Return to Witherhelm

I am running my first session of Dungeons and Dragons since my brain injury, which is a little scary. I am somewhat confident things won't go completely off the rails in a boring way.  All the main NPCs were killed in battle and the entire world as the PCs know it has descended into anarchy.

So, the party is going to raid a wizard's tower. A few short weeks ago they saw this wizard take a fireball to the face and fall out of the sky. The halfling rifled through his corpse. Now they are heading to his house to continue looting.

The wizard's tower is in the middle of the biggest known city. Where two of the characters are from. I have done very minimal prep on this city and the characters in my campaign have very minimal backstory (On average we have one death every session so why bother).

So, what happens if the PCs want to go to a bar or speak with their old friend or visit their dad or whatever? There is no info about the characters or the city really.

So here's the rule:  Anything the characters say about a connection they have in the city can be true. They just have to pass a charisma check. There will be modifiers for more powerful potential patrons.

Here are the modifiers:
Regular shmoe  0 (artisans bartenders etc.)
Important schmoe -2 (local politicians, fences, bookies, notable lotharios)
Shmoe who would be worth more than 10,000gp -4 (and an additional -4 for each 10kgp)
person with class levels -1 for every level

Frostgrave Scenario: The Flame Imp

I've been playing a fair amount of Frostgrave. As people who play Frostgrave know over the course of a campaign it can happen that one Wizard will become much more powerful then the others. I started thinking about ways that scenarios that could compensate for this by disadvantaging more powerful wizards.  Here is an example of the kinds of mechanics I have been thinking about.

A Pillar of flame shoots down from the sky nearly killing Red Rogo. After the smoke clears Rogo finds himself locked in combat with a flame imp.

THE FLAME IMP

For weeks you’ve had to swallow your pride and subsist on the scraps of Felstad. Your rival has been kicking you around and amassing power and decimating your warband. You’ve had to resort to underhanded tactics. It was by chance you heard of small fiery demon that hunts powerful wizards and eats their spells. All you had to do was let it be known that you would be heading out for your rival to follow you into Felstad. Little did they know that you were leading them into a trap!

Setup:

            Setup the board and place treasure tokens as normally. Place the flame imp in the center of the table. Make sure the flame imp is obscured by plenty of terrain.

Special Rules:

	Move	Fight	Shoot	Armor	Will	Health	Notes
Flame Imp	3	+2	+0	12	+1	12	The Flame imp has two sets of behavior: before it has killed a spell-caster and after. They are detailed below

Before the Flame Imp has killed a Spell-Caster:

If the flame imp is in base contact with the highest-level spell-caster within 12”, it fights that spell-caster.

Otherwise, at the start of the flame imp’s activation, select the highest-level spell-caster is within 12” of the flame imp irrespective of line of sight. If there are two spell-casters of the highest level, select the closest one. For the purposes of selecting a spell-caster, an apprentice counts as being 10 levels below his/her wizard. If there is no spell-caster within 12” the imp moves in a random direction, but will stop before leaving the edge of the table.

The selected spell-caster makes a will roll against the flame imp. If the spell-caster wins then nothing happens. If the spell-caster loses, the flame imp casts elemental bolt on the spell-caster and teleports into base contact with the spell-caster. No casting roll is needed.

 After the Flame Imp has Killed a Spell-Caster: 

            Once the flame imp kills a spell-caster it will use both it actions to head towards the nearest board edge in the shortest path possible. It will climb over any obstructions. It suffers no movement penalty for climbing or rough terrain. It can travel over any normally impassible terrain.

            If the flame imp is killed after it has killed a spell-caster its model is not removed from the board but is treated like a treasure token and can be picked up.

Bonus Experience and Treasure:

            A warband that kills the flame imp before it has killed a spell-caster gets 50 xp. If the warband whose spell-caster was killed by the flame imp, secures the flame imp corpse they get 80xp and there are no further effects.

If the rival warband secures the Flame imp corpse, the rival wizard can choose to consume the flame imp corpse. In that case randomly select a spell from the dead spell-caster list of spells. The wizard can add that to his/her list of spells. The spell has the same casting number as that of the dead spell-caster. If the dead spell-caster had a higher casting number than the wizard nothing happens. Also, flame imp tastes bad.

 For example, Lord Swampbone’s apprentice is killed by the imp. His rival, Kerf Merklin’s warband kills the imp and carries it off back to Kerf’s base. There, Kerf Merklin consumes the body of the imp with a healthy amount of wine. A spell the dead apprentice knew is randomly selected. It’s push.  The dead apprentice needed a 10 to cast Push. Kerf now has a push roll of 10. His apprentice however still does not now know Push. Lord Mandingus still knows Push with a casting roll of 8, but if his apprentice can no longer cast Push! He will need to secure a new grimoire to teach it to him! Salty!