George Shellabear's page

You want to be particularly nasty at turning Richard against Thorn? Play on the fact that he's a Paladin, and set it up so that it looks as though your PCs are trying to atone for all the wickedness they've caused.

It depends on how they've played it so far, but odds are the players know that the plan is to have Sakkarot's army destroyed and the kingdom saved. Tell Richard that, and then tell him everything they know about where Thorn is and what he is.

"We are monsters, son of Mitra. After all we've done, we certainly can't deny that. We unleashed the Tears, burned the Vale, and killed the King. But above all else, we were loyal monsters. Adrastus Thorn saved our lives, took us in, gave us support and a place to belong. He promised us that we would have a place in the new kingdom that he was building. And now... now, he's trying to have us all killed. He's betraying us, and for all we know, he always intended to betray us."

"We know where he is. We know/have a good idea where his phylactary might be found. And we would like nothing more than to see Adrastus Thorn, the architect of all this ruin, dead. We are, in short, offering to help you, and in so doing, save all of Talingarde from the single worst monster to ever attack it. After that, who knows?"

"You don't trust us, and we can't blame you. But please, help us. And let us help you."

Best of all? If you're careful, you won't need to speak a single lie during this whole thing. Asmodeus would be proud.

I'm currently running a group through this path using the alternate possibility suggested of an all-Wizard party. It's proving to be quite interesting so far - they're currently preparing for the ritual to release Vetra-Kali. The low amounts of hit points are an interesting factor, though.

Hexor and Vexor have rapidly become some of my favorite NPCs ever, though, I must say. So very polite.

Just finished reading through this one myself, and overall it is very nice. Though I do get the feeling that when I run this in the new semester, someone in my group is going to inevitably mouth off to Chargammon. And then they will probably die, because if I know the rest of the people I play with, their first reaction will be to put boot to the wise-cracker's rear end and propel him forwards to his just reward...

Still, I do like the whole setup, and presumably a big part of the appeal here is that a sufficiently dangerous ally like Chargammon really does need to be approached carefully. If they've reached 13th level without learning not to antagonise the Black Wyrm in its lair, well, it's something of a dark miracle that the Way of the Wicked hasn't been destroyed by their incompetence already.

Personally, I'm working on a variation of the reveal that Barca was the Cainite Knot. Namely, building on that mention where Fireaxe leads the counter-charge. In my version, he'd likely end up coming face to face with Barca, who looks noble and valient and ready to face him in a contest of champions... before pulling out the seal and breaking it. Something like that. Of course, a lot of the dramatic impact might be lost since the PCs aren't there to see it personally. Hmm... a report from minions left behind, perhaps?

Very definitely looking forwards to book Four. Currently running a PbP version of the game myself, though they've yet to leave Branderscar.

Book three looks very interesting, though, overall, and I can't wait to run it for my group. I was reviewing it with a few of the folks from another gaming group of mine, and we figured that all in all, it was really quite interesting in terms of challenges posed to the players.