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I'll also suggest Dawn of the Scarlet Sun - it fits into the level range, and is a great plot hook for the faithful of Sarenrae. Even if you don't have a Sarenite in your group, some of the other good faiths might feel compelled to finish the work the Dawnflower's clergy started eighty years ago. I definitely plan on using it as a side trek when they make it to Magnimar!
I agree with Chris on this - by the time the party encounters the Scribbler, it's safe to say that they know that Thassilon is A Pretty Big Deal, and have had plenty of opportunities to learn the language. There's plenty of ways to do it, too - Brodert Quink can teach them as soon as they start looking into the Thassilonian histories, they could spend some influence with the Pathfinder Lodge in Magnimar get taught that way, or even learn it from cross-referencing materials found in the Library of Thassilon, possibly from the clockwork librarian, who helpfully speaks a ton of languages. It's an investiture of a single skill point for every class in the game. In my opinion, it's about as bad an idea as playing Skull & Shackles and not putting at least a single point into Profession (sailor). This is what the story is about!
That said, if nobody wants to take the plunge and learn Thassilonian, there's plenty of magical solutions by this point. Tongues comes to mind, as does the helm of comprehend languages and read magic. There's tons of ways to interact with the Scribbler, and if a party hasn't gotten it by this point, then it's because they simply don't want to. Not much you can do about that.
Karzoug has a permanent tongues spell cast upon him - he doesn't need to speak Common. Even if he didn't, I'd be fine with spotting him Common. He's a friggin' genius, and I doubt it'd take too much time for him to learn a language that has ten thousand years of devolution.
If you want a real problem in communication, then you don't have to look further than Runeforge. A conclave of wizards from ten thousand years ago, and not a one of them speaks Common. Again, some of them have taken magical steps to solve this problem, but it still exists.
Really, once you imagine Lee as Karzoug, you can't not hear him reading the lines. "So, these are the heroes of the age. More like gasping worms to me - worms to be crushed back into the earth when I awaken the armies of Xin-Shalast, when the name Karzoug is again spoken with fear and awe."
Well, have him start out as Hugh Laurie with an undercurrent of Jude Law, but his transformation pushes Hugh into submission and brings out Jude. Aldern was screwed up long before the Brotherhood of Seven got their hooks into him, so foreshadowing that there's something off about this foppish nobleman isn't necessarily a bad thing. At the same time, you don't want to tip your hand too greatly, since you'll ruin the first half of the second book!
Let's cast some baddies from Thistletop! We'll start with Tsuto Kaijutsu. Even though he's not in Thistletop, he's the connection, so he counts for this. This guy's all rage and discontent, he's got daddy issues for miles, and the girl he wants really isn't all that into him. Since we're looking for someone with mixed Minkaian and elven heritage, someone with Asian and European heritage wouldn't be a bad idea - it would help sell the "caught between two civilizations" angle. Brandon Lee is a bit of a cop out, but as I mentioned for Lonjiku, my knowledge of Asian actors is relatively limited.
Next up, Warchief Ripnugget. Andy Serkis. Next!
Orik Vancaskerkin. The perennial wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. He would have quit awhile ago if he wasn't interested in the attractive wizard. We're looking for someone who looks world-weary, has a perpetual losing streak and knows it, and is just about ready to up and quit this place. I kinda wish I hadn't used Adam Baldwin already now. Instead, let's go with Michael Biehn.
Lyrie Akenja. First off, while I appreciate the female form, what exactly is that she's wearing?!? That's not surviving to production, I can guarantee it. Like Orik, she's interested in someone who isn't interested in her. Unlike Orik, she's also content to study the Thassilonian artifacts here. She's smart, she's attractive...and she's a murderer who has no problem with killing her competition. She's a monster! Took me awhile, but I'm going with Naomie Harris, who was awesome as Eve in Skyfall.
Finally, Nualia. Meaty role to play - she's the Big Bad (for the first film, at least), and she's been the root of most of Sandpoint's ills. She's also more than a bit tragic, having been driven mad by the things that happened to her. Her actress should be no stranger to physical roles, since she's going to be doing a great deal of butt-kicking in the final reel. She should also have a good looking midriff, since the scars on her abdomen are pretty integral to her story. Otherworldly beauty mixed with demonic-inspired madness - that's Nualia, and it's going to be tough to cast her. Sienna Miller might be a good fit, though I suspect there will be plenty of other examples offered!
To be fair, those are the tough fights. Erylium, Nualia and Xanesha are all tough fights - Erylium is really the first really tough fight of the campaign, Nualia is a badass that you fight with depleted resources, and Xanesha...well, if you think she was tough in the AE, then you should track down the 3.5 version of her. There's a reason that her name pops up in the obits thread quite often.
Before we can say what the issue is, we need a bit more info. What classes are being played? How much experience does your group have? Have they been playing 3.5/PF for years, or is this their first experience with the rules set? What sort of tactics do they employ? Do they favor stealth, or kick-in-the-door dungeon exploration? Do they seek non-violent solutions, or are all monsters things that exist to be killed? What criteria do they use to decide that they can handle one more encounter, and when do they decide that they need to cut bait and run?
Make no mistake, RotRL is tough. The opening bit in Sandpoint is very easy, but that's because you want the party to feel like they're awesome, and they face rather simple foes with limited abilities. In time, though, they gain some experience, tricks and durability, and the training wheels come off. Hopefully, the PCs learn to adapt to the changing situations. If they don't...well, you get the situation you're describing.
Resisting the urge to cast Lucy Liu as Ameiko (mostly because she seems to be the go-to actress when you need an Asian-American role filled), I'd suggest Maggie Q. Certainly no stranger to action scenes, and very attractive to boot - exactly the sort of thing you're looking for in Ameiko.
Shalelu's an interesting character - initially, she seems to be a one-woman goblin-killing machine, but Hook Mountain gives her some meaty scenes and some frailties that humanize her. Cameron Diaz might work in that role, since she's got both dramatic and action roles under her belt.
Karzoug is Christopher Lee. Full stop. His voice is how I imagine the Claimer sounds. Yes, I know he was Saruman, and this is typecasting, but I don't care. He was Dracula, he was Scaramanga, he was Saruman, he was Count Dooku, and now he's Karzoug.
I'd second Ken Watanabe as Lonjiku - he's excellent in The Last Samurai, and he can do villainous quite well. He was imposing as Ra's al-Ghul in Batman Begins. That said, I'd actually prefer a smaller, older actor who looks the part to play the role. Lonjiku is not physically imposing - the only people he physically can best are those that can't fight back. Pat Morita might be a bit too far in that direction, but I can't immediately think of any actors who fit this bill.
Hugh Laurie as Aldern Foxglove is a great choice - mix his Prince of Wales with Bertie Wooster and you're probably there.
Now to the important question: who plays the iconic leads? Valeros, Kyra, Merisiel, Ezren, Harsk and Seoni? Really quickly, I'm going to cast Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Rose McGowen, Alan Rickman, Adam Baldwin and Scarlet Johansson for those roles at the moment. There's a lot of Firefly actors in there, I realize, but is that really such a bad thing? Those folks already have a great chemistry, which would go a long way towards building the sort of camaraderie a party should have - as well as the disagreements and fights that inevitably pop up when such disparate and outspoken people that PCs tend to be get together.
Not a bad idea - it's not like Lamashtu worshippers are organized or anything. The Caves of Chaos sect are probably interested in the runewell, while Nualia's sect is clearly motivated by destroying Sandpoint, her demonic apotheosis, and freeing Malfeshnekor. Both plots revolve around Sandpoint, but for completely different reasons - Nualia wants to see it burn, while the Cave Cultists want to seize control of the runewell and probably use several of the townsfolk as sacrifices. It's a race between these two groups to see who takes control of Sandpoint first!
I definitely wouldn't mention Nualia by name. That's not just tipping your hand, that's showing your opponent your cards! It might be worthwhile placing an additional Lamashtu cultist in Sandpoint, someone that was acting as their face while the Cult prepared in secret. Some of the investigation could be to find out what they were doing. It might be interesting to make the half-orc refuse sweeper the wolf in sheep's clothing - he does get to go everywhere, and see everything. He probably hasn't found the runewell just yet, which is why the Cultists were still in the Caves of Chaos, but he's marked places where he knows it isn't.
If I recall, the cultists in B2 are a generic necromantic cult of some sort or another. You could probably reskin them as a Lamashtu cult working on some horrible ritual. The PCs stop it, but interrogating the high priest only elicits insane laughter. Apparently, everything happening in the Caves of Chaos was little more than a rehearsal. They were seeking a greater power somewhere in Varisia, and when they had fully prepared themselves, they would be heading there to seek out the power source, make several sacrifices to the Mother of Monsters, and...um, I dunno, profit, I guess. But trust me, it's really powerful, and you wouldn't want it to happen to you. It's bad. Whoo, boy.
They have a vague area (the Sandpoint environs), but no real leads. They head to Sandpoint and, wouldn't you know it, they're just in time for the Swallowtail Festival! RotRL starts here.
The big problem you may run into would be that the PCs think they've got a far bigger problem on their hands than being the darlings of Sandpoint. "Um, thanks for the loaf of bread, miss, but I really do need to get going. People to see, cults of Lamashtu to slay. That sort of thing." Your best bet would be to send them off on wild goose chases for the week. Have them investigate the background of what happened on Chopper's Isle, and the reasons behind the Late Unpleasantness. Have them discover rumors of a site nearby that's rumored to have mystic properties - it does, just not the ones that the cultists were seeking (someone else was though!).
Basically, intersperse the written Local Heroes stuff with stuff that keeps them near Sandpoint, and not rushing off to start poking around in weird places. Then, when they get to the runewell beneath Sandpoint, they'll hopefully be shocked to learn the place they were seeking was right underneath their feet the whole time!
In a campaign I have been playing, we have run into animated chairs/other furniture a couple of times and our Inquisitor got beat up pretty bad each time, now she is scared of chairs, I even coined the term "Ikea-phobia" which got the GM, who is her boyfriend, and the table as a whole to giggle-snort and laugh out loud, respectively, this term has now sort of entered our group's lexicon, and variants of it occasionally pop up for each of our characters and their respective quirks.
After a friend's LG character was killed a few times by animated rugs, lurkers above/below/offtothesides, and other rug-like monsters, he sort of developed a paranoia about them. He wanted to take FE: Tapestries.
With regards to the trail to the winter portal, has anyone worked out the distances between encounters? Given the unforgivable environment, it'd be really nice to know how long it takes a group to get from encounter A to encounter B, not to mention back out again. Setpiece encounters, random encounters and the environment all team up to make a triple threat against the ickle firsties, so it'd be great to know just how far they have to go - and how far they have to go to get back to Haldren.
Bruendor nods in agreement. "Definitely, Calla. I'm kicking myself right now for not approving the expenditure for one. That'll be the first thing we fix when we hit topside."
To make it more like a tug-o'-war, it should probably be a certain number of successes that determines victory. Say you start with three stones in the center. The side that wins moves a stone from the center to their side. If that team wins again, then they get to move another stone onto their side. Otherwise, a stone is replaced back into the pool. First side to get all three stones is the victor.
I agree with closetgamer - especially at low levels, the environment will be as big of a threat in my game as the monsters the PCs fight! Cold temperatures, poor visibility, snowdrifts and ice will all make for difficulties starting out. As PCs level, they will find ways to deal with the threat the environment poses - endure elements will make the cold less of a problem, and flight means you don't have to worry about how rough the terrain will be.
I'm reminded of one of my favorite lines from Angel.
ANGEL: Well, I guess I kinda worked it out. If there's no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters...then all that matters is what we do. 'Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now. Today. [...] All I wanna do is help. I wanna help because, I don't think people should suffer as they do. Because, if there's no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.
I'm pretty sure that once the debate goes from "should we kill these goblin babies or not?" to "now that we've killed them, do we destroy their souls or not?", it's time for your paladin to start looking into that atonement spell.
Yep, as of Rise of the Runelords, Thassilon is all but forgotten in modern memory. Some scholars know bits and pieces about it, but much of what's out there is conjecture. The Old Light is known to be a relic of that bygone era, but nobody knows what it was originally used for. Given its placement, people think it was a lighthouse. Brodert Quink thinks differently, but then, he's a crackpot theorist...
At any rate, the PCs are poised to become the most knowledgable people on the Runelords and Thassilon in general. That means several organizations will want to talk with them - the Pathfinders and the Aspis Consortium, to name but two.
My rule of thumb would be anything under 20 is vague recollections, only good for the barest of essentials. (They were a powerful empire that existed thousands of years ago.) 20-25 would be commonly held opinions about the empire. (They were ruled by seven different Runelords, each a powerful wizard schooled in Thassilonian sin magic.) 25-30 would have specialized information. (The last Runelord of Greed was Karzoug, and he ruled from the City of Greed, Xin-Shalast.) More than 30 would be secret information, and might just represent breaking research into that forgotten empire.
If spelljamming existed in Golarion, what ship would you like your space pirate ship to be? (Because, let's be honest, if Merisiel ended up on a spelljammer, its descent into space piracy would be inevitable.)
I suspect it has more to do with this guy than a somewhat similarly named book of the Bible, but even then, it's probably just because Thassilon sounds cool.
I can definitely retool Orbius into something other than a mystical origin. I wasn't actually planning on using actual magic in the game - although I've played the game off and on for years, I still have no clue how magic actually works. I figure the orb is a mystic power focus, and he's only figured out how to do a few tricks with it so far. As a result, he doesn't have the flexibility of an actual caster like Doc Strange. It'd be more like Juggernaut or the Wrecking Crew. His origin might be mystic, but he doesn't really understand much about magic.
If you're still opposed to that, I can definitely reskin it to be some sort of item left over from the most recent Kree/Shi'ar/Skrull/Brood/Whatever Alien Just Got Finished Attacking Earth invasion.
Interesting thread here, since I haven't read the adventure yet. When do you think we'll get the "Why is transgenderism a theme in Maiden, Mother Crone?" thread? ;)
James Metzger has worked at Damage Control for two years as what he likes to call a "reconstruction worker." After two super-powered people fight, there's always a mess, and D.C. takes on the jobs to rebuild New York after those brawls. As a foreman, he spends a lot of time organizing his crews - other folks do search and rescue, and clean up the site before the crews move in.
Usually, that is.
A few weeks ago, after Doc Strange fought some weird flame-headed guy in Queens, he was surveying the site, when he heard a strange buzzing noise beneath some rubble. Clearing it away, he noticed a small orb that seemed to be emitting this buzzing. Strangely, nobody else on the site could hear it. Taking leave of his senses for a moment, he grabbed it.
When he came to a few minutes later, his crew was around him. He had passed out, and the orb that he had seen was nowhere to be found. Doctors looked him over, but nothing seemed to be wrong with him.
A few days later, he realized that things weren't fine at all. He began to hear the buzzing constantly. It got so bad that he shouted "For the love of God, get this buzzing out of my head!" It worked, a bit too well. The orb suddenly appeared, floating around him. He found he could mentally control it, making it appear and disappear, and float wherever he wanted. He experimented with it, and quickly found he could do some other things with it. He wasn't sure how it happened, but he was sure it was magic.
He had to keep this a secret - Damage Control would probably have his job if they found out he'd taken costume equipment, even inadvertantly like this. Who knows, maybe he'd be able to make some money or something off this. Nothing criminal, mind you, but something that could supplement his job.
Oh, and an evil race of centaur-like people, but replace the horse part with a lion and the word "people" with "women." Who knows how they reproduce? Probably magic. Yeah, that's it.
Redemption can't be forced on someone. It must be sought. I don't really see Karzoug ashamed of or even regretting any of the things he's had to do, all the way from his humble beginnings to the plots he put into motion before he entered suspended animation. Death's really the only way to deal with him. He's already trapped in between realities, and I can't see any magic from this age really holding him for very long at all.
For all of this, his weakness is his arrogance. He really believes himself to be infallible, and has set so many long-range plans into motion that the defeat of a few pawns is inconsequential. The only things I can see as being worthy of Karzoug's full attention would be things on par with Mhar, but even then, he'd probably think that he would be the best person in the world to take care of it. Any alliance with him to defeat Mhar would probably end very badly for the PCs. He will use them to put down the spirit of the mountain, and then end them before they can become a threat to him again.
So yeah, I don't see any last minute conversions, no flash of insight showing him the error of his ways. He's is unredeemably evil, and the Claimer's tyrannical rule should not be allowed to return to Golarion if the PCs have anything to say about it!
Alu-demon, if you want to keep her recognizably female? Horned demon, if you want to go further afield? I think it all depends on how far in the future you want Nualia and Co. to show back up.
Of course, the real question becomes "when does Lyrie give up on Tsuto?" I get the feeling from the text that she's more interested in him physically than emotionally, and while she'd be pissed that the PCs killed the guy she wanted to sleep with, I don't see them as tragic lovers destined to be kept apart. I see Tsuto being far more devoted to Nualia, even despite her mad scheme, given that the two of them grew up together, and have their shared hatred of Sandpoint. They've actually got things in common, unlike Lyrie/Tsuto. It's an workplace romance - it's just that the workplace happens to be the Legion of Doom.
Nualia's descension could shake Tsuto out of his devotion, but would Lyrie still be there? Tough call. At some point, I see her saying "to heck with this, that chick be crazy!"
Just try it, buddy. That which was given to you can be taken away again.
"That's not how this was supposed to end," the man says. His voice is raspy, and the exposed skin on the right side of his face is reddened and scarred from a old burn that never fully healed. "It's not how it's supposed to end for any of us. We all hope for success, but you have to be prepared to lose at any time. Only one of us is making it to the prize after all. But this...this is a senseless loss of life, a tragic accident. There's nothing glorious about this end.
"As for what happened...we each fought in our own styles. She got off a lucky shot early on in the fight, but Seishuku is not called the Scarred Ninja for nothing. I made her blind to the spots I was at, and struck her a few times with my blade." He pats a curious chain weapon with a hooked blade on one end and a heavy metal ring on the other. "That's when our duel took to the towers. She tried to keep moving between the towers to keep me from getting at her, but as she climbed to the top of the middle tower, everything just suddenly collapsed. She was pitched towards the leftmost, and everything fell on her." He shakes his head again. "Senseless. That's what this is. A terrible way for a warrior to die."
Detect Evil:
You concentrate on the Seishuku during the conversation. You do not detect any darkness within him.
Well, Tangent, I can see that NPC group's got some serious problems. Lyrie was in it for the money mostly, but she developed feelings for Tsuto. He's still around, so she'd probably try to steal him away from Nualia. Tsuto's only got eyes for Nualia, though, and it's entirely possible that he'd try to dissuade her from continuing down the path she's on. He's all for Sandpoint being razed to the ground, but he's not so certain about the depths she's willing to go to. Nualia, though, wants to purge herself of her celestial taint first, and get her revenge on Sandpoint a close second, so it's unlikely he'd be able to talk her out of that. She's also (presumably) lost her adoptive father's bones, so she's unable to continue her dark progression towards the Abyss.
And who caused this reversal of fortunes, when she was so close to having everything she ever wanted? That's right, the PCs. I can definitely see her obsessing over how to best destroy them, and hurt them in the places they'd feel the most. She's shown she has no problem working with long-term plans, so I'd have her lick her wounds in Magnimar for awhile. I don't have my book handy, but I think I recall reading that Xanesha set her on the path to her damnation, so Nualia might go back there to reequip and start making new plans. The difference now is that she knows the people who beat her, and will start to plan against them specifically.
Now, the problem is that the three of them are only working together because two of them lust after someone that isn't interested in them, and the third is only interested in removing her aasimar heritage from her blood. If they met with the PCs again, the PCs might be able to convince Lyrie or Tsuto to give up on Nualia - difficult in Tsuto's case, but not impossible. As long as Nualia's alive, though, she will not stop coming after these people - and if they leave her alive long enough, she might just succeed in her plan to become a true demon. Which would be an awesome showdown indeed!
Elf (Arctic) Rogue - not sure why she's headed into Heldren, but wandered here anyway.
Human (Ulfan) Magus - the only one who's a native of Heldren. He has a six year old daughter, who followed him into town, but is now being watched by the innkeeper and her husband. (His desire to return to his daughter will be a great conflict once they receive the Black Rider's geas!)
Ifrit Oracle (Battle) - a maimed veteran of the Worldwound, he's come north to leave that world behind. Took the lame curse, and wears heavy armor. His 15' move speed will surely not be a problem in the snows to come.
Human (Varisian) Wildblooded Sorcerer (Sage) - a culture junkie, enjoys travelling and chronicling his experiences there. He sports several tattoos, including the bastardization of the Wrath sigil that the Varisians use in their spell tattoos around his eyes.
This group is also running through Kingmaker, so Heldren is a day and a half north of Tatzlford, with the winter portal about two days northeast of the town. Everyone entered town from different directions, and met up at The Lady. After learning about the wintry conditions, they were alerted to the abduction of Lady Svetlana. Poor girl keeps getting kidnapped and/or assassinated!
Ah, that makes sense now. Not a bad question - some characters will want to know just how good of a deal they're getting, and without putting a price on things, it's hard to do so. I think that quantifying it against how much any given citizen of Sandpoint or Magnimar makes isn't the way to go about it though. The wealth by level tables aren't weighed against commoners, but against the sorts of foes PCs would be going up against, and the sort of equipment they expect PCs should have in order to face them. After about 2nd level, the amount of money your character will be making far outstrips most normal professions to the point where it's laughable.
Really, that's the benchmark you should be showing your players, not the money they're making compared to guards or innkeepers or whatever.
It sounds as like the fighter is taking Sandpoint's citizens' good will towards them for granted. If he's going to slap them down after they show him their gratitude, he should find a much more frosty reception than the rest of the PCs. If Ameiko dies, then all of the PCs are going to be in trouble for letting one of the town's favorite daughters die when they could have done something other than make a sword.
I'd say that you should show the consequences of waiting. Have him kill her, and set fire to the Glassworks to cover his escape. He'll leave for Thistletop with his goblin entourage. The PCs can get involved by fighting the fire, and stopping it from consuming more of the town. If they explore the Glassworks, they'll find both Lonjiku and Ameiko dead, and should be able to track Tsuto before he reaches Thistletop. They deal with him en route, and have the choice whether to return to the caves to deal with the Catacombs of Wrath or move on to Thistletop.
Hopefully, they choose wisely and return to deal with the threat beneath Sandpoint.
I wouldn't actually bother rolling dice for the NPCs. Those that you want to be doused with the waters are doused with the waters, and those you don't aren't. As for what to do, the first thing that comes to mind is to have one of the NPC clerics that is splashed by the waters to become pregnant with another monstrosity. Bonus points if it's not one of the women. Lamashtu might also turn Hannah into a sort of aberrant Typhoid Mary, corrupting the wombs of any woman she assists with birthing and twisting their children into corrupted vessels. It's the sort of thing I can see her doing in retribution for improperly delivering one of her children into the world. And there's always the chance that some of the nameless NPCs are suddenly twisted and made into (fill-in-the-blank with whatever monster you want them to fight!).
Personally, I wouldn't do that with any of the PCs, but I'd definitely inflict some body horror on them. Maybe they get an extra eye or a vestigial tentacle or something.
Works for me. By the by, Leonard's not the drinker - after the things he saw as a kid, he's a teetotaler. Also, he didn't go in the Royal Army, but signed up for the police force instead.
He could definitely have been hired on as muscle or something, since a policeman's wages have never been great.
I wrote a very long and rambling backstory for my patrolman, which was then eaten by either the boards or some elder thing from beyond time and space. Which might be the same thing as the boards. No way to tell there. Instead, here's a much shorter (and probably better) version.
Backstory:
Leonard Whitman is the younger son of a butcher who went off to fight in the Great War and came back a broken man. His father took to drinking heavily to deal with the horrors he saw, and took out his pain on his family. Leonard's mother died of disease, which pushed his father deeper into depression. He beat Leonard and his older brother Roy until one night when his older brother fought back. Both of them were taken away that night - the father to asylum, and Roy to the morgue.
Leonard's a teetotaler, and still has problems dealing with his father's abuse. He learned one thing though from his time as a child, and that's how to take a punch. Maybe that's why he ended up becoming a patrolman. He wasn't afraid to get hurt doing something for someone. He's only recently learned of how strange the world really is, when he found a streetwalker's body hidden in an alley with symbols carved into her skin. His commanding officers took possession of the case, since they didn't want to fuel any rumors that Bloody Jack might have returned. Still, he knows something was weird about it, and he has vowed to keep his eyes open for further signs. Maybe then he'd be able to move past patrols and into Criminal Affairs. The life of a detective, now that's living.
Oooh, Cthulhu! I think I'll put my best foot forward here. I'm currently thinking about a private investigator, somewhere between Sam Spade and Sherlock Holmes. Knowing my luck with dice, though, I'll probably just get Wiggins.
I'd second this. Like a lot of fey (that don't want to instantly murder mortals), they want to cause mischief and humiliate and/or bring the haughty down a few pegs. So, think about what a dockmaster does - organizes the loading and unloading of ships, keeps records of everything, charges fees, and so on.
Now, add in the desire to make fools of mortals. How do we do that? Well, the order in which ships are loaded and unloaded will be random, and completely up to the whims of the leprechaun. Have him care deeply about keel length of boats one day, then completely ignore it the next, focusing instead on intricate descriptions of mastheads. Have him supremely bribable, but gold is only the most expensive way to do so - for the right fee, he'll either ignore your cargo, or closely inspect (and pilfer!) items from a competitor.
And make him loyal to no one but himself and his fey workers. He can't stay bought, and he's got protection from someone higher up (some Jadwiga or another, perhaps), so he can act with relative impunity. That's why people try to avoid his docks if at all possible. They can't afford the hassle. Some people might even use that dock for these very reasons. His capricious attention to his job makes tracking imports and exports here difficult at best.
And, of course, the PCs have to either dock there, or do some investigation that takes them this way.
Andre withdraws his hand as though it were stung, and looks dutifully impressed. "A good eye, Podo. Is it possible to defeat this from here? And maybe we should check those other doors for traps like this."
Paranoia's a reasonable response, given the circumstance. Hell, when a creepy doll's involved, it's likely the only response possible.
If you want to draw the PCs in, maybe the huts themselves could shield everything within them detecting as magical from without, as per a magic aura spell.
Misroi
