Blacktree Chronicles #12: Against the Night, Part One

Last Time:  The characters confirmed that the Doppelganger menace is quite real.  The Tillwood, a forest close to the city, is surging with an evil mist and the townspeople are prepared to fight whatever emerges.

This Time:  What emerges are hordes of wraiths descending on the city.  The PCs fight off the menace and find wraithstone placed all around the city. The wraithstone attracts wraiths to their locations and appears to be have been placed on foortops all around the city.  The PCs decide to gather all the wraithstone they can and run it out of the city.  But first they have to get past the stone’s defenders.  They also need to get people to the church district where they can be safe from harm.

The Twist:  The PCs are alerted that there has been an outbreak in the Radiant Temple of Pelor (our paladin’s church) in the Hall of Fangs.  The PCs run over to put a stop to the rampaging werewolves, with some help at the end from Umbrian Shaw, a cocky paladin who is a prominent member of the Radiant Knights.  Emerging from this, the players direct people into the church as they make their way to various wraithstones.  Walking the streets is a skull lord who the PCs force to retreat.  “Raxxamun will return, fleshy ones…”

Some Background:  I started introducing “Combat quests” into the game.  Basically, some condition that the PCs can fulfill and get extra XP.  In one of the initial combats I had a a condition to save 6 townsfolk out of 10 from being turned into wraiths.  The players responded well to that, so I’ll be using it a lot more.  Also, my minionizing seemed to work perfectly for the wraiths.

The Best Part:  The PCs dialogue after running into that seemingly random skull-lord:  “Who was that guy?”  “Why is he just walking the streets like that?”

Similar Posts:

•      BlackTree Chronicles #13: Against the Night, Part Two
•      Blacktree Chronicles #11: The True Illusion of Death
•      Blacktree Chronicles #14: Book Learning