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So, just looking at the stats for things in Tower of Quetzel, it seems impossible for PCs to beat her...especially if one of them touches her gem.

The players need the magic items in many cases to get to her, but this basically requires killing the NPCs (who won't be hostile or aggressive), which seems like my players will fail at the first hurdle.

So how does a party get what they need from the two npcs without being horrible (I know for one they can drink the poison but that will probably kill said PC) and how can they defeat the demon queen once she becomes active?

We ended last session with the PC’s entering the throne room of Quetzel... They picked up the demon bone sword which will come in handy for sure.
They also got the ring (transforming the bearer to a bird) and the ”Feather knife”.. but at least in the swedish version of Quetzels spire, those two items will turn into hostile enemies while fighting Quetzel..

They are four PC’s (half-elf druid, warrior dwarf, hunter human and rogue halfling) and this will be their 6th session (2 spent in the spire, 3 spent in the hollows).
So far they have managed better than expected!
A lone glas tiger in the silver mace was no match for the warrior dwarf with a flail (breaking his favourite war axe turned out to be a lucky move).

On Tuesday I will know if Quetzel herself will bring them to an end!

Please tell me how it goes!

How did they get the artifacts from Quetzel's fragments?

My players have around 40-50 xp so they are fairly powerful, but I'm still looking at the fight against Quetzel...with one of them possessed and the magic items turning on them and just have a hard time imagining how they can possibly come out on top.

So, I had this scenario a couple of weeks ago. To tell the truth, I had my doubts as to how it would play out, being such a dangerous site. Turned out it was both interesting and really fun to run and, according to my players, also to play. I had more thoughts as to how I would make the site come to life and describe it in an intriguing way. See this here thread for how I did that: viewtopic.php?f=104&t=6823

Now, we've played biweekly sessions for more than a year and a half, and so far, none of my players have died so they are quite powerful and they have found at least one magic or master crafted weapon each. I do believe one of them has an enchanted helmet as well. (We do run a quite low fantasy, dark and gritty game so they are not overburdened with magic and powerful artifacts though) Oh! And they have the Stanengist and decided to use that in the throne room as well, which I pretty much had to wing when it came to Q attacks but it worked out quite nice. It was a powerful debuff to her magic. It didn't nullify her magic though. It is HER world after all.

In the site they found only the feather blade dagger, which turned out to not be as helpful as they had hoped. I did hint them to the fact Q had removed "weaker" parts of herself and that a mysterious orb or sphere might have had anything to do with that. This was two sessions before entering the throne room with Q and nothing I mentioned more than in passing, but as soon as they saw Q in the throne room they knew not to take what would have possessed one of them. Now, I don't believe they would have taken that even if I hadn't mentioned anything about it earlier. They are much too experienced in playing RPGs to fall for that. It's quite obvious a trap after all. They tried to destroy that thing while it was resting still in its original place and thanks to that, we still had an interesting encounter...

Well. For the parts before the throne room, getting what they need to get past the maze and the garden, I really don't enjoy the approach that was hinted in the adventure. I ran it and tweaked it where I had to. I didn't do any modifications beforehand but was confident my players would try something interesting, they're resourceful like that, and then just ran with it. They found the garden first, which I found worked out really well. At first, Quet-Scyre was reluctant and wouldn't give them anything but my players gave me a whole bunch of compelling arguments and asked, much in character, her to help them. Now, I do appreciate that my players seldom resort to violence and they try everything else before charging in, so I tend to reward that behavior. I also don't care much for the whole "save or die" thing. I think it doesn't contribute to the story very much. So after a really long RP scene, with good, compelling arguments and a few good dice rolls for manipulation, she handed over what they needed. The next part was the maze and, except a few tigers, the hard part was to make the site feel fresh and interesting for the time it took them to find the center of it. When they got there, well, Quit-Faeren ran away so the PCs just let her. They had what they needed and didn't want to harm her. I missed the opportunity to use Argento though so I had him around the neck of Q in the throne room instead and as her first action after wakening, she tossed him into the air...
Now, Q is quite powerful and I kept her at 1 action (1 fast and 1 slow) a turn, which was enough to make this an interesting fight, what with Argento, the feather blade and she also brought the shadow of the party "tank" to join... That was fun! Said my players not!

So, it might not be what you wanted if you do like the adventure as written or the let's-roll-up-a-few-extra-characters-every-game-because-PC-death-is-fun approach. My advice is to be lenient and think of what makes for a better story. Describe situations, even hard ones, to your players and make them come up with a way of solving them. When they do, if it makes for a fun or interesting story, maybe call for a roll and then just get on with it. Quit-Scyre is after all described as all together good and friendly and to me, a being like that would be more susceptible to compelling arguments than to someone committing suicide... And! As my players vowed to Quet-Scyre not to wake Q up if she would hand over what they wanted, I didn't feel any quilt when the PC got a -1 to all his rolls because he broke that promise. He heard a faint, distant, sigh of a woman, broken hearted when she realized the first man that came her way broke his promise to her so easily...

Best of luck running this site and I'm looking forward to hearing how it played out.

Please tell me how it goes!

How did they get the artifacts from Quetzel's fragments?

My players have around 40-50 xp so they are fairly powerful, but I'm still looking at the fight against Quetzel...with one of them possessed and the magic items turning on them and just have a hard time imagining how they can possibly come out on top.

The demon bone blade was found in the burnt city, and I was actually being a generous GM for once and didn’t roll on the table.

As for the ring the halfling-rogue stole it, thereby turning Quet-Scyre(?) into a bird! This played out so good that I gave them a break from her bodyguard-birds.
He then put the ring on himself by some ill-thought reason and shifted into a magpie.. while the rouge was confused in this form, the dwarven-warrior picked up his pouch with silver coins. The best part was that the player of the rouge didn’t pay attention to this happening and he is still to discover it!

The rogue was the only one who got paid for this adventure, through the dream as per proposed in the scenario (due to player sickleave when the others ”traveled”, see below*). The dwarf had his greedy eyes on those silver coins since the rogue digged them up outside the tower..

*The rest of the group was dragged/willingly jumped through the raft created by the ”66 magic mishap”, caused by the druid. - Thank you for this inspiration for this @MrOldtimer! I got this from the thread you posted. Probably saved me from a night on the couch due to the druid is played by my wife!

As for the session on Tuesday I can forsee two different scenarios playing out:
1. They have some clues and the discussion between them have touched destroying the jewel. The dwarf would easily cause the required 4 in damage.. Then there would be no fight at all.
2. The dwarf is a greedy bastard and the one most likely to grab the jewel. Then we will have a serious battle with bad odds for the PC’s! Fortunately the druid is the 2nd best fighter and she is carrying the demon bone blade.

On another note: I ruled that finding their way through the maze required 10 successes on Survival rolls (with maximum +1 from coming up with good strategy such as drawing a map or ”always turn rifht”). Each roll taking a quarter hour (the burn time of a tourch). Not knowing how many rolls they had to roll, but aknowledging their supply of tourches this caused quite some tension!
I also had them roll for Scouting, and rolled a D6 each quarter hour to decide if there was a glass tiger nearby. They choosed not to sneak, otherwise a success would have saved them from tiger attacks.

On the ship I ruled that 10 successes on Might was required to crank the door up (with possible +1 for help from one). I also ruled that they got 6+D6 rounds before the ship sunk to far (the might roll was a short action!).
As for the attackers I ruled that they had to success with pushing the PC’s twice, the second push over the rails. The PC’s ended up throwing the attackers over the rails instead, but they were not without fear!

(Sorry if I got any of the words/namings wrong, we are playing by the swedish books)

Please tell me how it goes!

How did they get the artifacts from Quetzel's fragments?

My players have around 40-50 xp so they are fairly powerful, but I'm still looking at the fight against Quetzel...with one of them possessed and the magic items turning on them and just have a hard time imagining how they can possibly come out on top.

*The rest of the group was dragged/willingly jumped through the raft created by the ”66 magic mishap”, caused by the druid. - Thank you for this inspiration for this @MrOldtimer! I got this from the thread you posted. Probably saved me from a night on the couch due to the druid is played by my wife!

You’re welcome. I love the way technology help us all tell better storys like this, by sharing, discussing, talking things over. GMing is hard, especially since you’re often alone with your thoughts. It’s quite a difference from when we started out all those years ago...

I’m glad to read how your players got what they needed from Quet-Scyre. Not everything needs to resort to violence.

Anyways. I like the way you handled the maze and ship. I did the whole maze a bit different as per the other forum thread. I basically did what you did on the ship though. For you who hasn’t yet run this part: Don’t forget to use the environment, the electricity, wind, the ship riggs and all the other wonderful things you could imagine.

As for the final confrontation, I’ve already told you my players wouldn’t risk taking ”the thing that would have posessed one of them”. They tried to smash it in place. Well, long story short, I had it roll onto the floor and after a few rounds of combat, when Q was weakened, I described her looking around, her eyes searching for something and then stop all of a sudden. Her eyes fixated at something. The thing on the floor. Then she shoved a PC out of the way and lunged towards that thing, her arm stretched out as she desperately tried to retrieve what was lost...
So I ruled, If she would get it back, she would regain some of her strength, like half of what was lost or something. I didn’t tell my players this, by the way, but they knew at once what was at stake!
”Don’t let her get that thing!” ”Quick! I’ll make her trip and fall over. You! Get that thing and destroy it!!!”
So, all of a sudden we had a whole new type of combat when both Q and the PCs wrestled, shoved and threw themself in an effort to get that thing first. I stated it required a normal MOVE roll in order to get a hold of it enough to attempt a strike at it. The strike was like -3 because of the size of that thing. If the MOVE or the ATTACK roll didn’t succeed I’d have that thing roll to NEAR distance (LONG on a failure and a bane) and used a D12 to decide the direction. In order to get to it anyone passing an opponent also needed a MOVE roll not to suffer an opportunity attack as per the rules. I also rolled Q MOVE roll to retrieve that thing in the open and the look on my players faces, their eyes fixated on the dice when rolling... priceless!
This was really fun and it transformed the fight into more of a race or a athletics competition halfway through, not just another attack/dodge roll exchange. We had a blast and my players appreciated how the encounter turned out, how it differed to most other combats.

Good luck running this site. It’s a bit complicated and I wasn’t sure if I could make it interesting enough. Turns out it was very interesting and we had a lot of fun...

Oh! And as a side note, the two demon birds in the beginning... I googled ”dry jokes” or ”puns” or some such so I had like 15 different, really dry, jokes to tell my players while they attacked. We’ll never forget that encounter...

Oh! And as a side note, the two demon birds in the beginning... I googled ”dry jokes” or ”puns” or some such so I had like 15 different, really dry, jokes to tell my players while they attacked. We’ll never forget that encounter...

Please share!

Oh! And as a side note, the two demon birds in the beginning... I googled ”dry jokes” or ”puns” or some such so I had like 15 different, really dry, jokes to tell my players while they attacked. We’ll never forget that encounter...

Please share!

Well, they’re in swedish and would probably not sound too good in a translation but that googling gave me quite a few sites with lots of jokes. It was easy to pick and choose what would sit well with my players. A bit like this...

So, while they where attacking, they’d say, with a dry very sincere voice: ”What do you call a pony with a cough?

A little horse!”

Just get a few you like and prepare to say them with your most suncere, dry voice. With ni emotions at all...

Please tell me how it goes!

Tonight was finally fight night!
The group discussed weither they should steal the jewel or smash. They decided on braking it, but the hit was to soft (and jewel still in the chest) and resulted in Quetzel awakening.

Fortunately I draw a 10 for initiative on behalf of Quetzel. Each PC managed to deliver 2-4 damage on their turns (well the hunter actually delivered this on himself by trying to shoot Quetzel with his bow.. almost feel sorry for the player, first the mace and now again!)

Then it was Quetzels turn. Immediately turning the rogue into a bird through the silver ring.
Attacking the druid with the feather blade.
Then breaking the rogue with a terror attack and seriously damaging both the hunter and the warrior (the druid got the talent to roll for defense).

New round for the PC’s. They are dealing out quite some damage and by now I think they dealt 10-11 in damage. Quetzel is not falling. Players are starting to get very nervous. One is counting his actions calculating if he has enough actions to jump through one of the doors (he doesn’t).

Quetzels turn. She attacks with the green lightning/flames attack and breaks the hunter. The druid is able to avoid the attack from the feather blade.

Druid and warrior is still standing. They switch initiative. Plan is that the warrior is to disarm Quetzel and the druid to use her magic spell ”bear claw” with enough effect to deal some serious damage.
Warrior succeed and also manages to squeeze in two attacks. Quetzel is now down to 5 (but of course the PC’s don’t know. They are seriously discussing if she might be immortal).
Druid suddenly asks if she can punch the jewel out of Quetzels chest. I tell her that she may try with Disarm. She succeed.

Quetzel used up both her actions trying to parry/duck (my ”mistake”, this made things much easier for the PC’s than if she would have just ignored one disarm-attack and attacked once herself. But it made sense in the heat of the moment that she would try to avoid getting her jewel disarmed..)

Next up the dwarf. He retreats towards the jewel, now on the floor. Lifts his battle axe and lands a damage of four. He don’t reveal anything, just asks if he wants to push. He ended up spending 3 or four points pushing that roll and the end damage was 7-8 something

Quetzel defeated. Two party members to heal up. No deaths (but one developed a temporary phobia for demons which we actually got to play out once they were back in the hollows and visited the Crypt.. Some demon skulls carved out in the stone pillars almost broke the poor halfling rogue once again).

Ended the session with finally putting the map in tje table. This was their 6th meeting but I had them buy a map and they had to wait for it to be drawed/copied. Next stop seem to be Weatherstone! (Closest location on their map).

Please tell me how it goes!

Tonight was finally fight night!
The group discussed weither they should steal the jewel or smash. They decided on braking it, but the hit was to soft (and jewel still in the chest) and resulted in Quetzel awakening.

Fortunately I draw a 10 for initiative on behalf of Quetzel. Each PC managed to deliver 2-4 damage on their turns (well the hunter actually delivered this on himself by trying to shoot Quetzel with his bow.. almost feel sorry for the player, first the mace and now again!)

Then it was Quetzels turn. Immediately turning the rogue into a bird through the silver ring.
Attacking the druid with the feather blade.
Then breaking the rogue with a terror attack and seriously damaging both the hunter and the warrior (the druid got the talent to roll for defense).

New round for the PC’s. They are dealing out quite some damage and by now I think they dealt 10-11 in damage. Quetzel is not falling. Players are starting to get very nervous. One is counting his actions calculating if he has enough actions to jump through one of the doors (he doesn’t).

Quetzels turn. She attacks with the green lightning/flames attack and breaks the hunter. The druid is able to avoid the attack from the feather blade.

Druid and warrior is still standing. They switch initiative. Plan is that the warrior is to disarm Quetzel and the druid to use her magic spell ”bear claw” with enough effect to deal some serious damage.
Warrior succeed and also manages to squeeze in two attacks. Quetzel is now down to 5 (but of course the PC’s don’t know. They are seriously discussing if she might be immortal).
Druid suddenly asks if she can punch the jewel out of Quetzels chest. I tell her that she may try with Disarm. She succeed.

Quetzel used up both her actions trying to parry/duck (my ”mistake”, this made things much easier for the PC’s than if she would have just ignored one disarm-attack and attacked once herself. But it made sense in the heat of the moment that she would try to avoid getting her jewel disarmed..)

Next up the dwarf. He retreats towards the jewel, now on the floor. Lifts his battle axe and lands a damage of four. He don’t reveal anything, just asks if he wants to push. He ended up spending 3 or four points pushing that roll and the end damage was 7-8 something

Quetzel defeated. Two party members to heal up. No deaths (but one developed a temporary phobia for demons which we actually got to play out once they were back in the hollows and visited the Crypt.. Some demon skulls carved out in the stone pillars almost broke the poor halfling rogue once again).

Ended the session with finally putting the map in tje table. This was their 6th meeting but I had them buy a map and they had to wait for it to be drawed/copied. Next stop seem to be Weatherstone! (Closest location on their map).

Tank you for sharing!

Since I’ve recently had this fight myself, this felt very vivid and I could almost picture my players in that scene.
I too felt a bit sorry for your hunter...

Always funny to see how others handle a scenario.