As characters approach the Stormfort they can see its three tiers from the distance. A wide open gate leads to a wide first level from which rises an outcropping with a smaller secondary keep built on top. From there extends a tall, narrow tower, the windows of whose top room emit a glow bright enough to be faintly seen against the gloom of dark clouds above. There is currently no rain, but it looks like a downpour could start any second; rumbles of thunder can be heard, and as the players first survey the area, a bolt of lightning strikes the tower.
The lower section has been cleared of whatever buildings it once housed and is now occupied by a small troop of giants dwelling in large, 25’ high tents, and their collection of oversized livestock (6’ tall pigs and 10’ tall cows). Three of the giants are gathered around a fire pit in the center of the area; the chief is in the north-western-most tent, and the remaining two are in the 2nd tent on either side. They will react to “visitors” as threats to their occupation of the castle, as well as a chance to add some variety to their diet.
Once the giants are dispatched, the party can head up the winding stairs to the upper level. It’s a simple 20×25 square with a 4×4 round tower in the upper left corner. The entry gates are close but unlocked; they can be opened by simply pulling on a large chest-height latch.
Inside the apparently unoccupied (at the moment) keep, the party will see a massive treasure pile spread across most of the northern side of the area.
Once the bulk of the party is in past about 10” from the gate, they’ll start to hear wings flapping. A great (and yet oddly mud-colored and mud-textured) dragon will appear from the south, dropping a boulder in front of the entrance large enough to block any escape. Then it lands near or among the party (needs 3×5 clear area), rears up, roars, spews fire into the air, and flaps its wings, dealing d8” knockback to everyone.
<Roll initiative– dragon gets d6+1. Treat it as phys def 0, but all characters’ attacks will bounce off its armor. When dragon’s turn to act comes up, it will leap up onto the nearest wall and shout:>
“No! Dredge not want fight! Dredge tired fighting! Want to go home, where Dredge get extra lime Jell-O cup with dinner! Art therapy at 10 AM –interpretive dance class on Thursdays!”
<After a long pause where everyone looks around at each other waiting to see what happens next, the guild re-appears above.>
“You can’t do that! It’s against the rules!”
“Dredge not playing same game. Dredge have own game where Dredge make rules!”
“This is highly irregular! If you don’t participate we’ll be forced to… er…take measures!”
Different voice, whispering: “What measures?”
Whispering: “I don’t know! This has never happened with one of our villains before! There must be something in the rules to cover it!”
“You want Dredge to fight? You come down here, then Dredge will fight!” <Blasts them ineffectively with fire breath>
“Ahem…”<skimming through a thick book> “Ah, here’s something. Hmph. Well, it seems that if you refuse to continue, the game is forfeit. For all of you.”
<Other voice>“Does it really make sense for the good guys to lose because the bad guys won’t play?”
“Dredge not bad guy! Dredge just misunderstood!”
“Rules are rules. This is your last chance – do you still refuse to participate?”
“Dredge not fight unless space nerds come down to fight Dredge!”
“Very well then. You have all failed your quest – er, not failed really. ‘Not even failed.’ Return to your world and face your impending doom,then.” <Loud sigh>
<Poof!>
Whole team re-appears in the battlefield back in Middletown, along with Dredge, who the guild didn’t even bother to send back to his original location. Players are back to their normal selves, with all their fantasy gear gone. They’re fully healed, but arsenal gear is all used up as it was back at the start.
A wave of fire is rolling off away from players. Father Coughlin, hovering in front of the group, seems startled that his blast of fire appears to have passed right through them, leaving them uninjured.
Dredge starts laughing.
“Where did you come from, oaf, and what’s so funny?”
“Them think Dredge stupid. Not watch Dredge while he flying around tower waiting for D-Listers to finish other dungeon games!” <He reaches into his torso and starts fishing around for something>
“What are you talking about? Get out of the way or you’ll be roasted in the same flames I finish these fools off with!”
<He pulls something round out of himself. Bright light shines as the mud slowly runs off it.>
“Flappy fire-Dredge eat glowy ball. Since it made to be sent to real world as prize, it come back inside Dredge! Spaceman heads not even notice!”
<Beams of light shoot out from the orb and start scanning everyone in the vicinity. After a moment they focus on Coughlin. A blast of energy shoots at him and surrounds him, and both the orb and his headdress crumble away. He’s lowered to the ground as his flight spell wears off. Unfortunately the spells that bind the ECP members in the vicinity do not fade away yet.>
“You think I’m defeated? Ha! You still face a powerful sorcerer filled with the holy spirit!”
<Battle ensues. In the first round, Dredge will turn to players and ask, “When pointy hat angry man get squished, Dredge can go home?” If the answer is yes, he’ll join against Coughlin in the next round. When Coughlin gets down to half health, if characters aren’t in bad shape he’ll call for his minions and five Golemites (as encountered back in (opens in a new tab)”>Part I of this whole undertaking) will approach to defend him. He’ll do this at ¼ health if he hasn’t already. Golemites will take 2 rounds to power down if Coughlin is defeated first.>
The Aftermath
With Coughlin defeated,the spells holding the ECP members start to weaken and they’re able to break free after a few minutes.
“Nice work back there… I think!” Captain Generica tells them. “Though I’m not entirely sure what just happened.”
“Yes,” Morumbar says,“we thought you were done for when that giant flame-wave washed over you, but then you just… blinked out of existence for a moment, and re-appeared with Dredge.”
“Well, however it happened, you took down Coughlin, and it looks like his allies are in full retreat now,” Lumina says.
“Feel like Dredge away two weeks without lime Jell-O. Anybody have lime Jell-O?”
Generica: “I don’t have any desserts on me, but I know a great frozen yogurt place nearby. My treat! (From the ECP expense account, of course.)”
Dredge looks at him suspiciously. “Chocolate sprinkles and gummy worms?”
“Chocolate sprinkles, and overflowing with gummy worms.”
“Dredge like gummy worms. Taste better than the ones he pulls out of himself.”
How It Played
The team approached the lower keep’s entrance from an angle and peeked in to get a look at the place, and were able to get a sense of the layout (and the presence of the three giants around the fire) without being detected. Given that the early evening time frame combined with the dark clouds above made lighting in the area dim, the players decided it would be worth trying to use the tents as visual cover and sneak around the giants altogether. Given that I’d described the visible giants as drinking and looking toward the fire – meaning their night vision would be reduced – and assuming that the ones still in their tents were resting and/or sleeping and/or inebriated, I couldn’t deny there would be some substantial penalties to the giants’ perception rolls.
Circe shifted into her wolf form for better stealth capability and scouted ahead, using scent to try to determine where there might be more giants hiding (since they’d counted six tents but only three visible foes). The rest of the group followed, except for Velocimancer. The stairway on the far wall was the one area where the team would be out in the open and easily visible to the campfire giants, so V stayed hidden behind a corner tent until the rest of the team was in position behind the tent closest to the stairs. Then she used one of her cantrips to ignite the tent closest to her, and used her Saurid running speed to catch up to the others. As the giants became aware of the fire and began scooping water from a trough by the animal pen to throw on it, the whole party sprinted up the stairs unnoticed.
On occasions where a character might be in a particular giant’s line of sight, I even added luck rolls to see if lighting would flash at that moment and negate some of the perception penalties. Once it did, but the giant’s perception roll still failed anyway. The characters were able to sneak away from the whole first encounter, leaving me proud of my players but disappointed at not getting to watch them fight a bunch of giants.
When they reached the Dredge encounter, Aria rolled the highest initiative as it started. She’s talked Dredge out of fighting in the past, and after his not-completely-willing participation in a jailbreak she successfully fought to have him committed to a rehab facility instead of to another prison, and has visited him there a few times. So though in this fantasy world her native emotion control ability is suppressed, she still tried immediately to talk to him and convince him he didn’t want to fight them.
As a result, the D-Listers didn’t get to experience the thrill of being buffeted and thrown about by the wind of flapping dragon wings; Dredge instead launched immediately into his “I just want to go home to my Jell-O” speech.
Even though I built Coughlin as a pretty powerful character in relation to the PCs, the final battle against him was somewhat anticlimactic. His first initiative roll was low, so the team was able to hit him with some serious damage before he could get his force field up. His minions were re-activated in round two, but the players remembered them from their first encounter as being slow to die but also slow to cause damage, so they ignored them and focused on the sorcerer. He got some damage in, but was down by early in the fourth round.
I made a spur-of-the-moment decision at the end of the battle to have one of the players randomly have a remaining undamaged feather from the otherwise-destroyed magical headdress waft toward them in the breeze. A planted seed for some future storyline. I don’t yet know what the seed will grow into, but it’s in place for when I decide what to do with it.