For Baldman Games’s Virtual D&D Weekend I was tasked with running the very railroady adventure Nightmare of the Naga. I made several changes to the plot to make it a more enjoyable experience for my players.
The PCs are tasked with going to a Feywild domain ruled by a naga archfey and her consort. Their estate is an opera house, filled with colorful characters. A curse is triggered, and everything is destroyed, and the colorful people perish. The archfey and consort are left in a coma.
Before the curse, I’d established a pair of colorful characters: a harpist with a bad case of sneezing and a harengon reporter for the Kronnenberg Chronicle. When the curse struck, I made it personal for the PCs by affecting their NPC friends.
First, the harpist’s sneezing returned. This time, when she sneezes it works as a thunderwave spell, killing handfuls of pixies in a single achoo. The PC cleric cast lesser restoration to help her out. This was a simple solution but did consume a vital spell slot the character might have used for other things further down the line.
Second, the harengon reporter was in tears because he thought he was cursed. Everyone he interviewed died horrible deaths. He interviewed the pixies who later died when the harpist sneezed. He interviewed a centaur who later died when a chandelier fell on him.
The PCs studied the fallen chandelier, afraid it had been sabotaged. They were quick to realize it had been a tragic accident. However, they were personally aware things had gone bad in this domain.
The wise old woman Sheba instructed the PCs to travel along the naga archfey’s timeline to find when the curse was set in motion.
First, they found the archfey as a child medusa being hunted by hobgoblins. This was intended to be a fun little combat encounter that ate up some time. Instead, the PCs roleplayed. They’d picked up scones from a coffee shop earlier in the adventure and offered the scones to the hobgoblins. With a successful Persuasion roll made, the hobgoblins tried the scones and decided to create a religion worshiping scones. They let the medusa girl be. The medusa child offered to aid the PCs if they ever ran into her again.
Later on, they encountered the teenage medusa at a fancy ball. A handsome gladiator warrior kept making eyes with her but couldn’t get up the courage to approach her. The module described twelve Feywild-themed NPCs to interact with at the ball. The text did not give them personalities or motivations. No way was I going to complicate this adventure with a dozen characters I had to make up.
So, for my prep I chose the characters who appealed most to me. I created a harengon druid who came to seek the archfey’s help ridding her land of the troops of the nightmare king. I created Wink, a satyr who represented his herd tribe that wanted to pass through the archdruid’s domain and have a feast in her honor. I used Ryan Seacrest as the token for this character. For the gladiator Xu I gave him Scatter Pinebrush, a protective swashbuckler brother-in-arms who was afraid Xu would get his heart broken by the medusa.
First, the group interacted with Bal, the medusa. They learned she was interested in the gladiator but dared not approach. They didn’t talk much to the other NPCs. I’m glad I didn’t invest time in developing them further.
They approached Xu and the tabaxi, learning Xu was interested in talking to Bal. The PCs talked about missed opportunities and regret and talked him into approaching Bal. They danced together the whole night, getting to know one another.
My PCs were proud of the hookup.
Next in the timeline the PCs find themselves on a battlefield against the nightmare king’s army. Xu is immediately stricken by a yuanti-ti anathema and killed. Knowing I had a cleric who would be motivated to save Xu, I let Xu live, but secretly was paralyzed from the neck down. I instead announced Xu was at zero hit points and making death saves.
The druid PC used thorn whip to move the yuan-ti away from the dying Xu so the cleric could move in and cast Cure Wounds. The paralyzation was too much to heal. A great battle continued between the PCs and the forces of the nightmare king while Bal held Xu in her arms, trying to protect him.
After the battle, she sought out a hag who healed Xu but transformed the lovers into nagas. The focus of this spell was a stuffed hydra Bal had carried throughout her entire life.
The group was transported back to the Opera House and knew they had to find the stuffed hydra. The PCs consulted the harengon reporter who directed them to Bal’s private rooms, where they stood on a bridge over a pool. At the other end of the bridge was a nest of pillows where Bal normally lay. Instead, they faced an actual hydra.
I maximized the hydra’s hit points, but it didn’t matter. The battle was quick and brutal.
The module assumes the group take the non-cursed hydra stuffed animal back to Bal, now awake with Xu.
Instead, my group insisted on destroying the stuffed animal. I reasoned with the destruction of the item that healed Xu from being paralyzed, he returned to being a paralyzed naga. The fairy tale ending written in the module didn’t happen. Instead, Bal held her paralyzed lover and wept over him. She thanked the PCs for their help, gave them their rewards and returned them to where they had come from.
Sheba awarded them further with coupons for free scones, which made the group very happy.
It took a lot of effort to flesh out the module to make it fun to run, but the players ended up having a wonderful time. And that’s all that matters in the end.
I’m thankful I went the extra mile to add more fun to what was a fairly dry and linear adventure.
