My Castle Greyhawk PCs are overdue, in one or two cases, to hit level four, so it's now or never, and I seeded the entry into Zjelwyin Fall in last night's session. I have to figure out exactly how my background changes require me to rework the module (if at all), since the PCs will be acting as agents of the local clergy of Celestian and not looting the tomb, but instead retrieving an item stored there previously by mutual arrangement.
I haven't decided if they'll be charged to either
snag the item (a scroll or book of prophecy or something related) directly, or
wake the lich to donate two objects to him in order to remove their desired object, or
both (with #1 being the plan, and #2 the backup in case they awaken him or he is already awake)
They may also be protecting a pair of nubile twin acolytes (modelled off of the classic Virgin Records logos at ), but I haven't decided if keeping them alive may be too challenging or not....
I think that Shodreth Drhachod (I added the "r" to the surname) has this working relationship with Celestian and his clergy, where Celestian helped to fashion and sustain Zjelwyin Fall and in return the lich helps to guard and secure items that he and his clergy wish to remain highly-secure.
Still noodling, but excited to be bringing this adventure to the table if the PCs take the hook (which I think they'll be inclined to do, since it involves the priesthood paying for their current and next-level training costs, or something equivalent)! =)
Allan.
Wow. That sounds amazing! Glad you are making it your own and excited to hear how it goes.
Hook accepted tonight, they'll start to journey into the Silvery Realm next session :D
Allan.
Had to cancel last session so we begin the Astral journey tomorrow night!
Allan.
I wish you sweet dreams!
So the first night in the Astral was random encounters en route to The Fall (as the players have begun to call it).
Over 13 days (I altered the timeline*, obviously) they encountered:
- nothing at the start of the trip (I retained the three DMG astral WM checks at the beginning, midpoint, and end of their astral journey)
- Astral Wolves (from Nehwon) on midway through day 6 (and the PCs easily out-distanced them, given their Animal intelligence)
- a Kelmain host of 6628 spirits of slain Kelmain warriors, marching to their afterlife
(both of those encounters were from monsters from Deities & Demigods)
- day 13's third check* resulted in another spirits encounter, this time with a group of elves (Eldar) with a psychopomp (who was originally going to be Mandos but it flipped it to Earendil on the fly); the PCs ended up hitching a ride with Earendil for 10 days (no encounters), and received a Blessing of the Valar (double-strength Prayer spell) via the Silmaril that Earnedil uses to guide the elven spirits through the Sundering Seas to Valinor
* I'm doing 3 checks per day (every 8 hours = 3/day vs. every 4 = 6/day), with the total duration of the trip being [(2d20+4)x4 days] / 2 (due to the phylacteries, which they're wearing on their heads like diadem headbands, and which shoot out hot pink/ruby searchlight lasers to track and home in on ZF)
The checks are 1 in 20, except for the three DMG checks, which remain 1 in 10. If the PCs roll a 2 on either check, those represent "signs of an encounter" rather than a real/actual encounter (that's what the Kelmain host was rolled as).
Allan.
After our holiday break, the PCs discovered the Fall last night, and are now wrestling in the VC2 chamber :)
Allan.
Ah yeah. Did you place any trailhead NPCs in the bottle prison as links to other adventures?
@Anthony: I had not considered that, but will certainly do so now! :D
I'll write up my expanded Astral Encounters tables as well, at some point.
Allan.
New players' characters may be introduced via the bottles in our next session, we'll see. We didn't play in March due to spring break/Disney and GaryCon, and didn't have critical mass on the 9th.