Back when we started our Kingmaker campaign, I helped flesh out the background of one of my player's half-elf wizard. She's the illegitimate offspring of an elven woman who, along with an entourage of other elves and the financial backing of a minor Brevic noble family (that of another PC), had attempted to reclaim and settle the Forgotten Keep in RRR. The PC, as a young child, had been sent away to live with her human father's household in Brevoy when monstrous attacks on the elven keep grew too dangerous for her to remain. Eventually the keep's forces were overwhelmed and the elves were never heard from again. It's been sixty years since then and our venerable half-elf has joined the expedition into the Green Belt with the goal of finding the lost keep from her childhood and to discover what ever befell her mother.
That's as much as I told the player about the place. Many session later, after speaking with the gnomish explorers, the group has a lead on the keep's location and are en route to it. The PC uses her mother heirloom silver ring, embossed with a stylized tree, as her bonded item. I've hinted that it has some additional powers while in the Narlmarches.
I'd like to somehow incorporate the background we've put together when the party finally explores the elven keep. I'm wondering how I might add some depth to the dancing lady's presence in the keep. Were some or all of the fey amongst the original attackers who overcame the keep's defences? If so, why did they attack in the first place? What were they after? Could this event serve as foreshadowing for later fey encounters in the campaign? What became of the PC's elven mother? Etc. I'm hoping to get some ideas for fleshing out this site since it's so important to the PCs. Thanks for any help.
An obvious (too-obvious?) option is to just have her parents' heads mounted above the fireplace. Or perhaps their ghosts are still hanging around the keep. (Or both, and maybe the ring allows occasional communication with them, like a commune spell but only for stuff they might reasonably have known.
Definitely have the fey be among the original attackers (maybe have some of them say things like "Ah, a familiar smell..." when they meet the PC.) They could have been after anything, but I'd say something like "the PCs' parents built -- or recaptured, or rehabilitated -- the castle and the fey took that as a reason to attack them. Possibly Nyrissa sent them to clean out the area, and you can use the encounter to foreshadow her (one of the elements that Kingmaker was a bit lacking on, IMO).
Another option: She's _actually_ the daughter of the Dancing Lady, rescued (or abducted?) while young and taken on by a childless elven lady. Or maybe there never was an elven lady and the Dancing Lady was her mother all along.
"You are my daughter, Lucia. Search your feelings. You know it to be true."
Thanks for replying.
An obvious (too-obvious?) option is to just have her parents' heads mounted above the fireplace.
Only the elven mother died in the keep. The father, a human, was the head of the Brevic noble family who raised her.
Or perhaps their ghosts are still hanging around the keep.
That's an idea I hadn't considered. Perhaps her soul has been trapped by the dancing lady and the party can free her to move on after a cathartic encounter during a post battle denouement.
Another idea I had was to have the alabaster statue of an elf in the dancing lady's boudoir be the PC's petrified mother; a fate she chose for herself rather than being killed or cast out of the keep she'd sworn to defend. I'm just not certain I want to introduce her as a possible long term NPC; though she could conveniently fill one of the vacant leadership roles...
They could have been after anything, but I'd say something like "the PCs' parents built -- or recaptured, or rehabilitated -- the castle and the fey took that as a reason to attack them.
My initial thought was that the elves who originally built the keep way back chose the site because it sat on a natural wellspring of magic, unaware (or not caring) that the fey considered it theirs. A war ensued, which led to the keep being abandoned by the elves the first time. The relatively recent reoccupation by the PC's mother's forces led to a similar fey counter-attack with similar results. And then the PCs show up...
Possibly Nyrissa sent them to clean out the area, and you can use the encounter to foreshadow her (one of the elements that Kingmaker was a bit lacking on, IMO).
My thought as well. The magical wellspring would make a good prize for Nyrissa to strive for. I'm just not certain how to use this to foreshadow Nyrissa. And would the wellspring still be present and somehow useable by the PCs?
Another option: She's _actually_ the daughter of the Dancing Lady, rescued (or abducted?) while young and taken on by a childless elven lady. Or maybe there never was an elven lady and the Dancing Lady was her mother all along.
Hm. One far-out idea I had was for her to be Nyrissa's offsrping with her elder paramour; exiled to the mortal world by the other elders of the First World as a changeling exchanged for the elven mother's own half-elven child. I'm just not certain what ramifications that would have for the PC.
Thoughts?
IMO, of course.
Opinions are what I'm after, so thanks.
having the PC be a changeling child of Nyrissa seems too much to me.
Could you elaborate as to why you think it a bad idea?
just finding out that it was fey from the First World that did it should be enough for now. If you could lay some foreshadowing that it was Nyrissa who wanted the castle depopulated, that's something to develop later.
If I were to go ahead with the PC being Nyrissa's changeling offspring, it's a detail I would only reveal much later. Assuming that the elven mother was unaware that her child had been exchanged by the fey, any evidence discovered in the keep would only point to the elven woman being the true mother.
The more I think about it, the more I'm liking the changeling idea. The fact that her offspring had been exiled to the mortal world by the Elders would be the reason the Nyrissa is so intent on pulling the Greenbelt into the First World; she's casting a wide net in hopes that it'll bring her long lost daughter back to her.
some kind of link to Thousand Screams is in order. A copy of "Zuddinger's picnic?"
That's a great idea! Since the tower was the PC's childhood home it'd be fitting for her to rediscover the old story book that her mother used to read to her. She'd likely keep it as a keepsake. Great foreshadowing!
what if it was Irovetti (when he was in an adventurer band) who killed them, and the Dancing Lady & friends only came along since then. (I don't know if the given timeline supports this.)
Probably not since the attack on the keep would have happened sixty years earlier. I don't believe Irovetti is anywhere near that old.
Of course, the Dancing Lady could also be lying about being the mother of your PC. Evil fey are like that...
I really like the idea of having "Zuddinger's Picnic" be the childhood storybook there ;)
Just personal preference, I can see the appeal. Now that you've mentioned the lost daughter being behind Nyrissa's reaching into the world, I think you've really got something there, given N's "lost love".
That tie-in occurred to me. Its interesting to ponder how Nyrissa would regard her lost child since, having had her ability to love stripped from her as punishment, that emotion can't be her motivation for searching for the PC. So if not motherly love, what's driving the nymph?
One question: will you still be aiming for the PCs to lop off Nyrissa's head with Briar at the end? You're opening up the possibility that Daughter might not want to kill her, but reconcile.
I'd leave that up to the players to decide. An interesting idea is that, as an alternate means of stopping Nyrissa, the PCs must find her and then destroy Briar itself; thereby restoring to the nymph her lost ability to love. With her love restored and her newfound daughter as a focus for her affections, Nyrissa might see the error of her ways and be amenable to halting her efforts in hopes of a reconciliation.
Or, you know, the PCs could just go ahead and chop her head off. Either way Nyrissa the would-be-tyrant will have been undone by her own love as was prophesied.
As an aside, you may be interested in knowing that I've already planned to substitute Vordakai in tVV with Count Renalc, Nyrissa's elder paramour who's been exiled from the First World as detailed in this thread with the goal of making Kingmaker into an epic faerie tale.