MPNP Forest of the Id
The Forest of the Id is a challenging, high-level adventure module that has players facing off against a nameless Shade, confronting it inside an evil forest, and (hopefully)killing it. The adventure was inspired by Michael Muranaka.
ok so the idea with this dungeon is each player gets shipped off to their own chamber of horrors
Contents
Enter the Forest
The locals have directed your party to the haunted forest, in order to "investigate". The forest is full of blood beasts and other dark monsters. The locals have lit several ceremonial pylons all over the forest in order to keep the darkness at bay. If you wish to confront the shade, your first task will be to darken these pylons.
Read Aloud:
"While exploring the city you come upon a patch of pristine woodland. Not much, perhaps 100 acres, with trees and brush so thick that you cannot see daylight within it. It is surrounded on all sides by dense urban sprawl, with no indication as to why this small patch of land was spared. It is clear from a cursory glance that it has never been built on or wood cut from it. The road wraps all around the forest, with perhaps a 20-foot stretch of dirt between it and the treeline. Trash and discarded refuse fill about the first 10 feet, but it is clear no one will dare venture closer to the forest than this."
If the players question the locals, give them the following:
"It's been there as long as I can remember."
"It's evil. When they built the city, they just built around it."
- furtive whispers* "A shade lives there..."
Eventually one of the older locals will tell them: "At night you can see five war crystals within the woods. They hold the Shade prisoner... but the shade is merely guarding a greater evil."
If pressed, the elder will tell the characters that the shade was trapped there "over a thousand years ago". The phylons that trap the shade keep it between our world and it's own domain. In our world, it is deadly and invulnerable. If a single phylon is broken, the shade will escape, and wreck havoc on the city. But if all 5 are shattered, the way to it's domain will be opened. They can fight the shade there, and win. But then they would be forced to face an even greater evil...
- Note: no one in the city is the least bit interested in venturing in to the forest or hiring a band of adventurers to go in. If the players try to get money out of the elder he will stop talking to them.
Darken the Phylons
The forest is a maze of narrow paths and small clearings. Each clearing is a potential encounter.
Encounter creatures:
- Blood Boar
- 8/5, 4-star, deals 2d8 damage, 60 HP, 4 stars
- Blood Rabbit
- 5 attack dice, 10 dodge dice, deals 1d6 damage but attacks 3x per round. 20 HP, 1 star
- Blood Donkey
- Only appears on 1/4 encounters, 7 attack dice, 2d10 damage, 8 defense dice, 140 HP, 6 stars
- Blood Tiger
- Maybe only 1-2 of these for entire dungeon, 10/10, deals 4d6 damage and attacks 2x per round, always has at least 5 defense dice
For each encounter, roll some dice for boars and rabbits, they'll run in to a few of these.
Enter the Darkness
Once all the Pylons have been darkened, the party will be ambushed by a horde of blood beasts. It would be wise to find a defensible position. This is an invasion-style battle, in which mobs will keep spawning for a series of "rounds". Once the battle is complete, the way into the shade's Domain will be opened.
Battle the Shade
The shade is very powerful. On every attack against the shade, players must first flip a coin. If they loose the flip the attack doesn't happen.
The Shade begins with 8 attack dice and 15 defense dice. On a hit, roll 1d6:
1. 1d4 Str damage - note the players Str and weapon prof, reduce AV accordingly 2. 6d6 damage 3. 1d4 reduced AV 4. 3d12 damage 5. Target is immobilized for 1d6 rounds. 6. 1d6 rounds blindness
The Shade will move around quite a bit, changing targets at random. He also has the following activated abilities:
- Silence
- Disarm
- Knockdown
Confront the Id
Once the Shade is defeated, the party must walk the path to the domain, along the way, party members will randomly disappear, locked in their own private prisons. Each prison will include some unique challenge for the character to survive. At the end, whoever is left, must enter the domain and face the Id.
Once the party has been separated, the WorldShaper will roll 1d6 for the survivor. On a 1, he encounters the Id. Each time 5-6 is rolled, the other party members each get one chance to try and escape their various prisons. If a 1 is rolled before anyone escapes the last survivor will be forced to face the shade alone, and each round of combat, the other players will receive 1 chance to escape.
Prisons
In standard MRPG form, each room will be themed elementally. Note: with the exception of the Wind room, the kill everyone changes don't start until the final character reaches the Id.
1*Earth The character is presented with a puzzle and a riddle. The ceiling starts lowering down on them. If they fail to complete the riddle in time they will take 6d6 damage per round until the phylactery is broken. The character is trapped in a room with a locked door and presented with a low alter containing 3 identical pots, and a rock to break them. An inscription informs the character to "choose wisely, one pot contains the key, and only one pot speaks the truth."
Each pot is inscribed:
Pot 1: "The Key is not in this pot."
Pot 2: "The Key is in this pot."
Pot 3: "The Key is not in the second pot."
The key is in Pot #1. If they break any other pot, the ceiling starts coming down.
2*FIRE The character is presented with another riddle while being suspended by their wrists and swinging back and fourth like a pendulum. On one side of the swing, they are over a cauldron of boiling oil; on the other, over the raging fire the heats the cauldron. The character is presented with writing scrawled on a wall: "Speak the words and choose your fate. If the words you speak are false, you will be boiled in oil. If the words you speak are true, you will be burned in the fire." The correct answer is for the character to say "I will be boiled in oil." - if they really did fall in to the oil, that would make their statement "true", but since a true statement gets them burned in fire instead, they will simply be let free. If the player refuses to make any statement, when the Id is encountered, the oil in the cauldron will ignite and they will take 6d6 damage per round until the phylactery is broken.
3*Wind The character finds themselves trapped in a box. The box is small and non-descrypt, but has 3 switches on the wall in front of them. The character must turn all three switches to the Up position, which will open a hatch in the ceiling and allow him to escape. If at any time all three switches are turned down, the floor drops out and the character takes 10d10 damage and is left with broken legs.
4*Water One room has water that is steadily rising towards a small hole in the ceiling. The character must plug the hole or drown. In case the water overtakes them, they will take 6d6 damage every round until the phylactery is broken.
If a character dies in their challenge, the phylactery breaks on its own. This dungeon is special in so far as the bodies will never be recovered, players will have to roll new characters.
Battle the Id
The Id takes the form of a mirror duplicate of the last character. To win, you are essentially fighting yourself. During the battle, the character will have the opportunity to break the Phylacteries of the other party members, thus freeing them from their prisons and allowing them to join the fight. If the Id is destroyed before all of the Phylacteries are broken, the other characters will remain imprisoned until the nameless shade has been destroyed.
Rewards and XP
If the players fail to defeat the shade, no XP should be awarded. Plus, they should probably die trying, so there's that.
If the shade IS destroyed, the characters will have the opportunity to break the Phylacteries of any that are allies still trapped.
Normally I've been giving the players about 1 level per adventure(because leveling faster seems like more fun to me). This one is hard enough that I think it'll earn them 2 levels.
Let've give them some real power on this one.
"Upon defeating the Id, you examine the chamber and determine that the piles of detritus along the walls are in fact the remains of many adventurers who came before. Upon defeat, their bodies were simply rolled into a corner and left to rot. Today, nothing remains beyond bones and the remnants of their equipment."
If the players take the time to sift through the piles(hey, "if"), they will find:
- Gold and jewels worth (party level x 1000)
- Precious metals amounting to:
- 25 Ingots of Silver
- 13 Ingots of Star Metal
- 4 Ingots of Dragonite
- 5 Quantum Crystals
- 20 Gemeralds
Most of the gear is not salvageable, but they will find a few specially items:
- The Arch Light
- Very Fine, +3 Shortbow, enchanted with Light III(Damage = 4d6 + 3d8)
- Amulet of Intelligence +3, Fine Spellbook
- Ring of the Silver Concord
- Enchanted Silver Ring - once per combat, you may activate this ring as a free action to clear the cool down from one spell.
- Elixir of Hot-Iron Weapons, Resin of Damage.
- Bracelet of Negate Attack
- Enchanted Bracelet with 3 charges. Each Charge negates an incoming attack, making it as though it never happened, and restores 1d4 Defense Dice. Charges refill at a rate of 1x24 Hours.
