I ran the adventure I started detailing last month and it did not go as expected. Despite using the highest Menace rating (described at the end of last month’s column), the adventure was not difficult for the PCs. At all. We messed up a couple of rules but I don’t think it would have mattered.

I’ve poked at FC quite a bit since then trying to figure it out. I don’t have a solution yet and I’m out of time to get one before this column goes out. So I’ll detail some more bits of the adventure and come back next month with more details on where things went wrong and what I did to fix it.

Carrying on from where last month’s column ended, here is part five of the adventure I created.

5) Adversaries and Other NPCs

This adventure will be more combat heavy than previous adventures. This adventure picks up from a cliffhanger, a popular approach to two-part TV episodes. The action really ramps up and the PCs should feel swept away by the madness and savagery of the Tannery and its corrupt inhabitants.

At the end of the last adventure, the PCs had just taken out a band of cannibals. Something terrible was crashing out of the woods to investigate the smell of blood and we ended on a cliffhanger with the monster unrevealed.

I plan to have five scenes, three of which are combat. I’ll work out the other two to challenge the adventurers’ ability to talk their way into and out of trouble plus another challenge (maybe a physical challenge brought on by the tainted mushroom ring and underground caves beneath the Tannery).

Good news, since I was winging things (I’ll talk about on the fly adventures for FC after discussing writing this adventure) at the time and didn’t know what the monster was! So I’ll decide now. I turn to the Bestiary to see what catches my eye. Something between 121 and 161 XP in power.

I want something new and deadly. I haven’t used spells yet, so I choose a wizard NPC (56 XP)and generate a name from p. 250: Liam Serpentfang. He has filed his teeth into fangs and has tattooed a viper on his face, neck, and chest. Shaved head, of course, and raspy voice.

His companion, the beast crashing out of the woods, is now easy to decide upon. A basilisk (76 XP) named Bosk. Both of these NPCs will be special characters and I’ll stat them out in the adventure itself.

Liam serves an even greater menace, the lieutenant of the leader of the Tannery, the rakshasa Kalshere (113 XP, a mini I’ve wanted to use) and Kali’s Claw, his pet burrowing behemoth (97 XP, I also want to use my umber hulk mini!). Both beasties will likely live past the tainted mushrooms in the caverns beneath the Tannery. Burrowing behemoths like to use traps, so I made need to put in a nasty surprise. Kalshere will likely play the lie of being a prisoner being tormented by Kali’s Claw, only to drop his disguise and strike at just the worst possible moment.

The main villain, though, is a tormentor demon (164 XP) named Beld and a pack of three Standard barghests (56 XP for three, normally 93 XP). Beld has secrets that once learned will change the way the adventurers look at their world forever. Demons come from the Inferno, a realm of fire and suffering that is literally at the center of the world of Kruvil. What, if anything, the adventurers will do about the evil festering in the very heart of their world should open up some interesting future adventures. They won’t have to plane hop to fight demons.

Beld also guards the magic stagecoach. He has it stuffed with pieces of and trophies from the corpses of the victims he’s tortured and killed (or worse). The coach is haunted, but the adventurers won’t learn that until later. Insert GM evil laugh here.

Here’s how I fill out this section:

• Liam Serpentfang, wizard NPC (56 XP, Special): Teeth filed into fangs, tattooed viper on his face, neck, and chest, and shaved head. Speaks in a raspy whisper with wide open eyes.
• Bosk, basilisk (76 XP, Special): Grayish-green scaled offspring of a komodo dragon and a rhino (with a couple extra legs for good measure).
• Kalshere, rakshasa (113 XP, Special): Nobleman of Amperian lineage, showing signs of torment but stoically enduring. (Only when their true face, a demonic tiger humanoid and backwards hands, will cause the most psychological damage does he drop his complex ruse of being a tortured nobleman).
• Kali’s Claw, burrowing behemoth (97 XP, Special): Bipedal grizzly bear-sized beetle with savage hooked claws and mandibles capable of punching through plate steel, plus terrifying bug eyes that incite madness and paranoia.
• Beld, tormentor demon (164 XP, Special): They have a balrog.
• The Pack, three barghests (56 XP for three, normally 93 XP, Standard): Twisted fiends born of nightmare, canine demons with fanged, vaguely humanoid faces and smoldering cruel eyes.

Next Month

I’m still working on it!

"We are rainbows in the dark" (Color Road saying),
Charlie