#it is not chill to hoard loot or to take things from other pcs and that's honestly what this situation feels like.

[cloudprincesslady]

i'm sure a million people have already said this sorta thing but goddamn this is the most frustrating hour of critical role i've ever watched

[dungeonmalcontent]

How to kill exactly one PC

I run a campaign with a weird system of emerging dungeons that sort of sprout up in the setting and then get pulled away after a short time (sort of roguelike system). The players will generally be able to find a temporary dungeon if they want and every now and then a new one will present itself if they’re in the right place at the right time.

This is the story of how one of my emerging dungeons killed exactly one player, and that was the player that stood the most to gain from the treasure.

So my party of four (plus one npc) had ventured back down into the lair of an opaline grub, a horrifying large acidic parasite aberration. It had already killed an allied npc and it was hoarding an alchemical reagent their employer needed.

While they managed to kill it, collect their magic mushrooms, and find some interesting loot in it’s small nest of bones, there was still more of the monster’s cave to explore.

The cleric and sorcerer (who had healed herself and not taken hardly any damage, respectfully) took it upon themselves to venture down the last burrowed corridor of the final chamber of the cave. That is where they found the door to the vault.

Engraved with draconic runes for a faded warding spell, the steel vault door was already interesting and different from what they had experienced thus far. And already having found evidence of dragonborn in the monster’s pile of leftovers, it was a safe bet that some of the inhabitants of the dungeon were already dead. It didn’t hurt that the knowledge cleric had read up on some dragonborn cultural information and noticed that this vault looked a lot like a royal bunker used by certain clans.

It was a unanimous decision to explore the vault. This party is always hungry for gold and loot they can use to get stronger items.

After a short rest and a temporary goodbye to their lizardfolk fighter npc friend, the party made their way into the vault. The foxfolk fighter was trying to lead the way with his warpick of warning, but he was two steps behind the excited knowledge cleric who is dragon-obsessed. It was a short trip through the door before reaching a modified version of the infamous countdown room.

The room is designed to psych the players out—put them on edge, but never hurt them. While my own performance as a DM might have been a little lackluster (due to a 0 performance modifier), the party didn’t take long to figure out what they had to do. While the room became more hectic, they just had to take the boon it gave them and move on (in this case potions of fire breath) after the countdown reached 0.

Beyond the countdown room was the throne room. The bunker was a royal safe-house of sorts. About as close to a dragonborn chieftain would ever get to having a room for hoarding their treasure like a real dragon. The guards were long dead, corpses resting against the walls and pillars along the room. Their “king” had trapped them all in the room and they had all starved to death, the kind included.

They found the king’s remains on his throne. A large object made of solid gold and adorned with dragon bones, obsidian, and other pieces of volcanic glass. It had faded from it’s former glory, but as the cleric and sorcerer slowly discovered, it seemed to renew itself as they affected it with spells. However, it didn’t reveal its secrets with an identify spell... and the more they interacted with the throne to try and learn its secrets the more it began to affect them. The throne, a mean artifact I had homebrewed, had its base qualities as outlined in the description, but also a few that weren’t so apparent until later.

It had been charming them.

Slowly, as they looked at it and renewed its sheen, it began to look more appealing to the whole party (minus the fighter, who had very little interest in wealth and worldly things beyond what he could use to hit things with). Not just the sorcerer and cleric, though, but also the half-elf gambler.

While he hadn’t been interacting with the throne all that much, his innate greed had sparked a connection with the magic of the throne right away. It was perfect for him and he wanted it. All three had failed Wisdom saves, and all three knew that the person who sat down in the throne would be amazing, someone to admire as a king with power beyond all others. And so it began. The party’s first real PVP combat; a race to the throne.

This would be a good time to talk about a feature that I like to use as a DM. I want my players to have the opportunity to get their way out of bad situations when their dice fail them over and over again, so I let them design legendary actions. Whenever they do something wonderful, creative, and funny, they get a point of DM inspiration they can use to take their legendary actions.

All three players had inspiration to spend.

So while the cleric ran up first, she was interrupted by the sorcerer’s chill touch spell that put a ghostly skeletal hand between the throne and the cleric’s rear (in a pretty funny butt grab that, in hind sight, is really worth an inspiration), and just as they thought they were going to duke it out alone the gambler stepped in. Both the sorcerer and cleric were stunned in a rapid Gambit style assault and the gambler made his way to the throne.

One of the strange things about the throne is that it requires attunement. While the normal way of sitting down in it and syncing with it’s magic over a period of time works just fine, there is a secret second way to attune to it: to spill blood fighting over it and be the first to sit down. Of course, if you get knocked out and damaged, the person who damaged you can sit in the throne and attune automatically as well. And the gambler, as he sat down in his throne, attuned to it and gained everything he had wanted from it.

As soon as the gambler attuned, the charm effect wore off, and the whole party paused for a moment. And then the sorcerer set off her legendary action, a powerful charm, directed at the gambler. Even in a combat scenario he was helpless to resist, and was talked out of the throne.

At this point both the sorcerer and cleric knew the throne was very dangerous, and the gambler was not happy about losing something so perfect for him. While he was charmed, he was still not being “controlled,” and like a pouting child, threatened the actual child sorcerer if she didn’t let him keep the throne.

The sorcerer was fairly confident she had diffused the situation, and as she called the fighter over to escort the gambler away the cleric triggered her legendary action.

The cleric knew that the second the charm wore off, the gambler would try and kill the sorcerer and go back for the throne before the dungeon disappeared for good. She knew that the gambler had to either be put in place... or die. Abyssal green tendrils licked up around the gamblers feet, burning him with acid and holding him in place as the cleric’s spiritual weapon battered him from the side. The cleric had been rolling poorly all night, and her inability to do anything had been building up into a rage against the one PC she had (only in character) disliked. While the gambler had survived, both he and the cleric had gotten down to very low health.

The fighter backed off, not sure what he had gotten himself in to and the sorcerer panicked. Storm sphere went up, and the cleric and gambler went down. Death saves were made. The gambler got back up on a nat 20 and went straight for his throne. He had gone unconscious and the charm had finally worn off. In his rage at being manipulated and knocked unconscious, he used his fire breath from the countdown room to roast the cleric, forcing her to lose another death save.

The fighter, who had been torn until this point, finally took action. He was deeply conflicted with the situation. While he was very powerful, he viewed himself as more of a protector than a killer, and he knew that killing the gambler was wrong... but he was more protective of the sorcerer and cleric than he had been of the gambler. He made three attacks, dual-wielding, the first missed. The gambler was down and losing a death save... and then the fighter used his action surge and spiked the gambler to the throne with a warpick, pinning the half-elf where he had wanted to be the whole time.

The party stabilized the cleric and left immediately. They were mostly lawful good, and they had just killed a party member (albeit a chaotic evil one) and left him where they had found the remains of the last greedy dragon king. Dead.

The Throne of Dragon Greed is a fun tool. It shows the players who they really are and makes for a great catalyst to weed out the party members that aren’t trustworthy. And while this incident ended with the death of a player, it also led to some of the best roleplaying I’ve ever gotten my players in to. I’m beginning to think that the monsters that I put them up against are nowhere near as fun as the monsters they keep among them.