Hey all,
I'm currently running CoTC, nearing the end of book 2. My players made some questionable decisions and charged into the hospice without any sort of preparation and thus ended up facing a pretty tough fight against the Queen's Physicians and Grey Maidens in the building. Furthermore, an invisible Dr. Davaulus was able to escape using the lift.
As such, I planned the temple as being on high alert, with the written instructions that most adversaries would conglomerate in G8 and await their arrival resulting in a huge (and really tough) encounter.
They were absolutely trounced. I converted the Physicians and Davaulus to alchemists, which in hindsight might've been a mistake. The combination of lack of ranged support in my party, to the failure to prepare for additional alchemists and the priests acting as meat shields resulted in them being unable to reach the catwalk where Davaulus and his alchemists were raining down touch AC bombs. Combined with Rolth's powerful magic, the encounter very quickly went south.
They smartly decided to retreat into the previous room where they holed up and tried to fight off as many pursuers that came through the door. With one party member unconscious, one dying of a Suffocation spell (boy I got super berated by that "why'd you target my Fort save with a save or die spell"), and the party fighter on low HP they managed to fight off the rest of the pursuers and retreat back to the lift to the Hospice. TPK narrowly averted.
However, as you can expect this is something I had not originally planned for. What would be an appropriate response to the inhabitants of the Temple if the party members rest for a day, lick their wounds, and then come back? Would their ranks be fully replenished? Would they have disappeared? There isn't any other exit besides the lift so I was under the impression they were written to be making a last stand in defense of their temple.
I also figured that the Guard is too sapped by the plague to send members into the Temple and clear it out. Therefore, it's still up to the party to go and clear it out.
All in all, what alterations should I make to the temple/story for a second pass through?
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Well, if the Urgathoans feel they have the upper hand, they will want to keep their hide-out safe. That means that they have to take care of the PC problem. So if the PCs escaped, they should go after them (which means they send out a decent force to take care of the PCs).
There are several ways this scenario could play out:
- the PCs make sure they hide somewhere where the Urgathoans cannot get to them or find them and thus they are safe;
- the PCs somehow manage to fight off the strike force, despite their low resources;
- the PCs lose the fight and are taken prisoner. They are transported to the temple's prison, where they are subject to torture and experiments. This should serve to underline the cruelty of the Urgathoans and heighten the PCs' hatred for these cultists even more. Of course it should finally lead to a prison break scenario. In that case you should definitely consider having at least one of the torturers be absent (Lady Andaisin?), so you can set him/her up a hated recurring villain.
Great suggestions,
To extrapolate on the first two scenarios, how should I design the scenario that the PCs escape and decide to try and warn the Guard of the Grey Maiden's involvement with the Urgathoan operation?
My thought was should they try and make the evidence they found especially public, the Queen would reasonably deny the Grey Maiden involvement as a splinter group of dissidents involved with maniacal cultists and that the order would fall under an intense investigation, at least on the surface. In my mind this puts the PCs in a good degree of danger, and might fast track the plot a little into Book 3, as they would now be known to be potential threats to the Queen. At this point I would assume the cultists would abandon their operation and move elsewhere, since their cover is essentially blown.
Definitely a number of ways this could branch, but if the cultists leave should I play it as a mission failure of sorts, since they weren't able to find the true source of the plague and the notes needed to cure it? Or should I move them to a new location and allow the PCs to try and find them to deal with them for good? Thanks for the ideas!
If the PCs escape, they might indeed warn the field marshall and get the Korvosan Guard involved. In this case you could have the PCs execute their second raid on the temple with some Guard back-up. Kroft will probably insist on quick action, as she does not want the cultists to abandon their operation - which works in your advantage, for you won't have to make the cultists move base.
As for the Grey Maidens in the Hospice: they are only present in the hospital upstairs. None of them are down in the underground temple and there is no reason for them to know about the Urgathoan operation. They only know that the doctors use the elevator to the cellar, where they have their sleeping quarters. They might not even know about the secret temple and the foul experiments that take place in the underground lair. So, whether or not the Grey Maidens know the truth (that's for you to decide), they have perfect deniability. That is how I played it. In my campaign the heroes decided to keep their involvement in taking out the Urgathoans a secret (wanting to keep a low profile), which gave the Grey Maidens the chance to claim the honour of uncovering the Urgathoan operation and taking it out for themselves. This excused their involvement in protecting the doctors in the eye of the public, since the Grey Maidens were betrayed by the Urgathoan cultists and took care of business as soon as they discovered the truth.
If your PCs manage to escape Urgathoan revenge, but somehow delay their own reaction too long (I'd say, if they don't react the next day), the cultists will kill everyone in the hospitaland flee the city. That would constitue as a failure on the part of the PCs with some dire consequences: all patients in the hospital are dead and the Urgathoans take all documents with them. Since the PCs find no notes on the experiments that the Urgathoans performed, it will take longer to find a cure for the plague and the number of plague victims will be higher. You could even add to the horror by turning the killed patients into zombies who flow out into the city and make even more casualties. Still, I'd have the cultists disappear, as this makes your players feel their failure more than just having them kill the Urgathoans after they have relocated to another hide-out. You could also use key-villains as recurring characters: Doctor Davaulus, Rolth and Lady Andaisin mgiht be back in the future for some sweet revenge ...