In my last game as master, one player (a half-celestial half-elf, famous for smiting baby dragons) drawed a card from a deck of many things and was imprisioment.
I leaved a "very hard" clue to the other players, now in the card they can see a grey wasted field and with keen eyes, they will spot a tower that seems a spine...
My plans are creating an aventure where the pjs tries to find and rescue this fellow guy. The worst part for them it is that the paladin have been captured by a night hag, and know Im thinking what kind of adventure I can plot for them.
Im actually thinkning in that the hags, offers the pj a quest: if they are able to capture a purest soul (full blooded celestial by example) she will free her now tainted thrall.
any ideas?
Lichdom
Artifact that conveys youngness and vibrancy
Make her a sensate.
Say she spent years doing her magic and revelling in it only realise one day she grew old and unsavory. Now she wants to go back to experience life properly and doesnt want lichdom just yet (perhaps she wants children?). Have her serving the paladin tea in a strange pot when the chars turn up... with pastries on the table waiting for the others.
Make it amusing but sad, she kidnapped the paladin to get the attention of the players, not to actually hurt him. (make her with few social skills).
Picture the players bursting in on a old withered looking hag serving a shiney armoured guy tea, around them both eyes in jars and a veriety of strange jars and pots with things in, the characters weilding sword and axe threateningly, possibly looking embarressed.
You may even get the paladin jumping up to protect her. even if she is evil he should hopefully see it as a potential way to reform her...... just dont make her too threatening.
Possible Artifact:
Crown of the Nympth queen
Artifact
Major Power:
Charisma increases to 25 and all reactions from NPCs are shifted toward favorable.
Once per week the wearer can take the form of a nypth including all powers for up to 4 hours
Minor Power:
Cast Charm Person 3 times a day
Cast Charm Monster 3 times a day
Destruction:
Submerge the crown in Celestial blood and cast into the deepest area of the Neg energy plane.
the players shouldnt see her as evil really.. just old and lonely. play it right and even the paladin that was kidnapped will run to do the quest because he feels so sorry for her.....
As to the artifact. dunno put it under the guard of some nasty somewhere, depends on the level of your chars....
So if she acts kind it is because it is plotting something very nasty.
of course diplomacy and such it is important, because her like most of the hags it is going to comerce with larvaes, so the first thing that the pj are going to ear from her it is:
"welcome, do you are interested in some juicy cheap larvae?"
But the beauty is she can get the players to run off after a powerful magical item without having to force them through threats.
She can still be evil. perhaps she looks to give birth to a son who she will shape to becoming a key figure in a plot to take over part of a plane.
Trouble I find with BBEG that uses forceful threats is the players say S O D that lets kill her and be on our way!
if you make her seem nice and give them a sob story....
Once I my group met an imprisoned lich who had cast various spells to make her seem to be a normal human... she was nice and begged them to help her, she even promised them magical items from her home if they would go and get a specially enchanted soul jar from her tower..... they are currently on route to the tower, believing that she can escape imprisonment by magically trapping herself in the jar to get out and when she does that she will help them... in actual fact its her Pylactary (or however you spell it).
BTW
She will get out and will reward the party by attacking them and trying to turn them into zombies..... thats if they dont figure it out.......
dont underestimate the sob story or the stupidity of 3rd level characters........
Beauty perhaps, but Night Hags, being creatures of the waste are generally sucked of enough of such feelings that they don't care enough for how they appear physically to seek a means to improve it. And if their physical appearance inspires fear and revulsion in some mortals, they'll likely revel in the ability to inflict that upon them.
[i]
Beauty perhaps, but Night Hags, being creatures of the waste are generally sucked of enough of such feelings that they don't care enough for how they appear physically to seek a means to improve it. And if their physical appearance inspires fear and revulsion in some mortals, they'll likely revel in the ability to inflict that upon them. [/b]
you are right, and also getting beatifulness it is one of the easiest things to get, with spells from diguise self up to shapechange...
by the way charisma isnt fisical apearance (the PHB says in a line that it is, but I cant believe that a sorcerer mutilated becomes worse)...
My idea it is that since hags are the principal traders of the low planes, she is interested in pure souls that means paladins and celestials, because once corrupted they become the perfect black guards and a demon can pay a lot of money for such zealots of evil.
The group it is going to spend about two month to reach the wastes and in that time, I think that Im going to screw a bit the character´s sheet
, so they are going to find a diferent friend...Of course, once rescued, the player will have the option to going back to the light or continue as a black guard (will need the sacrifice of the two characters levels required for BG and the cleric spell atoment(sp).