Hall of Judgment: Tower Surprise Clarifications (spells)

I got an excellent question on Facebook about the surprise in Hall of Judgment. The adventure’s been out there a while, but I’m going to put the question and the answer “below the fold,” in case there are folks out there who want to keep all the surprises surprises…and the question itself gives away the nature of said surprise.

Question: Can the Krabbari be Banished? And if so does it have Plane of origin they can determine to avoid the penalty?

This winds up being a surprisingly interesting question.

Let’s deal, as they said in Quiz Show, with the second part first. Everyone knows demons hail from Muspelheim, the plane of fire. So by letter of the law, you pretty much know where they come from and you never suffer the -5 for not knowing. If, as a GM, you feel that -5 penalty is important to balance things, there could be layers, nodes, or something else in Muspelheim that you need to make the proper Research, Hidden Lore, or some other arcane knowledge roll to get out of. Those penalties are there to reward dropping points into those skills and not always just Hulk Smash-ing your way through everything.

The other thing about “can they be banished at all?” has what might be a surprise answer: “No.”

The spell says the caster must be on their home plane, and the demon cannot be on their home plane. But the text on Hall of Judgment, pp. 50-51 says “Somewhere between where the Sacrifice Gate intersects with the spiral staircase and the opening to the upper chambers, the staircase actually shifts from being inside the mountain…to the realm of the gods themselves.”

That is, the upper chamber is in Asgard. So the caster is not on their home dimension, and Banish is inoperative.

One more thing: Note that the krabbari is SM +2, so casting Banish costs 20 FP (boss monster) and then adjusted for size is 60 FP. I mean, it might be a self-correcting problem anyway. 60 FP is not something one just tosses around.