The Palace of Deplorable Depravities (#16/30; #259/365)
"A fungal palace, a palatial manse, sculpted from an enormous fungi colony, and home to a degenerate coterie of Demons, considered even too debauched for their other evil brethren, where steely-eyed guardians guard the palace against those trying to enter, and those trying to leave ..."
Carved out of a single enormous purple gourd-shroom, the palace is home to a malignant Dai-Oni, Mhurkos of the Violet Flame (callous, excitable), who exults in hosting gladiatorial tournaments between press-ganged challengers and his personal stable of mighty Demon warriors. Indeed, under Mhurkos' command for fighting in the Palace Arena, are such hired goons as a Spike Demon, a Skurasha, a Hellhorn Champion, and a Rock Demon. Anyone who defeats all four Demons in consecutive bouts of single combat earns a fight against Mhurkos himself. Win that, and you can name your choice of a prize; lose, and you've probably played the smarter, long-term game.
Enforcing the house edicts of Mhurkos are a strong guard-force of Snakespawn (at least one of which has seen duty alongside the Caarth), while the Palace court itself is split between various factions of Minor Demons, Chaos Demons, and Demonic Servants, who literally, because of the guards, can never leave. Historically, the Palace has vacillated from supporting Qag to Kor and then back again over the long centuries, as it has proven better to pay tribute to one of the Venom Demons, rather than challenge either of them and be destroyed. Nevertheless, spies have alerted the Palace to the abduction of Bisu the Maker God, and Mhurkos is intrigued. Is it a time for continuity, for siding with the status quo (in this case Qag), or is it time to finally play both sisters off against each other, and go for the big prize - an independent dominion?
Ah, the Dai Oni. I remember battling one with my gang of recruits.
ReplyDeleteClassic Hachiman Tourney of the Planes material!
DeleteDo you have any idea what title you might give this if/when you publish it as a book? (I'm interested in making a page on this for the Titannica wiki, so it would be useful to have a name for Category:Name_Here Entries.)
ReplyDeleteAnd do you plan to polish it, in terms of details and clarifications to certain ailments, curses or the reactions of particulalty antagonistic NPCs?
Great questions! Title is completely up in the air at the moment. I was going to call it something to do with the Ciarensia campaign stuff I put up on the old AFF forums, but I've been making it up as I go along and the whole project has wandered off in a completely different direction.
DeleteIt's totally going to need a polish with maps, pix, organization and edits. What do you think needs clarifying in particular?
Currently it's at 88K words, with probably another 32K to go if I finish it on December 31. So that's about 120K which is around the size of Return to the Pit. So it could be a giant RTTP size hardback sandbox campaign kit, or, I could split it into smaller pieces.
What I feel needs clarifying here is whether the arena fights are to the death or not, as clearly the one with Mhurkos isn't.
DeleteMore generally, I feel as though the 'Who has control over the spider-man/death spider curse' thing could be clarified if in a book, just so a DM has it set in stone somewhere (what if he was to forget a spur of the moment decision?)
Arena fight depends I guess on whether Heroes are captives fighting for their lives, or just challenging the Palace fighters to a professional bout.
DeleteI agree the Spider Curse needs clarification, similar to other afflictions in the Heroes Companion.
All this stuff is I guess first drafts that would be edited and refined before compiled into a book or books.
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