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I will be starting to GM Reign of Winter soon, and I am looking to minimize the role of the Dancing Hut's keys (in order to reduce the effects of plot coupon mentality), and the effects of the Black Mantle or maybe removing it entirely.
Note that this entire post has spoilers running through it for the entire AP.
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I'm sorry for the disorganization of the following. It's mostly my rambling thoughts, presented here in case anyone else desires to contribute or that it provides ideas for those thinking along the same lines.
Positives that need to be accounted for in my final version:
The Black Mantle and the Black Rider give the PCs direction. He specifically tells them to get to the Dancing Hut, throw the two keys that he holds into its cauldron, and find Baba Yaga, since she's the only one who would know enough about Elvanna's ritual to stop it (oh, and then he puts the Mantle on them to force them to do so). He's a massive info dump.
The keys give a reason for the PCs to be in such wild locations. They provide the trail for the PCs to follow toward Baba Yaga, without letting the players know where each teleport will take them, so that books 4 and 5 are a massive surprise for players who haven't read the books.
One large thing about how the keys allow the Hut teleport across the universe is that the players don't know where they will end up (aside from the two clues in the keys themselves). This keeps each of books 3,4, and 5 a surprise.
Negatives that I wish to reduce:
The Black Rider is a massive exposition dump. In one encounter, the PCs go from being completely clueless about what's going on to knowing their goal for the rest of the adventure path, which is then enforced by the Black Mantle. Over the course of the AP they see first hand how evil/petty Baba Yaga can be, so they ideally they are weighing the evil of Baba Yaga over the fate of their world. The Mantle seems unneeded for anyone but the selfish. The only story piece for it seems to be allowing them full access to the Hut without springing all the wards, since otherwise none of Baba Yaga's minions even know the PCs have the Mantle.
The keys (and the pieces in book 6) are blatant plot coupons that serve as the ultimate goals of books 3 and 4. Book 4 feels like filler. The fact that there are only two sets of breadcrumbs (one to Triaxis and one to Russia, with Baba Yaga straight out telling the Riders to start at Artrosa) is kind of flimsy. Either Baba Yaga should have laid an excessively long trail of breadcrumbs, or she should have provided the full information for her Riders right in Artrosa. At least Artrosa is related to Baba Yaga; no one on Triaxis knows she exists except for any minions with the winter generator at the pole.
Related to the keys: book 3's hut only purpose seems to be giving clues to the keys' locations, unlike the other four configurations. Perhaps I can remodel this as the location she uses to test a potential Rider's worthiness.
Goals:
Spread out the Black Rider's exposition over books 1 and 2. By the end of book 2, the PCs must know:
- Elvanna will bring eternal winter to Golarion if not stopped, starting with Taldor and several other locations. They can close the portal to Taldor if they interrupt the ritual in the Pale Tower.
- Elvanna has rebelled against her mother to circumvent her removal from the throne of Irrisen, helping her brother trap her on Earth.
- The winter ritual is complex enough that reverse-engineering it in order to stop it all at once would take years. Baba Yaga, on the other hand, would be able to reverse it almost immediately.
- Travelling in the Dancing Hut is going to be the best way for them to find Baba Yaga.
- anything else?
The presence of the portal, and lack of anything in the camp that looks like it could close it, should be enough to convince the PCs to go through the portal. Perhaps the sight of trees on the other side will help confer that the other side isn’t completely inhospitable (like say, the boundary between the elemental planes of air & water). Perhaps Teb or one of the other fey can shout something about the Pale Tower, or maybe Rohkar has some correspondence with Radosek stuffed somewhere in the Sentinel’s Lodge. One the other side of the portal the PCs watch the end of a battle between the Black Rider and some of Nazhena’s minions ending in him killing them all but a final ice spear fatally wounds him and his essence enters the nearest artifacts of Baba Yaga, reactivating the two keys in a way obvious that makes them obvious to the PCs.
Once in the ritual chamber in the Pale Tower, another chunk can be given: the PCs see that there are tons of portals all over the world, with more opening.
Need some hooks to go to Whitethrone, perhaps in hopes to stop Elvanna directly before realizing they’re no match for her and need to escape in the Hut before they’re surrounded and killed.
Find reasons for the PCs to go to Artrosa and Triaxus aside from getting the keys. Since the PCs are travelling space (and possibly time!) I can try to borrow heavily from Dr. Who: the doctor frequently shows up in a location that needs his meddling. Artrosa is easy: the Riders have been specifically told to go to there to find her if she doesn’t appear on time. Since Kostchtchie's minions have invaded the place, helping Jadrenka out will help prove that the PCs are on her side and allow her to tell the PCs what’s going on. Triaxis is harder: no one knows who Baba Yaga is, and no one really cares. Both sides get a key as a gift from her in disguise for no real reason aside from wanting to make it difficult for her riders to find her. I guess the point could be to make it difficult for “the assassin’s” followers to find and destroy the keys: although, at this point they would have had to kill the Riders, learn that Artrosa is the next step, and wreck Artrosa and kill Jadrenka to get here.
Perhaps, Triaxis is a fallback: Baba Yaga gave these keys away long ago as another means to get to her home world, and something happened in Artrosa that prevented the keys to Russia from working. Maybe the eagle and the bearskin are related to why Yrax started the war in the first place. I would like to have some reason for the PCs to be there other than the second breadcrumb of a two crumb trail.
Conflicts
- bypassing the wards inside Baba Yaga’s hut (due to the mantle)
- keys are the entire reason to go to Artrosa / Triaxis
- the hut configuration sections in books 3 & 4 are used as clues to find the keys in said books
- others?
Just a bit of brainstorming from me...
You could give the mantle powers that are activated by different events, just like mythic tiers. At first the mantle only works to give the PCs entrance to the hut. Later it gets extra powers.
Or you could make it an amulet that gives the PCs permission to use the hut.
If you go the dr. Who way, the hut, like the Tardis, could have a will of its own. Then you do not need the keys at all, since the hut determines where it goes. Perhaps Baba Yaga has preprogrammed it for those wearing the mantle, or the hut just responds to Baba Yaga's need. Perhaps you could even make the hut intelligent.
As for Artrosa: an extra reason to go there could be that Kostchtchie wants the hut for himself. I myself am thinking of situating the third adventure on the 3 x 10th kingdom (which is part of the first world), and then adding Russian fairy tale motiffs, such as the firebird. This means that Kostchtchie gets a more Russian flavor in my campaign and that he will be a direct enemy of Baba Yaga.
I get what you are saying about the fourth adventure and more or less agree. Though it is an exciting adventure, it does not feel like a part of the campaign to me, except for the winter theme. I am still brainstorming about it. Perhaps I will do something with the dragon theme, as a dragon theme seems to be creeping into my campaign. Probably I am going to elaborate on that. Perhaps I will also make the dragons more Russian. There are some Russian type dragons, such as the zmey. I think there is one in the Irrisen book as well.
Another option is to really make the hut intelligent, so that it can bargain with the PCs. Basically the hut has unfinished business on Triaxius and will only help the PCs get to Russia when they first help the hut solve a problem on Triaxius.
The presence of the portal, and lack of anything in the camp that looks like it could close it, should be enough to convince the PCs to go through the portal. Perhaps the sight of trees on the other side will help confer that the other side isn’t completely inhospitable (like say, the boundary between the elemental planes of air & water).
Don't they see the black rider arrive through the portal?
I was concerned my PCs might be short on XP, so I had 3 timber wolves come through (they didn't last long, poor things). Although I didn't intend it, that would indicate the portal is safe to travel through. Also, the alchemist has a very high k. arcana, even at 2nd level, so I'm happy giving them a lot of info about magical things like the portal.
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My big idea right now is to have a Winter Fey / Witch encampment on the other side (why would they fortify only one side of the portal?), and the Black Rider trying to fight his way through.
A couple fey would try to come to the Taldor side to request help from Teb only to find he's in the middle of his own fight (or dead, if the PCs have killed him outside and are now staring at the portal). Looking through allows them to see the encampment and the sight of battle, and if they succeed at a perception check, the sound of battle.
When they go through, they find the Black Rider in all his glory trying to fight his way to the portal, leaving carnage in his wake before eventually succumbing to his wounds.
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Update: after 3 years, my group has finally made it into the Endless Forest. It's time to formulate something concrete with regards to why the PCs go to Artrosa and Triaxus.
Let's see what I've managed to do thus far compared to my goals:
Goals
Spread out the Black Rider's exposition over books 1 and 2
I've managed this successfully so far. The Black Rider encounter ended up being a combat encounter where Elvanna's trackers finally caught up with him while he tried to breach the defenses on the Irrisen side of the portal. The PCs came through the portal into carnage, with an absolute mess of corpses, with some trackers & fey taking potshots at the Rider while he fought two winter wolves. While the PCs dealt with the soldiers, the Rider killed the winter wolves. However, he succumbed to his wounds in the process.
- The Black Rider only managed to judge the PCs worthy before telling them only a few things: Elvanna has usurped Baba Yaga's throne and started the eternal winter, Baba Yaga must be found, and her hut is the best way to find her.- Knowledge: Arcana checks told the PCs that the portal is maintained by a ritual that is in line of sight. Destroying the ritual closes the portal (They can see the tower from the treetops).
- While PCs were in the Pale Tower, they discovered that there were too many portals opening for them to disable all of them this way.
- The PCs are keeping the keys because I have turned them into decent magic items, not because they know what they do. They will learn what they are for when they find Zorka and she warms to them.
Remodel [Iobaria's hut configuration]
I plan on doing something similar to ryschwith's Alternate Raven Challenge. This gives a real reason for this configuration to exist aside from just testing the Riders. I need to solidify this section quickly! The PCs are 2-3 sessions away from getting there.
Find reasons for the PCs to go to Artrosa and Triaxus aside from getting the keys.
First off, there is a personal reason for the PCs to go to Artrosa. One of the PCs is a changeling, and she's been getting dreams of three gigantic statues from the Artrosa coven (one of whom is the PC's mother). They will likely want to check that out. I've also decided that it's still the best way for Baba Yaga to make sure that her Riders are the ones who go to rescue her and that Jadrenka is best suited for keeping the keys for the next step.
So, where are the PCs going after that? After 3 years, I still haven't been able to think up something concrete for my possible suggestion for the PCs entering the Thrice-Tenth kingdom and/or Kostchtchie's Abyssal Realm.
The basic framework is still there: despite the PCs being able to kill Vsevolod, his ritual finishes, and he rips a portal between the First World and the Abyss. I would take the basic structure of the first part of The Frozen Stars, and turn it into the defense of Baba Yaga's palace. The second part of it would be to chase Kostchtchie's minions into the Abyss with the help of those in the Thrice Tenth Kingdom to get the keys before the minions can get them to Kostchtchie, wherein he uses them to transport himself to Earth and completely wreck Rasputin and kill Baba Yaga.
On the other hand, I thought up something much simpler that can let me incorporate the entirety of The Frozen Stars. Jadrenka is still in possession of the keys to Earth; however, there is a complication. Long ago, when she visited Triaxus, a triaxian wizard asked her to teach him the secret to immortality. She gave it to him, but in exchange he has spent a couple millennia as her janitor in Artrosa. It's finally starting to chafe on him, especially since current conflict is creating so much mess! Upon hearing that Baba Yaga is nowhere to be found and is likely in trouble, he decides that he would very much like to go home.
Janitor's goal is to trick the PCs into removing his geas, then steal the keys to the Skyfire Mandate (where he originally lived and where Baba Yaga took him from). In order to aid in this there will be a room in Artrosa that contains a copy of all of the keys to everywhere (at the bottom of the Eon Pit?). Jadrenka knows which two keys the Riders will need, but hasn't collected them due to the current conflict.
Janitor needs to prevent the PCs from putting the Russia keys into the cauldron while putting in his own. I am currently working on how this might happen, but don't have a great deal of ideas aside from him casting polymorph any object on the keys he wants to look like the keys the PCs want, and then hiding the keys he wants. The issue with this is that there is no reason for him to take the Russia keys to Triaxus.
The other idea would be to use some combination of trade items from UI or apport objects from OA and cast them while the PCs are in the process of dropping the keys into the cauldron. Given that these require will saves to fail, this is extremely shaky ground to base an entire 3 levels worth of content on.
Other choices includes Janitor to inconspicuously force the PCs to deal with several combat encounters so that they decide it necessary to rest in the hut before dropping the keys in the cauldron. Then he can just throw his keys in, and steal their keys. This is subject to the PCs will, and again not a great idea to base an adventure on.
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It's not like the PCs are able to easily discern what a given key looks like. Heck, probably the same key can be used in different ways or combinations to do wildly different things. Shouldn't be terribly hard for an NPC to switch some.
True, but Jadrenka needs to know what keys Baba Yaga wanted them to have. This would require a description at the very least, unless Baba Yaga literally put the two keys on a pedestal with Jadrenka's instructions to never go near the keys unless the Riders come.