unfamiliar undead...


    I reckon the Libris Mortis supplement would have some excellent stuff for you here. I'd probably start with a desecrate spell effect that radiates from the catacombs after the wards are broken, gaining more and more ground as the hours or days go by. This could perhaps then cause a plague of some sort that kills just a few to start with, or frees just a handful of strong undead to start a plague of a different kind. Then I'd kick off with variations of known undead. The aforementioned book has "Romero-esque" zombies that move quick and eat brains- sooooo much fun!!! The lower level clerics and warriors might cop it and infect others in turn, falling upon their superiors in ever increasing hordes, creating a great siege mentality.

    Complete Arcane has a nice template for spell-stitched undead too. You could perhaps use this for the ancient undead- I'd use wights just because they seem very Flannish to me for some reason. Perhaps these flannae wight necromancers were imprisoned behind the wards but couldn't be destroyed. Give them plenty of turn resistance and the Lore of the Ur-Flan feat so they are tough on their home ground. If the monastery is some sort of necromantic conduit you could develop a theme of containing evil rather than destroying it. Replace the wards, return the old ones to their sleep...

    Very scrummy indeed! Hope this helps....

    Damien.
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Dec 06, 2003
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    Thu Jan 28, 2010 12:14 am  

    Yes, this does sound like a lot of fun. Are you at all familiar with Ravenloft? This sounds like a great chance to introduce some horror tropes into your campaign.

    I like the idea of any undead having turn resistance. This place sounds like a place of horror. Create a spooky atmosphere. Have your players hang on your every word. Personally, I wouldn't get too heavy in making things scary through game mechanics, that can be gimicky if you rely on it too much.

    Try this: have light spells be less effective. Continual light now has a duration, but don't tell the players this, let them find out. But instead of saying, 'the spell fails', illustrate to them how one of the characters (it doesn't matter which), notices how the edge of the light has receded about 10 feet. Or, 'at the edge of your torchlight, you notice the flicker of shadows'. Pare this with an ominous set of red eyes that they occasionally see, but they never can seem to catch up with. Of course, the key to get out is somewhere in the dungeon... thats right, I forgot to mention that they can't get out! You also might want to play with spell effects. Some spell effects, or even whole schools of magic, are more effective than others, and others are less effective. This place sounds like it would be closely linked to the Plane of Shadow or to the Negative Material Plane. Maybe that is where this place is really located.

    As for treasure. Hmmm, knowledge is a good one. Doesn't have to be spells. Its like that any spells the Ur-Flan had would be considered pretty foul and would likely get anyone using it thrown in jail, from the spell effect or if it got out what kind of magic it is and where they got it from. One thing I like in my games is the law of unintended consequences. True, they could unwittingly unleash a foul plague, or become the carriers for the plague, everyone but them get it. Better yet, a plague breaks out and they are asked by a senior priest to find a cure, only to find out that they are the carriers!! Of course, they won't be able to divine that they are the carriers, thats the nature of the magic. Another idea: by killing the undead cleric down there (provided there is one), unleashes the evil soul to scour the land again and he possesses the body of a valued NPC, preferably a spellcaster who goes on to become the party's greatest enemy.

    Those are some ideas. Enjoy! Evil Grin
    The Grey Mouser

    Vampire Penguins. Zombie Guinea Pigs. We're done for... done for.
    Journeyman Greytalker

    Joined: Nov 14, 2008
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    From: Modena, Italy

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    Thu Jan 28, 2010 1:51 am  

    Damien wrote:
    Hmmm, fun, fun, fun! Much of my response is 3.5 ed but I'm sure you could tweak this for similar results no what edition you play.

    First of all, I'd have the assassin be employed by a mastermind necromancer working behind the scenes to get some knowledge of the ancient Ur-Flannae necromantic lore. He could be scrying from afar just to see what happens and then swoop in to gain some vital nugget of power while the players are busy battling the strange and unfamiliar undead...


    Actually the BBEG behind it all is the god Hades. I reckon Gygax once used to include real-world pantheons in his game, and I thought the Greek pantheon could have been worshiped by some pre-Oeridian or even an obscure flan contemporary ethnicity in the Geoff/Sterich area (like the Etruscan in Italy).
    During one of my earlier (i was like 12 yo at the time) games, the players were tricked by the god Hades into signing a contract. They paid with life-force and lost several levels. That was a very very atrocious way of levelling down the characters which grew too powerful, but you know, I was young and daring :).
    Since one of these character has been brought to play after 20 years I wanted to have some recurring enemy coming back as well. And that's when I thought of Hades. Since I today know better than using gods as super-villains, I was thinking about more subtle way to reintroduce him. The assassin I mentioned is really a sort of "clone" made up life force of all the old characters put together. A perfect assassin that combine skills from all the old PCs (a sort of "Super Skrull"). The PCs have huge memory holes about their past lives, which are in fact now part of the super-assassin I am throwing them against. I am also making up a "cult of death", monks dedicated to the ancient religion of Hades.
    In the last few years of campaign game, which we did not play, other memory holes appeared in the PC's life. These were due to the fact that Hades was summoning the PCs in their sleep to murder important people, they killed who they were supposed to kill and woke up without memories of the past.
    However the recent stirring of Tharizdun in his celestial prison has changed a lot of balances in the underworld, and suddently Hades commands seem not to work anymore. That's why Hades himself sent the super-skrull-assassin to get the job done when the PC did not react to his requests.

    It's an awkward way to make very old histories get some coherence, but I am enjoying it very much. Expecially seeing recurring NPCs I created 20 years ago, but reworked to the new millennium.

    PS: I am playing PFRPG so the 3.5 suggesisons are great, thank you!
    Journeyman Greytalker

    Joined: Nov 14, 2008
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    Thu Jan 28, 2010 2:16 am  

    A few notes.

    The PCs are now in the Abbey together with hundreds of peasants from the surrounding farms. The stone markers sacred to the goddess Berei/Beory that maintained the valley in perpetual spring have been broken (by the hades-assassin?) and a terrible winter storm has befallen the valley. The peasants from the surrounding farms have ran to the Abbey for refuge because they were unprepared for winter (they have never seen snow in several lifetimes), so the abbey is now crammed with 0 level commoners ready to become brain eating plague zombies :)

    The party features an high level thief (the 20+ y.o. character that my player used to play as a kid), another tiefling rogue, and a necromancer that fled from the Great Kingdom for political reasons. The necromancer is studying the Animus creation process, which in my history was the coronation of a decades-long study of Ur-Flan undead reanimation by the mad wizard Meredoth (from Ravenloft - Ship of Horror) (Meredoth was a PC of another of my players). Meredoth used to have a form of controlled undead similar to the Animus himself (in the adventure). That, plus the study of the creation of skeleton warriors (the very first "controlled" undead of history, another ur-flan magic in my campaign), plus the revolutionary necromantic scripts found in Knurl (old works of Azalin), plus the immense resources given to Meredoth by the super-rich church of Hextor, led Meredoth to the creation of the first animuses (animi?). Meredoth started his study in the library below the abbey, when he escaped the fogs of Ravenloft, so the dungeons have TWO kind of nasty surprises. Necromantic experiments from Meredoth and the incredibly old magic of the ur-flan... :) Lotsa stuff to work on!
    Journeyman Greytalker

    Joined: Nov 14, 2008
    Posts: 222
    From: Modena, Italy

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    Thu Jan 28, 2010 2:26 am  

    GreyMouser wrote:

    Try this: have light spells be less effective. Continual light now has a duration, but don't tell the players this, let them find out. But instead of saying, 'the spell fails', illustrate to them how one of the characters (it doesn't matter which), notices how the edge of the light has receded about 10 feet. Or, 'at the edge of your torchlight, you notice the flicker of shadows'. Pare this with an ominous set of red eyes that they occasionally see, but they never can seem to catch up with. Of course, the key to get out is somewhere in the dungeon... thats right, I forgot to mention that they can't get out! You also might want to play with spell effects. Some spell effects, or even whole schools of magic, are more effective than others, and others are less effective. This place sounds like it would be closely linked to the Plane of Shadow or to the Negative Material Plane. Maybe that is where this place is really located.



    Very good ideas indeed! It also works very well because the party necromancer is studying the process of undead creation through arcane magic and the use of pure, neutral elemental forces (from the negative plane), untainted by ethics or morality of religion. That's why he went to the abbey: to study the origins of divine-created undead (Nerull was certainly the first god to create undead).

    Kudos for the light ideas!
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