Any suggestions for a side quest to allow a party of 4 to work off at least part of the cost of a Raise Dead before they get into The Skinsaw Murders?
Explanation:
My party just killed Nualia, but she killed the party ranger first. They found the Shadows and ran, left the rope bridge to the island hanging with an angry horse stuck up there, and built a raft to get back to land.
Now they've got Lyrie and Orik as prisoners and Sherriff Hemlock is commissioning the party to take them to Magnimar for trial. They're also planning on buying a Raise Dead for the ranger. They've got just enough money to pay for the raise, but they've missed a significant chunk of treasure and don't appear to want to head back to Thistletop any time soon.
I'd like to turn this into an opportunity to add some story: Either give the players the feeling that they've finally tied up the Lamashtu story line, or foreshadow some of the Skinsaw Murders arc, or perhaps give them a red herring so they think they know something about the world (maybe relating to Aldern Foxglove or Nualia) that really isn't true.
Some ideas I've had: A group of Swaithe Demons (Lamashtu's servants from Inner Sea Gods) have taken up residence somewhere outside Magnimar and are killing off farmers. Possibly tie them in with the Sandpoint Devil? That might misdirect them when they find out about outlying farms getting raided near Sandpoint.
Another possibility is to have them destroy the altars and deplete the Runewell in Thistletop and the Catacombs of Wrath. But I'm not sure how to make that anything other than a boring straightforward fight and give them the feeling that I'm railroading them into completing the sections of dungeons they've skipped.
If they are in Magnimar and aren't totally sick of goblins yet you could do the Rise of the Goblin Guild (a PFS scenario that is set in Magnimar).
There's also the Chopper's Isle side quest from Wayfinder #7, though that doesn't have much treasure in it and might be a little weak for a 4th level party.
-Boggards in the Brinestump is another
-Dawn of the Scarlet Sun is also in Magnimar, I intend to reskin it a little to fit more with the plots from Rise.
Peet wrote:
There's also the Chopper's Isle side quest from Wayfinder #7, though that doesn't have much treasure in it and might be a little weak for a 4th level party.
Chopper's Isle as written doesn't have much in it, but, it could have treasure to cover the value of the Raise Dead if you add it, depending upon how important Chopper was to the party, it could give a good sense of closure too, with my players living through the Late Unpleasantness, some of them were plenty disturbed and upset by the Chopper.
If you need an idea for something to sideline the group in Magnimar for a little bit, Dawn of the Scarlet Sun is a good way to go, especially if you have a player connected to Sarenrae, but is otherwise a good little murder mystery to keep players occupied. It has the players interact with the Magnimar Guard, and if your group is traveling to Magnimar anyway, Kasadei (the guard liaison) could easily be the person they hand the prisoners off to, who can offer the payment they need in exchange for their help solving a murder case. She'd probably know Hemlock, especially since he came and requisitioned some guard troops from Magnimar not too long before. You may have to tune the encounters down a bit for a low level party, but it's not a huge issue. My group did just fine and they're level 4.
Things I would suggest NOT doing are foreshadowing the events of Skinsaw Murders in any major way outside of possibly dropping some very, very subtle mentions of commonly known details in Magnimar and maybe dropping a hint or two about the Skinsaw Man's obsession target. I wouldn't foreshadow the actual events though, as I think that ruins the surprise.
Don't bother with the Runewell, there's no point in it now and it can only be a boring encounter, especially if your players don't have the skills to investigate it or are savvy enough to ask the right questions. There is no Runewell in Thistletop. I wouldn't bother placing much emphasis on more Lamashtu right away, either. Nualia is dead, let the party have that victory and move on for now. There will be plenty more Lamashtu for them later. Unless they really want to go investigate Thassilonian ruins or are keen to clear out the dungeons, I would just drop Thistletop. And the less goblins, the better.
They're all experienced PFS players and have all played (and GM'd, in some cases multiple times) Rise of the Goblin Guild already. So I couldn't use that straight up.
I like the Dawn of the Scarlet Sun idea, though some of them have probably already played or GM'd it. But if I use it as an outline to build an adventure more tailored to the group it might work well. (They're too familiar with Rise of the Goblin Guild to get away with that.) So, instead of Sarenrites down by the river, maybe it will be Desnans out in the country...
As for relating to the Skinsaw Murders, I was thinking more along the lines of providing a red herring: Outlying farmsteads have been attacked and the families have disappeared. Maybe add some smoking hoofprints. When the party tracks them down, they find the responsible parties were a couple or three Swaithe Demons, with maybe a Cleric or Wizard leading them, running a herd of mutated animals and sacrificing the farmers. Then, when people start disappearing off farms near Sandpoint, the party will assume they know what's going on, so the real culprit will come out of left field.
I am guilty of looking for opportunities to use new toys from Inner Sea Gods and Bestiary 4, and totally unrepentant.
Ravenmoor is in Varisia, not terribly far from Sandpoint and it's made for 3rd level PCs. It would get your players out of Sandpoint long enough that the Skinsaw Man panic would be in full swing by hte time they got back, and they wouldn't have any way to know what's going on.
Ravenmoor is in Varisia, not terribly far from Sandpoint and it's made for 3rd level PCs. It would get your players out of Sandpoint long enough that the Skinsaw Man panic would be in full swing by hte time they got back, and they wouldn't have any way to know what's going on.
-Skeld
Feast of Ravenmoor would be absolutely perfect, if I hadn't already run it for 2 or 3 of the players in this group.
BUT, that reminds me of <spoiler>, which got me thinking that <Dawn of the Scarlet Sun spoiler> is to Sarenrae like <Feast of Ravenmoor spoiler> is to Desna, sorta kinda. I'm probably going to restructure DotSS to take place outside the city and deal with Desna (since Father Zantus is the group's primary contact within the temple), and rebuild the NPCs to be a little less murderous towards a group of 4-5 level 4s.Even better, the suggested rewards for completing DotSS are pretty close to the cost of a Raise Dead and a couple Restorations, so I don't even feel bad about softballing them and being over generous. =D
I really want a way to tie it into the overall story somehow, though. At least to make Varisia, Magnimar and Sandpoint feel more fleshed out.
Well, my party is having a blast with DotSS right now, and I'm basically running it as-written because I had an Oracle of Sarenrae in the group who needed some backstory fleshing out, and we used this module as a way to have him write some connections to the city (he had originally come from Magnimar with Hemlock, since he joined halfway through book 1). And the time spent in Magnimar is basically the group getting used to their 2 newer members, one of whom lived there.
Of course, the Underbridge is a fantastic place, and certainly didn't expect the Bard to attempt to Speak With Animals on some alley rats, which led to the a very unique 20 minutes where he spoke to a dozen rats that all turned out to talk like they're from Staten Island.
If you're planning on adding much side content you might want to shift the group from the fast track to the medium track for XP; from basically just a few extra encounters I added to accommodate some story feat stuff and roleplaying events, my group ran close to a full level ahead of the recommended point for the adventure pretty much all the way to the end. The fast track is really fast.
Anyway, some suggestions:
- If you're not sick of goblins, there's the option to have them go after one of the other tribes while the goblins are still reeling from their defeat; maybe Shalelu wants them to go after the Mosswood goblins and Big Gugmut (I would avoid the Brinestump goblins since that gets used in another AP you might want to run later.)
- Scarzni shenanigans: If they're asking around about loans for a raise dead, some people might direct them to Jubrayl, the local crime boss. As an alternative to a straight loan, maybe a rival group tries to move in on Sandpoint with the town weakened by goblins, and Jubrayl asks the group to help run them off - after all his guys are a known commodity and (he claims) they keep their activities to a reasonable minimum; this other new gang moving in is much more violent and is thus the greater evil. You could maybe tie this group in to the Galdurian victims of the Skinsaw man, as well. (This is the one I would pick, but I like running smarmy crime bosses a LOT.)
- Ameiko just inherited a whole lot of stuff (if she survived in your game.) She's got the entire contents of her family manor in Sandpoint plus a townhouse in Magnimar to deal with. Maybe she hires the party to help her liquidate it all; carting all the valuables to Magnimar, then overseeing an auction of everything could introduce a bunch of intrigue type interactions with other noble families, bandits hired to steal stuff on the way to Magnimar, etc., and it also helps set up Jade Regent a bit if that's on your radar for later.
- I ended up NOT adding Dawn of the Scarlet Sun because I felt like it was a little too thematically similar to the Skinsaw stuff. You end up with two serial killer adventures right in a row and I feel like that robs Skinsaw of a bunch of its atmosphere and surprise factor.
Ravenmoor is in Varisia, not terribly far from Sandpoint and it's made for 3rd level PCs. It would get your players out of Sandpoint long enough that the Skinsaw Man panic would be in full swing by hte time they got back, and they wouldn't have any way to know what's going on.
-Skeld
Feast of Ravenmoor would be absolutely perfect, if I hadn't already run it for 2 or 3 of the players in this group.
Ravenmoor is in Varisia, not terribly far from Sandpoint and it's made for 3rd level PCs. It would get your players out of Sandpoint long enough that the Skinsaw Man panic would be in full swing by hte time they got back, and they wouldn't have any way to know what's going on.
-Skeld
Feast of Ravenmoor would be absolutely perfect, if I hadn't already run it for 2 or 3 of the players in this group.
That's a bummer.
-Skeld
Yeah, but combining ideas from Feast of Ravenmoor with Dawn of the Scarlet Sun got the creative juices flowing. I think they'll have fun with this.
Spoilers for both Ravenmoor and DotSS:
My PCs have been working with Father Zantus mostly, so he's sending them to Desnans in Magnimar for a raise dead. I'll have them send the PCs on the adventure to pay for the raise.
DotSS: Replace Sarenrae with Desna, move the encounters out of town maybe, but follow the same flow: Ambush murderer, follow them or flyer back to base, kill off flyer, surprise! BBEG. Ex Desnan ally corrupted to become loyal to Ghlaunder, Thyrlien Azata instead of Cleric.
Ravenmoor: Replace the Gargoyle with a Blightspawn. CR 5 for level 4 PCs instead of CR 6.
Using new toys: Instead of a Succubus Sorceress as the BBEG, using a Thyrlien Azata (Desna's servator) with the Broken Soul template out of Bestiary 4. CR 6 instead of CR 8, could be very dangerous or she could get slaughtered, we'll see.
General storyline: Someone captured a Thyrlien Azata, tortured her, and finally corrupted her into the service of Ghlaunder. She's now executing a plan to desecrate Desnan shrines in the area and convert them to act as shrines to Ghlaunder. Desnans have disappeared and shrines have been the location of bloody murders, but no bodies found. PCs will pretend to be worshipers, counter ambush a Ghlaunder minion with a Blightspawn watching him. Minion either escapes or Blightspawn flies off, PCs track down to hidden swamp. Fight Blightspawn, find BBEG in position that looks like she is the victim. Maybe fight undead, then turns out that BBEG is actually BBEG and fight her.
Killing off NPCs will pay for raise dead and restorations. PCs will be able to get some loot. Capturing the Azata so she can be rehabilitated will net them a reward of some sort I think.
Sorry for the grammar, just putting thoughts out there stream of consciousness style.
How did your party fair in DotSS? It's a pretty rough module for 5th level characters let alone a group of 4th level characters.
I didn't throw them directly into DOTSS, they were a group of 4 level 4s after all. I used it as an outline but changed the enemies in a couple of the encounters:
Dawn of the Scarlet Son:
--Used the same Cleric instead of building something new, but gave her a spear instead of a dagger because Ghlaunder.
--Instead of the CR 6 fiendish Gargoyle, I used a CR 5 Blightspawn of Ghlaunder. This might have actually been harder since it has flyby attack and a 10' reach on a fairly powerful single melee attack. I ended up having it drop into melee and start sucking one of the PCs' blood because they might not have killed it otherwise: The only one who could do any real damage at range was the alchemist and she ran out of bombs.
--Instead of the CR 8 Succubis/Assasin, I used a CR 6 Thyrlien Azata with the Broken Soul template. Without the template she's a servant of Desna. But, I said that agents of Ghlaunder captured her and tortured her for a couple generations until they corrupted her into Ghlaunder's service. I set it up to look like the bad guys were sacrificing her, which drew the group in close and let me use her Baleful Gaze and Agonized Wail abilities to good effect. She might have TPKd the party if not for a crit from I think a readied action that knocked her down to 1hp followed by a lucky ranged hit. Oops, I just now realized that I forgot that she had Diehard and could have probably healed herself.
It was a series of tough encounters for my party, with some close calls. They had fun and liked the challenge level, and picked up some extra gold and gear. So, all in all, it was a success.
