Branching Out: Behind the Screen

 A lot of this section I just ran as is. I’ve been very busy lately, and just adapting the encounters as written takes up enough time.

Instead of a pentadrone, I used the Inexorable of Death from Matt Colville’s 5e book Strongholds and Followers. Like the Pentadrone, Death has been drawn to Yggdrasil because of Orcus’ earlier stint as Primus. Death, as an Inexorable that enforces the Law of Death, keeps yelling that the Law of Death has been broken. Mostly by Orcus (arguably), but also by the Rogue Modron 12-Bar (arguably), who will get attacked on sight. In my Planescape, the Inexorables are a shady secret police branch of the modron hierarchy. This fight was done in theatre of the mind, partly because I ran out of prep time, but also, it's advantageous that your players don't get into the habit of always having a map.

I updated the Ratatosk for the fight (Glittereye casting call lightning seemed fun), and Marlus Van for her encounter.

The fire at the Woodworkers’ Guild: Smoke fills much of the building, making most of the area lightly obscured. There might be pockets of thicker smoke, or clear air. A player that starts their turn in the burning building must succeed on a DC10 CON save. On a failure, they spend their action coughing and spluttering, and their speed is halved. If a character suffers three consecutive failures, they start to suffocate (suffocating rules are in the PHB).

You'll have to add the fire yourself I'm afraid.

 

On initiative count 5, roll a d20. There is a 20% chance that burning timber falls on a random character. The falling debris does 2d4 bludgeoning damage and 2d4 fire damage, with a DC14 DEX save for half. If the atmosphere gets too relaxed, the percentage chance can always increase as the fire gets worse.

There are five unconscious woodworkers in the building. Roll initiative when the first PC enters the building, and then roll 4d4. That is how many rounds before the unconscious woodworkers start dying.

Much of the above was made up on the fly, and probably could use some tweaking. I had made my battlemap in advance.

Looking back, I think this session went well. A lot of events happened, so the players had a rewarding sense of progression, even if not every event was amazing. A straight fight with Marlus could be underwhelming, so it’s better to present the encounter as a battle to save the woodworkers while dealing with a hostile presence, rather than as a combat encounter. I didn’t finalise Marlus’s hit points either, but that became irrelevant after 12-Bar did 44 damage in a single hit.

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