Election tomfoolery


Savage Tide Adventure Path

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32

Well, the big assault on Farshore was delayed by snow and illness. Next week, hopefully!

In the meantime, a number of ideas have cropped up for the last few weeks of peace - including the spellthief who wants to invisibly cast "Summon Undead IV" (looted scroll) to summon a ghast. She intends it to interrupt Avner, during his campaigning for his uncle, and set it to following him and saying things like "Everything is in readiness, master."

I can't decide if the populace will believe their eyes and throw him out of the village (he has failed two Diplomacy checks already) or believe that he's no necromancer and that the heroes are obviously not so squeaky clean after all. And that they've gone too far. What would you do?

Sovereign Court

That's funny :D

Our group turned Ameila loose on Avner for a couple of weeks. Personally I doubt this ploy would work, manly because Avner's reaction would be about equal to the everyone else near him, but also they need to remember that Avner isn't the one running for office. People in Farshore might not like Avner but they know his uncle ans while they might not respect him that much they know next to nothing about Lavinia and her supporters. Believing Avner is summoning undead is sort of a moot point on the election because all the uncle has to do is claim innocence and banish Avner from Farshore. This incident wouldn't hurt him in the slightest but some of the villagers might believe that Lavinia's people were responsible and this would hurt Lavinia's election campaign.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32

Thanks Guy! The other players were getting a bit upset with his plan and reminding him that hurting Avner may not hurt Manthalay and could in fact help him was enough for them to change his mind. All´s well in Farshore!


carborundum wrote:
Well, the big assault on Farshore was delayed by snow and illness. Next week, hopefully!

I was thinking a druid in your party must have gone really wild to create snow in Farshore when I first read this.

The undead campaigning idea is really neat. I would let it work - Avner would of course deny it, but still lose a few votes. But there are others watching. The Olman death-cultists would hear of this and realize who the real necromancer was and contact him for a possible alliance - after all, undead strong-arm tactics in an election seems right up their alley. This could go all the way to the hidden leader of the Cult of the Dead - never detailed, but presumably a lawful lich. Tough mostly a bystander in the Savage Tide, this lich presumably wants the Olman to continue to live as they do now and dislikes modernity and foreign influence and could try and use the spelltheif to achieve these goals - ether through alliance or blackmail.


"Mawsthster, the zombies have been trained to drop in the ballots."

"But Mawsthster, you told me to prepare the phanatons' marinade bath tubs with Worcestershire, not coconut milk."

"Mawsthster the Olman zombie masters are inferior. We must assimilate them after your election."

"Shall we ready the vampire thunder lizard, mawsthster?"


Turin the Mad wrote:

"Mawsthster, the zombies have been trained to drop in the ballots."

"But Mawsthster, you told me to prepare the phanatons' marinade bath tubs with Worcestershire, not coconut milk."

"Mawsthster the Olman zombie masters are inferior. We must assimilate them after your election."

"Shall we ready the vampire thunder lizard, mawsthster?"

Now that's funny [/frankCalliendo(TerryBradshaw)]

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32

Well, they surprised me as usual. They chickened out on the undead after all, but when I arrived last night they all had speeches written to convince the populace to vote for Lavinia!

The Barbarian/ Forsaker had one for all the troops he was training, which was very Bravehearty indeed. The VOP Druid had one which had less to do with Lavinia and more to do with general do-good-ery, but she's a Lavinia-hired adventurer, so the inspirational speech still rubs off. The spellthief had a speech for all the women of the town, saying they were the ones who could get things done and they knew it. The wiz explained that it was the logical choice and the penny-pinching Genasi fighter said it was the best choice, long-term economically speaking.

Instead of the big attack they then spent three hours planning defenses (for the third time) and everyone had a great time even though the only dice rolled were Diplomacy checks.

(Lavinia won, by the way)


My group has not decided yet whether they will support Lavinia or Meravanchi. They feel Meravanchi has the stronger personality, but they also do not trust him.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32

Digging in the story hours from enworld and here (esp. Tristan Lidu, Jollydoc and Belessa) I found some great speeches from both candidates for inspiration. When I put one for Manthalay on our site they swung his way, when Lavinia had her say they were all conflicted :-)

It's great when the players don't know the 'right' answer - mine always assume there is one and start analysing everything for clues. The sandbox style of ToD has really kind of unsettled them!

When they finally got it into their heads that both choices had consequences but were also equally possible, the responsibility seemed to really hit them! They finally took Lavinia's point of view (the druid didn't like Manthalay's kill-everything-and-skin-it outlook on wildlife).

Sovereign Court

This adventure was great because it was a sandbox. This was my second favorite adventure in the campaign.

The main difference (as I see it) between Lavinia and Manthalay is Lavinia is idealistic and Manthalay is more pragmatic. Lavinia will try to make the right choice, not necessarily the easy choice, but Manthalay isn't as interested in right wrong as that sort of thing is more of a perspective thing. Manthalay sees Farshore as an investment and is looking to maximize his returns. Lavinia sees Farshore as a legacy and wants to guarantee long term success.


Carborundum wrote:
It's great when the players don't know the 'right' answer - mine always assume there is one and start analysing everything for clues. The sandbox style of ToD has really kind of unsettled them!

Yes, some of my players are like that. They even keep lists of clues to unravel all my "secret plots", while some of these are just red herrings.

Carborundum wrote:
When they finally got it into their heads that both choices had consequences but were also equally possible, the responsibility seemed to really hit them! They finally took Lavinia's point of view (the druid didn't like Manthalay's kill-everything-and-skin-it outlook on wildlife).

Manthalay is still trying to recruit the group and is going to invite them for dinner. I wanted to describe the house full of hunting trophies, such as an umbrella stand make of a dinosaur paw, just to see how the players react.

The speeches are a good idea!

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