I’ll Have a Warforged In the Rocks

Posted by Peter Benchley on October 04, 2013

YOU GOT ANY BETTER SUGGESTIONS?

I'm DM'ing a 4th Edition mid-level campaign in Eberron. The party is in search of a series of Magical Mirrors that are able to block scrying and have peculiar effects on magical apparitions and such within a given radius. They show up as giant blips on the magi-radar, but no one has returned from the investigations. Hence the need for adventurers.

Our Warforged, an Elf, and a Voidsoul Genasi set out after one of the Mirrors. It's in the middle of these woods, or at least that's what the magical void seems to indicate.

The dungeon path was supposed to be a simple one. I dropped several NPC groups for the party to interact with in order to get information about a temple in the middle of a perfectly still lake that sat in the middle of the forest. The NPC’s would to give clues about entering the dungeon and whatnot. The conversations didn’t go as planned and somehow they arrived at the lake with very little information.

I threw an impromptu NPC on a stream that feeds the lake in an effort to get the clues to them, but the PC's aren't interested. They wanted to get to the island and the dead white tree in the middle. One problem. No boat. The PC's consider this for a few moments.

The Warforged, who does not need to breathe and ignores cold, declares that she will simply walk across the bottom of the lake to the middle. In the event of emergency, the other PC's will hold a rope to haul her out if things go badly. A good plan, right?

The Warforged steps off and plummets 500 feet into dark waters, disappearing. With only 250 feet of rope one of the PC's is almost dragged with her, but escapes. The rope follows the Warforged listlessly to the dark depths. Now the Warforged is at the bottom of the lake.

It's become clear that the lake is not natural and climbing out is unlikely to work.

Leaving the rope behind and with a sun-rod in hand, the Warforged starts to explore the bottom of the lake, heading in the general direction of the middle. Up on top, the other two PC's talk to my impromptu NPC gnome and procure his broken submarine in an effort to follow.

They end up on the surface of the lake, also heading for the island. Down below the Warforged has come to where, on the surface, there is an island. Down here it is clearly a huge crafted complex with a big door covered in runes.

The Warforged starts to try and decipher the runes when she makes a perception check. She rolls well and narrowly avoids getting herself attacked by a Steampunk Shark.

A LARGE gear grinding shark that has been patrolling the waters. Very probably the reason previous explorers haven't come back. She's out of her element and he's in his. We roll combat and begin battling. Up on top, the other two PC's are working on the mechanism to open the dungeon from above while below our Warforged fights her shark-like counterpart.

Things aren't going fantastically when our Warforged player makes a decision. "I'll use Form of Winter's Herald".

The flavor text of the spell reads that the spell 'freezes the area around you into solid ice'.

I look at her curiously and she explains her plan. It's clever, so I go ahead with the cast. She doesn't really care if it hits. It's a rather simple concept.

The spell goes off and BOOM we have a Warforged IN the Rock floating to the surface of the lake, the mechanical tail of the shark she was fighting still twitching. It was a lot easier to kill the shark that way, though they did have to be careful chipping the Warforged out.