Redesigning From the Shadows - part II

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

(my players stay out. As usual, John, that means you. )
















In this previous thread we talked over my revised intro for From the Shadows. From the ideas there, I managed to work up a whole weekend-long intro adventure to replace the Headless Horseman part. Thanks! Now, after another weekend session of slogging through Avernus, I've got to find a way to wrap things up. So here we go again...

Azalin's plan at the end of the adventure never made sense to me in the original version, and it still doesn't in my version. After sending the PCs to the past to fulfill the Hexad and weaken the planar fabric of the demiplane, he tricks them in to "defeating" him by trapping him in his phylactery and then taking his phylactery into the Misty Border, thus escaping Darkon.

Why does he need PCs for this part at all? Why the "cunning ruse"? In the original version, he used a variant of magic jar to fake a deadly reaction to his phylactery. (I prefer HuManBing's idea that the phylactery is charged with positive energy that is truly deadly to his physical body. It eliminates the need for the extra misdirection of the magic jar). BUT WHY? But why not just kill his body himself with spells? Either dump several fireballs centered on himself, or just trigger the magic jar himself without being "pushed". (Or if you accept the positive energy phylactery (P.E.P.), just touch it until dead.)

The only reason for this part of the ruse is to make the PCs think they killed him so they will bring the phylactery into the mists. BUT WHY? He's got tons of servants, Kargat and otherwise, that could bring or hurl the phylactery into the mists. (If you accept the P.E.P. theory, his undead servants couldn't physically carry it, but they could use magic or even a horse-drawn cart to lift it, and failing that, he's got werebeasts, constructs, and a dragon who would have no trouble.)

The only reason I can possibly think of is that he doesn't fully trust them with his phylactery. (We know from the Death Undaunted outline that at least Tavelia was plotting to enslave him at one point, so that fear isn't ungrounded). But for one thing, he's still got the mindless constructs that can't rebel by nature. For another, if this theory is true, it messes up my intended plot, thusly....

IMC, this adventure is post-conjunction. Az is trying to undo his failure at the GC by finally doing the signs in order. So he sent the PCs back this time not to remove the Holy Symbol, but to prevent his prior servants from doing do. By once again changing the past at that crucial moment, he simultaneously weakens the demiplane again and fulfills the 6th sign "The bodiless shall journey..." This time, it's properly AFTER the 5th "Inajira..." The combination of weakened planar fabric and completed prophecy will allow him to slip his phylactery out of RL again, this time for good.

So after the PCs leave Avernus, I'll have them harried by the Tribe of Hyskosa along the way to the border, where they will fight Azalin, and "force" him into the phylactery. Then the Tribe will catch up to them and Valana will explain what's happening. Their only option to stop Az from escaping is to not take the phylactery into the mist. If they just leave it in Darkon and wait, the weakness in the demiplane will pass, and when Az revives in a new body, it will be too late for him to escape.

Trouble is, that's really boring. After all that adventuring, the way to foil Az is to do nothing? Not good. So I think I need them to instead defend the phylactery from Az's minions, who Az has prepared as a back-up plan. They have orders that if the PCs don't take it into the mist, the minions must do so. Presto, the PCs have something heroic to do at the end. Fight off (or hide the phylacery from) wave after wave of minions until the sun rises and the demiplanar weakness passes.

BUT, now back to the problem I mentioned before. If the minions are capable of doing it, why did Az involve the PCs in the first place. And if he didn't trust the minions, as I theorized, why trust them now?

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

OK, my verboseness may be scaring off replies. I'll ask again briefly:

1) At the end of FtS, why does Azalin trick the PC's into "killing" him and bringing his phylactery into the Mists when he could easily kill himself and have his lackeys carry the phylactery?

2) If there's a good reason that he didn't use his lackeys, what's a good reason I can give him for changing his mind and using his lackeys once the PC's refuse?

[MatthiasStormcrow]

Just a quick thought, and I don't know if this will work for your campaign, but - Azalin likely knows enough about the demiplane to understand that there's a difference between natives and outsiders. Given that no one's ever actually successfully left the demiplane, if he understands enough about how the Dark Powers occasionally invent entire domains full of people from nowhere, he might question whether a native actually can leave the demiplane, or whether they'd simply cease to exist outside. If your PCs are non-native, it would give him a reason to want to use them before he uses his (RL-native) lackeys, while still being willing to try out his lackeys if all else fails.

Of course that only works if your PCs aren't natives themselves, and if Azalin in your campaign has that deep an understanding of the workings of the demiplane.

Otherwise, well...I think you're left with Azalin's paranoia. His mindless minions might not be able to react appropriately to any unexpected difficulties that crop up in the course of him leaving the domain, and stuck in his phylactery he'd be unable to direct them to take the appropriate course of action. His minions with minds of their own might be too likely to try something he doesn't want them to do, ranging from high-end minions thinking they can enslave him via his phylactery to his low-end grunts thinking they should sell this big shiny thing and go live the high life in Dementlieu instead of hauling it into some strange scary mists of uncertain doom. The PCs might, from Azalin's POV, occupy that perfect middle-ground of smart enough to do as they're told but dumb enough not to try anything funny. That, of course, depends a lot on how your PCs have interacted with Azalin...

In both cases though, he'd want to have lackeys as a fallback plan - he's so obsessed with escaping the demiplane that he'll probably have lackeys as a fallback plan to his other lackeys, with constructs as a fallback plan to those lackeys, and so on and so on. Nor is he going to much care whether any of said lackeys actually survive, so long as he gets out.

In fact, that might be your real answer - he doesn't really rate the odds of any of his groups of minions getting his phylactery out of the domain as being very high, PCs included, and so he's just hoping that he gives enough groups of people orders to get him out, one group will hopefully pull it off. In that scenario, the PCs aren't necessarily the group Azalin particularly prefers/expects to get him out of the domain - they just happen to be the first group.

[HuManBing]

[edited - failed to read the latter half of Gonzoron's post]

[ruminating on a future post to take it into account]

[Archedius]

yeah, he may not trust his lackeys with much but putting faith in them after the PC's refuse is his only option. He may be a patient lich but he still understands when he must take action. To me this perfectly explains why he'd have backup shadowing the PCs.

[cure]

If the PC's are outsiders, he may trust them more than his own servants because he may suspect servants and everyone else born in Ravenloft are ultimately creations of the Mists rather than 'real' people. Hence it is not just his minions betraying him for their own ends, but betraying him at the bequest of the Dark Powers. This suspicion may or may not be correct, but when uncertain, why take the chance . . .

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Hey All, thanks for the ideas. The "only a RL outsider can leave" idea is really, really a great answer. Unfortunately, my PCs are natives. (they aren't Darkonian natives, but that seems irrelevant, unless someone has ideas on that point. (2 are from Nidala, one from Borca, and one from Mordent) Although one of them is 1/2 vistani, and maybe he thinks a vistani will have a better chance of leaving?

HuManBing: I saw your reply before you edited. Yeah, I'm not going to follow up with Roots of Evil here. My plan is for Azalin to be stopped prior to causing another conjunction. (Also, I don't actually have anyone LG in the party at the moment. It's a mix of CG and NG). Thanks for the thought, though.

[HuManBing]

Okay, I did a bit of reading and thinking and this is what I came up with.

Azalin's servants feature practically no Lawful Good (or even just plain Good) characters among them. You could tweak the requirements that any LG character walking through the Mists while the Demiplane is slightly weakened is able to Mistwalk, potentially out of the Demiplane. (As the Dark Powers don't have nearly as much ability to sway LG characters as they Evil characters.)

So Azalin needs a LG non-undead creature to carry his phylactery to the Mists. He's clearly not going to be able to recruit that from his ranks of servitors.

That would serve as a possible rationalization for why he must dupe the PCs into carrying the phylactery. Also, they must feel that they are doing what he DOESN'T want them to do, hence the need to face them in combat and let them "defeat" him to cement the ruse.

That's my solution for your first part of the issue.

Now, for the second part. You're right - it is anticlimactic to just let them reverse the GC by doing nothing. Maybe change the rules. The GC will NOT collapse on its own. If they do nothing, it will merely remain as it currently is - namely, every step save the last has been fulfilled and Azalin only needs to send his phylactery into the Mists with a LG character.

This is a very dangerous situation. Bear in mind many Ezrite clerics can be LG and can and do spend quite some time in the mists. Also, if you're using the Positive Energy Phylactery idea (which is an excellent idea, worthy of a genius writer, though I do say so myself ) then there's the risk that future clerics won't realize what a dangerous thing they are carrying and may unwittingly walk into the Mists with it, triggering the Grand Conjunction.

So your PCs now need to reverse as many steps as possible so the GC can't happen. This may be as simple as carrying his phylactery back to Avernus, dealing with attacks on their convoy. (Evil Kargat want to claim the phylactery either in service to their master, or to try to enslave him a la Tavelia - Good adventurers like Van Richten might try to get ahold of it because they think it's a powerful healing charm or whatever.) They would then have to seal it into Avernus as usual and then return it to its massive state.

If you're using the Hexad as written for this adventure, it's hard to reverse the individual components. (In my campaign, the PCs collected items to do with Mistwalking unwittingly for Azalin, and in the final adventure saw these items all arrayed in a lab room to channel the GC powers.) You may want to set up a powerful lattice of spells in one of the castle's rooms (or even just create a secret room with this lattice if your PCs went over the whole castle) and allow them to destroy this lattice of spells to collapse the GC.

One set of spells I like is Gate, Plane Shift, Teleport Without Error (or Greater Teleport for 3.5), Scrying to see where you're going, and a series of Wish spells to maintain the whole lattice. (You may recognize this as the array of spells he used to send his vassalich Scherbinung to an asteroid in my fan fiction Cryptic Recesses.)

Counterspelling or dispelling any or all of these spells will weaken the GC. Some of the spells need to be dispelled in a certain order to be safe. Getting the order wrong will indeed collapse the Grand Conjunction but will also create a very large explosion that will do a lot of damage to the castle and very likely kill anybody nearby.

So this allows your PCs to:

1. Stop their puppet mission,
2. Get back to Castle Avernus, fighting bad guys (and good guys!),
3. Put the phylactery back in Avernus, and
4. Undo Azalin's spells.

Note that if you want to be really mean, Azalin remains conscious of what is happening around his phylactery. Once he realizes the PCs aren't taking him out, he may just start commandeering corpses and attacking them repeatedly. (This will be slightly easier if he exhausted his spells before entering the phylactery - that way the PCs only have to worry about his melee attacks.)

Hope this isn't too late and that you can make use of some of it!

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Due to various circumstances, my campaign has not resumed, but it looks like it will be doing so in 10 days. So here's a bump of this thread because I'm still not sure which way to go. I like your ideas, HuManBing, but they don't feel quite right for my campaign, for a few reasons:

1) This adventure has already taken up 2 weekend long sessions, and I don't want to extend it much further. I've got other stuff to get to, so a long involved process of undoing the GC is out.

2) The lattice of spells is a bit high magical for me. (Yes, I'm aware of the irony in saying that when talking about Azalin.) I prefer for the GC to be the result of an inbuilt weakness in the demiplane, not direct magical meddling on Az's part. Also, for geographic reasons, I don't want the party going back to Avernus. (Also, I think they've had enough of exploring that monster of a castle. Dungeon crawl is OK occasionally, but we're done with that for a while.) On top of that, at their level, it's a suicide mission. They'd have to roll a series of 20's on dispel checks to do it.

3) The "only a Good character can take it" is too reminiscent of the Crown of Souls in Feast of Goblyns, which they've run through already. And stating that precludes the lackeys from taking over, which I'd like to keep as a backup plan.



Anyway... I think I'm going to go with Archedius's and MatthiasStormcrow's ideas. But I'm open to more suggestions. Anyone?

[alhoon]

Excuse me for not following the whole conversation here, but isn't Azalin using the PCs to fetch his phylactery because they have been beheaded? Ala "The headless shall ... "etc?

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

The hexad line is "The bodiless shall journey to the time before Where happiness to hate creates land and lore."

So they are beheaded and sent back to meddle with Strahd's wedding, but after that, Azalin tricks them into "killing" him and taking his phylactery into the mists. Unrelated events.

Although..... I could link the two events, by saying that the planar instability the party created is centered on them. The weakness is linked somehow to their spirits, so he needs at least one member of the party to accompany the phylactery into the Mists. If they take him willingly, that's easiest, but if need be, his lackeys are willing to capture and maim them. They only need to be just barely alive to warp reality enough to let Az through.

Hmm... there's something workable there, perhaps. Thanks!

[alhoon]

It has been some long years since I played "from the shadows", Actually it was research on that adventure that made me find the Kargatane site. Summer of 1999 I think? Just before they changed their boards.

Anyway, I'm quite sure that Azalin had to use the same party that weakened the planar boundaries. IIRC, At first, the bounderies were only so strong that they could go back through time, but only them. Else, Azalin would have sent an army of undead to kill Strahd and be done with it.
Then the planar boundaries weakened enough so that them could escape. Not Darklords... however once they pass the border, the borders weaken so much that even darklords can escape. In fact, they weaken so much that people (and monsters) start getting thrown out.

[HuManBing]

Else, Azalin would have sent an army of undead to kill Strahd and be done with it.

Ooooooh!

That really hurt. I have a yawning gap in my stomach and my entrails are falling out and slopping onto the floor in a lazy, unselfconscious, yet maddeningly painful way.

The grandfather paradox applies here. Azalin specifically does not want to kill Strahd, since that would prevent the Demiplane from forming and ergo he would be unable to enter the Demiplane and send people back in time to kill Strahd. In fact, Azalin wants to disturb as little as possible otherwise the aftershocks in time could lead to a paradox.

I'm already in awe at Bruce Nesmith's choice of Strahd's wedding for Azalin's time travel experiments. After all, most of the people there die behind closed walls and thus Azalin's fairly safe in sending the PCs back.

If you say that about Strahd getting killed again, it'll make the baby Jesus cry, I promise you!

[alhoon]

Well, Azalin doesn't like Strahd and also doesn't like being in the demiplane at all.
However, I remembered that the PCs take the bodies of others as they travel back, like possession. Since they probably need their souls to be intact in order to replace the souls and minds of the originals (killing them in the process probably) undead cannot be sent.

[HuManBing]

Well, Azalin doesn't like Strahd and also doesn't like being in the demiplane at all.

I think you miss the point. If you go back in time and kill your grandfather before you're born, you screw up time. Not just for yourself, but for the entire timeline. (So one suicidal person could do it and indeed "not be in the demiplane"... at least for 50% of the time, but he would take the demiplane with him and alternate forever between two mutually exclusive timelines.)

Likewise, if Azalin (who's in Ravenloft and in Avernus and casting the spell in 735) does something that prevents Ravenloft from ever forming, he will have created a paradox. He will NOT have found a magical way to exit the Demiplane somehow. He will be trapped in the Demiplane for half of the reversions in time, and the other half he'll presumably be back in Knurl on Oerth.

More importantly, he'll be trapped in time. He'll never progress beyond 735 because that's when the paradox occurs in both timelines.