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Stonefoot’s revenge

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The first D&D campaign I ever ran was only about seven years ago. I made a lot of mistakes but the best thing I did, I think, was to have a rival party of adventurers to annoy the players’ party.

It all started with one of the early adventures, where the party was exploring an “abandoned” mine. The party was attacked by some dwarves, and captured their leader. Under torture he refused to give up any information, and one character made good on a threat to hack off the dwarf’s foot. At that point the other characters intervened and called off the questioning, but I decided they’d made an enemy for life. As the adventure progressed the party discovered that the dwarves were under the influence of fungus that grew in the mines, and released the surviving dwarves from their derangement.

The dwarf leader would eventually have a stone replacement foot made, and went by the name “Stonefoot.” He gathered a party of adventurers, who naturally were largely caricatures of the PCs, just as Stonefoot was a tyrannical leader in parody of the player dwarf who often took charge of the party.

Stonefoot and his crew avoided any direct confrontations. They often looted areas of the dungeon after the PCs withdrew to recuperate, and always claimed credit for the party’s deeds when they could. Stonefoot hired several bards to compose ballads praising his group and casting aspersions on the PCs. The party returned to the main town after a wilderness adventure to find that statures of Stonefoot and his party were erected in the town square. And when the party lead a valiant defense of the town against attacking orcs, bugbears, and pirates, Stonefoot spread word that his group were the real heroes of the day.

After the campaign petered out, I rebooted the setting but taking place several hundred years later. The new PCs — mostly played by players who’d been in the first campaign — eventually got to fight Stonefoot and his party, who’d been sealed in a vault for centuries. The Elf and dwarf of the group were aged but otherwise fine (they did have access to Create Food and Water), while the humans in the party were undead — one was a berserker with a “Belt of Undeath,” and another was a cleric who’d preserved himself as a Mummy. It was great fun springing them on the party, who were attempting to break into the vault for other reasons, and a fairly epic fight. It brought about a nice resolution to a long-lasting vendetta.

<I may have planned a conclusion to this draft, which has been sitting for a couple of years in my drafts, but I have no idea what it was, so I’ll just stat out the Belt of Undeath>

 

Belt of Undeath (any class may use)

The Belt of Undeath is a potent item. The wearer gains 10 HP, and will regenerate 1 HP every other round (damage from blessed or holy weapons, holy water, and similar will bot regenerate). The wearer will also benefit from all the spell immunities normally conferred on the undead, such as immunity to Fear, Sleep, Charm, and Hold Person spells. The belt also provides protection as Leather Armor (-2 to AC), even though it covers only the waist, making it especially useful to those who cannot otherwise wear armor. This armor class bonus does not stack with conventional or magic armor, but does stack with shields, helms, or rings or cloaks of protection. The wearer also need not eat, drink, or breath, and is immune to all poisons and inhaled gasses. In fact the wearer also ignores the effects of age, because after one day per year of the character’s age when first donned, the wearer becomes undead, and can be turned (use the character’s level as a guide for the equivalent undead type). Holy water does d6 points of damage per vial to the character, and healing spells do not work. However, unholy water consumed by the character will heal as if they were healing potions. Once undead, the character will slowly decompose, although cold and/or extremely dry conditions will slow or halt the decomposition. Wearers generally end up with the appearance of a skeleton or mummy, giving a -4 Charisma when dealing with Lawful or Neutral creatures.


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