Pitch Black
Welcome again to Masters and Minions, where I strive to give you interesting NPCs and encounters that can be placed easily into your game. Since this week is Darkness Week, I thought I would create an encounter that is fraught with ambushes and perils hidden by the darkness. I bet you’re thinking, “But Justin, all of my players have darkvision or some other way of seeing in the darkness, wouldn’t that defeat the whole purpose of the darkness?” Normally you would be right, but in the case of today’s monsters, they are also quite aware of the shortcomings of relying on darkvision. If you have been paying attention to this week’s previous articles, then you have probably already been told quite a few ways of making the cover of darkness more useful, but for this encounter I thought I would come up with something that hasn’t been already mentioned. The result is a fortress made of solid darkness, something that is transparent to creatures who can see in the dark, but solid black to creatures without it.
Each night for the last two months, the cities and towns of the north have been terrorized by gangs consisting of a strange hodgepodge of all different subterranean humanoids. These attacks differ from one location to another, but usually consist of murder, thief, or vandalism. The groups committing these crimes typically contain at least one drow or dark kin, who appear to be the leaders, along with several members of other subterranean races, such as derro, kobolds, orcs, etc.
Recently, the attacks have all but stopped; instead, various notes have been left in places of importance. While on their own these notes make no sense, when placed in order of when they where left, they give an ultimatum to the surface world. The ultimatum states that unless the cities and villages are completely abandoned within one month of the last message, all inhabitants will be exterminated. Additionally, the message states that if the citizens wish to speak with the issuer of this ultimatum (referred to as the King of Darkness), they can find him somewhere deep within the Caldori cave system. Nobles and other local officials have sent guards and adventurers to investigate the caves, but none have returned alive, and with only a few days till the deadline the PCs have been called upon to track down and slay this “king of darkness” before the deadline is up.
The King of Darkness is a male half-drow/half-dark slayer einherjar magus who went insane hundreds of years ago. He has long since forgotten his name and his purpose, but as of yet his status of einherjar hasn’t been revoked by his unknown patron. At this point in time, he believes he needs to purify the surface world’s cities of their inhabitants before he plunges the world into eternal darkness. He has temporarily unified approximately one hundred or so subterranean beings under his rule (through use of force and the frightening ability to continually come back from the dead), but since he has halted the attacks he has driven off or killed most of his subjects, leaving himself very much alone in his labyrinthine palace within the Caldori caves.
With the aid of a strange artifact, he has fashioned portions of his palace out of a substance that can only be referred to as solid darkness. This substance has the same hardness and hit points as a wall of force and appears to be pitch black when seen in the light. This substance blends in perfectly with normal and magical darkness, appearing to be invisible to all those with the ability to see in the darkness, such as creatures with darkvision or the see in darkness special quality. A peculiar oddity of the king’s defenses is that many of them are actually made to defend against creatures that are at home in darkness. The king uses this substance to confound and perplex his enemies; creating walls that can’t be seen with darkvision and false pits to fool people into falling into the real pit.
The moment a creature enters the Caldori caves the king is notified via an alarm spell. The magics of his palace allow him to know the approximate location of the intruders, giving him knowledge of which room or hallway they are in but not their exact location or number.
The entirety of the Caldori cave system and palace is submerged in a supernatural darkness that suppresses magical and non-magical light sources, and doesn’t normally inhibit darkvision.
The King’s Tactics
The King of Darkness begins to head to the intruders the moment they enter his palace. He remains at a distance, however, observing them from afar. Every once in awhile he casts deeper darkness on the group and attacks from the safety of the magical darkness. These attacks usually consist of only one to three strikes before he flees to a safe distance. When the intruders are close to the throne room, he again casts deeper darkness in order to pass by them completely unseen. When he fights the intruders in the throne room, he activates his oversoul transformation if he is brought to a quarter of his hit points.
The King of Darkness
This dark-skinned elven figure stands clad in ornate, dark-colored royal garments; a horned crown made of pure darkness sits atop his hooded head.
Death Throes (Su)
When the King of Darkness is slain, his body implodes violently into nothingness, leaving his gear in a heap on the ground. All creatures within a 20-foot burst take 1d8 points of sonic damage and must make a DC 22 Fortitude save or be deafened for 2d4 rounds. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Immortal Form (Ex)
This functions just like the monk class feature timeless body, except that the King of Darkness doesn’t die from old age.
Magical Knack (Ex)
Spellcraft and Use Magic Device are always class skills for the King of Darkness.
Oversoul Transformation (Su)
As a full-round action, the King of Darkness can call upon all the power that keeps him alive. The King of Darkness’ fast healing becomes equal to his Hit Dice or 10, whichever is higher. He also gains a +2 profane bonus to all his ability scores and his DR becomes over good. Once this ability has been evoked, the King of Darkness only has ten minutes left before he dies for the last time and goes on to his final resting place. Once the King of Darkness dies from his oversoul transformation, he can’t be brought back by normal means, not even by his rejuvenation ability, but a wish or miracle spell can allow him to later be brought back to life by normal means (however, most einherjar are not willing to be returned to life). If the King of Darkness is restored to life this way, he loses the einherjar template and can never regain it.
Poison Use (Ex)
The King of Darkness is skilled in the use of poison and never risks accidentally poisoning himself.
Rejuvenation (Su)
In most cases, it's difficult to destroy the King of Darkness through simple combat, as he restores himself in 2d4 days. After this time passes, the King of Darkness returns fully healed (albeit without any gear he left behind on his previous body) at the last place that he considered home (if he doesn’t consider anywhere “home,” he instead returns to the place he died). Even the most powerful spells are usually only temporary solutions. The only way to permanently destroy the King of Darkness is to determine the reason for his existence and set right whatever prevents him from resting in peace, or to kill him after he has activated his oversoul transformation.
Soul Harvest (Su)
When the King of Darkness damages a flat-footed foe or a foe he is flanking with a melee touch spell or spell-like ability that deals hit point damage, the spell does an additional 1d6 points of damage and the King of Darkness gains an equal amount of temporary hit points. These temporary hit points last for a maximum of 1 hour.
Undying Purpose (Ex)
Like all einherjar, the King of Darkness has a specific purpose that is obtainable and has a concrete end point. However, the King of Darkness's undying purpose has become lost to the ages and only his patron knows exactly what his purpose is.