What to do in an Old sith Temple/Grave, Ideas?

By Aldyramon, in Game Masters

My Group is on Onderon' Devil Moon Dxun and I plan to let them stumble over an old Sith Grave or Temple. Some Beast has probable nested in the old ruin, so there is some Encounter.

I Need some Ideas what I could do with the Group once, they are inside the ruin and also what Kind of interesting Things they can Encounter.

thx,

Aldyramon

Hmm... more importantly what don't they want to find? ;)

Lets see what obligations, duties, morality options have they chosen?

Off the top of my head what exactly caused them to stumble across this ruin? :ph34r:

Are any of them force sensitive?

If so you can have them being tempted by a force spirit taking the form of someone they trust.

The spirit leads them to a cache of valuable artefacts the fact they're Sith should naturally make them think twice but if they don't maybe you can use that for later plot hooks with each item possessed by the spirit of a creature slain by the owner of that tomb and they possess the current owner leading to interesting issues if every time their current host dies and the first person to pick up the fore mentioned artefact ends up being possessed... :)

Such places are usually heavily protected, so maybe some Darkside corrupted versions of creatures in the book, add in extra little abilities for resident npc's such as they can reform after say a full 24 hours so your players stick around thinking to plunder the tomb discover its guardians don't stay dead...

Do you have the Force & Destiny Beginner box set?

Use the map for the shrine in there as your Sith ruin only this time round your players are going in blind and quite probably aren't all force sensitive... or Jedi... or even armed with Light sabers... hmm interesting times!

Yea, tie their obligations and motivations into it, assuming this is Edge of the Empire and not FnD or AoR.

Force ghosts, illusions, zombies, traps that work or don`t, ancient functioning and/oror broken guardian droids, poisonous, moldy air, ancient holocrons and swords...

After the game you can give tem extra xp and the option of having become force-sensitive by contact.

Give them a 'Dark Link' kind of battle. The Dark Spirits from the tomb manifest as shadow versions of the party, begin Combat.

Deadly traps of some kind are of course a must-have. Dangerous guardians, possibly some kind of Dark side-twisted alchemically enhanced beasties. And some Dark side induced visions tapping into the PCs' individual negative emotions and giving them ample opportunities for Conflict.

I'd be a little careful about using Duty and Obligation for something like this; those are (in my opinion) more rooted in practical, everyday concerns. Motivations, on the other hand, can be used to great effect here, especially if they incorporate things like Jedi, Sith, the Force, archaeological artefacts and so on.

Vornskrs and Terentateks would be very nasty to run into, and might be likely to be drawn to a place like this, or even intentionally placed there.

Sith crypts seem to be designed with the idea that future Sith would come seeking the secrets left by those who were buried, and were thus designed more elaborately than necessary, with traps or 'trials' for any graverobbers. Lost Knowledge uses Sith beasts as the danger, but I don't recall the tomb having much to it room wise.

An antechamber, the burial chamber, the 'treasure room', a few misleading dead end rooms with some loot. Traps and enemies. You probably don't want puzzles to fall into the category of block puzzles or logic puzzles, but something more abstract that can be solved with a skill check. A locked door. Ancient writing that leads to the solution to unlocking it, and needs to be translated (Knowledge (Education) or Knowledge (Lore)). A lever stuck in a precipice (Coordination). Maybe something like 'platforming', requiring an Athletics checks to cross small platforms to get across a room or to a switch.

If you're not using F&D, the next best thing is probably Explorer. Some Explorer Obligations can work (Addiciton or Fervor, maybe Sponsorship). Archeologist is made for this kind of thing, man.

Other 'feelings'... not Jedi stuff like fear, anger, hatred... I'm thinking physical effects that could hinder the group - nausea, hearing or seeing things not there.

You're not on Hoth.. but take that Wampa, give it dark brown or black fur, rename it. Hey Presto.... new Sithspawn creature ;)

Rename it Hey Presto?

That's what I forgot. Dark Side nexuses work on the non-Force sensitives as well, probably worse, as they don't have the ability to know what's happening and fight it off. It usually seems to drive them crazy after prolonged exposure.

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

It is a Age of Rebellion Game:

my Characters are:

a Correilian Spy - Scout (Duty: Inteligence)

a Alderanien Engineer Saboteur (Duty: Sabotage)

a Human Smuggler - Charmer (Duty: Resource Aquisition)

a Doid Haevy Crab Droid - (Duty: Combat Victory)

Noone is Force Sensitive right now.

So one thing I will do is get some of Onderons History to the Players (Beast Wars, Freedon Nadd etc.)

I like the Terentatek, there are no official Stats for it, right?

Have deceased members of the Alderaanian character's family pop up replaying the last time they met.

Really play up the eery vibe with the darkness closing in when these events happen have them run across someone inside engage them in conversation then have them find their remains making them wonder who they talked to earlier... now imagine it was another PC pass them notes telling them the other is behaving oddly and go from there...

If they talk to each other actually fight against the paranoia give them a boost die to realise they're being manipulated and see what they come up with as an explanation... you never know it could be better than anything mentioned here!

Here's an idea I've been kicking around myself:

Somewhere deep in the temple they find a Sith BBEG. They fight him just like a basic physical combat scenario. Once they think they've finished, he reappears and is entirely immune to physical damage. Their blasters leave scorch marks on the stone walls, but he's a shadow laughing at their attempts. He now uses Force powers like Bind and Unleash and Battle Meditation, sending creatures at them (So the droid has something to do), while hitting them with attacks that deal Strain.

I like Coerce, but Deception would be perfectly reasonable too. I'm thinking you'd be rolling his attack as his Coerce against the PCs Discipline. I'd even throw a difficult Fear check at them once they realize the guy they just killed is up and moving again.

To resolve the "ghost" part of the fight, I think the PCs would combat using Cool or Discipline instead of their typical combat skills.

I guess the droid just fights combat as usual, but I'd put him up against "foggy/misty" creatures. Add some Setbacks and have a couple attacks go right through the enemy, doing no damage.

I like the Terentatek, there are no official Stats for it, right?

Not that I know of, when I used one I ended up using the stats in the back of FaD for the Acklay, and just gave him a boost die to his attacks (since it was fighting a Force-Sensitive, kind of like the Vornskyr have I think). Oooh, I also gave his 'natural armor' the Cortosis quality, since he was fighting against Lightsabers (and they are built to kill jedi).

One thing I’ve found is that nothing feels quite as alien as having artificial synesthesia.

So, they start tasting colors or sounds, and start feeling light, and start seeing or hearing stench. Mix-and-match all the various senses to things that should not be experienced in those ways.

Fear + Hallucinations = Paranoia.

Avoid having your soul sucked out........

Make really awesome Sith red margaritas!

An ancient sith juggernaut of a war machine. When HT is exceeded it shuts down for one round, then regenerates 15+success (resilience check) wounds. It must be defeated through the use of (typically) noncombat skills to disconnect it from controls, power, and disrupt the sith force spirit wibbley wobbley... stuff that makes it work.

Party!

Ok ok, serious answer this time:

They encounter the resurected form of a dead Sith lord...

...wich turns out to be a Jedi pretending to be a sith while hiding from the Sith/ The Empire/ Someone else in the last place they'd expect to look. Sort of why Yoda went to Dagobah.

...and maybe said Jedi isn't as resistant to the lure of the dark side as he first tought, Maybe he's now fallen to the dark side/possessed by an actual Sith ghost/ gone completly crazy...

Row of statues of deceased sith (or revered servants of the sith empire), which contains within their remains, with assorted relics.

The sith typically locked themselves away to become stronger, which may be in the form of studying, like alchemy or ancient lore on sith sorcery; in the form of physical training like creating/searching the strongest beasts/robots to fight them.

The Bane trilogy should give you plenty of ideas if you wish, and they are amazing books as well.

:ph34r: or if you want to screw the party over give a player the gift of orbalisks :ph34r: (warning: results may wary)

Edited by derroehre

Given that you don't have any force sensitives on the team, I'd skip any force ghost encounters in favour of a 'haunted house' vibe. Ancent droid sentries, nesting animals (bonus points for falling through a crumbling floor into a nest of nasties and having to regroup), puzzles where they have to find alternate routes through the temple as walkways crumble, creepy statues that hold secrets and the goal being...some kind of dark side imbued weapon or holocron (raising interesting questions about the motives behind the orders for its recovery).

Also puzzles and traps that read the characters and force them to face their deepest fears. Get in the deep chambers, with no natural light? The lights go out and cue the Empire-style magic tree encounter.

Ever seen the part in Raiders of the Lost Ark, when the bad guys open the Ark? 'nuff said.