Venture-Lieutenant, Spain—Mirande de Ebro
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I have a strange dude.
In the start game, Lady Sheila Heidmarch dismisses the servant. “Thank you, Jardan. Welcome, friends. "
More late, in the C8. cells
Creatures: The first cell holds a distraught young man named Jardan Viskeni (N male Varisian human expert 2) who works as a servant at Heidmarch Manor. Jardan recalls going to market a week ago and seeing someone who looked like him before blacking out.
I do not fit the times.
If the hostage is the second.
who is first named in the presentation?
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Venture-Lieutenant, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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I have a strange dude.
In the start game, Lady Sheila Heidmarch dismisses the servant. “Thank you, Jardan. Welcome, friends. "
More late, in the C8. cells
Creatures: The first cell holds a distraught young man named Jardan Viskeni (N male Varisian human expert 2) who works as a servant at Heidmarch Manor. Jardan recalls going to market a week ago and seeing someone who looked like him before blacking out.
I do not fit the times.
If the hostage is the second.
who is first named in the presentation?
I assumed that the servant they met in the manor was a spy taking over Jardan's identity. The real Jardan was rotting in the cell -- the man he saw was the spy that took his place.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Spain—Mirande de Ebro
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I assumed that the servant they met in the manor was a spy taking over Jardan's identity. The real Jardan was rotting in the cell -- the man he saw was the spy that took his place.I have a strange dude.
In the start game, Lady Sheila Heidmarch dismisses the servant. “Thank you, Jardan. Welcome, friends. "
More late, in the C8. cells
Creatures: The first cell holds a distraught young man named Jardan Viskeni (N male Varisian human expert 2) who works as a servant at Heidmarch Manor. Jardan recalls going to market a week ago and seeing someone who looked like him before blacking out.
I do not fit the times.
If the hostage is the second.
who is first named in the presentation?
I thought the same, but I've not seen any more references to the servant aside from treating other evidence.I found strange and I wondered if it could be used for something else.
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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I thought the same, but I've not seen any more references to the servant aside from treating other evidence.I found strange and I wondered if it could be used for something else.I assumed that the servant they met in the manor was a spy taking over Jardan's identity. The real Jardan was rotting in the cell -- the man he saw was the spy that took his place.I have a strange dude.
In the start game, Lady Sheila Heidmarch dismisses the servant. “Thank you, Jardan. Welcome, friends. "
More late, in the C8. cells
Creatures: The first cell holds a distraught young man named Jardan Viskeni (N male Varisian human expert 2) who works as a servant at Heidmarch Manor. Jardan recalls going to market a week ago and seeing someone who looked like him before blacking out.
I do not fit the times.
If the hostage is the second.
who is first named in the presentation?
Creatures: The first cell holds a distraught young man named Jardan Viskeni (N male Varisian human expert 2) who works as a servant at Heidmarch Manor. Jardan recalls going to market a week ago and seeing someone who looked like him before blacking out.
I think it is even spelled out more in the scenario. They saw someone named Jardan in the manor. They found someone named Jarden who looked the same and was kidnapped a week ago. One of them is a fake, one guess as to which one...
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4
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There are a few other things that point to the conspiracy.
That's off the top of my head. I hope that helps.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8
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Hrm. Any advice from previous Bronze House GMs on how to keep this beast on track? I've signed up to run this in a third slot (out of 3) with a hard stop after 4 hours (4.5 if I'm lucky) as the venue closes for the evening.
Don't let the first part drag out (give it an hour tops). Give them a hard real world time limit for planning their assault on Bronze House (say 30-45 minutes). Explain to the players that the scenario has the potential to run extremely long, and you are doing this because you have a hard stop time.
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I wrote a whole irish drinking song to Cayden Cailean, in case someone wants to hum something for the first part. :3 I've put it in spoiler tags because it is long.
** spoiler omitted **
If players are curious, they can do a roll perform, local, or religion to determine it's a common Cayden Cailean...
So I ended up belting out this little diddy for the table, and I think it made for a somewhat memorable encounter. I don't actually know the the tune of the song you based it off, but I've enough experience with drinking songs to realize, that most drinking songs are sung by those who don't know the tune, and belting and word stumbling makes it more authentic. Many laughs around the table, and I raise my glass to you.
</me wanders off humming Cayden Cayden Cayden Cayden Cailean...>
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4
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The NPCs starting attitudes are listed in the Creatures or Development entries for each area, which gives the baseline DC from the Diplomacy skill rules. For quick reference the DCs for their starting attitudes are:
Low Tier:
Chauncy (Hostile): DC 25
Chauncy (Indifferent): DC 15 [If you convince him you're Aspis]
Melnat (hostile): DC 26
Alexei: (Unfriendly): DC 19
High Tier:
Chauncy (Hostile): DC 26
Chauncy (Indifferent): DC 16 [If you convince him you're Aspis]
Melnat (hostile): DC 26
Alexei: (Unfriendly): DC 19
Nalme: (Unfriendly): DC 20
Melnat has the additional +15 modifier to request information because of the risk to her as you noted.
Hope that helps! have fun!
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So in my play through as well as my run, the party was unable to stop Melnat from fleeing. I'm curious how to play it out if my table decides to bluff their way in as a delivery, since Melnat would have reported the site being overtaken.
Does the alarm get raised as they show up, or should they get the chance to bluff? Marla did get to report in, so Melnat should know the wagon is lost.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4
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Per the Response Time sidebar on p. 15, allowing Melnat to escape reduces the city guard response time delay by 2 minutes. That's the only mechanical effect.
I wouldn't automatically fail their infiltration efforts. If nothing else, Melnat is fairly gun shy about dealing with Pathfinders, and likely gave a very brief report and left town. She's very aware of the high mortality rate for Aspis agents who fight to the death with Society members, and has no desire to join that statistic.
More thematically, I might have the PCs see Elysi checking wagons and chewing out lazy guards to watch out for when those meddling Pathfinders make their move or have the guards holding very rough police sketch drawings of the PCs as they looked during the raid on the smugglers. This shouldn't affect their check DCs or anything, but just let them know the Aspis are on alert. I might have Elysi act a bit more tactically in combat with them if Melnat gave her any clues about the PCs' abilities.
I'm glad people are still getting to play this one. Having Chauncey sing Erica Loppnow's ballad in part 1 is one of my favorite GM experiences :-)