War Interlude 2: Zauglagaul

I just finished running War Interlude #2 in Book 2, but instead of the, "spend a Triumph Point to win" option, I ran it as a PL+5 encounter. And I think it was awesome.

The players teleport to Imvrildara at the request of Telandia when she learns of "a terrible creature" laying waste to towns near the border of the Tanglebriar. They've heard legends of Zuldanavox at this point and heard the name Zauglagaul from one of the enemies at Elkhaven Lodge. They land a few miles outside of the small city as it is under siege by an army of demons. They clock Zauglagaul flying toward the city from the south and move to intercept him. A fight ensues in the forest, and I telegraph how cocky and powerful he is. A warfare lore recall knowledge urges the PCs to alert Imvrildara of the threat and delay the dragon as long as possible. I planned to have them try to survive 5 rounds and then have Zauglagaul declare his dominance before moving on to attack Imvrildara, the delay enough to have the soldiers there prepare a defense (I basically stole Smaug's death scene from the hobbit here).

So the fight begins, and I'm a little worried about a TPK, but I go for it. I don't play Zauglagaul optimally, but play him very cocky and shit starts to get crazy when the party nearly kills him in 2 rounds. Between a crit fail on a max rank lightning bolt and multiple 16-18 attack rolls that manage to land, Zauglagaul is down to 130 hp 3 rounds in and has to retreat to the skies. He drops an Eclipse burst that blinds 2 players and the champion's mount, but the players use hero points to turn that into no crit fails. Knock down, drag out fight that goes for 8 rounds before Zauglagaul gets knocked below 100hp and disengages to return to his mission of destroying Imvrildara. No PCs go down despite multiple instances of single digit hps.

They chase him to the city where he's dropping a wrathful storm on the inhabitants. They scatter his armies of demons outside the walls and cast a nat 20 illusory creature to look like Zuldanavox and draw him out. The magus's npc love interest is defending from inside the walls and takes the final shot that sends Zauglagaul into a full retreat.

The PCs learned about Zauglagaul's weakness for when they encounter him again. The stage is set for that showdown later. They have ample motivation for exploring the Tanglebriar to find him, The Spore Queen and some other named bad guys. One of my favorite encounters ever.