| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Demzer |
Posted - 22 Jun 2014 : 15:28:40
This adventure, besides being a daring experiment of multi-group coordination and having lots of traps and almost any critter in the basic MM thrown in (with some FR specials like darkenbeasts and dread warriors) has some interesting implications for the future of the campaign setting.
Some MAJOR PLOT SPOILERS will follow, so if you want to avoid those stop reading now.
Last SPOILER WARNING! (Yeah i know about the spoiler font but i would like for the thread to be readable without highlighting it).
Alright, so, Szass Tam conquered the lair of a Thayan demilich, refurnished it as a laboratory, stored his phylactery and those of his most trusted lich leutenants (more than twelve) in it, guarded by the bound demilich, and now is trying to ascend to godhood by channeling the divine powers of captured Chosens through his leutenants phylacteries into his own.
The players get thrown into this dungeon by a group of rebel Red Wizards of various specializations known as the "Thayan Resurrection" and get tasked with the quest of stopping the vile rituals, destroying the phylacteries in the process.
First, the Chosens, there are a number of them and the adventure gives for each the name of the empowering deity, there are a couple of surprises there, the following is the list of deities:
- Zehir;
- Ilmater;
- Loviatar;
- Ghaunadaur (???);
- Ibrandul (!!!);
- Tymora;
- Bhaal (one of the NPCs from Murder in Baldur's Gate);
- Auril (one of the NPCs from Legacy of the Crystal Shard);
- Yurtrus (more orcish deities beside Gruumsh showing up, after Luthic was involved in The Sentinel);
- Rillifane Rallathil (so the Seldarine are playing this game of Chosens too);
- Talona (kinda, it's said that the soul of a Chosen of Talona got merged with the Chosen of Rillifane for "an experiment").
Now the implications of this adventure:
- The non necromancers Red Wizards are rearing their heads, took them long enough, uh? Throughout this adventure there is a number of Red Wizards that secretly belongs to the "Thayan Resurrection" movement and the players have the possibility of finding this out, avoiding combat and getting informations and help from them against the various monsters/traps and the Red Wizards necromancers (all loyal to Szass Tam). They aren't even low key Red Wizards, the "quest giver", the one that gets the players entangled in this mess, is the conjurer tasked with monitoring and using the portal network Szass wanted to use to invade the North, not just a random apprentice;
- The adventure makes it clear that besting the demilich and stopping the soul sucking rituals performed on the various captured Chosens (something the players HAVE TO DO if they want to conclude the adventure succesfully) WILL destroy the phylacteries of Szass Tam's most powerful lich leutenants (this is a number that goes up to 12 if there are more than 1 group of players involved). This implies that this "Thayan Resurrection" is ready to strike the weakened undead hosts of Szass Tam (either that or they're a bunch of idiots) so there is some hope that the 5e FRCG/S will talk about civil unrest/war in Thay or about a brand new Thay where Szass has been ousted.
Any thoughts on this? |
| 9 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Demzer |
Posted - 22 Jun 2014 : 22:20:18
quote:
Originally posted by dazzlerdal
Sounds an awful lot like one of the Horde adventures featuring the lich Tan Chin and 5 black imaskari artefacts which were the only way of destroying him, and which he just happened to leave lying around in his lair.
Oh well, most published adventures with liches kinda need the phylactery at hand to kill them, right?
Besides, this time utterly destroying the demilich isn't required to finish the adventure, the party has just to beat the "aspect" that spawns when they start messing with the rituals.
And the demilich didn't just happen to leave his teeths lying around, when each party destroyed his spawned "aspect" the skull would burst in black flames and the diamonds would fall. Considering each party has to contend with gargoyles and has to stop the rituals i don't think everyone would be able to destroy all 8 teeths of each "aspect" before the whole place goes boom and they have to evacuate. Even 1 forgotten diamond means the demilich is still alive so i don't think it would be so easy. |
| Gary Dallison |
Posted - 22 Jun 2014 : 21:39:34
Sounds an awful lot like one of the Horde adventures featuring the lich Tan Chin and 5 black imaskari artefacts which were the only way of destroying him, and which he just happened to leave lying around in his lair. |
| Demzer |
Posted - 22 Jun 2014 : 21:23:49
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
... the party kill the demi-lich off??
Kinda, the various parties (this supplement was made to be run as some sort of huge infiltration operation with multiple parties going in multiple areas since the place is huge) each fight one "aspect" of the demilich while dealing with the artifacts.
All the parties have to kill the "aspect" of the demilich that spawned for them and then, to kill the demilich permanently, they have to destroy all of the 8 diamond teeths of each "aspect". If they do that the demilich is killed when the inner sanctuary goes boom, if not i think it reforms after some time. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 22 Jun 2014 : 19:37:42
quote:
Originally posted by Demzer
Not Ythazz Buvaar, the demilich's name is Kazit Gul, maybe one of Ythazz's pals?
The bits and pieces in the sourcebook says that Gul was a necromancer wizard that studied traps and dungeons across the planes and worlds in order to build a killer dungeon that would destroy any adventuring party getting in.
Once he collected this knowledge he turned to lichdom, built this dungeon-trap and fed off the souls of those dying in it.
With Thay becoming a stable nation unfriendly to adventurers Gul decided to go one step further and turned to demilichdom, then an unspecified amount of time later Szass Tam bumrushed him and bound the demilich to his service inside the sanctum of the complex.
This Doomvault was slowly turned into a Red Wizard research facility and monster breeding complex and all this sits under Thaymount.
Hmmm, that kind of peeves me, since they already had a demi-lich with rich history (being one of the first Zulkirs of the Zulkirate), but I guess its to be expected. Could be a good thing too, since the module probably has the party kill the demi-lich off?? |
| hashimashadoo |
Posted - 22 Jun 2014 : 19:30:37
And it's 5th edition rather than 4th. They quickly gave up the pretense of making the rules backwards compatible. |
| Demzer |
Posted - 22 Jun 2014 : 16:54:18
Not Ythazz Buvaar, the demilich's name is Kazit Gul, maybe one of Ythazz's pals?
The bits and pieces in the sourcebook says that Gul was a necromancer wizard that studied traps and dungeons across the planes and worlds in order to build a killer dungeon that would destroy any adventuring party getting in.
Once he collected this knowledge he turned to lichdom, built this dungeon-trap and fed off the souls of those dying in it.
With Thay becoming a stable nation unfriendly to adventurers Gul decided to go one step further and turned to demilichdom, then an unspecified amount of time later Szass Tam bumrushed him and bound the demilich to his service inside the sanctum of the complex.
This Doomvault was slowly turned into a Red Wizard research facility and monster breeding complex and all this sits under Thaymount. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 22 Jun 2014 : 16:51:57
alright, I'm a sucker for Thay. I wasn't going to buy these before (because I don't play 4th edition), but now I'm hoping for some decent plots.... drive thru rpg here I come. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 22 Jun 2014 : 16:33:48
Actually, I'm highly interested in this "Thayan Demilich". Did Ythazz Buvaar get involved somehow? I hate that its 4th edition, but I'd love to hear more on this plot. I also like the idea that Tam is maybe trying to somehow recreate his own version of what I deem the ritual that Velsharoon completed (though my belief is that Velsharoon was still mortal and became a lich during his ascension by tying himself to the phylactery of Mellifleur). If it is Ythazz Buvaar, this could prove interesting, as in my story of the history of Ythazz, he actually knew of Mellifleur prior to the accidental ritual that turned him into a god (and Ythazz mentioned this story to Velsharoon, as the two were once friends prior to their falling out after the ending of the Thayan revolt).
Hmmm, I may have to look into getting this. |
| Irennan |
Posted - 22 Jun 2014 : 15:41:25
No particular thought, just happy to hear that living Red Wizards are fighting to retake Thay and that it will probably no longer be a mere zombieland. |
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