FASA Games, Inc.

After some tips please.

I have a party of four characters. All 7th circle.

After tracking the surviving members of the cross of Ardanyan, the party have defeated them during an epic battle inside a temple of Raggok deep within a Kaer. They now have a problem. There is a worm skull and its army of cadaver men (around 50 of them.) that is waiting outside the temple for the players exit. The work skull plans attack the PC's as they move to exit the kaer, with it's aim to obviously slay each and every one of them!

The PC's know it is out there waiting for them, as it spoke to them just before they entered the temple. It demanded that they retrieve an object from within the temple for it. The PC's have no intension of doing as the worm skull asked and so they will now have to face it.

What I am after are some good tactics for my worm skull to use. The horror seem extremely tough but so are my party who comprise of an Elementalist / weaponsmith windling, a human wizard, an elven Swordmaster/illusionist and a human warrior/horror stalker, and I want to make it a challenging as possible. Suggestions on power uses and Nethermancy spells to use. Perhaps some useful combinations of the above that more experience GMs may be aware of.

Thanks.

Start with Terror, it's brutal. Then, while the cadaver men pound on them, the wormskull can skin shift, or cast spells at them. Also, if there's a way the horror could delibrately inflict wounds on the cadaver men, it will make them much more of a threat.

Oh, and If you are concerned that the cadavers turn on the wormskull, let him switch to the astral plane with his Displace power, that way the cadavers will turn to the next living targets.

My 7th circle group (warrior, thief, nethermancer, troubadour) just lost against a wormskull (including the undead army).
1st round the wormskull cast skin shift on the warrior and nearly kills him. 2nd round, they grabbed the warrior and started running...

So be careful, a wormskull is frelling dangerous... it easily ends in a party kill

What's the range in skin shift?
In the Earthdawn classics book it gives no range. Should it be touch?

Also, in the book it says that spells cast in corrupt astral areas require a good success to act as desired. An average result means that the spell acts erratically. Is this only if the character is actually "in" astral space in an astral form?

Can a being in astral space use magic against a person who is in physical form?