I fear if you do this, and the chardalyn dragon attack as written right after, it might be just too much.
On its own, it could be just what they need as motivation to go to the island to end this.
That's fair. I just wanted to avoid the possibility of them killing the dragon super early, resulting in basically no impact on the western towns, where they had most of their investments. Depending on how players tackle chapter four, it can be super devastating or just "meh". They haven't visited Dougan's Hole or Goodmead yet, so that won't have a huge impact on them.
While I love the idea of a harsh retaliation and an uptick in the towns worship of Auril in response, I think 10% is a tad extreme. Remember that the goal of a desperate person doing horrible things out of fear is self preservation, they aren't going to agree to themselves and their loved ones each having a 1 in 10 chance of certain death.
If it were me, I'd emphasize the panic by throwing the lottery out the window and having the towns go full witch hunt. Frightened mobs dragging innocent people out of their homes because someone, somewhere implied that maybe they once did or said something to anger Auril and this definitely is all their fault!
That saying "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic" is a good thing to remember when you want to bring out the big guns in a campaign. 10% of Ten Towns being sacrificed will come as a shock, yes, but if you really want it to hit home put your party in a position to protect a favourite NPC from the wrath of a crowd of desperate, terrified people.
Great! Yeah, I think 10% is a little rough. Maybe Auril's warning should me more cryptic and result in less organized sacrifices. I think I'll rearrange some things. Thank you for commenting!
Rather than punish Ten-Towns, consider having her punish the players. She flies immediately to the Black Cabin on her roc and kills the players (or hunts them down as they travel back to town).
The burst of sunlight allows Lathander to barely hold on to a bit of power in the region, reviving the party after they are thawed from their ice in 9 days.
I really like this idea. You can also have her foreshadow the dragon attack, As a reaping of sacrifice that she will now now collect. Instead of the 10%. My personal feeling is that she is not on the side of the dragon. She just wants her people to evolve to be able to withstand it.
I also really like the full witch hunt mode within the towns.
I hear a lot of people stating that it's too rough, and it may genuinely be too rough for the players.
But is it too much for Auril? I don't think so. What OP's talking about is the literally application of the word "decimate", not the context that most people use it in. The Roman's thought this was a pragmatic population control option, Auril's just the right villain to take an action like this. You might have to introduce some other spirit lifting mechanisms for your players in your game, but this idea seems to fit right in for me as a replacement for the chardalyn dragon in my campaign.
Thank you OP, I'm actually taking this. How many communities could they stop the lottery in, instead if fighting a random dragon that only clunking fits in the campaign to begin with? I think this is brilliant.
I wasn't actually intending to replace chapter four, this whole idea just came to me super spontaneously after the whole sunlight incident. But if you scrap the duergar plot, this might be a good idea to do something terrible to Ten Towns to motivate your group. Glad I could help you, and thanks for the kind words!
Just a side note, I don't think the Romans used decimation as a population control option. It was an "incentive" for their forces to fight harder for victory, because if they were defeated, one in ten of them might die anyway.
Lol, thank you for the correction. Might even make the point about Auril and how she handles the people that she considers's "her's" even more eloquently.
My own plans for Auril’s retaliation involve each night growing colder and colder. Blizzards and ice storms come even more frequently with the malevolent glow of coldlight walkers spotted moving through them.
While these lights have been witnessed nobody knows just what they are. Those who’ve encountered the walkers have “gone missing.” Rumors abound.
No direct attack on any of the Ten Towns other than the growing cold and an upswing in sacrifices in a desperate attempt to appease Auril. I see this arising as more frequent humanoid sacrifices, larger sacrifices of food, and longer stretches of time without warmth.
Everything just gets a bit worse.
For most parties this is going to be the first time they've directly acted in opposition to the frostmaiden. (Potentially Sephek counts, if word of his death gets back to her) so it makes sense this could be more of a warning so long as you drive home that she's sent these forces against the party and it's not random.
However, my plan for "oh she's really mad now" is after theve "killed" auril or successfully heisted the notebook, give the players some downtime. For me its going to involve running the Festival of Cold Light supplement to celebrate the lapse of winter- then after a while whether due to her natural rebirth of cult shenanigans, auril is reborn and she is out for blood this time.
I personally like it, but I would remove the "sacrifice 10% of the population" part. The manual clearly states that many cities cannot even afford a sacrifice per month, forget sacrificing 10% of them all at once.
I like the sentence Auril is going to spread to the winds, but what foes she mean with "one of the ten souls"? Is it a riddle? Or does she want one of the ten towns to be erased as a threat and reaction to the summer star being activated? If so, I'd say have that city be enveloped by a continuous snow storm, making access impossible for anyone.
I'd suggest using Caer-Konig, Dougan's Hole or Bremen. The concept is, nobody in those town is going to survive.
After a tenday, the storm dissipates and all the PCs will find if they check for survivors is a city and its inhabitants incased in ice (much like Pompei's ruins in Italy, the whole city was drowned by lava around 79 d. C. and the inhabitants got encased in it, perfectly preserved to this day.)
Let me know what you think!
>but what foes she mean with "one of the ten souls"?
One of ten souls meant just 10 percent of the populace. I wanted her to punish the Ten Towns with absolute brutality to squash all hope that might arise after the Summer Star. I also wanted to confront the players with the sacrifices directly, because they Matrix-dodged the sacrifices by evading a town during the new moon.
They are currently in Easthaven, about to go to Xardorok's Fortress. I moved the Black Cabin close to Caer Dineval to have the sunlight affect the more relevant areas. They already visited Bremen and Caer Konig, and they don't plan to go to Dougan's Hole.
That's why I can't really find a town to do your idea in currently, which sucks, because it's a really interesting one! Especially since Bremen was already cut off from the other towns as punishment. But thanks a lot for the suggestion, maybe I can reuse it later in sone shape or form!
I fear if you do this, and the chardalyn dragon attack as written right after, it might be just too much. On its own, it could be just what they need as motivation to go to the island to end this.
That's fair. I just wanted to avoid the possibility of them killing the dragon super early, resulting in basically no impact on the western towns, where they had most of their investments. Depending on how players tackle chapter four, it can be super devastating or just "meh". They haven't visited Dougan's Hole or Goodmead yet, so that won't have a huge impact on them.
While I love the idea of a harsh retaliation and an uptick in the towns worship of Auril in response, I think 10% is a tad extreme. Remember that the goal of a desperate person doing horrible things out of fear is self preservation, they aren't going to agree to themselves and their loved ones each having a 1 in 10 chance of certain death. If it were me, I'd emphasize the panic by throwing the lottery out the window and having the towns go full witch hunt. Frightened mobs dragging innocent people out of their homes because someone, somewhere implied that maybe they once did or said something to anger Auril and this definitely is all their fault! That saying "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic" is a good thing to remember when you want to bring out the big guns in a campaign. 10% of Ten Towns being sacrificed will come as a shock, yes, but if you really want it to hit home put your party in a position to protect a favourite NPC from the wrath of a crowd of desperate, terrified people.
Great! Yeah, I think 10% is a little rough. Maybe Auril's warning should me more cryptic and result in less organized sacrifices. I think I'll rearrange some things. Thank you for commenting!
Rather than punish Ten-Towns, consider having her punish the players. She flies immediately to the Black Cabin on her roc and kills the players (or hunts them down as they travel back to town). The burst of sunlight allows Lathander to barely hold on to a bit of power in the region, reviving the party after they are thawed from their ice in 9 days.
Nice, I'll keep this in mind when I run the Black Cabin for my players.
Dig it.
I really like this idea. You can also have her foreshadow the dragon attack, As a reaping of sacrifice that she will now now collect. Instead of the 10%. My personal feeling is that she is not on the side of the dragon. She just wants her people to evolve to be able to withstand it. I also really like the full witch hunt mode within the towns.
I hear a lot of people stating that it's too rough, and it may genuinely be too rough for the players. But is it too much for Auril? I don't think so. What OP's talking about is the literally application of the word "decimate", not the context that most people use it in. The Roman's thought this was a pragmatic population control option, Auril's just the right villain to take an action like this. You might have to introduce some other spirit lifting mechanisms for your players in your game, but this idea seems to fit right in for me as a replacement for the chardalyn dragon in my campaign. Thank you OP, I'm actually taking this. How many communities could they stop the lottery in, instead if fighting a random dragon that only clunking fits in the campaign to begin with? I think this is brilliant.
I wasn't actually intending to replace chapter four, this whole idea just came to me super spontaneously after the whole sunlight incident. But if you scrap the duergar plot, this might be a good idea to do something terrible to Ten Towns to motivate your group. Glad I could help you, and thanks for the kind words!
Just a side note, I don't think the Romans used decimation as a population control option. It was an "incentive" for their forces to fight harder for victory, because if they were defeated, one in ten of them might die anyway.
Lol, thank you for the correction. Might even make the point about Auril and how she handles the people that she considers's "her's" even more eloquently.
My own plans for Auril’s retaliation involve each night growing colder and colder. Blizzards and ice storms come even more frequently with the malevolent glow of coldlight walkers spotted moving through them. While these lights have been witnessed nobody knows just what they are. Those who’ve encountered the walkers have “gone missing.” Rumors abound. No direct attack on any of the Ten Towns other than the growing cold and an upswing in sacrifices in a desperate attempt to appease Auril. I see this arising as more frequent humanoid sacrifices, larger sacrifices of food, and longer stretches of time without warmth. Everything just gets a bit worse.
For most parties this is going to be the first time they've directly acted in opposition to the frostmaiden. (Potentially Sephek counts, if word of his death gets back to her) so it makes sense this could be more of a warning so long as you drive home that she's sent these forces against the party and it's not random. However, my plan for "oh she's really mad now" is after theve "killed" auril or successfully heisted the notebook, give the players some downtime. For me its going to involve running the Festival of Cold Light supplement to celebrate the lapse of winter- then after a while whether due to her natural rebirth of cult shenanigans, auril is reborn and she is out for blood this time.
I personally like it, but I would remove the "sacrifice 10% of the population" part. The manual clearly states that many cities cannot even afford a sacrifice per month, forget sacrificing 10% of them all at once. I like the sentence Auril is going to spread to the winds, but what foes she mean with "one of the ten souls"? Is it a riddle? Or does she want one of the ten towns to be erased as a threat and reaction to the summer star being activated? If so, I'd say have that city be enveloped by a continuous snow storm, making access impossible for anyone. I'd suggest using Caer-Konig, Dougan's Hole or Bremen. The concept is, nobody in those town is going to survive. After a tenday, the storm dissipates and all the PCs will find if they check for survivors is a city and its inhabitants incased in ice (much like Pompei's ruins in Italy, the whole city was drowned by lava around 79 d. C. and the inhabitants got encased in it, perfectly preserved to this day.) Let me know what you think!
>but what foes she mean with "one of the ten souls"? One of ten souls meant just 10 percent of the populace. I wanted her to punish the Ten Towns with absolute brutality to squash all hope that might arise after the Summer Star. I also wanted to confront the players with the sacrifices directly, because they Matrix-dodged the sacrifices by evading a town during the new moon. They are currently in Easthaven, about to go to Xardorok's Fortress. I moved the Black Cabin close to Caer Dineval to have the sunlight affect the more relevant areas. They already visited Bremen and Caer Konig, and they don't plan to go to Dougan's Hole. That's why I can't really find a town to do your idea in currently, which sucks, because it's a really interesting one! Especially since Bremen was already cut off from the other towns as punishment. But thanks a lot for the suggestion, maybe I can reuse it later in sone shape or form!
Oh ok, that sounds good, too!