Planescape - Blood War XXVII. Baphomet's Revenge

I finally posted a session as a podcast. I've been recording these since the beginning.


The Party

(Jessie) Bidam - Black-Scaled Dragonborn Fighter
(George) Theran - Golden Slaad Wizard

Last time, the group helped out the lobster-woman-goddess Blibdoolpoolp in exchange for aid in changing Nocticula's truename.

Nocticula is a demon lord who was under the control of Iggwilv. Changing the truename means that Nocticula is free.

Xanathar's Experiment: I had just gotten Xanathar's Guide to Everything.. I had the group go to a charity auction and play 3-dragon ante with other Sigil "celebrities" (NPCs from Faces of Sigil).

Basically, I wanted to mess with the gambling rules in Xanathar's. For gambling, there's a series of checks to bluff, play your hand, that kind of thing. It worked fine! Better than anything I'd ever come up with.

It turns out the money went to the orphanage that Eo Kaplan the Michael Jackson NPC was building in the mansion that the group owns.

Harpies: Then the group met with their friend, Uralinda, who is right on the precipice of becoming a demon lord. She was able to break up with her demon lord boyfriend, Pazuzu, by not bathing or brushing her teeth for weeks.

The heroes had obtained a big pile of soul larvae. Once Uralinda devoured them, she had the power to become a full-fledged demon lord.

I had been trying to figure out how to differentiate her from Ardat, the official demon lord of harpies. I love the tropical harpies from Jungle Treks, so I decided to make her Queen of the tropical harpies!

Making the Same Mistake Over and Over: The group went on a little side quest to free some tropical harpies from the control of a giant. It took too long and in the end felt like I probably wasted time with it.

Sometimes when preparing, I get a hair up my butt to include an idea like this.It's almost always a mistake.

In around 2012, I decided to run the Temple of Elemental Evil. The group should be about 5-6th level before they go in.

I could have had the group just make 6th level characters, an start them off right at the entrance. I didn't. I spent a lot of time pulling out old classic dungeons and had the group go through them so they could start at level 1 and earn their way up.

That was a huge mistake. Those sessions dragged the whole thing down. I'm running the temple of elemental evil, but the first 7 sessions was weird BS that was barely linked to the main story.

I still have trouble side-stepping these kind of things, mostly because I think either it will go real quick and make things feel more "earned", or I think it will lead to funny stuff, but it doesn't.

I say that, when in doubt, just keep it simple.

Baphomet Again: Then the group decided to fulfill an old agreement with Baphomet, demon lord of Minotaurs. Baphomet wanted to be allies with her.

Nocticula agreed to go meet him. The group forgot that Nocticula's whole gimmick is that she assassinates other demon lords.

They go to Baphomet's maze. Their buddy Bovina leads them through the maze. Nocticula meets with Baphomet and immediately attacks! Baphomet is badly wounded. The battle causes the tower they're fighting in to crumble.

The heroes had to fight a nightmare/minotaur. Bidam ultimately shot lasers through the poor guy's scrotum.

Whoops, Theran's Dead: I had set up the ending of this where the entire tower collapses. The group will need to jump out a window to escape.

You can't teleport out of the maze due to magical restrictions. I figured that since the group is 14th level, they'd have a million ways to handle this.

Nope! Theran failed his DEX check. The tower collapsed on him. No way he could survive! Theran legit died.

I didn't expect that! I stopped the session there to give myself time to figure out what to do next.