Mask Campaign Chapter 1b: The Ambush
After going a short distance the PCs notice a man standing in the middle of the road pointing a longbow their way. The PCs will not see anyone else around, unless they can see the invisible of course. The man is dressed a bit raggedly but had a coat and furs for the warm weather. He will ask them to dismount, if mounted, and that they drop their weapons on the ground along with any valuables.
While they are deciding to laugh at him or kill him Grug, who is invisible thanks to Phantasm, will move behind the most heavily armored PC or who ever is negotiating with the bowman and wallop them with his club. The rest of the Marauders, see Shar’s Marauders, will then move into position and attack the party. Malchor will be using hold person spells from maximum distance and cover while Phantasm will be using simple spells like sleep and color spray to disable PCs. Grug is there to be the muscle.
The idea of course is to beat the players but not kill them. Their opponent vastly out levels them and have a well planned ambush set up. Once beaten they will be tied, nothing but the mask will be taken. The priest will taunt his opposite number amongst the party, another cleric, druid or another goodie-goodie. The elven thief will also take some item as a memento, nothing necessarily of value but sentimentality perhaps, she is psychotic after all. Shar will flirt briefly with any PC who fits her profile of a lover. She will then leave the PCs tied to the trees, to live or die by themselves, after sending their horses scampering away. With the cold weather the PCs could die of frostbite soon but along comes Omar who was heading this way after feeling bad for deceiving the party before. He frees those members still tied and helps to gather the horses. He listens to the party’s story and looks very grave at their telling of losing the mask. He then insists they hurry back to town to meet with Charilus.
