I may have made a serious mistake. In the House of the Beast, after the party killed the Carrion King, Zayafid told them about the Scroll of Kakishon in order to get them to retrieve it for him. I realize now that I may have given them too much information about the Scroll. Namely, Zayafid told them that Jhavhul was trapped inside. Knowing this, I may have trouble getting the PCs to activate the Scroll, or allow the Scroll to be activated, at the end of The Jackal's Price.
I'm going to look for all the advice I can in the books. Failing that, can anyone help me come up with a compelling reason for my PCs to activate the SoK, knowing that Jhavhul is currently trapped inside?
You could always have a certain friendly NPC research the scroll and then...oops...scroll is activated. This could be particularly dramatic if the activation happens just after the final battle if the book.
A few other thoughts came to me.
If the players tell Almah about the scroll then she advises them that if they can get the scroll back, that she knows of a person in Katapesh who might be able to figure out a way to seal the scroll. Play continues as per the AP.
If they do not tell Almah, then someone could steal the scroll and head off to Katepesh to sell it for themselves (I could see Dashki(*) doing just such a thing). Again, Almah could reveal that she saw Dashki heading toward Katapesh and was behaving strangely. If the characters chase after Dashki, Almah could provide a letter of introduction to her contact in Katapesh so that they have a base of operations.
(*) in my game Dashki looks out for Dashki alone and while not quite evil, he certainly pushed the boundary.
Regardless, you will definitely have to massage the AP to fit your conditions.
Good luck.
Hmmm, beyond that someone who knows of the riches hidden within might tell the PC's that Jhavhul was defeated and is not, in fact, trapped within. Said character might do everything he can to convince them to open it. Appealing to PC's greed tends to work in my experience.
Allow me to explain the situation further.
First of all, Dashki's out of the picture. When the meeting with the squad of Three Jaws gnolls went south, Dashki panicked and attacked one of the PCs. The PCs defeated the Three Jaws' squad, and knocked Dashki unconscious. After he awoke, Dashki told his sad story. For his betrayal, Almah had Garavel execute him the next morning.
Moving on, during the journey from Kelmarane to Pale Mountain, the PC cleric of Sarenrae remembered where he'd encountered the name of the traveling priest before. Zayifid was the same name as one of the Templars of the Five Winds from the book they'd found in the monastery. He was Nefesti's master spy.
Later, inside the House of the Beast, the PCs discovered Zayifid's secret study and broke down a wall to access it. Amir, the PC cleric of Sarenrae, happened to have Terran as one of his languages (he thought choosing Ignan would be to metagamey. Ha!), so he could read all of Zayifid's notes. This confirmed their suspicions that the man who'd sent them on this quest had deceived them, and that he was somewhere in the House of the Beast.
After that, the PCs killed most of the Carrion Tribe and the Carrion King himself in a prolonged and deadly battle, losing two out of five party members in the process. They retreated and rested until the next day (by which time replacement PCs had fortuitously arrived). When the PCs returned to the House of the Beast, they found Rokova on the throne, a gnoll conspicuously better-dressed, better-spoken, and better-mannered than any other in the Carrion Tribe. Zayifid's high Bluff checks could not stop the players from reaching the correct conclusion.
At this point, the PCs had nearly wiped out the Carrion Tribe. Zayifid did not have enough forces to force them to retrieve the Scroll for him, so he had to persuade them. In a private conversation in the Carrion King's former quarters, he apologized for manipulating them in the disguise of the wandering priest, explaining that he did not simply ask for their help because he had feared that the party might claim the Scroll for themselves, as one of them had already claimed Tempest. He lied and said that he wanted to return the Scroll to Nefeshti, as it was rightfully her property.
The PCs, of course, asked why the Scroll was so important. Here's where I messed up and gave out too much information. Zayifid told them how the scroll was used to trap Jhavhul. In fact, he used that as a reason why the Scroll could not remain in the House of the Beast--because a gnoll or other Rovagug worshipper might one day find it and release Jhavhul. This was all perfectly in-character for Zayifid. It didn't matter what he told the party. He was going to successfully betray and murder them after all.
I guess I got into playing Zayifid's character too much and forgot to think about the needs of the campaign as a whole.
Zayifid tried using Thkot Tal to ambush the party after they'd retrieved the Scroll of Kakishon. The PCs were prepared for his treachery however, especially Amir. The foward-thinking cleric of Sarenrae had prepared Dimensional Anchor and Invisibility Purge, and he used them well. Things went south for Zayifid in a great big hurry. Unable to escape, the treacherous janni was forced to surrender and beg for mercy. He didn't receive any mercy, but the party did force him to reveal his true intentions before executing him.
So now the party has the Scroll of Kakishon and they know that a powerful and villainous efreeti is trapped inside. And now I've got to somehow get them to take it to the city of Katapesh and eventually activate it, in spite of what they know.
I have to agree with Ryzoken here. With Jhavul out, Kakishon becomes a non-event story wise.
I guess the key thing here is what do your players want to DO with the scroll now that they have it? Sell it? Destroy it? Make an origami teradactyl out of it?
Contributor
|
Do not underestimate the sneakiness of Zayifid. He could easily leave the House of the Beast and attempt to interecpt the scroll at any point the PCs try to get rid of it. Unless the PCs plan is solely to stash it in a backpack and guard it, he should have an opportunity to pose as a high-ranking official or priest, and acquire the scroll.
Even if they do keep it, he has very good stealth between his Move Silent skill, invisibility and ethereal jaunt. He could steal the scroll and vanish.
Once he has the scroll, have him activate it while still near the PCs.
Do not underestimate the sneakiness of Zayifid. He could easily leave the House of the Beast and attempt to interecpt the scroll at any point the PCs try to get rid of it. Unless the PCs plan is solely to stash it in a backpack and guard it, he should have an opportunity to pose as a high-ranking official or priest, and acquire the scroll.
Even if they do keep it, he has very good stealth between his Move Silent skill, invisibility and ethereal jaunt. He could steal the scroll and vanish.
Once he has the scroll, have him activate it while still near the PCs.
Unfortunately, according to the OP, Zayifid is dead. And I doubt his stealth/bluff is high enough to pass THAT check. ;-)
I'm considering putting a MacGuffin inside the MacGuffin here.
The wizard-king Nex kept all manner of exotic creatures in Kakishon. Who knows what else he might have hidden or stored in his private realm? I need to figure out some thing that the PCs have to have that can only be found in Kakishon: a person, an item, a secret, etc. Something important enough that the PCs will risk opening Jhavhul's prison.
Actually, I don't necessarily need them to try to open it. I just need them to mess with it enough to justify having it suck them in. I could make it obvious that the Scroll is deteriorating. Soon it will be damaged enough that Jhavhul will be able to break out of his prison. Then they'll have to let Rayhan research so he can figure out how to prevent further deterioration.
No, that could go wrong in too many ways. The PCs would probably come up with some other plan to make sure Jhavhul never escapes. They might seal the entire scroll in a permanent magic circle against evil so even if Jhavhul escapes Kakishon he won't be free to trouble the world ever again. They might do something ambitious and crazy like trying to recreate the ancient genie-binding seals from one of the articles in the Legacy of Fire issues. Or they might seal it in a lead box and sink it to the bottom of the Obari Ocean, or freeze it in a block of ice at the crown of the world, give it to the Pactmasters to lock in their deepest vault, or do any number of other things. I hate to shut down creative solutions from the players, but if I don't get them into Kakishon I have to scrap not one but two whole parts of this adventure path.
Okay, back to the previous idea. I have to give the PCs a reason they need to go to Kakishon. The stakes have to be high to justify the risk. The fate of someone or something they care about must depend on them braving the Realm of Kakishon. Unfortunately, I don't think all of the care about any single person or thing. They each have different NPCs and other things they care about.
What if a very obscure, legendary plague afflicted Kelmarane? It could get Almah, Haleen, Feliped, the Sarenraen congregation, someone for each of them to care about (or at least the majority of them). Of course, the only cure is a special plant (or something) and legends say Nex preserved the very last one in his private realm.
Okay, so I need an appropriate-to-Arabian-Nights mythical plague and an appropriate-to-Arabian-Nights mythical cure.
What do you guys think? Am I on the right track? Or at least a good enough track?
I had a brainstorm and came up with this. Let me know what you think.
Each time they sleep, Almah, Haleen, Feliped, and other important NPCs are afflicted with terrible, vivid nightmares. Each night they dream of a monster like a mountain of fire (i.e. the Firebleeder) blazing down upon Kelmarane and setting most of Katapesh aflame. When they awaken, they're running a high fever and drenched in hot sweat. They're dehydrated, frightened, and growing more sleep-deprived from the nightmares. Their fevers drop while they are awake and they can rehydrate themselves, but they have to sleep again eventually. With each night terror, the victims get a little weaker from sleep deprivation and repeated stress on their systems. It won't kill them tomorrow or even next week, but they are all in for a drawn-out and tortuous death eventually.
So I've got an affliction that pulls double duty by foreshadowing the Firebleeder. I still need a remedy, or a secret recipe for a remedy, hidden or preserved in Kakishon, and only in Kakishon. Any ideas?
I am at that very moment playing that very adventure, why not have the Jackal has one of his flunkies steal the scroll from the group at any given time. The wizard who is supposed to steal in the third book could steal if from kelmarene and since the wizard in katapesh(I don't remember his name off hand) is a diviner he could possibly lead the party the right way to get them to go after it from him. Just a thought.
|
The cure is a lie.
The terrors are originating from Kakishon, perhaps big J himself.
All the divinations and investigations point to the scroll...perhaps some threads of magic lead from it to the PC's friends.
If they try to sever the threads, boom, adventure.
If they do anything reasonably traumatic, boom.
Problem solved, AP back on track.
The cure is a lie.
The terrors are originating from Kakishon, perhaps big J himself.
All the divinations and investigations point to the scroll...perhaps some threads of magic lead from it to the PC's friends.
If they try to sever the threads, boom, adventure.
If they do anything reasonably traumatic, boom.
Problem solved, AP back on track.
Or you could use the Moldspeaker. Give the Moldspeaker the dreams. Yes, it is heavy handed, but that is what the Moldspeak is there for. To be the GM's whipping boy.
What to do is highly dependent on what the characters intend to do with the scroll.
Destroy it - the scroll is an artifact and defies normal destruction as all artifacts do. In the course of trying to destroy it, the party triggers the gate effect.
Sell it - of course the buyer wants to confirm the goods are the real mccoy. Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved or Book of Eldritch Might 2 has a rare form of magic called soul magic. In essence, it is a form of 'sentient' spell that typically is formed by force of will over a long period of time. Jhavul is the one who formed the soul magic incantation from his desire to escape Kakishon. The person who opens the scroll is therefore compelled to read the incantation (very high will save to avoid) which triggers the gate effect. So essentially the buyer triggers the gate effect and the party is caught in the effect.
Hide it away - the subconcious motivations of the Moldspeaker result in the scroll always showing up in the party's gear (the character infected by the Moldspeaker retrieves the scroll when that character is asleep and the Moldspeaker conciousness takes over). This has no effect other than a mystery in which the scroll always comes back to the party possessions, forcing them to either choose to destroy it or sell it.
The Moldspeaker's motivation is to keep and use the scroll. So if the party is deferring to the advice of the Moldspeaker, use this angle to your advantage.
My players understand that I'm running an Adventure Path, that there's going to be a certain amount of linearity to it. I explained to them OOC how, in order to get from the latter part of House of the Beast to the start of The End of Eternity, the AP makes some questionable assumptions about the choices and actions of the player characters. They're willing to work with me to keep the adventure path going so they can keep playing.
As a matter of fact, I was surprised by how much one of my players is willing to march his character directly down the path into Kakishon. He's playing Amir, the cleric of Sarenrae. Since Amir knows that non-native outsiders in general, and efreet in particular, are immortal, he reasons that Jhavhul could be alive in Kakishon centuries or millenia after Amir dies. He figures that eventually, after who knows how many centuries, Jhavhul will escape or be released from his prison, and he will be just as much a threat to the people of Katapesh then as he was before he was imprisoned. Therefore, Amir has decided that he must one day enter Kakishon, confront Jhavhul, offer the efreeti the chance for redemption, and be prepared to slay Jhavhul when he refuses quit his evil ways. Thus, the threat of Jhavhul will be ended forever.
It seems I was worried over nothing.
Still, I brought the nightmare curse into the story to give the party a logical reason why they must attempt to enter Kakishon. Having introduced the nightmare curse, I must resolve that plot thread with a cure of some sort. The horn of the golden draught is looking like a good bet. Utilizing ebon flame in some way also seems promising.
|
|
<snip> As a matter of fact, I was surprised by how much one of my players is willing to march his character directly down the path into Kakishon. He's playing Amir, the cleric of Sarenrae. Since Amir knows that non-native outsiders in general, and efreet in particular, are immortal, he reasons that Jhavhul could be alive in Kakishon centuries or millenia after Amir dies. He figures that eventually, after who knows how many centuries, Jhavhul will escape or be released from his prison, and he will be just as much a threat to the people of Katapesh then as he was before he was imprisoned. Therefore, Amir has decided that he must one day enter Kakishon, confront Jhavhul, offer the efreeti the chance for redemption, and be prepared to slay Jhavhul when he refuses quit his evil ways. Thus, the threat of Jhavhul will be ended forever.</snip>
Funny you should mention this.
My gnome Paladin of Sarenrae is all about going into this place for a couple of reasons, with that very one about 2 or 3 down the list.
Reason 1: C'mon, it's an incredible magical gateway place. What self-respecting Gnome is gonna say "no?"
Reason 2: Tempest keeps telling me to go there.
Reason 3: Redeem (probably via steel) big J.
So, seems to me it should work out just fine, no matter the angle from which they come at the problem.
-t
The scroll of K is an artifact ... an ancient, unraveling artifact.
Simply have it slurp them in when the need arises ... perhaps when being pursued by the forces of the DfL ...
I still think having it stolen is the better way to go that way you don't miss out on all that cool combat in the third book.
What made you think I wasn't going to run them through The Jackal's Price? I just needed to figure out an additional reason for them to activate the Scroll and open the way to Kakishon.
My PCs are already on their way to the city of Katapesh. I stopped last night's session just before the Carrion Siege at the Sphinx's Oasis. Radi Hamdi already stole the Scroll. Gnolls killed him a few hours later. The PCs, who had been chasing the thief, found the gnolls in the midst of looting Radi's corpse. They recovered the Scroll easily.
Ok, continuing into The Jackal's Price, I discovered this goof is actually built right into the adventure path. It just came up a little early for me. Let me paraphrase for you some of Rayhan Xobhadi's expository blue-text.
Third paragraph: Some of the owners of the Scroll of Kakishon since Nex used it as a prison for their enemies.
Fourth paragraph: The last person to own the scroll was the wizard Andrathi, who was the lover of the genie Nefeshti, the leader of the Templars of the Five Winds. They fought Jhavhul and managed to capture him inside Kakishon, but Andrathi and the scroll disappeared during the battle.
Sixth and final paragraph: After I figure out how to open it, let's all go inside.
So my players see the obvious flaw in Rayhan's logic here, and one of them asks the obvious question:
If the Scroll of Kakishon was used to imprison the efreeti Jhavhul (who can plane shift), how would we get back out?
It is a question to which Rayhan has no answer, at least none that I can find in The Jackal's Price.
Seriously, this is an issue that should occur to an INT 20, planar scholar! I mean, if you know that the last thing it was used for was to trap an efreeti and his army, shouldn't you expect to find a pissed-off efreeti, possibly with an army, inside when you open it? And if the Scroll of Kakishon can trap something that can plane shift at-will and grant wishes, shouldn't you be concerned about how difficult it must be to get out?
Anyway, enough kvetching. I'm going back to the books to brainstorm a way to untangle this snarl.
Plus, the potential treasure hoard that may be found inside a millennia-old demiplane could easily be vast. And, hey, it's not every day you'll get to explore a powerful eccentric wizard's personal playground :)