[4e] What's in a troll king's tomb?

[DeeCee]

I just have to say that I love the idea of a fey-tainted troll king's tomb.

Perhaps you could have the room in which his body was stored be completely upside-down? Gravity would work in opposite in that room alone, so that characters would have to be careful when entering.

Mushroom rings would be good too. The oldest/most pronounced of the rings would be directly around where his body lay. If 4e has an equivalent (or you could make one up), they might possibly be campestris.

I like the halfling preserved in honey bit.

If they're D&D-style trolls, I can't see them leaving many treasures or anything for their dead, but if they're Norse trolls the chamber might be rich indeed.

You might also have preserved specimens of other enemies, placed in the tomb so that the king would have something worthy to fight in the afterlife. Bog-mummified Black dragons (maybe an egg or two?), overly large crocodilians, will'o'wisps in cold iron cages, maybe even a shambling mound that's been twisted/preserved in some way. In this scenario, you'd have all the treasures in the tomb be based on what the PCs could extract from these specimens/sell on the oddity market.

[Gaffa]

While we're giving awesome ideas to the OP, here's a few other plot considerations to consider if the OP wants to keep the original plot points from the module (of course, that shouldn't stop us from giving him awesome ideas that can and should change the original storyline to something, um, more awesome):

Deep background story: There's an Eladrin realm called, um, Celdruin, or something like that. Fancy-pants elven city in the Feywild, engaged in the usual endless eternal war against some unnamed formorian kings deep in the Feywild Underdark.

The formorians get together and make a bunch of powerful artifacts, including a potent wizard's orb, and then bottle up a powerful subterranean magic spring in a nasty artifact-style well, turning it into a Cauldron capable of granting eternal life (at a cost).

The Unseelie fey manage to lead a powerful troll warlord named Vard to their hidden well and artifact cache. Vard, being a troll of simple and direct means, decides the best way to use the items is to bathe in the Cauldron and then ram the wizard's orb into his eye socket, thereby (painfully) giving him magical powers, including the ability to raise himself from the dead and an anti-teleport magic field (useful when you're fighting eladrin). He also has a big glass orb that shoots fire for one of his eyes.

Vard uses his new-found might to conquer a lot of wasteland, and becomes Vard, king of Vardar, lord of all trolls. Vard isn't totally stupid, and knows who buttered his toast, and agrees to ally with the formorian kings who provided him with his magical artifacts. Among other ways of cementing this alliance, the dark fey gift him a powerful Throne that lets Vard access the Feywild, so he can regularly bathe in the magical Cauldron of undeath (he wears the Eye, but the Cauldron is stuck in the Feywild cavern where the spring it is bottling up is located). Vard happily declares war against Celdruin from the mortal realm, while the formorians continue their advance from the Feywild side of things, which apparently was the formorian plan all along.

Celdruin survives; in fact, no information is given on how the battles went (obviously badly for the villains). Vard eventually dies a final death through unknown means. Many of his closest troll subjects and advisers are so tainted by Fey energy that they become shadow trolls--not-quite undead who find themselves trapped in an eternal not-life haunting the tunnels around the Cauldron in the Feydark. Vard's Throne is left in the mortal realm, while Vard is buried (along with his Eye) in the tomb the OP was talking about in one of Vardar's troll cities by his loyal troll subjects who haven't been cursed with Feydark status.

Centuries pass. Trolls being trolls, without the powerful leadership of Vard, Vardar falls into ruins within a decade, and remains that way. Humans come to settle on the area near the gate to Celdruin, name it Moonstair, and enter into a peaceful if remote friendship with the eladrin realm on the other side of the gate. Nerath arises, conquers Moonstair, retains peaceful relationship with Celdruin; Nerath falls, Moonstair goes back to being a neutral city. Trolls fester in swamp.

Cut to current day. Another troll warlord in the vast wastelands of what used to be Vardar hears whispers in his head that lead him to the Tomb of Vard, which he plunders, and steals the Eye from the skull of Vard. Following an apparent troll racial requirement to slam huge gems into your eyesocket, Skalmad gives himself an artifact Eye as well, and sets out to reforge Vardar.

The Eye leads him to find Vard's old fey-touched Throne, which gives him access to the Cauldron, still bubbling away after all this time. Skalmad bathes in the Cauldron, meets up with a few formorians (who interestingly claim to be all behind Skalmad, and say nothing of Vard), and begins trying to reclaim Vard's old lands, starting with Moonstair, which is where our PCs come into the game.

What we find out is that Vard used Fey magic to tie his soul into the Cauldron, so every time Skalmad used it to cheat death, his body and soul became less and less Skalmad, and more and more Vard. Assuming the players kick Skalmad's ass the appropriate number of times, in the final battle in the Cauldron room in the Feydark the party finds Vard himself rising from the Cauldron; Skalmad doesn't realize until the last moment that his soul was nothing but a tasty snack for the *true* troll king.

So, while both troll kings were being used as patsies in a Cold War effort by the formorians to try to take out Celdruin, in the plot of P1 Vard is probably the major antagonist, as it was his influence reaching out from the Feywild to enchant the mind of Skalmad and make him take more and more insane risks, to the point that Skalmad would be forced to use the Cauldron and allow Vard to be reborn. Skalmad does have a few formorians working for him, who apparently are in on the plot but are pretending to be all pro-Skalmad (while waiting for the Cauldron to eventually restore Vard).

[larqven]

Gaffa's plot seems full of all kind of awesome! Fomarian plots would be great. I'd almost like to see the troll be more mentally stable than the goofy fomarian backers!

Like the idea that trolls may just live until they die--usually by fire, acid, or suffocation!

Should be "Fomarians" right? Aren't the "Formarians" the interdimensional ant people?

[Njorhg]

Originally Posted by larqven

Should be "Fomarians" right? Aren't the "Formarians" the interdimensional ant people?

Fomorians, usually.

I like the map!
One thing though - the rooms seem to have been placed randomly all over the place, it is neither in a space-efficient design or otherwise logical.

Perhaps the tomb was created from a natural cavern?
If not, it could be a repurposed ruin, where the chambers once were a laboratory, storage area, or barracks what with the many adjacent rooms.

Tombs have a tendency to be angular and build to fit around other structures, if it was built in the middle of nowhere and lies underground (which is the feeling I got, with the door-hallways) you should go all-out with ante-chamber, if nothing else the rooms should be as symmetrical and open as possible.

[drnuncheon]

Originally Posted by larqven

Should be "Fomarians" right? Aren't the "Formarians" the interdimensional ant people?

Formians (from formicidae, the scientific name of the ant family) are extraplanar ant-people.

Fomorians are the original inhabitants of Ireland from Celtic myth. In earlier editions of D&D they were hideous, misshapen giants - since it sounds like 4e links them with the Feywild it may be moving closer to their roots.

[Four Color]

Bait and tackle?

[Gaffa]

Originally Posted by larqven

Gaffa's plot seems full of all kind of awesome!

Well, thanks!

But it's not my plot. That's the plot of P1, as given in the adventure. Well, the pre-adventurer bit of the plot. I was just listing it so we can see what other storyline hooks the OP has to work with.

I'd almost like to see the troll be more mentally stable than the goofy fomarian backers!

That'd be interesting to do. You'd have to rewrite stats a bit, and change characterization -- Vard was more than happy to be a tool to gain the fomorian magical power, and Skalmad's just a putz as written--I mean, he's being outsmarted by *Vard*, who is not only another troll, but also dead. When a dead troll is outsmarting you, you've got some brain to grow.

Like the idea that trolls may just live until they die--usually by fire, acid, or suffocation!

I wish the adventure went into the shadow trolls who were banished to the Feywild. They serve Vard, not Skalmad, and have the Shadow keyword despite living in the Feywild, and are incorporeal but not undead. Very intriguing critters.

Should be "Fomarians" right? Aren't the "Formarians" the interdimensional ant people?

Fomorians are named after the Gaelic (Celtic?) giants who were led by their great king, Fomor (thus, y'know...fomorians). Formians are the giant ant people from another world. And they're damn easy to typo over each other.

[Gaffa]

Originally Posted by Njorhg

Tombs have a tendency to be angular and build to fit around other structures, if it was built in the middle of nowhere and lies underground (which is the feeling I got, with the door-hallways) you should go all-out with ante-chamber, if nothing else the rooms should be as symmetrical and open as possible.

Good points.

Of course, the tomb was made by trolls, who are barely smarter than the average Congressional representative, so that might make for a strange map.

I can easily see them repurposing an already-present natural cavern or rift.