The Lifebane Campaign

I've been posting conversions of old Monte Cook adventures here a few weeks now, and I've been thinking about the overall story. A reader emailed me the other day and helped me piece the whole thing together.

The overarching story comes from Labyrinth of Madness, an epic 2e adventure for characters level 17-20. I've always seen it as sort of the "ultimate D&D adventure." I ran it once 20 years ago, and my players bailed out after experiencing 1 room. I've been waiting to run it again ever since.

Here is the plan for my Monte Cook 5e "Lifebane" campaign as it stands right now:

• (lvl 12) A Question of Ethics (5e conversion here)
  
• (lvl 12) The Harrowing (5e conversion here)
  
• (lvl 14) Mysteries of the Dead Gods (5e conversion here)
• (lvl 14) Demon God's Fane (5e conversion is almost ready to be posted)
• (lvl 16) Limbo adventure based in part on the Great Modron March - The lifebane's chaos boost is destroying a githzerai city.
  
• (lvl 16) A Paladin in Hell
• (lvl 18) Tales of the Infinite Staircase - the lifebane is destroying the Staircase.
  
• (lvl 18) Labyrinth of Madness

The Lifebane

The overall threat of this campaign is the lifebane - a sentient, invisible force of chaotic evil. I'm going to run it sort of like an evil version of The Force from Star Wars. It's everywhere. Invisible. Slowly corrupting all of reality toward chaos and evil. 

This means that, throughout the campaign, the lifebane effects will grow stronger and stronger. The lifebane is detailed in the Labyrinth of Madness:

• Madness: People slowly become more cruel/ruthless/devious.
• Corruption: Bodies slowly change, gaining scales/snake tails/snake heads.
• Divination Spells: 25% of being altered, manipulated by the lifebane.
• Summoning Spells: 75% chance a creature summoned is controlled by the lifebane.
• Healing Spells: 50% chance that flesh healed by magic becomes scaly and snakelike.
• Boosted Spells: Feeblemind, Symbol: Insanity, and Tasha's hideous laughter. (boosted = disadvantage on saving throws?)
  

I'll slowly roll these effects out. I'll probably implement the boosted spells effect right away, and I really like the "magical healing gives you scaly skin" idea. The divination also seems fun flavor. 

The Umbral Taint: I plan on folding the umbral taint, a similar concept from Monte's Demon God's Fane adventure, into the lifebane as well. The umbral taint basically creates demon insects that attach to your back and turn you chaotic evil, forcing you to do horrid things.

The Sigils

In Labyrinth of Madness, the group needs to acquire 20 sigils. Once they find a sigil, they touch it, and it becomes a glowing tattoo on their body. The heroes will eventually have a "a sleeve" of ten tattoos on each arm. 

In the adventure, the sigils are necessary to get through the dungeon. Certain objects and places don't exist to people who don't have the sigils.

For my campaign, I'm having it where the entire multiverse is infected by the lifebane, and the multiverse's "immune system" creates the sigils as a way to give certain people an advantage to fight back and avoid being corrupted.

In my campaign, the multiverse operates by the three Great Truths from the Planescape setting:

Unity of Rings: The Unity of Rings principle also means that what goes around comes around, that good deeds will be returned with other good deeds.

Rule of Three: This is based on something that seems to be a phenomenon in the Multiverse, that everything comes in threes: there are three cosmic truths (Center of All, Unity of Rings, and Rule of Threes).

Center of All: There is a center of everything—or, rather, wherever a person happens to be is the center of the multiverse. 

In my campaign, there are characters that actually are the embodiment of these laws:

• Unity of Rings: A baby of Theran (from my Planescape campaign) and Blibdoolpoolp.
  
• Center of All: Lilia from my Dungeon Academy campaign. Wherever she stands is literally the center of the multiverse.
• Rule of Three: Bidam the dragonborn from my old Planescape campaign.
  

I don't have it all worked out yet, but basically these three are generating the Sigils. They can sense the lifebane and the threat to the Multiverse. The lifebane obviously will want to incapacitate them so it can spread unchecked.

Powers of the Sigils

by Dan Frazier

The Sigils are detailed on page 7 of Labyrinth of Madness:

• They must be touched to activate.
• They appear like permanent tattoos on your arms - 10 on the left, 10 on the right
• In the adventure, the sigils must be found in order. If you touch one out of order, it does not appear on your arm.
• Without the proper sigils, certain objects don't even exist. For my game, I'm saying that the sigils let the characters see and use things that will help them fight the lifebane.
  

The Room of 20 Doors: The Sigils also come up in an epic room in Labyrinth of Madness on pg 60 - The Room of 20 Doors. In this area, there are 20 doors, each of which has one of the sigils on it! Every single one of these doors leads to nothing but a wall! Except that Door #4 has a secret panel with a latch that can be used to activate a ladder that goes up and out through a field of magical darkness. Door #15 causes the whole room to rise up, bringing the group to the next area.

I am planning on using this room as a sort of guide as to what each sigil might do. I am thinking that, in my campaign, when a character acquires a sigil, it allows them to use a spell-like ability one time. Then again.. that might get out of hand really quick.

Each sigil has a corresponding number. Here is a list of the sigils, their effects in the Room of 20 Doors, and my ideas on the possible spell-like ability they grant to a character:

1. Glyph of warding (lightning)
2. Silence
3. Glyph of warding (fire)
4. Darkness
5. Curse: Magic items don't work while you touch them!
6. Mummy rot!
7. Polymorph into a snake.
8. Glyph of Warding (cold)
9. Summons 4 harmless snakes
10. Teleports you into a cage in the ridiculously deadly beholder room.
11. Symbol of Death!
12. Blindness
13. Magic arrows shoot at you
14. Paralyzed for d4 hours.
15. Entire room raises 20 feet and is submerged into darkness.
16. Acid Spray
17. Another Symbol of death!
18. Disintegrate!
19. Drains the magic from one magic item on your person.
20. Symbol of Death again.
    

Sigil Effects: I am struggling over whether I should give the sigils special effects that can aid the heroes. I definitely want to say that heroes with sigils are protected against the lifebane. They won't be corrupted, they don't turn scaly, etc.

But I really love the idea of having the sigils give the characters some sort of boon that mirrors the detrimental effects in the Room of 20 Doors. The problem there is that the group will probably become overpowered.

Maybe I should have the sigils offer some sort of small boon, such as giving themselves advantage one time (even that seems like way too much).

I prefer the idea of something more flavorful. Maybe they can use the sigils to reverse lifebane effects? Each sigil grants a one-time ability to remove scales, or to turn a corrupted person back to their normal self, or to negate the disadvantage on a Tasha's saving throw?

The Other Adventurers

by Dan Frazier

One of my favorite things to do in D&D is to create a band of rival NPC adventurers. This is actually baked in to the Labyrinth - a band of rival adventurers are the ones who accidentally released the lifebane in the first place!

They are now in the Labyrinth, all partly transformed into yuan-ti, corrupted by the lifebane.

I dug through the book and listed them all. Each ends up as a yuan-ti half-breed in the labyrinth.
Some of them have "serpent rings" (rings that look like a snake eating its own tail) which gives them special access to the labyrinth.

• (pgs 29-30) Daergul: 8th lvl fighter - has a dysfunctional relationship with Yquis
• (pgs 29-30) Yquis: 10th lvl mage - has a staff of striking and dust of appearance - has a dysfunctional relationship with Daergul
• (pg 40) Tarrana: 9th lvl fighter - has a girdle of giant strength - meditates
• (pg 40) Erthane: lvl 9 cleric - worships Aertthun the titan/empyrean, has a gold mace
• (pg 53) Renn: 10th lvl rogue - has 5 beads of force - loves exercise
• (pg 53) Llanoir: 7th lvl mage - has a wand of illusion - a good artist
  

They summoned a "titan" aka a 5e empyrean, who is now deep in the labyrinth doing evil stuff.

I am thinking that the group actually meets these scallywags prior to their entry into the Labyrinth. I like the idea that they are the new heroes of Port Nyanzaru, who have won some dinosaur races, just like this group had done in my Tomb of Annihilation campaign.

What's Next? I should have the conversion of Demon God's Fane up soon. I have noticed that Monte Cook has a few other favorite monsters: Bodaks and Succubi. I am thinking of taking every succubus from each adventure and making them some sort of group.