I've hit a little bit of a quiet time, post-travels and before the Autumn rush, so it's time to begin prepping Felltower again.
We're not done with Vic's side campaign yet, of course, so I have plenty of time before we'll use the setting again. But it will be nice to get back to a world with the Lord of Spite and norkers instead of Orcus and kobolds.
I don't expect to pull out any new side areas this time. Currently active are:
- the Caves of Chaos, which may or may not have gotten some population back. Without the organizing influence of the evil priests, though, it's leaning towards "not." At least not as densely packed with hostiles and loot as before.
- the Cold Fens. All that remains there are trolls, a dragon and its lair, and the giants. Not a good "beginning" area.
- the Lost City of D'Abo. Probably more to do there, but getting there means Felltower or a limited trip centered around the Buyya Daud sect's pilgrimage.
- Felltower itself.
Felltower has undergone some changes since the last TPK. Time has passed and some things have moved in, and moved out. It should be ready for a group again soon, although 250-point guys will have a bit of trouble finding "easy" loot. It'll still be moderate threat low reward if you try to skim loot off the upper levels, which were heavily plundered by all of the previous groups. You'll need to push down to mid-to-high threat areas for high reward. I'm not sure who is up for that, but that's what is there for the taking. The survivors will be rich, as they say.
You probably can populate the Caves of Chaos with some new monsters/enemies instead of the old ones. Maybe the orcs from the Felltower sent a scouting force there. Maybe a necromancer and their minions moved there. Maybe some bandits decided that it is a good lair. And so on. You probably have more then enough low-level monsters to populate the Caves with such factions. And those monsters probably are plundering local villages and caravans and so will have some loot.
ReplyDeleteIf I am not mistaken, the last expedition into the Caves was more than 10 years ago IRL. That's more than enough time for new monsters to populate the area even without any time-skips.
It was 6 years:
DeleteSession 94, Caves of Chaos 10
But yeah, I could restock it a bit. But it would be, at best, 2-3 delves worth of loot and with a cautious party, 4-6 delves total. That's about 15-20 xp tops. The other issue is it's a dead end, since the PCs very thoroughly destroyed the thing that made the area an attractive and safe base for organized evil. I can say, no, they're back, bit it feels a bit like pulling accomplishments away from the past to reward risk-aversion in the present. If that makes sense.
Ah, I forgot about that recap. But even six years is plenty of time for orcs or bandits to move in the Caves and plunder a lot of loot around.
DeleteI am not saying that the evil temple should be back, probably not. But there are a lot of evil creatures from bandits to wywerns that aren't that interested in evil temples and are much more interested in empty caves. Also, isn't the Lord of the Maze still alive?
Even 15 extra xp may come useful during more dangerous expeditions into the Felltower. But IMHO learning how to play as your new PC and how to work as a team with others' new PCs is even more important, Some initial success may also lead to more risky play later.