Adventures in Milmar #33 - Tested in Sidhiara

Welcome to the next part of the continuing tale of an adventure I ran in Dungeons & Dragons a while ago.

In the last post, Adventures in Milmar #32 - From the Warmark Into Sidhiara, I described how our players emerged from the Warmark after a hazardous crossing of that destroyed land, and reached the borders of their goal, the elven Kingdom of Sidhiara.

The Sidhiaran elves are a pretty weird bunch, whose motivations and actions are generally incomprehensible to outsiders. For our intrepid heroes to get the introduction they seek to Lord Ferafolle Bluespindle, they have to undergo a series of individual tests. If a majority are successfully passed, they'll get their introduction.

The challenges are (as a summarised version);

• Khemed - spear-wielding super-strong Battlemaster warrior – see how many of the new strain of Seedling Warriors he can slay – reward; keep Leafblight.
• Vack the Paladin – fight Prince Ardrin
• Stavrak the Warlock – travel the length of the Passage of Tainment
• Yolande - scouting rogue – In the same ring as Ardrin fights Vack, the test is simple; stop a Seedling Warrior from touching her and then leaving the circle. Preventing both is a win, preventing one not the other is a partial win.
• Nimh the half-elf rogue – the simplest but hardest test; explain why she should not be slain out of hand as an abomination.

Khemed's Test

For this test, Khemed is promised that the final blow he receives will be non-lethal. Other than that, it's a case of "go for it" in an all-out battle just to see how long he lasts, with a new opponent being added each round.

The new strain of Seedling Warriors are known as "Ironoak Seedlings", and they are significantly tougher than the original breed. Here's their stat-block;

In effect, this was a test Khemed couldn't lose. He'd had a rough time through most of the Warmark journey, so this was my way as GM of letting him have some fun and blow off some steam. Suffice to say he took full advantage of it, and thoroughly enjoyed himself !

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Vack's Test

Whereas Khemed pretty much couldn't lose his test, Vack's test was more subtle. Prince Ardrin has upgraded to a 10th level high elf warrior, with plenty of magic items and abilities, including a breath weapon. Sadly I can't put his character sheet in here, it uses far too much of Wizards of the Coast's IP-protected stuff, far beyond just what is covered by the Open Game License !

There's almost no way Vack can win against Prince Ardrin. But that's not the point. This test is more about how he fights and how he handles defeat. As a Paladin, he is supposed to fight with intelligence and honour. Vack had been showing far too much impulsiveness throughout the crossing of the Warmark, and this was a chance to show if he'd learned his lesson.

Sad to say, he hadn't. He fought with aggressive, impulsive recklessness, and complained bitterly of unfairness every time Prince Ardrin used a magical item or ability. It wasn't what I'd hoped to see, despite having dropped some very obvious hints before the fight began, and he failed his test.

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Stavrak's Test

This test consists (at first glance) of an ornate paved path ten feet wide. On each side is a thorny dense gorse hedge some 40 feet high.

The brief for the test is to reach the end alive without climbing the hedges, without stepping backwards, and in a reasonable time. A reasonable time is met with the question “well how long would you expect it to take to walk that far ?”

The passage appears to be 160 feet long. It is dotted with traps and puzzles.

• At 10 feet; a 30 foot pit trap, nice and easy to find at DC15.

• At 30 feet, a somewhat harder pressure plate trap; DC18, sets off a volley of poison darts. 6 darts, each requiring a DC20 Dexterity save (or acrobatics) to avoid. Each one does 1 point of damage and 1 point of temporary Dex damage.

• At 50 feet, the main puzzle. The first 20 feet are a large pressure plate, which should ideally be stepped on (DC15 to find). It opens the acid pit beyond. Beyond the pressure plate, a hatch opens, revealing a pile of coloured skulls – gold, silver, bronze, brass, gunmetal and copper. Just beyond are 4 hemispherical holes, nicely skull shaped. The idea is to put a skull in each hole, at which point a tinkling rings in the air, and 10 feet of path with another 4 holes lift up, with gold or silver rings appearing next to the previous effort – gold for right colour and place, silver for right colour but wrong place. The correct answer is bronze-gold-bronze-silver. The puzzle needs to be solved in 8 guesses, or the whole lot drops down into the acid bath, which does 6D6 damage per round. The edges of the acid bath are covered in rollers, making an attempt to climb them a DC30 check. The total length is 120 feet (8 x 10 feet, plus 40 feet at the other end). At the very far end is a pole, on which glowing fiery rings appear for each attempt to guess the puzzle; it rapidly becomes clear it has space for 8 rings.

• At 200 feet is the final puzzle. An invisible wall of force. It’s a DC25 check to spot it before running smack into it (no damage beyond embarrassment). A detailed search will reveal invisible handholds; climbing it is DC25, and it is 40 feet high. The trick here is that an impetuous character might not look for the hand holds, and would forfeit the task by climbing a hedge.

For any who didn't recognise it, the central puzzle is the board game "Mastermind" dressed up in a fantasy setting. Stavrak totally didn't spot this, messed up the challenge, and failed his test.

Yolande's Test

Compared to the previous tests, Yolande's one was very straightforward. A Seedling Warrior would run into the ring and attempt to touch Yolande then run back out again.

I had trouble designing a test for Yolande because she was a new character, having been created as a replacement after the monk Xiang'Hua died. Being so new, she hadn't really had time to show me what she was really about.

As it was, I needn't have worried. Yolande passed the test through the simple expedient of moving so that she could chose when the two closed into contact. Then, choosing her moment, she moved into contact and stabbed the poor Seedling Warrior to death.

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Nimh's Test

At this point, the party stood at two tests won and two lost, with only Nimh to go. There's nothing like putting a bit of pressure on a character to see what they are made of !

This also appealed to me, because Nimh's player had been relatively passive throughout the adventure, mainly because she is less assertive than some of the other players. So this gave her a chance to shine.

I had to remind the others that the tests were a solo affair, as they were already starting to debate and tell her how she should answer.

The question was relatively simple; the Sidhiarans consider half-elves to be an abomination that they normally slay out of hand. So why shouldn't they just kill her ?

I was very pleased to see that Nimh's player rejected all the ideas the others had thrown at her, and came up with a far simpler, more succinct answer.

She simply pointed out that she saw no reason to be punished for the love between her parents, and that she hadn't had any choice in what she was born as. By their logic, if humans saw Sidhiarans as an abomination, why should any Sidhiaran be spared ?

To me, this was an awesome answer and better than anything I'd expected (I had no pre-scripted "right answer", I like to give players a chance to use their brains for challenges like this).

A definite win for Nimh and the party !

To be continued.....