I'm about to run my umpteenth session of Three Faces of Evil and need to come up with a way to bring in the 3 new PCs who are replacing those who died last game (near TPK!). But I've run out of ideas! I've used these so far:
Gelch Tilgast, who mentioned bringing down Smenk to original PCs, hires a elven rogue to keep an eye on the group as they infiltrate Dourstone's mine. Player stayed two games.
Original PCs enter mine, but Capt Trask is pressured by the Lord Mayor to bring the 4 back, as Smenk and Filge are accusing them of attempted murder. Three enter with militia man who dies almost immediately. PCs died 3 sessions later.
Now I need 3 more stories, but don't know which to use. General ideas (not class or race based) would be nice. As would ideas involving bringing these PCs into the AoW plot. Any help?
I'm about to run my umpteenth session of Three Faces of Evil and need to come up with a way to bring in the 3 new PCs who are replacing those who died last game (near TPK!). But I've run out of ideas! I've used these so far:
Gelch Tilgast, who mentioned bringing down Smenk to original PCs, hires a elven rogue to keep an eye on the group as they infiltrate Dourstone's mine. Player stayed two games.
Original PCs enter mine, but Capt Trask is pressured by the Lord Mayor to bring the 4 back, as Smenk and Filge are accusing them of attempted murder. Three enter with militia man who dies almost immediately. PCs died 3 sessions later.
Now I need 3 more stories, but don't know which to use. General ideas (not class or race based) would be nice. As would ideas involving bringing these PCs into the AoW plot. Any help?
1. The ever-popular rescueing some prisoners who end up becoming PCs. A cliche, but sometimes it works the best, just like the "you meet in a bar". As long as you haven't used it often in the past, I would consider this option.
2. If your PCs (dead or surviving) are from Diamond Lake (as per usual for AoW), you could have a sibling or family member come looking for them. Presumably if you need to replace PCs, I'd think they've been down there for several days already, so a search party out to find them wouldn't be unreasonable.
3. A party sent by one of the local churchs (Cuthbert, Heironeous or Wee Jas) or perhaps a coalition. This works best if the new players actually have a cleric or paladin of one of those gods, but it wouldn't be unreasonable IMHO for one of those churches to hear some rumors about the mad cults in the mines, and then send some expendable flunkies (ie. PCs) to investigate.
4. An alternative option of #3. Depending on what type of campaign you want to run, it could be that the new PCs were sent into the mines to investigate this heretical cult by the "official" churches of Hextor, et al. And once they are inside, a little joining of forces with the surviving PCs could yield an alliance as a springboard to have the new PCs remain with the party for long enough to forge friendships, etc to hang around until the end of AoW. (Or death, whatever comes first)
Thats all I have off the top of my head, but at least one of those hooks should be good enough to get your replacement PCs into the mines and joined up with your remaining PCs. In my experience, players are most likely to forgive a little deus ex machina and suspend their disbelief if it gets one of their friends back into the game.
Thanks Talion09, I've been thinking of the prisoner idea despite my reservations. Maybe if I combine two ideas?
The new PCs are hired by the church of Heironeous (or Wee Jas) to recover the OPCs (original PCs), but were perhaps captured by cultists outside of the mine (with the help of the Faceless One?).
Hmmm. Opinions?
On the "getting hints of something wrong" line, the dwarves of the Greysmere Covenant might get wind of hinky goings on and want to make sure that Dourstone is on the straight and narrow.