Damon Kars was an exercise in rolling up a random high level evil wizard and making him as ruthless and horrible via amoral exploitation of his spells as possible. Also his lair sat atop an alternate entry to the megadungeon.
Horrible things he pulled off
1. Reading players minds and stealing some fatty loot from the dungeon before they could get it
2. Flying after the players invisibly until the party wizard mentioned he was out of spells and then spamming charm spells from midair
3. Turning captured (and subsequently retired from play) characters into NPC minions
4. Casting invisibility on a pet basilisk so that it could be safely handled but as soon as it attacked the invisibility dropped and threatened to petrify any would be attackers
The players never killed him in his cathedral (which isn't much of a dungeon so much as a regular old building), but scryed on him for like a week to plan an assassination while Damon was in the dungeon (with his Basilisk and dudes of course) trying to charm some Trolls and ended up tranquilizing him with space drugs and then slitting his throat anyway on the way out when a water nymph asked what they were doing with her friend, getting a bounty placed on their head by said nymph for their troubles. But they killed him despite all his no-good tricks and while the fight itself wasn't much, I think it was satisfying to finally outsmart and outmaneuver an intelligent enemy who had been an infrequent but deeply troublesome thorn in their side. It was for me at least.
Damon Kars- 7th level elf magic user, is willing to parley with adventurers for his own ends. Has charmed various bandits that strayed next to his keep and outfitted them with decent equipment emblazoned with his heraldry. Will try hiring adventurers to bring him monsters or people, which he will imprison and repeatedly attempt to charm. Will gladly add adventurers to his charmed horde if they seem easily tricked (8 or less int) or are unwilling to recognize him as ‘lord’ of the region. If his horde of bandits and charmed monsters grows large enough he will dominate the nearby Bandit Cult and begin leading attempts at ‘rescuing’ slaves from the penal mines in an effort to gain a population of peasants to oppress and perhaps to overthrow the Praetor. It’s not impossible that he could succeed, but unless he acquires something truly astounding like a Dragon he will likely chicken out of a full rebellion.
He will gladly hire adventurers to try to retrieve the second basilisk from the XXX, but forays into the XXX from his fort while he is ‘Friendly’ will result in him demanding all treasure be turned over to him as he is the owner of the cathedral and its ‘Basement.’ However, he will offer them rewards if they bring him captured monsters (or people), and could be a handy spellcasting patron for very unscrupulous parties.
Routinely charms a basilisk and keeps it in his throne room on a chain- but turned invisible daily and charmed weekly, so as not to petrify himself or his men. His throne also has a huge mirror behind it, so as to further discourage the basilisk from looking at him. He spoils it horribly, and it is fat and lazy and probably wouldn’t attack him even if it wasn’t charmed. But he’s not taking chances. He likes monsters but knows they don’t necessarily like him.
If attacked he will unleash the basilisk, cast flight, get out of range of any fighters, then charm person on anyone with a bow. If he can charm most the party he will ‘forgive’ them and send them on a dangerous ‘quest of redemption’ to try to get the other Basilisk’s treasure from the dungeon beneath the cathedral. If his charm spells fail or he takes damage, he will fly out the broken stained-glass window. If he is not badly hurt, he will cast invisibility and return to try charming the party as they (presumably) fight the basilisk, otherwise he will rouse his guards and watch them fire slingstones down at the party from the 2nd floor. If both the basilisk and his troops are defeated he will try to get half the gold from his room (he’s too weak to carry more, I rolled for his stats and they were all like 7), if it is too dangerous he will abscond with his pouch of gems and try to hire mercenaries or bandits to kill the PCs. If this fails and he is without funds, he may vindictively try to blind PC’s with Continual Darkness in invisible flying raids, though he is probably too cowardly to go for a kill himself.
His bandits initially had their leader either charmed or killed, but most work for Damon willingly out of fear or respect for his sorcerous powers. He has cast Continual Light on their spears and all over the castle, making it constantly day and making the scruffy-looking bandits appear to have supernatural support. Damon and his men wear blindfolds when they wish to sleep, as darkness and shadow only exist 60’ from the cathedral due to Damon casting multiple Continual Lights every day for many years of his elvish life.It can be seen as a glow on the horizon at night, which serves as beacon to his men and bait to unwary travelers.
Damon Kars
HP 15
AC 10
Medallion of ESP (Damon’s master made this)
Map to Pelicat Nest in Mountains
Ring of Delusional Weakness
Gem of Giant Growth +5 str
Garnet of Remove Curse
1500 Silver
560 PP
Filigree Golden bracelet worth 600GP
20 gems 3xCloudy75GP 4xWell-Cut200GP 13 semiprecious 50gp
Charm Person xxx
Read Language
Detect Magic
Magic Missile
Continual Light/Darkness
Locate Object
ESP (never memorized thanks to medallion)
Invisibility xx (Always has cast one use already on Basilisk in the morning)
Detect Invisible
Fly
Water Breathing x
Charm Monster (Is usually expended before bed on the basilisk once per day)
Remove Curse
BANDIT TEMPLE OF M'SHESH
M'shesh is a goddess of undeath who thinks death was a stupid and cruel idea, so her afterlife is just her holding all the souls of her worshippers in her arms until her clerics can breathe them into a handy corpse to live on as an undead. I'll probably talk more about her in a later post, she was fairly popular with the players and was a big deal in the campaign.
In anycase, this place wasn't really dealt with 'as intended' because the players unleashed a succubus in the megadungeon below, had lethal party infighting over whether they should make deals with demons or not, and the as the party reconvened and recovered the Succubus left the dungeon and took over the bandits/M'shesh cultists, the demonic charm-revolt causing the deaths of about half the bandit/cultists and all the undead, and leveldraining the high priest down to level 1 while trying to convince him to turn to demon worship. This all allowed a player to end up as new high priest of M'shesh and ultimate savior of the M'sheshan religion, but I never actually got to see how the dungeon was supposed to work, which was 3 layers with some weird connections, loops, and organized humanoids mixed in with sentient and crazed undead which I hoped would lead to complicated sneaking around and maybe some faction infighting if the players unleashed the basement ghouls.
Oh, there's a trapdoor in the corridor from 1 to 4 that drops you into the maze-catacomb of 8. The fall is only 10 feet but you'll probably be eaten by ghouls down there.
And Yellow=Top Floor, Light Blue=Ground Floor, Dark Blue=Basement
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