The Alexandrian

Vintage Alchemy - shaiith

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 29C: Skirmish in the Cauldron

“Friends of that meddlesome paladin!” The minotaur turned back towards the northern passage. “Stop hiding like cowards! Attack!”

The minotaur dashed forward, quaffing a potion that caused him to suddenly blur with speed. Bunching his powerful leg muscles he leapt up onto the thick rim of the immense iron cauldron.

“They’re drinking our wealth away!” Tee cried, firing at the minotaur.

I’m a big fan of consumable magic items: Drink a potion, it’s gone. Use up the charges in a wand, it’s done. 5th Edition D&D turning a bunch of consumable items into permanent items via recharging charges is somewhat inexplicable to me.

See, the great thing about a consumable item is that you can give it to the PCs with an almost completely clear conscience: If you give them a permanent item and it screws up game balance, then you’ve got a permanent problem. Miscalculate and give them a consumable item that’s more powerful than you thought it would be? It’s a self-correcting problem.

In fact, you can do this deliberately: Here’s an incredibly powerful item far beyond anything you’d normally be able to get your hands on. It can literally change the course of the entire campaign… but it’s only got one charge. Use it wisely.

(You’ll see some of these uber-powerful consumables show up in future sessions.)

Monte Cook’s Numenera is a game that leans in hard on consumables: A billion years in the future, cyphers are the enigmatic remnants of the mega-civilizations which lie between our own time and the neo-Renaissance of that far-flung epoch. All cyphers are consumables and the vast majority of them are one-use items. Furthermore, due to strange interactions between cyphers it’s very dangerous to carry more than a few of them, so you’re heavily motivated to use the stuff you’ve got so that you can pick up more.

It’s a fantastic mixture of lore and mechanic: The cyphers are constantly injecting a wild mixture of new abilities, keeping the game fresh and exciting.

Even when treasure hordes get larded with consumables, though, I too often see GMs ignore them during encounters. As you can see here, that’s not my philosophy: My bad guys will use their personal stockpile of consumables to best effect, which has the dual effect of (a) injecting them with unexpected abilities and (b) enraging players who are being blasted at the expense of their own reward!

But it’s a good rage: It motivates players to think strategically and strike hard to preserve “their” loot. It’s a very diegetic way of rewarding better performance with bigger rewards.

When I’ve set up an encounter, I actually enjoy rolling on some random magic item tables to generate one or two or a grab bag of consumables. It’s a great way to shake up an encounter and make it a unique experience: An elite squad of goblin commandos who suck down potions of giant strength are very different from the ones with potions of gaseous form or invisibility.

TANGENT: THEATER OF OPERATION

In Running the Campaign: Dungeon as Theater of Operations I talked about how you should stop thinking of an encounter as “belonging” to a specific room and instead start thinking of the dungeon as a holistic environment.

I mentioned that when you, as the GM, think about the dungeon this way and run encounters this way, that the players will also learn to think that way. And you can really see that in this session:

Banewarrens - Broken Seal Area (Monte Cook Games)

  • The lamia flees from Area 11 to Area 10.
  • NPC reinforcements arrive from Area 1.
  • Agnarr is forced to flee down towards Area 17.
  • Ranthir blocks the hallway between Area 10 and Area 17 to cut off the reinforcements.
  • Later, Ranthir races up through Area 6 and into Area 3 to try to cut off the goblins’ escape.
  • Missing some of them, he chases them through Area 1 and down the long hallway, while Tee also fetches up in Area 3 and takes out some of the other goblins.

This is an encounter that could have stayed locked to Area 11. Instead, it ranged across almost the entire dungeon level.

Campaign Journal: Session 30ARunning the Campaign: Cut on the Cliffhanger
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Ptolus - In the Shadow of the Spire
IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 29C: SKIRMISH IN THE CAULDRON

September 20th, 2008
The 16th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

Black Hole with Starry Vortex - Ekaterina Glazkova (Edited)

The lamia ran down the staircase. Agnarr pursued it, finding himself back in the room with the iron cauldron. Agnarr managed to back it up against the cauldron. It howled again. The answering howl was closer.

While Agnarr kept the lamia pinned, the others descended the stairs, their shots ricocheting off the cauldron as the lamia desperately dodged back and forth. Then Tor used his lasso – catching the lamia by the legs and yanking them out from under her.

They moved in to finish her off, but at that very moment a second lamia – this one male – came racing into the room through the northern door. Seeing the female lamia injured and entangled he gave a howl of rage and bounded forward, throwing a healing potion to her as he came.

Tor moved to engage the second lamia while Agnarr stayed on the female. But as Agnarr closed in, her eyes locked onto his. Her pupils expanded until her eyes were a solid, tawny gold and Agnarr could feel them reaching out towards him. He could feel her mind reaching into his mind.

You should run away.

He couldn’t deny the command. Agnarr fled. The female lamia took advantage of the distraction to slink away around the cauldron, drinking the healing potion as she went.

Tee used her boots to levitate up to the ceiling. Pulling herself along she was able to emerge into the room out of the range of the lamia’s vicious claws, and from that elevated position she tried to get a clear shot.

But the male lamia wasn’t the last of the reinforcements. A large, muscular minotaur emerged from the northern passage “Verochin! What’s happening?”

“It’s Derimach!” the male lamia shouted back. “She’s hurt! There are at least six of them!”

“Friends of that meddlesome paladin!” The minotaur turned back towards the northern passage. “Stop hiding like cowards! Attack!”

The minotaur dashed forward, quaffing a potion that caused him to suddenly blur with speed. Bunching his powerful leg muscles he leapt up onto the thick rim of the immense iron cauldron.

“They’re drinking our wealth away!” Tee cried, firing at the minotaur.

Tor and Agnarr could do little about it because Verochin’s claws were keeping them thoroughly harried. Where the lamia’s blows landed, not only were huge gouges of flesh torn away, but a supernatural chill seemed to spread from the wounds – racing up into their minds and clouding their perception.

And now, scurrying down the hallway, came four vicious-looking goblins wielding serrated blades.

But then Ranthir dashed down the stairs, lowered his hands, and webbed the whole northern half of the room – trapping Verochin, the goblins, and the minotaur.

Tor seized the opportunity, turning and heading around the cauldron in pursuit of Derimach. As he came around the corner, however, the lamia’s eyes caught his and he could feel it trying to weave its way into his mind…

But he shook it off. With a bitter growl she threw herself at him.

Verochin, finding himself trapped in front of Agnarr, tried to wrench himself backwards out of Ranthir’s web. But he was too late. Agnarr took advantage of the moment and plunged his sword through the lamia’s back, ripping down through its front hips. In a gush of blood, Verochin fell.

The minotaur, meanwhile, was ripping his own way out of the webs. Moving along the rim of the cauldron he drew his massive greatsword. The blade – nearly as wide across as Agnarr’s thigh – flashed out and ripped open Tee. She fell from the sky, landing on her neck with a sickening snap.

Ranthir dashed to Tee’s side and raised his hands. A gout of fire rushed out of them, singeing the horns of the minotaur as he swung down into the cauldron for cover.

The minotaur levered himself back out of the cauldron and swung his sword low. Agnarr, who had been trying to move around to where Tor was engaging Derimach, only narrowly managed to dodge the blow. Fortunately, his help wasn’t needed: By the time he had gotten back to this feet, Tor had already killed the second lamia.

Ranthir recognized that the minotaur’s supernatural speed was ruinous. He quickly worked an enchantment that stripped the effects of the potion from the minotaur’s limbs.

The minotaur growled and then shouted back over his shoulder. “Verochin and Derimach are dead! I cannot escape! Flee! Get word to the others!”

“The others…?” Elestra, who was trying desperately to heal Tee’s grievous wounds, blanched.

Ranthir cast his own enchantment of speed, cracked a sunrod from one of his many pouches, and raced back up the stairs – hoping to circle around and catch the goblins before they could escape… although, truth be told, he wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do with them if he did catch them.

The minotaur lumbered down the length of the cauldron and then hurtled off the end. Flipping in mid-air his greatsword swept down along the floor, ripping open Agnarr’s back. Landing nimbly he spun to face Tor.

But Agnarr refused to fall. Stumbling forward his own greatsword ripped into the minotaur’s hide.

The minotaur’s counterstrike smashed Agnarr to the floor, but now he was bleeding profusely. He backed away from Tor and tried to cut his way out through the others… Tee, who had only just gotten back to her feet, was cut down again. (“I just healed her!” Elestra cried with dismay.)

But Tor’s furious flurry of blows would not be denied. The minotaur’s heavy blade couldn’t keep pace. He fell.

IN PURSUIT OF GOBLINS

Ranthir, arriving back in the octagonal entrance chamber, found that most of the goblins were still stuck fast in his web. But one of them had ripped its way free and disappeared. Scarcely pausing for thought, he raced down the excavated tunnel – hoping to use his supernatural speed to catch it before it could reach the Nibeck Street mansion and disappear into the streets of Ptolus.

Tee, meanwhile, wasn’t far behind. As soon as her wounds had once again been healed by Dominic and Elestra, she had raced up the stairs and started circling around. Agnarr, meanwhile, began burning his way through the webs.

When Tee reached the entrance chamber, she drew the same conclusion Ranthir had. But without his enhanced speed, she didn’t think she would be able to catch up in time to make a difference. Instead she crossed over to the bewebbed goblins and started shooting them.

The last goblin, seeing his comrades picked off, suddenly found the desperate strength to rip his way free… but he had only stumbled a few steps when Tee placed a shot straight through his eye.

A few moments later, Agnarr finished burning his path through the webs… only to find Tee standing happily with her hands on her hips.

Tor, meanwhile, had hacked off the minotaur’s head – holding it up triumphantly by the horns.

But while the others celebrated, Ranthir was still working. He had raced several hundred feet down the length of the excavated tunnel and begun to think that the goblin had escaped after all. Just as he was about to give up hope, however, the sound of scampering feet came clearly to his ears. He redoubled his efforts.

As they drew near the side passage they had left unexplored, the goblin finally appeared in the light of his sunrod. Ranthir fired his crossbow, catching the goblin in the back.

With a screech of pained terror, the goblin veered off into the side passage.

Fearing an ambush, Ranthir cautiously cast his spells of clairvoyance and used them to peer down the passage from a safe vantage point. He watched as the goblin ran around a second corner and into a larger cave—

Which suddenly collapsed with a thunderous crash!

The goblin gave a final, squalling cry and then fell silent. A cloud of dust and debris billowed out of the catastrophe.

Unsure what to think – had the goblin triggered some sort of trap? or was it an elaborate ruse? – but confident now that the explored side passage represented a danger, Ranthir cast a different spell which would allow him to send a short message of exactly twenty-five words to his comrades:

I chased him to the cross corridor. He hit a trap. Come here now. I need help… Because I’m Ranthir. Hope they hurry, Erin.

DEJA SLIME

The others were stripping anything that looked valuable off the creatures they had slain. Tee shook her head sadly at the empty vials. Tor was disturbed to discover that Verochin, Derimach, and the minotaur had all worn bone-grafting rings like the one worn by the orcish woman in the Nibeck Street mansion. (These rings, however, could be removed. Possibly because it was post mortem.)

But when the wind whispered Ranthir’s message to them, they all ran up through the path that Agnarr had burned and down the excavated tunnel. When they had caught up to him, Ranthir quickly explained the situation.

Tee moved cautiously into the side passage. With Ranthir keeping an eye on her through his clairvoyance, she crept past a large boulder and up to the edge of the pit and looked down.

The goblin’s body was gone. But there were sharp stone spikes and she could see where it had landed. A trail of thick blood led towards a tunnel on the other side of the pit.

Everyone moved forward. Agnarr took the boots of levitation from Tee and used them to ferry the others across to the far side of the pit one at a time.

The tunnel on the far side of the pit ran up into a four-way intersection. Back to the south they could see where it curved back to dead-end in a boulder – the same boulder they had passed before in the original tunnel. Something had levered the boulder into position, concealing this passage in order to guide others into the collapsing pit trap.

They crossed the intersection into the far tunnel, which began to slope back down again. After thirty feet or so, this tunnel opened up into a larger cave with a slightly domed ceiling about ten feet high. Every surface in the cave was wet with the greasy-residue of mineral-choked water. Cracks in the walls revealed the moisture slowly seeping in and pooling, mostly along the north wall.

At the last possible moment, Tee – as she crossed the threshold of the room – was suddenly reminded of the caverns in which they had fought the olive slimes… and the tactics the slimes had employed. She dove forward and rolled onto her back—

Narrowly avoiding the gelatinous, iridescent, and (most importantly) motile blob of ogre-sized protoplasm that dropped from the ceiling! It wasn’t an olive slime, but it was just as disgusting.

Tee managed to squeeze off a shot, but then the creature sent out a thick pseudopod that caught her and began squeezing the breath from her body. The creature’s touch burned painfully and thick, acidic fumes tore at her throat.

Ranthir, recognizing the creature, shouted out a warning: “If you cut it, pierce it, or deliver an electric shock, it will split into multiple, smaller, and deadlier creatures!”

“You’re kidding!” Tor cried, pushing his half-drawn cutting, piercing, electrical sword back into its sheath.

Agnarr moved up and start beating on the creature with the flat of his blade, hoping that the bludgeoning and fire would force the creature to drop Tee… but it just kept tightening its grip.

Tor grabbed Tee’s dragon pistol from where it had fallen and began firing. Elestra drew her dragon rifle and did the same.

Tee’s vision was turning black by the time that Agnarr’s beating finally convinced the jelly to release her and attempt to grab him instead. The barbarian nimbly avoided the first pseudopod, but then the jelly lurched forward, slamming into Agnarr and smashing him into the wall.

As Tee climbed to her feet, Tor tossed the dragon pistol back to her and grabbed a club proffered by Dominic. He stepped up and swung away… the entire side of the jelly suddenly welled into a horrible, purple-black bruise that spread like dye through syrup.

CAVERNS OF CONFUSION

Ranthir gave a sudden cry. A large, insectile creature with a dull-golden carapace was lumbering down the hall towards him. Beady eyes stared out from a face dominated by half-domed membranes and curved, viciously-serrated mandibles. He recognized in it the tell-tale marks of a mage-warped creature… and the far more obvious signs of its danger.

Umber Hulk - Wizards of the Coast

Agnarr glanced at Tor. Tor waved for him to go. Agnarr ran back up the corridor towards where Ranthir was rapidly backpedaling.

Tee, meanwhile, took careful aim and shot the dragon pistol directly into the middle of the bruise Tor had raised. The blow punctured the thick, rind-like membrane of the jelly – viscous fluid seeped from its side.

The jelly twisted in place, turning its injured side away from them. But Tor swung again, raising a smaller bruise on its opposite side.

Ranthir was falling back towards the rest of the group. Agnarr reached the intersection where he’d been standing, but as he rounded the corner the umber-colored hulk was already there – its claws whipped out and ripped at his skin, and then, as Agnarr was spun about by the force of the blow, the creature’s long, vicious mandibles closed about Agnarr’s neck. The only thing that saved Agnarr’s life was the heavy iron collar that he wore.

Back by the jelly, Tee fired again. And again her shot struck the middle of the bruise that Tor had raised. This proved too much for it. With a horrific shudder, the creature’s insides burst through the twin holes, leaving nothing behind but a spreading pool of thick slime. Its gelatinous skin lay like a disgusting, discarded garment.

Trapped between the mandibles of the umber hulk, Agnarr’s torso was ripped again and again by the creature’s claws. And then, whipping its head about, it threw him against the wall. Agnarr’s head struck hard and he slipped into unconsciousness.

The creature took a menacing step towards Ranthir. But then Tor was there, racing up the passage and drawing his sword.

But as the rest of the group rallied toward it, the bulging membranes on the creature’s face began to vibrate. The sound seemed to reach into their minds and scramble their thoughts. Some of them turned on their comrades. Others began to babble incoherently (although it was hard to tell the difference with Agnarr).

Complete confusion reigned. Erin screamed in Ranthir’s mind: “I don’t like the buzzing!” But the hulk did it again and again and again, even as its claws were battering away at Tor.

Elestra, resisting the mental barrage, slid in next to Agnarr and healed his wounds. But as Agnarr tried to struggle back to his feet, the creature slammed one of its massive claws into his back. Agnarr, nearly slain by the blow, feigned his own death… allowing the creature to turn its full attention back to Tor.

Tor’s blows, meanwhile, were proving ineffective. Besieged both mentally and physically, he was barely able to catch his balance under the frenzied battering he was receiving from the creature’s claws.

But he was keeping the creature engaged. And while he did, Tee was blasting away with her dragon pistol. Each shot was blowing away large chunks of the creature’s carapace.

And then Agnarr, choosing his moment carefully, rolled to his knees almost directly beneath the creature and thrust up through its lower thorax.

This horrific distraction allowed Tor a moment to catch his footing. He took advantage of the moment and brought his blade down heavily onto the creature’s head. From the point of impact, a horrendous pattern of cracks spread down its face.

It stumbled back and Tee, taking careful aim, placed a shot precisely where Tor had struck it. The entire top of the creature’s head was blasted away, revealing a pulsing, purplish-green brain.

The creature roared three times, its membranes vibrating their staccato patterns of psychic turmoil. Tor and Agnarr were driven to senseless babbling. Dominic fled in terror down the hall. Seeaeti, driven mad by the noise, leapt at his own master’s throat – his vicious attack sending the badly-wounded Agnarr back into unconscious oblivion.

But the creature, perhaps mortally wounded, suddenly lurched to one side. The vibrating of its membranes stopped and its claws began vibrating instead – vibrating faster than their mortal eyes could see. It pulverized the stone of the tunnel wall and passed from sight. Heavy stone fell into its wake, preventing any thought of pursuit as the befuddled troupe gathered its wits.

Running the Campaign: Looting Consumables Campaign Journal: Session 30A
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Call of the Netherdeep - Torog Statue (Wizards of the Coast)

Go to Part 1

I’ve already provided a detailed breakdown of how you can prep and run the Betrayers’ Rise dungeon to best effect in Call of the Netherdeep: Running Betrayers’ Rise. You can just check out that article to provide the spine for this section of the campaign.

But here are a few extra things to think about.

RIVALS

Where are the Rivals and what are they doing? If they aren’t working with the PCs, you might consider having them enter the dungeon after the PCs and begin exploring. (Maybe they’re there to help; maybe hinder. Maybe working with another researcher. Having the Rivals and PCs end up in a proxy fight for the researchers they’ve been independently hired by is certainly a viable option here.)

LORE OF ALYXIAN

The prayer site and even the iconography around that site are a great opportunity for injecting more Lore of Alyxian into the campaign. Take a peek through your revelation lists and see what clues you can lay down here.

TOROG’S COMMANDMENTS

As a bonus, here’s a hyper-specific tip. In Area R13, there’s a puzzle. The designers include a hint which can be accessed with a relevant check:

Hints. A character who makes a successful DC 14 Intelligence (Religion) check recalls one of Torog’s commandments: “Seek and exalt places where no light touches.” If they aren’t sure what that means, a character can guess that the darkened passages of the labyrinth are related to this commandment by making a successful DC 10 Wisdom (Insight) check.

This is okay as far as it goes, but in my experience it’s more effective to have information like this in a different room. And it turns out that there’s a statue of Torog over in Area R12:

A beam of light from above illuminates a statue in the middle of the room. The statue, made of pale marble, is shaped like a man on his knees, arms pinioned behind his back, trussed up in chains that cut into his skin. Hooks line the corners of the figure’s mouth, pulling his lips away from his teeth, and smaller barbs encircle his eyes, holding the eyelids open.

So what you can do is either (a) have the players make the DC 14 Intelligence (Religion) check in Area R12 to recall Torog’s commandment, or (b) actually just inscribe the commandment onto the statue.

The point is that it now requires the PCs to actually put information from two different areas to solve the puzzle. That’s a more satisfying experience than, “Oh, you’re struggling? Make a check and I’ll give you a hint.” And connecting information in a dungeon like this makes the dungeon more dynamic and interesting. Even having stuff just a couple rooms away makes the place feel like a total environment, rather than a sequence of isolated rooms. As a result, it also encourages exploration and strategic thinking.

Go to Part 7: Cael Morrow

Ank'harel: Guide District - Call of the Netherdeep (Wizards of the Coast)

Go to Part 1

As the PCs arrive in Bazzoxan, we come to what I consider the core structure of Call of the Netherdeep. It works like this:

  • In Ank’harel there are three factions — the Allegiance of Allsight, the Consortium of Vermilion Dreams, and the Library of the Cobalt Soul.
  • Each faction has a specific ruidium agenda regarding ruidium. (The Allegiance wants to use it to become arms dealers; the Consortium wants to monopolize it for arcane research; the Library wants it destroyed.)
  • Each faction has sent a researcher to Bazzoxan — Prolix Yusaf (Allegiance), Aloysia Telfin Consortium), and Question (Library).
  • The PCs should arrive in Bazzoxan and befriend a researcher (or more than one).
  • The PCs will follow the researcher(s) back to Ank’harel and join a faction (or more than one, although that probably won’t remain tenable given the factions’ mutually contradictory goals).
  • The PCs will then perform faction missions, which lead them to Cael Morrow and then the Netherdeep.

Conceptually, this is a very elegant structure: You can see how the PCs are allowed to make one-on-one connections with NPCs which are then used to (a) draw them across the world to another continent and (b) pull them into more complicated alliances and politics which nevertheless remain meaningful to them because of the personal connections they’ve made. And at every step of the way — researchers, factions, missions — the tripartite structure gives ample opportunity to inject the Rivals and have them challenge the PCs (both ideologically and otherwise).

In practical terms, unfortunately, someone decided to cripple this structure right out of the gate in Bazzoxan by larding it with railroads and badly preprogrammed cutscenes. There are a number of smaller head-scratchers, but there are two major culprits.

First, all three researchers are hidden behind weird cutscene-triggers. To meet Prolix, for example, the PCs need to:

  • Randomly decide to check out the crematorium.
  • Talk to the crematorium workers.
  • Agree to help them load corpses into the furnace.

Shortly thereafter, Prolix will come rushing up.

The sequences for meeting Question and Aloysia are no less convoluted (with the trigger for the latter actually being hidden inside Question’s scene like a Matryoshka doll).

Note: All of this actually makes perfect sense if you imagine Call of the Netherdeep as a video game in which the players are expected to click on every NPC to receive their preprogrammed dialogue. Unfortunately, this is both (a) undesirable and (b) doesn’t actually work in a tabletop roleplaying game. (You can’t actually click on every single patron in the tavern until you randomly click on Question.)

Second, at the end of the Betrayers’ Rise dungeon, there’s a railroaded cutscene in which Aloysia shows up with the Rivals, attacks the PCs, and tries to steal the Jewel of Three Prayers.

This sequence is broken in so many ways that it’s actually difficult to enumerate all of them — it assumes the Rivals aren’t working with the PCs; it assumes the PCs didn’t agree to work with Aloysia when she proposed doing that earlier in the adventure; it assumes the PCs have the Jewel; etc. — but the biggest problem is that it completely breaks the core structure of the campaign.

By force-framing a scene in which Aloysia becomes a maniacal, monologuing villain, the adventure collapses the PCs’ choices: The Consortium of Vermilion Dreams has just attacked them and (possibly) robbed them. Even if they had the opportunity to join the Consortium they almost certainly wouldn’t, and it’s rather unlikely they will have the opportunity, because Aloysia is their only contact with the Consortium and she’s either their enemy or she’s dead.

(Bizarrely, the book nevertheless acts as if joining the Consortium is just as likely in Ank’harel as joining the other two factions.)

In any case, we’re going to take all of this stuff, scrunch it up in a ball, and throw it away.

PREPPING THE RESEARCHERS

Our goal, basically, is to switch everything from preprogrammed railroads and cutscenes to active play. We could honestly just wing it, but we’ll probably get better results if we create some clean prep that’s designed for flexible play at the table.

The first thing we’ll want to do is prep our three researchers — Prolix, Question, and Aloysia — using universal NPC roleplaying templates. It’ll make them a lot easier to pick up and play, while simultaneously giving us an opportunity to clearly wash away all of the nonsense and other detritus.

When designing the Key Info for each researcher consider:

  • How do they point the PCs towards the Cyst of Avandra? This might be directly or through another researcher (see below), but their most immediate function is to point the PCs towards the right location in Betrayers’ Rise.
  • Make sure to include their faction’s ruidium agenda. (Even if they don’t just spell everything out, you’ll want to start hinting at these dynamics… which will also get the players thinking about it and forming opinions.)
  • What unique Lore of Alyxian do they have to offer? Each researcher makes an excellent vector for this (based on both what they learned in Ank’harel and what they’ve learned since coming to Betrayers’ Rise).
  • What offer will they make to invite friendly/allied PCs back to Ank’harel after they’ve completed their business in Bazzoxan?

CROSS-INTERACTIONS

Next, we want to start lightly tugging the PCs into the faction politics and maybe even prompt them to start thinking about their allegiances. To do this, we’ll want to give each researcher an agenda vis-à-vis the others:

  • Aloysia will attempt to eavesdrop on conversations between the PCs and other scholars. (And can be caught doing so by attentive PCs.) She might also ask the PCs to distract Prolix so that she can slip away and so something without his prying eyes.
  • Prolix may tell the PCs that he’s been sent primarily to spy on Aloysia. And we can strengthen this by having Prolix ask them to break into Aloysia’s room and steal her notes.
  • Question suspects that one of the other Ank’harel researchers has stolen one of his sketchbooks. She’d like the PCs to recover it.

Other options you might consider could include hiring the PCs to:

  • Accompany them on an expedition into Betrayers’ Rise.
  • Retrieve ruidium samples for them.
  • Assassinate another researcher. (My gut says it’s probably better to limit things to light intrigue at this point, but if it feels right to ramp up the stakes and/or escalate someone into being a villain in the players’ eyes, go for it.)

Any offers that the PCs don’t take up, of course, it’s fully possible that the Rivals might do instead.

LOCATION TRIGGERS

Instead of hard-coded cutscenes, you’ll want to look for opportunities to introduce the researchers flexibly as the PCs explore Bazzoxan. You might find it useful to prep a short list of options for each researcher (but, again, avoid actually doing half-page scripts or anything like that).

Prolix might be at the crematorium. But he’s also at the inn. Or studying a sacrifice engine.

Question is at the inn. Or leaving an offering at the Wall of the Unforgotten (she’s made, and lost, friends here). Or studying carvings at Betrayers’ Rise.

Aloysia is at the inn. Or demanding soldiers from Verin to escort her into Betrayers’ Rise. Or getting a puncture wound treated at the infirmary (she was helping in the fight against the gibbering mouthers, CotN, p. 50).

Rather than keying these to the researchers, I would still jot these down as 1-2 sentence notes in each location key. When the PCs go to a particular location, you’ll have those options right at your fingertips.

CHECK OUR WORK

With everything we’ve done, we should be covered here, but treat each researcher as a revelation and make sure you’re satisfying the Three Clue Rule.

If, as we’ve previously discussed, you’ve got “look for local researchers” set up as the default action for the PCs to take when the arrive in Bazzoxan, this should largely take care of itself, as the PCs can simply ask around town and almost anyone can point them in the direction of one, two, or all three researchers. (“I actually just Question over at the Wall of the Unforgotten.”)

Of course, the researchers are also their own proactive nodes: When in doubt, or if you’ve got a researcher who has been MIA so far for some reason, just have one of them show up. You can easily justify that happening almost anywhere.

MAKE AN ENEMY

I mentioned above that befriending a researcher is an essential element in the core structure of Call of the Netherdeep. Although it’s not essential, you may find that it’s highly effective to focus on the opposite — to pay attention to which researcher(s) the PCs have made their enemy.

(And to do the same — both friends and enemies — for the Rivals.)

In fact, if you have the PCs interacting with the researchers and the researchers all have active objectives in conflict with each other, this will likely happen quite naturally. You just need to make sure that you lean into it: If the choices the PCs are making are big, meaningful choices, then the blowback from those choices should also be big and meaningful (and it should be quite difficult to walk the tightrope of somehow keeping everyone happy… or at least duped).

The beauty of it, of course, is that ANY of the researchers might end up being this enemy. Because you’re not predetermining it or forcing it, it’s the players who are responsible for the consequences.

To seal the deal, having some sort of big finale in Bazzoxan featuring a confrontation with this enemy is probably desirable. You can concoct a custom scheme for each researcher or play it by ear to see what makes the most sense, but it’s probably just fine if we draw inspiration from the book here: The enemy researcher tries to steal the Jewel from the PCs.

A few things to think about:

  • Where do they do it? (This will depend, at least in part, on what the NPC knows about the PCs’ location and intentions.)
  • How do they do it? (Broadly speaking you’re probably choosing between an open assault or a stealthy heist. If the latter, make sure you slather plenty of evidence around so that the PCs know exactly who did it.)
  • What allies can they call upon? (The Rivals may or may not be available, but there are a lot of other NPCs in Bazzoxan. Some of the researchers have access to teleportation and might even return to Ank’harel and bring back a strike team from their faction.)
  • How does the guilty party flee to Ank’harel ASAP? (Assuming they survive the attempt.)

You may discover, depending on how things play out, that it’s more natural to let the PCs travel to Ank’harel and then run this confrontation as one of their first experiences there. Nothing wrong with that. The point is, after all, to be actively playing in response to what the PCs are doing.

Go to Part 6: Betrayers’ Rise

Call of the Netherdeep: Vision of the Apotheon (Wizards of the Coast)

Go to Part 1

At this point in Call of the Netherdeep, the PCs are supposed to (a) be aware of the Jewel of Three Prayers and (b) have received a vision of an unidentified prisoner who begs them for help (either directly or as a kind of psychic static if the Rivals were the ones who touched the Jewel first). Structurally, the PCs are now supposed to leave Jigow and head to Bazzoxan.

If the PCs have the Jewel, the transition works like this:

  • Elder Ushru tells them he also had a vision of the same mysterious figure.
  • He identifies the Jewel of Three Prayers as a Vestige of Divergence, i.e. “an enchanted relic from the time of the Calamity.”
  • He tells them that they should go to Bazzoxan because “there is no place in Xhorhas where the memory of the Calamity lingers more strongly than in Bazzoxan.”

If the Rivals have the Jewel, the transition works like this:

  • The PCs overhear someone saying that (a) the Jewel is worth at least 1,000 gp and (b) the Rivals have left town and are heading to Rosohna.
  • ???

The idea seems to be that this will prompt the PCs to hunt down the Rivals and rob them. Although even if they do that, the campaign doesn’t really include any mechanism to then point the PCs towards Bazzoxan. So the connection here is either broken outright or outrageously fragile.

But even the first version of this hook is pretty problematic. The core problem is that the PCs are not actually given a reason to go to Bazzoxan. Yes, the “memory of the Calamity” lingers there, but that’s not actually a reason. To understand the distinction, consider the immediate follow-up question from the PCs: “And what do we do when we get there?”

If you can’t answer that question, then you don’t actually have a reason to go. This is why, when the PCs get to Bazzoxan, the book assumes they’ll just kind of wander around until they bump into the plot.

(There is, of course, a metagame reason for the players to have their characters go to Bazzoxan — the DM has mentioned a place name and is waggling their eyebrows suggestively. But (a) that’s a bad table experience and (b) doesn’t solve the underlying structural issue here.)

The other thing to ask yourself here is, “Why are the PCs even talking to Elder Ushru?” Well, because he had the vision, right?

But why did HE have the vision?

Because, in the absence of a reason to go to Bazzoxan, the adventure needs an NPC mouthpiece through which the DM can say, “You’re supposed to go to Bazzoxan.”

My rule of thumb, though, is that if I have an NPC doing something really cool (and I count receiving enigmatic visions from proto-gods on the list of really cool things), I should double-check and make sure I couldn’t design things so that the PCs get to do the really cool thing.

So let’s clean all of this up.

UNIVERSAL VISION

When anyone touches the Jewel of Three Prayers (whether it’s the PCs or the Rivals), everyone in the Emerald Grotto receives the vision of Alyxian the Apotheon.

This means that PCs and Rivals alike have a unique connection to the Apotheon and they have ALL received the campaign’s call to adventure, regardless of who actually ends up in possession of the Jewel of Three Prayers. This connection to the Apotheon, of course, can (and will!) persist through the entire campaign, drawing both PCs and Rivals inexorably towards the Netherdeep.

It also means that the vision can be used to clearly establish the bridge from Jigow to Bazzoxan. There are a couple of ways that we can do this.

EXPLICIT VISION

In the vision as written, Alyxian says:

“I am imprisoned, please help me.” […] “My name is Alyxian. I am lost in darkness. Long ago, I prayed to the Change Bringer in the heart of a temple of evil. I beg you, take my jewel and…”

The easiest fix here is to just change the vague reference to a “temple of evil” and make the call explicit:

“You must find me! You must bring the Jewel to the Cyst of Avandra within Betrayer’s Rise beneath Bazzoxan!”

This is every bit as direct as the DM waggling their eyebrows while pointing at the flashing neon sign saying, “The book says you need to go to Bazzoxan, dummies!” But, of course, it has the advantage of being diegetic: It’s the PCs, not the players, who are being given a clear instruction.

ENIGMATIC VISION

There are, however, a number of reasons why you might want the players to work for this a bit:

  • I’ve previously mentioned Getting the Players to Care. One of the techniques described there is making something a mystery: the process of unraveling a secret will invest the players in the lore, and also give them a sense of accomplishment and reward when they figure it out.
  • If they need to figure out what the vision meant, it will probably also focus their attention on the Jewel. (Whereas if they’re just explicitly told where to go next, they may not spend much time thinking about the Jewel at all.)
  • While the PCs are taking action to figure out the Jewel and/or vision, you can use the actions they take as a vector for feeding in other Lore of Alyxian.

You can accomplish this by basically just stripping information out of the vision to dial in the desired level of enigma. For example:

“You must find me! You must bring the Jewel to the Cyst of Avandra within Betrayer’s Rise!”

… okay, but where’s Betrayer’s Rise? This is fairly easy to figure out (ask almost anybody or just look at a map of Xhorhas).

Or you can strip out even more information:

“You must find me! You must bring the Jewel to the Cyst of Avandra!”

Well, Avandra the Change Bringer is obviously well-known. But what and where is her “cyst”? The PCs now have two vectors they could pursue: The Cyst or the Jewel.

Note: I’m enigmatically referring to the Prayer Site of Avandra within Betrayer’s Rise (CotN, p. 72) as a “cyst” of good within the evil of that place.

And, of course, you can go one step further:

“You must find me! Bring my Jewel to me!”

Which would obviously leave the PCs with the Jewel as their only vector.

Regardless, your structural goal is to point the PCs in the direction of Bazzoxan. So, depending on the vectors you’ve provided, this ultimately boils down to:

  • Identifying that the Cyst of Avandra lies within Betrayer’s Rise (e.g., it is said that during the time of the Calamity, Avandra blessed a site within Bazzoxan; it is described in some demonic texts as a “cyst” which blighted that temple of the Betrayers Gods).
  • Discovering that the Jewel of Three Prayers is depicted on the walls of Betrayer’s Rise. (We previously looked at how this research might work when we were discussing campaign agendas; e.g., Elder Ushru tells them he saw a drawing of “this very Jewel” there when he was younger.)

Once the PCs start digging into this enigma, you may find them pursuing other lines of inquiry unrelated to the Apotheon’s vision. If so, remember once again that your goal is to point them to Bazzoxan.

For example, they might become curious about the ruidium outcroppings in the Emerald Grotto. (Identifying and researching the red crystals reveals that there are similar outcroppings in Bazzoxan.) Or they might try to do historical research into the history of the Emerald Grotto/Jigow to figure out where the hidden temple came from. (This would be an opportunity to drop some Lore of Alyxian, including perhaps a reference suggesting a connection with the “Cyst of Avandra,” which would lead them back into the research trail for the cyst.)

As you begin pointing your final vectors into Bazzoxan, it’s worth noting that the ideal hook — for reasons described in the next section — should also imply an action of “talk to the local scholars” when they get there. If the PCs had to do research themselves to get there (while still having lingering questions they want answers to), this probably follows quite naturally. But, of course, you can also make it more explicit.

WHAT ABOUT THE RIVALS?

As noted, the Rivals received the same vision the PCs did and will likely have a lot of the same questions.

If they’re working together, this might be a good opportunity to “split the party” by having the Rivals pursue one set of leads while the PCs pursue another. (This might eventually include the PCs heading to Bazzoxan while the Rivals pursue “other leads” and only join them later.) If the PCs fail to identify Bazzoxan as their goal (for whatever reason), then you can use allied Rivals to deliver the lead. Alternatively, maybe it’s the Rivals who fail to identify Bazzoxan, but still uncover some ancillary information of interest.

If they’re not, then think about how the Rivals might pursue their own research: Perhaps they journey to Rosohna to peruse the libraries of the dark elves or seek out a major temple of Avandra in Asarius in order to identify the Cyst. (If you’ve followed the Three Clue Rule and prepped multiple vectors that the PCs might follow to Bazzoxan, then you can just choose a research path they didn’t pursue and give it to the Rivals.) You might consider giving one of the Rivals a research journal summarizing their conclusions that the PCs might discover later.

In either case, it’s probably most interesting — even if the PCs and Rivals both successfully identify Bazzoxan as their next goal — for each team to collect related, non-overlapping lore in their investigations.

Go to Part 5: The Scholars of Ank’Harel

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