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pukunui
Seeker
64 Posts |
 Posted - 01 Sep 2018 : 23:16:37
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Hi all,
I am running Storm King's Thunder, and we ended last night's session with the PCs stopping in Noanar's Hold on their way to find Shadowtop Cathedral in the High Forest.
The players were intrigued by the story of the Hunt Lords and reckon they must be vampires because of the keep's bricked-up windows and the innkeeper's recommendation that they stay indoors after dark.
However, according to the adventure, they are merely five 200 year-old wights who brood in the dark during the day and go out hunting every night. They were humans who made a deal with Orcus to stave off their impending deaths of old age.
The PCs in my group are all 7th level, and I feel that five wights might be a) a little boring and b) not formidable enough given the hype.
At first I thought about just giving them max hit points to make them a little tougher, but then I thought I'd look at previous editions for inspiration.
According to Volo's Guide to the North, an AD&D 2e product that is set a mere 100 years prior to the 5e era, states that the Hunt Lords are five "lazy" wizards who hide their identities in order to avoid being recognized by any former colleagues from Waterdeep who come for their hunts. The whole setup in the village is apparently a sham as a result.
The lords also apparently keep a monster called a deepspawn captive in a cave deep in the forest. They feed it dead animals and it "spews out living replicas" for hunters to find. Anyone who finds out about this gets hunted by the wizards, who like to polymorph into crag cats.
The Hunt Lords are still alive by the time of the 3e-era Silver Marches book, but they are no longer all wizards, nor are they lazy or attempting to scam anyone. One is a wizard, but the others are a ranger, a fighter/sorcerer, a ranger/rogue, and a cleric. They all use magical to conceal their identities as well.
This book also gives the settlement its "dark rumors" of wanton slaughter and convenient accidents and the like.
Fast forward to the 5e era, and the Hunt Lords have now been undead for approximately two centuries, and there's no indication that any of them were magic users in life.
For my game, I am contemplating making them some form of deathlock wight (Tome of Foes) to reflect their magic-using pasts, but I haven't decided yet.
Has anyone else done anything with the Hunt Lords in 5e? Anyone got any thoughts to share?
It could be kind of fun to make them wights with class levels as per their 3e stats, assuming I have time to do that. I think it could potentially be more interesting for me to have a mixture of enemies for the PCs to face rather than having them all be the same.
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Dewaint
Learned Scribe
Germany
148 Posts |
Posted - 03 Sep 2018 : 10:33:43
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Some thoughts:
In such situation typically I look a it like gossip, or misleading information to hoax enemies, or potentially new doings of such NPCs in subsequent years.
Maybe it is an idea to decide first which source is the more trustworthy for you/your campaign to start building upon your own "development".
Assuming all of them to have some levels of arcane spellcasters and if you like the idea to dig into converted 2e materials, there are some interesting undeads that you could look at too, to reflect their undead status:
* Curst
* Wizshades (take the Spellplague and later events to cause such transformation, this way they might also keep some of their rationality)
* Arch-Shadow
* Demi-Shade
P.S.:
/quote/
... but then I thought I'd look at previous editions for inspiration.
/quote/
that's always fun  |
Edited by - Dewaint on 03 Sep 2018 10:42:51 |
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pukunui
Seeker
64 Posts |
Posted - 04 Sep 2018 : 11:04:59
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Thanks! I got some interesting ideas from Ed via Twitter as well:
"BTW, the wight versions are eager to use novice adventurers as a 'front' to hide behind, whilst they evaluate possibly dangerous new arrivals. So you COULD use all three at once! Or in succession... ;}"
"The Hunt Lords took casualties, and decided to recruit replacements of different classes. (I always play undead to the full limits of their intelligence, whatever it may be, so they have plans and goals in their 'unlife,' too...)"
With that in mind, I'm contemplating stating up a low-level adventuring part to act as "false lords". If the PCs beat them and decide to go after the real Hunt Lords, I might stick with beefed up wights, possibly with a deathlock or two, plus a pack of shadow mastiffs (with an alpha). |
Edited by - pukunui on 04 Sep 2018 11:09:27 |
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The Hunt Lords of Noanar's Hold
