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Legends of the Heroes / Re: New campaign for my kids based on Marvel characters
« on: April 30, 2024, 03:52:52 PM »
My son's sorcerer has a cloak that acts as an enveloping pit, and they have been using it as a mobile base. I decided to make this even more fun, and said they found a secret door in one of the walls. However, they couldn't figure out how to open it, and I left them hanging for a few months IRL. During that time, a friend ran a couple of games in the same campaign and I got to play for a change...
A few weeks ago, I ran another one and picked that plot back up and had them finally figure out how to open the secret door. They had originally gotten the cloak off the corpse of their mentor (who ran the orphanage that was secretly a training ground for an organization much like the Forgotten Realms' Harpers). She already had it set up as a study, with several book shelves, chairs, etc. On the shelves, they found several tomes on an ancient civilization that they could only read with Comprehend Languages. They eventually figured out that several of these mentioned a character known as The Maestro, whom they deduced was the owner of the cloak (I can't remember how).
They eventually figured out that they could open the secret door by playing a refrain from one of his compositions. The door led to an ancient tower that appears to be floating in a void of nothingness filled with arcane wonders. Each floor was a kind of puzzle, and also contained even more books discussing The Maestro and other characters and stories from his civilization. I also wanted to mix in some Cosmic Horror, and so had some of them be things like The King in Yellow by Robert Chalmers, and had this play roles in some of the puzzles.
The first floor was a garden with a pool surrounded by trees with different color leaves and fruits. They never actually figured out the mystery here, but the pool can actually be transformed into a portal that goes to something like the Wood Between the Worlds from CS Lewis' works. There was an arcane elevator at the far end of the chamber. They eventually figured out how to activate it, and went to the 2nd floor.
The 2nd floor
This was a concert hall with a spectral composer. In order to get the elevator to go up further, the party had to figure out how to correct the score he played for them which they noted had a mistake.
The 3rd floor
The elevator opened onto a dressing room with several mirrors and wardrobes, with doors leading from it to a couple of bedrooms, and also a bathroom. The mirrors were magical traps, and anyone looking into them was immediately sucked in and had to battle against their doppleganger. The first one to draw blood won, and got to escape the mirror, while the loser remained trapped. Two of the three party members who looked at mirrors wound up being replaced by dopplegangers... (my daughter's paladin was the only one who explicitly said they were not looking into a mirror). The battle and resulting replacement happened instantanously, and so the paladin didn't note that anything had happened. I had them go into separate rooms to briefly play through the combats, and then tell them the results. I had the ones who were "replaced" roleplay their dopplegangers with some general instructions on what they were supposed to want/do (basically... kill the other party members then escape into the world to cause mayhem). Luckily the party sorcerer had managed to beat his doppleganger through good use of Counterspell, Silvery Barbs and Quicken metamagic... so he and the paladin eventually got the upper hand against the two dopplegangers (who were a barbarian and fighter).
This was definitely the most dramatic and memorable part of the tower, and my daughter later said she even felt creeped out looking into mirrors after that, and was afraid she'd have nightmares.
The fourth floor was a library. They had to bring some books to trade in for books on the shelves, and do everything silently, in order to win the favor of the librarian and pass to the next floor.
The fifth and final floor was an art museum with statues (some of which were horrifically twisted, and all of which were petrified creatures), a piano, and a case within which was the "Comedy" Mask. There were also some stone golems mixed in with the statues, one of which was wearing the "Tragedy" mask. This mask wearing golem animated, and basically told them to GTFO. There were arcane turrets in the room that were also obviously under it's control. The party did eventually leave without a fight, but managed to contrive a plan. They spoke long enough with the construct (from a distance that it didn't find threatening) to learn that the Maestro hadn't been to the tower in a very long time. They eventually decided to try contacting him via a Sending spell, and basically told him that they'd spoken to his guardian golem and they and it were "worried about him". They explained that they had his magic cloak, and invited him to meet with them the next night in a bakery... and he replied and graciously accepted. And that's where we left off.
A few weeks ago, I ran another one and picked that plot back up and had them finally figure out how to open the secret door. They had originally gotten the cloak off the corpse of their mentor (who ran the orphanage that was secretly a training ground for an organization much like the Forgotten Realms' Harpers). She already had it set up as a study, with several book shelves, chairs, etc. On the shelves, they found several tomes on an ancient civilization that they could only read with Comprehend Languages. They eventually figured out that several of these mentioned a character known as The Maestro, whom they deduced was the owner of the cloak (I can't remember how).
They eventually figured out that they could open the secret door by playing a refrain from one of his compositions. The door led to an ancient tower that appears to be floating in a void of nothingness filled with arcane wonders. Each floor was a kind of puzzle, and also contained even more books discussing The Maestro and other characters and stories from his civilization. I also wanted to mix in some Cosmic Horror, and so had some of them be things like The King in Yellow by Robert Chalmers, and had this play roles in some of the puzzles.
The first floor was a garden with a pool surrounded by trees with different color leaves and fruits. They never actually figured out the mystery here, but the pool can actually be transformed into a portal that goes to something like the Wood Between the Worlds from CS Lewis' works. There was an arcane elevator at the far end of the chamber. They eventually figured out how to activate it, and went to the 2nd floor.
The 2nd floor
This was a concert hall with a spectral composer. In order to get the elevator to go up further, the party had to figure out how to correct the score he played for them which they noted had a mistake.
The 3rd floor
The elevator opened onto a dressing room with several mirrors and wardrobes, with doors leading from it to a couple of bedrooms, and also a bathroom. The mirrors were magical traps, and anyone looking into them was immediately sucked in and had to battle against their doppleganger. The first one to draw blood won, and got to escape the mirror, while the loser remained trapped. Two of the three party members who looked at mirrors wound up being replaced by dopplegangers... (my daughter's paladin was the only one who explicitly said they were not looking into a mirror). The battle and resulting replacement happened instantanously, and so the paladin didn't note that anything had happened. I had them go into separate rooms to briefly play through the combats, and then tell them the results. I had the ones who were "replaced" roleplay their dopplegangers with some general instructions on what they were supposed to want/do (basically... kill the other party members then escape into the world to cause mayhem). Luckily the party sorcerer had managed to beat his doppleganger through good use of Counterspell, Silvery Barbs and Quicken metamagic... so he and the paladin eventually got the upper hand against the two dopplegangers (who were a barbarian and fighter).
This was definitely the most dramatic and memorable part of the tower, and my daughter later said she even felt creeped out looking into mirrors after that, and was afraid she'd have nightmares.
The fourth floor was a library. They had to bring some books to trade in for books on the shelves, and do everything silently, in order to win the favor of the librarian and pass to the next floor.
The fifth and final floor was an art museum with statues (some of which were horrifically twisted, and all of which were petrified creatures), a piano, and a case within which was the "Comedy" Mask. There were also some stone golems mixed in with the statues, one of which was wearing the "Tragedy" mask. This mask wearing golem animated, and basically told them to GTFO. There were arcane turrets in the room that were also obviously under it's control. The party did eventually leave without a fight, but managed to contrive a plan. They spoke long enough with the construct (from a distance that it didn't find threatening) to learn that the Maestro hadn't been to the tower in a very long time. They eventually decided to try contacting him via a Sending spell, and basically told him that they'd spoken to his guardian golem and they and it were "worried about him". They explained that they had his magic cloak, and invited him to meet with them the next night in a bakery... and he replied and graciously accepted. And that's where we left off.