When the party is lead to their rooms in the local tavern, everyone is struck with a strange feeling of dread coming from the room next door. Ask everyone in the party to roll a d20, adding their Charisma modifiers. The next morning, when all the guests emerge from their rooms, the party will find that the person staying in the room next door is a doppleganger—it looks exactly like the party member who rolled lowest.
If the party speaks with the doppleganger, it will seem very confused. It won't be able to give any explanation why it looks exactly someone else in their party. The doppleganger is definitely not a mimic--it bleeds real blood and seems to pass all tests the players devise concerning the being's legitmacy.
The next day, as the party goes about their business, they will hear a terrible din coming from the town square. The doppleganger is under attack by a large, dog-like creature. It has strange pustules on its back that give off thick black smoke. AC 14 HD 5 Attacks 2x d4 claws and 1x d6 fangs. It won't stop until the doppleganger is dead.
If the party rescues the doppleganger, it will be eternally grateful. The doppleganger will claim that it is being stalked by a terrible wizard who wants it dead. It will be very evasive when the party asks who this wizard is (as the wizard does not exist), but it will say that it has dreams of a pillar of a flame deep within the forest. It knows the location of the pillar, which must be what the wizard seeks. It will plead with the players to accompany it, as it knows it must be an important place if the wizard wants to kill it so bad.
If the players decide to go, the doppleganger will lead them deep into the forest. It says that it knows exactly where to go, but as days turn to weeks, a bushcraft skill will reveal that the party seem to be going in circles.
Meanwhile, there might be several encounters:
1. The player who looks like the doppleganger starts to have dreams of the pillar as well—a terrible thing that gives off deep plumes of black smoke that sting the eyes. There is a deep, rumbling voice, but it's difficult to remember what the voice says on waking up.
2. The players come across an abandoned cabin. Peering inside, they see upturned furniture, old clothes, empty shelves, etc. On the table, there is a leather-bound book of fairytales. The book is high-quality, worth an easy 20 sp. One of the illustrations in the book depicts two people, both of whom look like the doppleganger and the player character, with one strangling the other.
3. The doppleganger seems to be romantically interested in the player character that looks like it. If they sleep together, the player character will wake up feeling a little strange and disjointed. They will feel like they know the vague location of an important place and that the doppleganger can be trusted implicitly.
4. A grove of sycamore trees. The doppleganger will refuse to go inside, telling them it is a place of great evil and pleading them not to go. If the players go in anyway, they find a pool of clear, sweet-tasting liquid. There is a silver knife at the bottom, encrusted with jewels and elaborate scrolling that looks a bit like meat (750 sp). If the doppleganger or the player character it looks like are stabbed with it, instead of bleeding as normal, they will seep out air like a tire.
5. A group of monks and their three dogs meet the party. They are willing to share their copious ale with party. That night, the dogs will transform into terrible beasts like the one the player characters defeated in the town square.
6. The player character who looks like the doppleganger will wake up to find the doppleganger trying to strangle them in their sleep. If successful, the doppleganger will claim that it is the real player character and the doppleganger must have run off in the night.
Conduct this encounter in private so that the party doesn't know the result of the combat. If the player character dies, see if the player will be willing to play as the doppleganger. If they are, tell the player that everything the doppleganger has said is a lie except for the pillar of flame. It must reach the pillar of flame—and the only way to do so is by taking the eyes of the orignal player character to a specific ruin. Doing so unleashes a great demon. The doppleganger and the original player character are both aspects of demon's avatar.
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