A Sword Named "Finslayer"

Finslayer, the most iconic magic item to be found within the Night Below setting for AD&D 2nd edition, is about to be found by the party in my current 1st edition AD&D run of NB. Located (as indicated in book 2 of the 3 book set) in the treasure trove of a Rakshasa and hook horrors, it is looking to be taken into the possession of a neutral good Ranger.

Finslayer was created a few hundred years ago by an unnamed wizard, for a ranger named “Pajarifan.” Pajarifan had different racial enemies than the typical ranger. Instead of goblins and giants, Pajarifan hated Koa Toa and Drow. Finslayer was made to complement the hatreds of Pajarafan, who, as the greatest hero of the southern settlements, quested into the southern Underdark to defeat his enemies. Finally defeating the drow, Pajarifan unwittingly opened the door for the Aboleth to one day rule this part of the underworld. In the module, Pajarifan’s final fate was unrevealed, but it may be safe to assume he took the fight to the Aboleth eventually, and met his doom somewhere around The Sunless Sea.

Here are Finslayer’s powers and abilities:

-Finslayer is a long sword, +3, +4 vs. aboleth and drow, +5 vs kuo-toa.
-It is of NG alignment, very intelligent and has an ego to match.
-It converses with you via telepathy. It speaks in common with the others. It also speaks Undercommon, Drow, Aboleth, and Kuo-toa.
-At will (or by your request) it can:
o detect invisible objects within 10'
o detect secret doors within 5'
o detect magic within 10'
-It can cast "Strength" on you once per day, but the duration is a full 18 hours. If Finslayer strikes a kuo-toa it will confuse it for 2d6 rounds (they get a ST)
• Finslayer will not stick to kuo-toan armor.
• While holding Finslayer you are immune to kuo-toan Symbols of Insanity.
• Finslayer has extensive knowledge of kuo-toa, drow, and aboleth.
Finslayer will come in very handy at the climax of book 2, “The City of the Glass Pool,” where a Kuo Toa army is one of the obstacles to be faced.

Now, I made a couple of changes to the history of Finslayer. For one thing, I decided for some reason I wanted Pajarifan to be a female, so I added an “e” to the end of the name and made it “Pajarifane.” Nice, eh?

So at the game tomorrow night the party is about to dig in to the treasure trove, and Finslayer will be found. As it turns out (quite by accident, I created her long before deciding to do Night Below), the NPC in the party is a teenager ranger girl from the same area as Pajarifane, named “Dia.” The party had already discovered that she is special. A dozen games ago or so they found out she was the secret daughter of Arcturus Grimm, the most famous ranger in history and occasional benefactor to the characters. So Dia comes along being exactly what Finslayer is looking for – a neutral good ranger. So the weapon will most likely go to the NPC. That is probably going to work out pretty good, because it leaves me free to do what I like with Finslayer without basically controlling a player character.

So we will see how it goes tomorrow night. It is especially going to be a fun night, because it is all around the biggest and best treasure find I am bestowing upon the players in a year and a half of these characters adventures. I’ll hopefully get to kick back most of the night while the players argue out who gets what in all the great stuff, that in addition to Finslayer will include a druidic Scimitar +2, +4 when used outdoors in full sunlight, an elvish +2, +4 vs. goblin types long bow, +2 mace, wand of lightening bolts, and a few other goodies (note: I have heavily modified the treasure trove from what the book indicates).

Night Below - Ecology of the Rakshasa

I really thought that after a year and a half of this campaign, I would finally kill at least one character last night. OK, just from that statement you can tell I am not a “killer DM.” After 50 games or so most groups would have experienced some death. Well, with the party facing a crafty and powerful Rakshasa and its Hook Horror cronies, I thought I would get my kill.

Right now the party is in that area of the Night Below setting where Quaggoth and Hook Horrors engage in almost constant conflict over their territory of caves. I should mention that these creature types, and also the eventual “boss monster” of the area, the Rakshasa, are not monsters I have used much in the past. I don’t find quaggoth and hook horrors all that interesting. But I wanted to run some of the Night Below by the book, and I would do so with this section. Also, the quaggoth, as one-time slaves to the drow who once ruled this area (until the drow civilization here was destroyed by an ancient ranger with a magic sword called “Finslayer) were an interesting clue for the groups one drow character to find out more about the people of the old drow city of Sunkenhome. As for the horrors, they were basically thralls of the rakshasa, and therefore made good fodder to weaken the party for the rakshasa fight.

I should mention that the party had found an old stone ziggurat at the entrance to the complex, with drow writing on it. Turns out this was an old wilderness outpost of the drow city below. With there being a drow PC around, I decided to add a little more drow history for the characters to learn of. If you are familiar with the Night Below setting, then you know that the drow are pretty much long gone in this area. Putting in an outpost with some text and graffiti around would add a little drow flavor for the sake of the drow PC, while at the same time keeping the drow-free feeling (refreshing for an Underdark campaign) of the setting.

After some combat, and then parlay, with the quaggoth, the party went on to fight groups of the hook horrors in order to find a rumored horror leader that was able to cast spells and was said to have a vast treasure. This was indeed the rakshasa, who had been appearing to the monsters as an exceptionally strong and magical leader hook horror. While he had the creatures making trips into the tunnels to search for his estranged and marked for death brother (who, according to the module, would be later found by players in the Jubilex Temple area down the tunnels a bit), the rakshasa stayed in a cave lair with this copious treasure trove.

When the party approached his cave, the rakshasa cast a stinking cloud from hiding, and much of the group was temporarily incapacitated. The rakshasa immediately sent in several more horrors to attack the disrupted party, and I had them worried for awhile. But they managed to regroup and destroy the attackers. The party has two magic-users, and they help a lot by casting growth and strength spells on the fighters.

Rushing into the rakshasa lair, they saw three more hook horrors, seemingly guarding a tied and prone female figure. The rakshasa had taken on the appearance of a former party member named “Nutriciia.” The party was none the wiser, and as they attacked the horrors so they could save the girl, she revealed herself as the rakshasa, and snuck up behind a character to sink in claw and fang.

Outside of being a bit weak in melee (claw/claw/bite for 1-3/1-3/2-5) 1st edition rakshasa have killer defenses. Besides ESP and the ability to appear as somebody they see in a victims mind, rakshasa have -4 AC, and are completely immune to any spell below 8th level! Normal weapons do no harm to them, and any magic weapons below +3 only do half damage. They also have access to MU and cleric spells, and in addition to the stinking cloud this rakshasa had a fireball cocked and ready to use. I really thought that 7 dice fireball had a good chance of taking out at least one already wounded character, maybe more.

But he never got to use it. OK, here is the deal. I have my own version of the bard class in my game world. They really are not much like the standard D&D bard, where you have to experience several character classes to truly be called a bard. My class is sort of a thief subclass, but with a set of musical abilities that begin to act like MU spells as they get higher level. The group’s bard, the half elf Vaidno, is one such bard, and he is now getting high level. He recently accessed the “dance” music/spell ability. It is very much like a somewhat powered down version of the 8th level Otto’s Irresistible Dance spell. For one thing, it allows a saving throw. Well, Vaidno got on his mandolin, started playing a serenade for the rakshasa, and even though I gave it a bonus to its save for being a demonic being it failed. There ya go, my boss monster is pretty much helpless for the next 4 rounds. The characters moved in, and even though their magic weapons are modest, they took him down in 3 rounds. Good for them, because he would have blasted the entire area he stood in with his own fireball. That would have for sure killed somebody (pending save).

So my rakshasa didn’t really get to shine, but the party was pretty happy with themselves. They could tell overall that between the hook horrors and the rakshasa, I had finally thrown a possibly deadly fight their way. No more mucking around and running roughshod over my challenges. They are in The Night Below, and they know now that things are really heating up. And as any of you who know Night Below can attest, there are much worse things than rakshasa in this underworld. I’ll get one of those pesky characters next time!

Night Below: The Tweaking of Book Two

OK, in my last post I talked about changing gears in my campaign, and having players go into the Night Below setting instead of the dungeon they have been preparing for (leveling up) for around 20 games and one year of play.

One reason for this is that I have been dilly dallying a bit. I wanted them to be hitting the dungeon around 4th level, but I have had so much fun with adventures around villages and towns that I just let time fly. Now they are closing in on 7th level. I also felt that at least a couple of characters were running a bit roughshod over my world and NPC’s. As they got to higher levels without any major opposition outside of orcs, Kobolds, and trolls, they have become a bit cocky. Night Below is enough of a meat grinder to make them see the error of their ways (and possibly have to roll up newer, more humble characters when these ones get decimated in the Derro battle, heh heh heh).

I’m going for it, and starting with the material in Book 2. But in my more focused reading of the material, and in some of the things I’ve read online, I think I need to make a few changes for this to work for me.

The major thing bugging me right off the bat is the scale. Say the characters travel from the Deep Gnome city down to the Glass Pool area. According to the miles given in the map key, this is something like 400 miles! Yeesh. I rarely make characters trek 400 miles on foot in the surface world, so this is kind of a big deal. The adventure books suggest making multiple trips to the surface world, which makes this journey around an 800 mile round trip. So screw that, I’m going to half that (at least). That should still be enough travelling to get across the “underground wilderness” nature of the Underdark (which surface dwellers in my world call “The Great Beneath”) without the characters having to effectively travel half the length of my gameworld continent.

On the same coin, I’m also thinking of making more flux points for the players to use, and therefore be able to get around a little faster (after the initial foot traveling – each flux point would need to be physically seen in order to be able to travel to it). I’m not real sure about the flux’s though. I want this setting to have all that great oppressiveness that should be felt deep below the ground, and making it easier and faster for players to travel may take away from that. Still, I think I would maybe have a Flux Point that is well guarded in the Gnome City, and another one around the Derro area. As you need to first be in the presence of one in order to travel to it (the way I would do it), the Mind Flayer can’t appear in that one, and the player could not get back to the Gnome Flux without traveling on foot first to one in the Derro area. This addition of Flux would seriously cut back on travel and game time spent in dreary travel later in the game.

I also don’t want this to be a 2-5 year campaign (I have heard from various sources that have taken various amounts of time, but the fact that I am skipping Book 1 should cut back at least a few months). My games are a little less than three hours on a Wed night around twice a month, and should remain so into next year. So I don’t exactly have a plethora of time-stuff to do this. I’d like to cover the entire two books-worth of material, from the Deep Gnomes to the assault on the Aboleth city, between now and Fall of next year. Yep, I gots the next 12 months of games covered here. I’m getting kind of tired of all the above ground village and town encounters anyway. It’s time for a real bloodbath in an alien setting.

One thing I think I will cut out entirely is the Rockseer Elves. That should save a game session or two. I’m not a big fan of them here. Not only are they a major distraction and long journey to deal with, but the campaign is meant for them to go to the surface at the end of it all, and reveal themselves to surface elves. Big whoop. Also, the encounter with them requires that some player characters be kidnapped for a bit, and I have found through decades of experience that not only do players hate this, but it requires a bit of railroading on the part of the DM. Players are usually so resistant to being captured in any way; it is often difficult to pull off without some Deux ex Machina involved.

So I think I will increase both the quantity and quality of the Deep Gnome involvement in the adventure. In the next game I’m going to have the party save a Deep Gnome scout from Gnolls in upper caves. The Gnoll shaman will have fed the Gnomes legs to his pet ghouls, so the party will hopefully escort the crippled Svirfneblin down to his people. Not only will they be rewarded with part of the legless gnomes trove, but he Queen will be more disposed towards liking them than in the original material. As the party currently contains a gnome illusionist, the queen will give him the special treatment as described in book 2 (make him a champion, offer the gnome home as a place of safety and succor). The gnomes will also provide far more info on the goings on down here than book 2 wants you to know early on. They will know about the comings and goings of mind flayers between the Glass Pool and the subsurface world, that they have been coveting spellcasters, and that deep below in the Sunless Sea ancient monsters contemplate the subjugation of the underworld and beyond.

I think I will leave in the Troll caves, though I may not have the Deep Gnome queen ask specifically for them to be eradicated. If they prove a problem for the players, it can be up to them to deal with them if they want (which will still end up getting props from the Gnomes). I want to have a lot of wandering monster type encounters in the first long journey to the Derro area, so trolls can be met on the fly.

I like the idea of the Sunken Drow city in the Sunless Sea, and to tie into that a bit more, I am thinking of creating a long-abandoned Drow outpost up here, maybe in the area where the tunnel to the Rockseer Elves starts. It could be nice and haunted, filled with giant spiders, or whatever. As it is mostly undisturbed in the last 700 years, it can contain some clues about the Sunken Drow City and the ancient Drow presence in the Southern Underdark. There is a Drow in the player party, so she should have some interest here.

The Grell don’t really appeal to me. Even as a kid reading about them in White Dwarf (including an article on how to make minis of them from scratch), I thought they were kind of lame. So I am going to replace that Grell community with Dire Corbys. Yeah, you heard me. In all honesty they seemed just as lame or lamer than Grell. They looked crappy in the MM2, and their shouting “Doom” as they attacked sounded pretty cheesy. But recently I got a cheap copy of the Drizzt Du’orden Omnibus Graphic novel (I never read the novels based on Drizzt), and I loved the chilling portrayal of a mass Corby attack within. Even the shouts of “Doom!” seemed pretty cool in that context. So I’m going to use them as a nice hack n’ slash encounter.

The Quaggoth and Hook Horrors seemed pretty dumb to me as well, but upon deeper reading it kind of grew on me. When I learned that the shaggy bear-men were left over from the ancient Drow presence here, I kind of liked it. Their reaction to the Drow PC might be interesting as well. The Hook Horrors being led by a shape-shifted Rakshasa is kind of cool. I haven’t used one of those since my last Isle of Dread campaign around 20 years ago. So that whole area, including the sword Finslayer, stays in the picture.

I need to study the Derro encounter areas a bit better, but from what I can tell that is the true bloodbath of Book Two. With both fighting ability and magic, they seem like a nice challenge. I also need to look more closely at the City of the Glass Pool, because so far I have been more into tweaking the areas leading up to the climax of Book Two. One thing I don’t like on cursory inspection is the Ixians. I think that between the Mind Flayers, Kou-Toa, Aboleth, and all the intelligent races and creatures that support them/oppose them, there are already more than enough evil main villains to deal with. But who knows, like the Hook Horror area they may grow on me. For all I know they are integral to the story. It’s a nice long weekend coming up, so I’ll be taking a better look at the end of that chapter of the adventure.

The Glass Pool area requires multiple assaults, because it is so large in scope and has a lot going on. I haven’t looked real closely a the Aboleth city in Book 3 all that much, but Glass Pool seems to be a more complicated war. I’m really not a fan of assault/go rest/assault some more game play. I really do prefer large battles like this to play out more cinematically. For this I would probably have to cut out a lot of stuff and change a lot of others, especially if I am to do it in one setting. But I don’t want to change the entire philosophy of the Night Below campaign, so I need to tread carefully with things I leave out. But I really want to do a lot with the Sunless Sea area, and to do that in a year (of short, three hour games) will for sure require the leaving out of a lot of Book 2.

So, what do you think of these tweaks? I’d also love to hear from anybody who ran the adventure as is with little in the way of changes.