11. The Wraith King

bryce0lynch

i fucking hate writing ...
Staff member
Ye Olde Randome Name-e Generatore came up with the Wraith King name for this level. Wraiths are WAY too powerful, so I switched it to a Shadow. Or, a Shadow-like thing. One of the things I'm doing is taking some traditional monsters and twisting them a little. So you get something called a Wrath King, that I'm using the stats for a Shadow for, but I'm concentrating more on the individual create than I am the stats. As Mr Wrath King says "It's disrespectful to call me a Shadow. I'm more than that, I have a name you know!" Thus it concentrates on his appearance and actions rather than the stats. And, hopefully, his appearance and actions AS IT RELATES TO THE PLAYERS. The appearance is only valuable in that it helps Bring The Fear to the players. His actions are only relevant to the extent that they interact with the players/characters. I've tried to keep the rest to a minimum, excepting a stray joke or so, and even that I try to orient towards potential DM action.

So, Wrath King, describes as a person rather than as a member of a group. He was powerful, maybe too much so for a party of 1's and 2's. And there were those bandits living on the level. Why were they not dead by the Wraith King? And the Grimlocks and other monsters? And I had this room 2 inspiration random text that said "alter." What the fuck was that doing there? Thus the supplication was born. Pay homage and the Wraith King leaves you alone. Scatter a few such things around the level and the other monsters are left alone also. Plus it gives the party something to interrogate prisoners about. My kids (daughter, I think) helped me with the worn floor. I knew I needed some way to clue in the players that they needed to supplicate, etc, but it wasn't immediately obvious. My daughter was passing by and suggested the worm stones. Perfect! A clue and reward for players paying attention.

And, now that I'm looking at it again, kind of a long room description in 6.5 lines of text, compared to my average of 4-5 for these one-hour things.
 
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