Heisting the Aspis in Eleder


Serpent's Skull


I intentionally tied some of my players' backgrounds into the Serpent Skull story, to increase their interest in the story (one character is looking for Zura worshippers, one character is looking for her brother in Kalabuto, and one character is late making a delivery for the Aspis (because of the shipwreck)).

We're early in Racing to Ruin, the party having just arrived in Eleder, and they were amused / dismayed by the bargaining for their knowledge & leadership of an expedition - right now I think it's a tie whether they'll go with the Pirates or the Pathfinders. However, I played the Aspis (and their representative) like a mafia operation, trying to extort the party into working with them to find Saventh-Yhi.

I was hoping the party wouldn't like the Aspis, but now it turns out that they want to rip off the Aspis. I like that this should set up some excellent hatred between the Aspis, but I'm looking for some suggestions of what sort of trouble / problems / treasure they might find in this operation:

-- the Aspis are already keeping a low-key watch on the party's tavern, if the party's not careful, they'll be spotted and linked to the robbery
-- the Aspis leadership (in Eleder at least) include some devil worship and summoning
-- the Aspis should be pretty wealthy here, but I don't want to give too many rewards to the players.

I hope that I can have this result in the Aspis having deep-seated animosity to the players, which will help set up the competition in Book 3.

Do you have any thoughts or suggestions?


I ended up having the Aspis leave Eleder first by 2 days after some delay tactics. You basically use the elements of the module to script the story around the Aspis.

(1) I made Umagro a Juju Oracle financed by the Aspis. Instead of dogs threatening the citizens it was zombies.
(2) Even if they managed to save their warehouse from a fire, Umagro left all these Juju dolls in front of the warehouse. These have no magical effect but it freaked out the Mwangi (Zenj) members to leave their expedition.
(3) This is where Nkechi comes in play. They need him because he can convince some of the Mwangi (Bonuwat) in the area to join their expedition. Also as a spiritual leader, he gives the whole expedition a little extra boost in speed (as per the module)
(4) By the time they win over Nkechi and get back on track. The Aspis manage to leave 2 days before the PC's expedition.
(5) Now they can gain this time back in a number of ways. See what your players can devise. There is the Salt Mines from the module (1 day). I approximated that Nkechi gives 1 day for every 10 days of travel. Finally I scripted an opportunity where they could provoke a stampede of Wildebeest and damage the Aspis expedition.

This led to some Aspis reprisal later on. The hatred of the Aspis has endured ever since. They are currently weighing the benefit of crushing the Aspis versus exploring some of the Vaults in module 4.


I should fill in how this action resolved itself. The party did manage to rip off the Aspis in Eleder - they got in by scouting the Aspis, then using illusions and charm spells to get in. A fight in the basement of the building let party get away with maybe 1500gp of goods, and the lasting enmity of the Aspis.

They halfheartedly attempted to frame the Pathfinders, but the Aspis have been hunting them since. The party did a nice job of shorting some of the plot in Eleder by finalizing their deal with the pirates and leaving early before the other factions had truly organized themselves. We dropped the entire Nkechi plot and I've been rewriting / reworking the wilderness trip to Tazion since.

The chase has been rejoined because the Aspis (working with the Rivermen's Guild) arrived in Kalabuto the night after the party arrived and more hijinx have ensued. The party now has the pirates ready to cooperate with the Gold Crown Shipping Company to arrange a supply train for them while they break north.

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