Creature Cache Test Drive: Honey Trap of the Planeswalking Soulmaster

The Hanged King cynically founded numerous enclosed orders of nuns, drawn from the widows and orphans created by his endless wars, whose sole purpose in life was to be sacrificed to him and increase his magic power. The Elixir of Life religion was created as a ploy by the Tower of Pain, one of the newly founded Commonwealth’s largest religious corporations, as a ploy to absorb these directionless death cultists who no longer had anything to die for after the King was killed. It was impossible to talk that many religious fanatics into moving on with their lives, the best the Tower could do was offer them a more prosocial cause to die for.

Clerics of the Tower of Pain gain magical abilities through self mortification, offering up their flesh in exchange for power. Elixir of Life Clerics pay nothing up-front, but drawing on the God’s power guarantees they will someday die for a righteous cause. 

 

The nuns of the temple used their powers to provide magical healing, curse removal, clean water and basic literacy programs to the surrounding villages of the Highlands. Then God told them she needed their lives. 

 

THE HONEY TRAP

The Soulmaster hops from plane to plane in search of religious people and institutions to corrupt, transported by his Lizerro slaves and protected by janissaries conscripted from the local populace with Geases. Forced to assist him in his search for lives to ruin and temples to trash, the Lizerros set their sights on a little convent in the forested highlands of the Commonwealth.

Of course it was a trap. The Soulmaster and his entourage Planeshifted in to find the Clerics already dead. The nuns’ mass suicide powered a divine curse which bound the Soulmaster to the site and prevented him or his slaves from teleporting away. Now the malevolent spirit seethes impotently in his new home, sending servitors to harass and terrify the populace while he searches for a way out of his imprisonment.

MAP AND KEY

1: Roof of secondary tower. Sleeping mats, ceramic and metal jugs. Two LIZERROS sun themselves here and keep watch for intruders with an old brass telescope the nuns used for stargazing.

2: Roof of main shrine. Sleeping mats, wicker furniture, empty bottles. Three LIZERROS sun themselves here and keep watch for intruders.

3: Secondary tower. Stacked wax tablets, smaller ream of paper. Charcoal. A couple well-thumbed books. Satchel with 2,500 GP in planar gems - smoky quartzes from Plane of Ash, icy sapphires from Plane of Ice, glittering opals from Plane of Lightning, bubbly green emeralds from Plane of Ooze… Ladder up to 1.

4: Shrine to Elixir of Life. Shining Decanter of Endless Water fills fountain which drains into pond outside. Stairs up to 2. The SOULMASTER lounges here, seething internally at his confinement to the convent. He lit black candles and scribbled over the Goddess’ carvings with prayers to One More Day, God of Necromancy, but without living Clerics to cast reversed spells he can’t actually befoul the place spiritually. 5,500 GP in Soul Eater treasure plundered from other temples.

5: Ornamental pond with walkways. Sleeping mats, folded awnings, water jugs, fire pit. Inside of perimeter wall covered with alphabet and writing practice from literacy program. Thirty one GIANT CARNIVOROUS WATER LILIES in 4’ deep ornamental pond were cultivated by nuns as a security system. They left Clerics and children alone, now they eat anyone who comes near, belching big clouds of syrupy pink gas. The five LIZERROS wait for adventurers to advance onto stone ledges before firing down from roofs 1 and 2 with magic items, using Mirror Image to appear more numerous. Lilies hold skeletons of nuns (tossed by Soul Eater), Limbo Crab exoskeletons (sleep-gassed), and one dead Lizerro (lost his footing) with Small cube of blue metal from Plane of Ice, can form Ice Wall as per Magic User spell once a day.

6: Public area for parents to drop off/pick up children from literacy program, curse victims and sick people to receive curative magic. Trees have all been denuded of tasty vegetation by Ull-ulls. 810 GP in lovingly hand-cut Ull-ull gems buried beneath flat rock by garden shed.

7: Metal grate with water outflow from ornamental pond. Bars easy to squeeze through, danger is force of current and attracting Water Lilies.

8: Steep but well-trod path up to public temple entrance. Six ULL-ULLS graze the slopes around the temple, moving easily amid the rocks and vegetation. The normally gentle herbivores are under a Geas to defend the Soulmaster and convent from intruders, but are working-to-rule to spite the evil spirit. They slowly pick up boulders to toss, giving adventurers an extra round to claim cover before throwing. They’re forbidden to speak with invaders but use hand signs and drawings to warn people away, or about the dangers ahead. If the enchantment is dispelled or reversed they assist adventurers against the Soulmaster, but warn he can only be hit by magic weapons.

9: Waterfall. Cast of nineteen LIMBO CRABS eat detritus and vermin from the undergrowth. The amphibious beasts slipped in with the Soulmaster and his entourage when the Planar portal opened, but were chased out of the temple’s water feature by the Water Lilies. They chase tasty adventurers but won’t stray too far from the waterfall - the real risk is a nasty fall while running away. A Rod of Resurrection containing five charges is wedged between the rocks under the water, thrown away by the nuns before going to their reward.

10: Bothy for overnight visitors to the temple. Open-roofed structure with cloth awnings strung over well-used vernacular furniture. The HARRIDAN lounges fearlessly, cursing anything that comes near, flaunting her 1,000 GP in assorted jewelry. The Soulmaster leaves her alone, she’s already as corrupt as can be and would only be obnoxious as a slave.

11: Stone bridge built by volunteers from nearby villages. The old wood bridge worked fine, but villagers felt it important to demonstrate gratitude. Crossing here risks an attack by crabs from 9.

SOULMASTER

The Soulmaster’s goal is to corrupt and destroy the devout. With the Lizerros as slaves he could move across the real world and the planes at will, messing with the faithful across reality. Until he fell right into the nuns’ trap and got stuck. He physically can’t leave the temple grounds, and his servitors can’t teleport him out. His goal is now twofold.

1. Torment the villagers in the mountains around the temple, whose love for the nuns is almost as offensive to him as the nuns’ love of their god.
2. Break the divine spell holding him and his stupid lizards captive at the temple so he can escape.

Adventurers who fall into his power (because he slaps them with his Geas touch) are first forced to turn on their allies. If they survive the fight he stacks Geases on them, enlisting them as slaves in his further adventures. Clerics and other divine casters get his special attention, but place him in a bind. He wants to make them commit atrocities and lose favor with their deities, but if they lose their powers they can’t drop a Remove Curse and free him from his imprisonment.

LIZERROS

The five Lizerros are slaves of the Soulmaster, Geased to serve as his means of transportation, opening Planar gateways and teleporting him around locally. They didn’t deliberately lead him into a trap at the convent and are nervous about what happens next. They dislike him immensely but without the ability to teleport away they’re chained to a sinking ship.

Besides sabres and javelins, each Lizerro has a magic item from a paraelemental or quasielemental plane 

1. Sticky green rod from the Plane of Ooze. Creates field of slime which immobilizes per Web spell and deals one point of acid damage per round of immersion.
2. Sack of smoky glass beads from the Plane of Ash. When thrown hard enough to break, they turn a 5 by 5 cube of stone into ash.
3. Wand of concentrated light from the Plane of Radiance. Its laser beams deal D10 damage and blind the target for a Turn on a failed save.
4. Crystal from the Plane of Lightning. Can cast Lightning Bolt once per day, has to be charged up for a round before firing. Yes this is the Vortigaunt zap ability.
5. Embroidered silk sash from the Plane of Dreams. When the sash is uncovered, anyone who looks at it is ensorceled per the Illusionist spell Hypnotic Pattern.

If it looks like the adventurers might actually win, the Lizerros yell warnings before attacking and advice for beating the Soulmaster. His touch attack inflicts a Geas and he can only be hit by magic weapons, but he’s Undead and can be Turned, Destroyed, splashed with Holy Water… They can’t use their Dimension Door or Plane Shift powers due to the curse.

HARRIDAN

The Harridan lived in a hut in the mountains, occasionally wandering into town to throw insults and low level curses at people. People tolerated her because she had a working knowledge of arcane magic the temple priestesses lacked, which she was happy to share in the guise of mocking the ignorant. She was always suspicious of the Elixir of Life nuns, whose selflessness and willingness to die for their beliefs challenged her cynicism. She always suspected they were recruiting from the kids they taught, planting ideas in their heads about dying for some stupid mystery religion. And did they really convert to the new faith, or did they jill themselves to sleep thinking about the Old King sucking them dry?

It’s obvious the old hag misses both the nuns and the villagers who came to visit them, even if she finds the Soulmaster and his corruption of the devout hilarious. Serves him right, getting stuck after teleporting around. She’ll help adventurers battle him if she can do so while preserving her self-image as a crabby old woman who hates mewling priestesses and insufferable bastard heroes.

WHY ARE YOU HERE?

…And what are you going to do about it?

• The Ull-ulls descend from the temple, forced by the Soulmaster to kidnap anyone who looks magical from the surrounding villages. The nuns didn’t tell the villagers about the plan ahead of time, but left posthumous instructions on what to do after they Heaven’s Gated themselves. Someone needs to go up there and slay the trapped Soulmaster. And for all the Gods’ sake, don’t let him get hold of a sixth level Cleric to Remove the Curse.
• The Hundred Hands, ever-drunken abolitionist guerillas, also want the Soulmaster dead. They didn’t like the Elixir of Life, with all its connections to the hated Monarch, but their personal feelings don’t matter. Owning slaves is an automatic death sentence in the Commonwealth and, as the Liberator taught them, none of us are free until all of us are free.
• Reagent hunting is gory, often illegal work, which is why it pays so well. Lizerros are full of alchemical components that let enterprising magic users duplicate their dimension hopping abilities. Go kill them and bring back the corpses.

Ken Currie

THE MAKING OF

This is a dungeon I made for the FATAL and Friends thread to show off the Creature Cache. The thread chose five monsters.

• Limbo Crab
• Harridan
• Lizerro
• Soulmaster
• Ull-ull

I used OSE to stock the dungeon.