In my past entries, I've discussed the many elements for the Ruins of Azamar campaign adventure, which we pieced together from the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeon Master's Design Kit by Harold Johnson and Aaron Allston, published in 1988 by TSR, Inc.
This week, we'll discuss the final element of the adventure; the climax. The Design Kit describes the climax as:
"...that point, near the story's end, where the story is resolved: Great feats of daring are performed, important decisions are made, the heroes win or are defeated, and rulers or the gods reward the victors. In short. it's the Big Finish."
The book has a short list of suggested finishes to the adventure, like Bloody Battle, Chase to Ground, and Prevented Deed. I reached deep into my random generator and pulled out the Throne-Room Duel.
"This is set up much like the Scattered Duels, except that you don't separate the heroes. It's harder to control whom fights who in this situation... but if it doesn't matter who has the final duel with the Master Villain, this is a classic climax choice."
To gain a little more insight, we'll reference the Scattered Duels.
"In this climax, the heroes have gotten to the end of their quest - they may have broken into, sneaked into, or escaped from imprisonment within the villain's citadel, or have marched into the little town where the villain is holed up - and they become separated.
"You can separate them by having traps and tricks break the party apart, by having them see two or three things they must resolve (such as danger to innocents or the appearance of minion villains) pop up simultaneously; they'll have to run in all directions at the same time or suffer failure.
"Once the party is broken down into bite-sized chunks, you confront each individual or small group with the enemy or enemies he most deserves to face - his personal enemy, the monster which defeated him before, etc. - for a grand series of climactic duels.
"This works best when the Master Villain is one which can be dueled; if he's a demon or god, the heroes may need an artifact to fight him."
The Throne-Room Duel is probably the most obvious choice our generator could have chosen for us, considering we pretty know that our heroes will be heading into the ritual area (throne room) to confront the cult leader. I image the leader of the Cult of Ithaqua needs a cadre of members to help garner energy to open the portal, which will let the Death-Walker loose on the world. Instead of our heroes being "broken down into bit-sized chunks," they arrive at the ritual room together to take on this group of energy-charged zealots. Each hero will get their chance to duel the master villian in the final battle, in hopes of defeating him and thwarting the monster plan.
This entry will conclude my world building of Azamar and it's icy ruins of Ithaqua. I have many other resources on world building I want to share. And I hope you stick with me to discover the many worlds of role-playing games.
I hope you enjoyed the read, and until next time, thanks for reading.
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