Santac'Laus is Coming to Town - A Christmas Adventure

Hi Samantha, the intention was to have them as part of the same combat with Santac'Laus so he has some minions to soak up a bit of damage and force the party to not just focus fire on him.

It might be better to balance it as one tin soldier per party member instead of always having 8, especially if you have a melee-heavy party that have to get up close to them. Or you could have Santac'Laus send half of them after the party to begin with and hold the rest in defence.

Also, I'd rule that they're unable to get into the mech, so anyone in there will be totally safe from them.

So cool! Thanks for sharing it!

Thanks!, i'm also working on a (albeit sketchy) map so when im done ill share that as well

Oh cool! I look forward to seeing what you come up with! And how close it is to what's in my head...

Heres the sketched maps https://imgur.com/a/ZgwRYUL the larger ones were a bit rushed unfortunately

Those are amazing! :-D

Hi Lora, not that I'm aware of. Unfortunately, I'm also bad at maps - I think if I'd tried to draw any they would have hindered rather than helped! Hope you have a great time running it though :)

Amazing! I hope he's put to good use there!

I'm glad you enjoyed it! :-)

Hi David, unfortunately I'm not at all skilled at arty things. I decided I could do a much better job of describing rather than drawing! I'd be delighted if someone drew some maps for it, but I've got no plans to currently.

i kind of did a rough map. most of the rooms only had 1 dimension of measurement if at all so i just sized it to suit the encounter size. its a mountain so its not like there's much restriction. I could probably try to upload something later today that i used.

Thanks Nicolas! Gazer stats are certainly closer to what I was after, but I love the imagery of 8 full-sized beholders dragging the sleigh around, and the things Santac'Laus does don't really follow any sort of sense!

Plus, when I ran this for my group, the reactions I got when they thought they'd be fighting 8 beholders were priceless!

i didnt describe the size of them, but just "its being pulled by 8 orb like creatures with eye stalks" and my table visualized actual beholders and not the gazers. I felt the gazers were too weak actually and ended up advancing them a bit and putting them to medium size instead of tiny, didn't want Santac'Laus to go down too easy.

as it was my group, last night, over thought everything so we ended with them just getting past the mistletoe. which was priceless. all of them have dark vision, so they walk in, no light no looking around and EVERYone failed their save. was great randomly rolling who went into who. 2 were together and 3 others were together. the other hilarious moment was the Blood Hunter beating the crap out of himself at the candy canes: *walks up to entrance, zot* *warlock figures out the canes are the weakness* *blood hunter chops 1 cane down, zot* *walks up to entrance, zot* *hits second cane, zot* lmao.

Ah gotcha! I definitely wanted my group to feel fear of engaging 8 beholders, but didn't want to TPK them instantly, hence the reduced stats, rather than actually using a smaller creature. There's something very pleasing to me about the imagery of a mindflayer being pulled by beholders...

I'm so glad you and they are enjoying it! I'd love to hear about their experience inside the Grotto :-)

i'll try to remember to post the rest here. unfortunately due to holidays we won't be meeting again until the 8th. i added 2 additional encounters in the grotto. i made a kitchen with a Spectator "cook" and his creation for Santac'Laus: a Cookie Golem. and in the main area with all the illithings, an xmas tree that's actually a treant that will attack when the party tries to hurt the "kids" (i know my party, monster = evil, which they still aren't learning thats not always the case especially in Eberron which we play in).

another thing i forgot to mention, with the tidbits of brains being eaten, the party had convinced themselves that it was a zombie'claus lol. so as they try to save the family, the warlock climbs up on top of the house to destroy the sled and instead of nuking him with all the little beholders, i had Santac'Laus rise up out of the chimney at that point. so when i described the "octopus like head with tentacles on his face" the warlock goes...See more "oh XXX..." lol. I laughed. the table laughed, the warlock cried a little :0p. but he just got mind blasted off the roof since Santa'Laus just had a meal.

That sounds brilliant! I love the cook and a Cookie Golem is a great addition! Vulnerable to milk-based attacks, perhaps? My party left the illiflings alone, but were majorly creeped out by them!

Ahahaha I love the sound of that reveal! :D