Ideas for a fey challenge
Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 10:12 pm
I'm in need of some fresh inspiration to design a "final boss" encounter for my current adventure.
Here's the setup. The campaign takes place in and around a seemingly normal tepestani village situated on the eastern edge of the Brujamonte. The PCs are simple residents from that village, with regular jobs like blacksmith, tavern-keeper, brewer and the like. The players all enjoy good storytelling and roleplaying. The group is still 2nd level. They've had experience dealing with fey in the past, but not a lot.
In a previous session, the PCs discovered that the innkeeper's daughter had been replaced by a fey impostor (actually an evil-aligned satyr who wished to partake in the merriment of the local winter festival). The real innkeeper's daughter had been freshly murdered by the satyr, and her ghost has been trying to get the PCs to avenge her death. Long story short, the PCs discovered something was amiss, confronted the fey impostor at the village dance and forced him to flee into the woods. So far so good, but the satyr is still alive and seeking revenge on the heroes for spoiling his fun.
In the next session, I plan for the satyr to harvest the heads of four village NPCs while the heroes investigate the ghost activity. He will magically keep the heads alive, while leaving the bodies to dance mindlessly in the woods. The PCs will have to confront the satyr to recover the heads, plus some magic tree sap that can restore the villagers to the way they were. I want the players to have two ways to deal with the final encounter: a combat encounter or a noncombat magic challenge. In the second scenario, the satyr will essentially challenge the PCs to a magic game of some sort, with each PC betting something precious to them for a chance to win back one of the heads.
Now, if the PCs don't want to play the satyr's game, this will turn into a regular boss fight. But since they've been humbled by a near-TPK recently, I'm expecting the players might think twice before going into direct combat.
Here's my problem, though: I'm drawing a blank as to what the challenge encounter might be. I need something both grim, suitably bizarre, yet suitable for different classes (the group has 2 fighters, a paladin and a cleric) and appropriately climactic.
I still have about a week before the final showdown, and I guess I'm looking for inspiration. Help a stuck DM out? Any ideas at all would be most welcome.
Here's the setup. The campaign takes place in and around a seemingly normal tepestani village situated on the eastern edge of the Brujamonte. The PCs are simple residents from that village, with regular jobs like blacksmith, tavern-keeper, brewer and the like. The players all enjoy good storytelling and roleplaying. The group is still 2nd level. They've had experience dealing with fey in the past, but not a lot.
In a previous session, the PCs discovered that the innkeeper's daughter had been replaced by a fey impostor (actually an evil-aligned satyr who wished to partake in the merriment of the local winter festival). The real innkeeper's daughter had been freshly murdered by the satyr, and her ghost has been trying to get the PCs to avenge her death. Long story short, the PCs discovered something was amiss, confronted the fey impostor at the village dance and forced him to flee into the woods. So far so good, but the satyr is still alive and seeking revenge on the heroes for spoiling his fun.
In the next session, I plan for the satyr to harvest the heads of four village NPCs while the heroes investigate the ghost activity. He will magically keep the heads alive, while leaving the bodies to dance mindlessly in the woods. The PCs will have to confront the satyr to recover the heads, plus some magic tree sap that can restore the villagers to the way they were. I want the players to have two ways to deal with the final encounter: a combat encounter or a noncombat magic challenge. In the second scenario, the satyr will essentially challenge the PCs to a magic game of some sort, with each PC betting something precious to them for a chance to win back one of the heads.
Now, if the PCs don't want to play the satyr's game, this will turn into a regular boss fight. But since they've been humbled by a near-TPK recently, I'm expecting the players might think twice before going into direct combat.
Here's my problem, though: I'm drawing a blank as to what the challenge encounter might be. I need something both grim, suitably bizarre, yet suitable for different classes (the group has 2 fighters, a paladin and a cleric) and appropriately climactic.
I still have about a week before the final showdown, and I guess I'm looking for inspiration. Help a stuck DM out? Any ideas at all would be most welcome.