After treating their wounds the party headed out of the banquet hall to explore the rest of the building, but when they opened the banquet doors the entrance hall was not empty. While they had been fighting the Wraith and bandaging their cuts a hoard of undead had rallied and gathered in the lobby, Hogar knew exactly what he was looking at, vampire spawn and decrepit skeletons.
Initiative is rolled
Knowing exactly what he was dealing with Hogar and Diefenbaker slide around the doorway and move into an advantageous position to release a pair of arrows in quick succession. Both found their targets and drop two of the spawns to the ground. With the vampires not even hitting the floor yet Rodney summoned his cone of fire emanating from his hands, two minions managed to move quickly enough evade the fire, but one of the vampires and a skeleton were not so lucky. Moving out from the banquet hall Vicrael looked up onto the balcony above the party and saw a foe even he hadn’t encountered before. A robed mage with three faces, each one a flaming skull of different colour rotating into view as the previous one disappears into the mages hood.
As the blue flame stuck Minron and pushed him into the wall the main entrance door flung open and four dogs rushed in. These were not the only foe the party had not seen initially; from underneath the stair scuttled two kruthiks. Both their flesh and the hounds were putrid and barely clinging to the bone. Even with the holes in their tissue Hogar still eradicate a hound and another vampire with a pair of arrows. Not to be out done by the half-orc Rodney also wiped out a zombie dog and a vampire with a thunderous sonic wave that lashed up from the ground flinging them backwards as they crumpled. Having seen the awesome power that the skull mage possessed Glen headed towards the stairs to take him out, but in his way were the two undead reptiles. Not being able to manoeuvre past them Glen twice swung at the pair of them both connecting with the intended target. The first kruthik felt the full force of the dwarf’s axe blade but the second did not escape hurt as the urgrosh cleaved into it.
With both Vicrael and Eligos failing to hit there foes Minron smashed a hounds head with the flat of his shield while Hogar, seemingly unable to missed, took out another wolf and a skeletal archer. Spurred on by his current form with the bow Hogar he drew two more arrows, again both found their marks. The first felling another archer and the second causing a kruthik to rive in pain.
With only the kruthiks and a skeleton stopping the party from reaching the undead mage both Rodney and Glen unleashed the full force of their powers on the kruthiks. Rodney iced both of them with some enchanted rays while Glen hacked and hewed them. With the primal power of the ram coursing through her khopesh Eligos hit a now bloodied kruthik, as she did so thunder stemmed from her blade ripping the other kruthik apart. Minron finished off the depleted kruthik, but the mage raised another vampire and struck out with his elemental orbs. Hogar killed off the remaining minions leaving the stairs free for Glen and Eligos to advance and swipe at the mage. Neither of their advances dampened the mages resolve, but once Minron’s horns knocked him to the ground the party quickly dispatch him. Vicrael, finally finding his target, displaced the black skull from the under the mages hood with a cursed arrow before Hogar’s sword and Glen axes took out the blue and red. As the last skull fell to the ground the mages cloak flattened as if the skull’s energy was holding it together, the skulls then each rolled off the balcony though the gaps in the banisters. But inches before they hit the ground they all conjoined at flew though a previously locked door.
DM Points
Monsters: 1x Skull Lord (L6 Artillery leader), 5 x Vampire Spawn (L5 minion), 4x Decrepit Skeleton (L1 minion), 4x Rot Hound (L1 minion), 2 x Kruthik Young Zombie (L5 Brute) – 1100 xp Level 4 Encounter.
Map "Entrance Hall" Created map, see picture below.
When I first looks through the Monster Manual at undead enemies one jumped out at me as something I wanted to use, The Skull Lord. He looks as If he would boss the battlefield, striking two opponents and endlessly raising minions from the grave. Therefore this was the first encounter I created, even before I knew it would be in a mansion. I originally had the skull lord straight out of the monster manual, therefore a level 10 enemy, and had him surrounded by level 1 minions to account for his massive 500xp he carried. But when we played a Christmas encounter over the holidays the then level 3 characters really struggled to hit the level 7 and 8 enemies I added in. So I ran the skull lord through the monster builder to lower him to a level 6, this gave me and extra 250xp. As the skull lord can raise monsters up to his level +2 I added some vampire spawn (L5) I also added in some non-minions as protection for the Skull lord. These first were Boneshard Skeletons, but when I read through Open Grave and saw that there were Kruthik zombies I swapped them straight over as I thought they would give a creepier feel. On reflection the Skull Lord’s raise dead is very slow. The party were killing about 5 minions per turn so raising one did not slow them down very much at all. This was mainly because the minions were such a low level. If I had put a few level 8 minions in there way they would have killed one or two a turn, and with one coming back every round would have been a lot more effective. Also the zombie weakness of the Kruthiks meant they were not very good blockers, and when they fell the encounter was pretty much over.
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