Help with Death Unchained Intro

[TheSalemlord]

My players noticed something very promising:
The eye on the door. They noted that Eye (knob)+Hand (the person's that knocks) is close to Vecna.

Haha nice!...sadly, my players never would think beyond...for them would be just...the door. Though, they may think how to blast it.

Now add the necromancers looking for eternal life and the promise of the awakening and we have some interesting views on the Czerga necromancers.

Indeed!, things seems to be flowing nicely your way.

[alhoon]

Nah, it was quickly forgotten. My characters explored the sewers to find some of the resistance groups, and are now fighting Vampyres. Wererats pretending to be thieves in the sewers pointed the way.

[alhoon]

Finished the adventure!

In short the finale and changes I made:

Changes:

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- It's 5e. The daggers did +2d6 energy drain and 2 hp of that was permanent reduction (till the skull broke).
- The Pendulum, while "fed" would reduce the casting level of any necromantic spell by 1. I.e. magic jar required a 5th lvl slot while in the area etc.
- The catacombs were the pocket domain of Darklord Czega. As said in the module, the Czegas started as a nice family that preserved the dead bodies and did experiments to heal the sick with the ultimate goal of restoring life to the dead nobles. And they turned progressively more callous and evil, built the Pendulum that sucked life force etc, to prolong their lives.
What I changed is that they weren't drawn when the Pendulum started. Nope. They got attacked by adventurers and nearly wiped out. The surviving Czergas stopped feeding the Pendulum and for a couple of generations they behaved better.
Till Lenu Czega.
One of them, a very bright and gifted necromancer named Lenu Czega became obsessed with the former family history and wanted to return to the evil ways to "cure death". His family stopped him. Instead of packing up and leaving, Lenu Czega got them to the dinner hall (Chamber 6) and paralyzed them with poison. As they lay immobile, he carried them one by one next to the now dormant pendulum. He explained to them very politely that he was a genius, that they were holding him back, but he doesn't hold it against them. Nope. He will just kill them temporarily and will bring them back when he cures death. Not as undead, mind you, nooope. He's good to family. He would bring them back alive, no harm done. But he needed them out of the way and the Pendulum working. And then, he dumped the paralyzed bodies in the Pendulum's pit, restarting it. But as he took his time, by the time he was ready to throw the last one of his cousins in, the poison had weakened enough for the poor woman to grasp on Lenu and drag him with her in the Pit.
Lenu screamed in terror as he plunged, his youth fleeting and screamed to whatever was listening for a 2nd chance to defeat death. And something was listening. Welcome to Darklordship.
Lenu Czega used to have a wretched existence before Ladislas came. He found he was: 1. more of an entity like a ghost bound in the catacombs, able to temporarily take control of dead bodies and unable to interact with the world else. 2. The undead he was rising were dropping after a couple of minutes.
He doesn't know it but: He'll be completely unable to restore undeath or life even if he gets access to the spells required. If he finds and uses a rod of resurrection for example, anyone risen by him would die again in a few minutes.

And then, Ladislas came with a spell very similar to what a whole cabal of Czegas were trying to find for centuries and have failed. Watching over the necromancer's shoulder he found that the spell made people crazy, it didn't restore youth and vitality, so it wasn't perfect; he would allow Ladislas to perfect it and then kill him for it. Lenu was growing somewhat impatient with Ladislas and his lack of interest to perfect the re-animation spell... but the PCs killed Ladislas.
(Unbeknownst to him, the spell wouldn't work well for Lenu Czega anyway. Anyone brought back would die in a few minutes)

- Lenk, the 7-years-old orphan that found the secret door at the tower's basement and the secret door to the Czega catacombs within 30 minutes while Ladislas was looking for it for a month... is one of the very few, possibly last, Czega descendants remaining and he doesn't know it.

The set-up pre-finalle:

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My PCs didn't have dispel magic. So Myrcea returned to the catacombs, wandered the place with invisibility looking for the PCs, saw the vistani-made coffins, lost horror saves and ended up curled in the secret room that the Ebon Fold hadn't discovered yet (the place where the PCs can safely rest once). That's where the PCs found him before the battle. The Talons were down in force with a general present and orders to kill everything that moves undead or alive. They had spellcasters too.
The PCs were listening to the Talons breaking stuff and bones of could-be-undead skeletons, killing even the rats. The talons were dying by the traps, falling down the Well of Bones, fighting undead Czega was rising to stop them etc so they were angry.

The battle:

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Starting as usual, the alarm on the hundreds of skulls started shouting, Ebon Fold appeared in droves, Ladislas cast spells (stoneskin, mirror image) and drunk potion of blur to join (So they were hitting him with disadvantage, doing 1/2 damage and he had shield, mage armor, mirror image and false life on).
Myrcea was around with invisibility and a one-use rod of cancellation. He touched the skull with rod, dispelling everything on it and breaking his invisibility. Ladislas killed him immediately. The PCs broke the skull as Ladislas was (cinematically) standing in front of a cabinet with a couple dozen spare daggers. They exploded the moment the skull broke, hit Ladislas in the back, stunned him and injured him heavily. The PCs got their lost life-force back.
The Talons broke in at that time, and finished him off and then turned on the Ebon Fold and the PCs. The ghosts of the elves murdered by the Ebon Fold and the various ghosts in the area that have asked the PCs for help appeared and spooked the Talons enough for the "red mist" to turn gray and get the PCs out of Ravenloft; In the mists they saw form of Darklord Czega screaming in rage, the family members he murdered and at the end, when they were about to get out... Lenk as an adult, dressed in Czega robes and with the Czega insignia whispering to them "Myrcea left us to help you and he died. I'm alone again because of you" in anger.

[TheSalemlord]

Awesome ending!..planning to do something with the Kid?

My party left the place after confronting the bad guy in a bloody battle. Paladin died due to the Fighter irresponsibility and not following the strategy proposed by the Paladin. They managed to get out of the catacombs and reach the Falkovnian/Darkon Border with the help of Mircea.

They practically left the Grim Harvest alone...so I used the event as part of the Hyskosa Hexad. They restored the paladin (Who didn't came alone from the other side) and recently finished From the Shadows. Now I'm aiming to Roots of Evil as the Final adventure.

[alhoon]

Nope, they're out of Ravenloft for good, but one of them keeps asking about Lenk. Who was 7 years old when they left so they have a good 20 years before he becomes a threat, but since their time in Ravenloft was 2-3 weeks and they were away from the Prime Material for 2-3 days, they assume (correctly) time can be relative.
After all, I've already used a chronomancer that hopped back from the future to tell them stuff.

Yet, I plan to use other things from their previous adventures. When fighting the KToa, in an adapted Shrine of the KToa, they escaped leaving around a marilith (summoned by the KToa goddess herself). I described the Marilith being out of control in a big final battle but there was little a party of 10th lvl chars could do against a Marilith and about 200 KToa that were hunting them.
I'm sure they've already forgot about the Marilith, thinking that as the shrine was destroyed (long story), the marilith would be banished back I guess. Well, they're wrong. The Marilith is still around. They've insulted her (by not escaping from her twice) so after a couple of years of doing fiend-stuff she'll look for them.

But I will use Lenk in future campaigns in Ravenloft
After all, the PCs never took Ladislas' spellbook... it lies there in the coffin the sicko used to sleep and as a desk. (I think that's a between-the-lines reference to his sexual preferences)
The Talons hastily looked for enemies there, found only the destroyed guards and moved on.

So a lot of Ladislas' work is there, along with the book Myrcea kept with the notes and entries. One of the first things adult Lenk will find, the only thing to connect him with Myrcea will be the book with the PCs names.

[brilliantlight]

An idea I had, let them overthrow Drakov, if they ever come back. Have one of his bastard sons take over. The way I see it one of his sons is really loyal to him and joined and even took over a resistance group. He wasn't planning to overthrow dad, merely find out as much about the resistance as he can and then give all the info to dear, old dad. The PCs disrupted his plans by killing Drakov and he has vowed revenge. He inherits the darklordship on Drakov's death due to the evil he committed on his behalf. His curse is that he wants to utterly crush the opposition and to kill the murderers of his father. He is cursed with failing the first and will have great difficulty in accomplishing the second as he wants to do so personally. He wants the PCs kidnapped, not killed so he can do the killing himself. He is much smarter than Drakov and far less belligerent. His Talons are focused inward not outward and he isn't as repressive as Drakov. Think of him as a Franco instead of a Hitler. He also doesn't want the PCs to know it is him that is after them. until it is too late.