Casandalee in book 1


Iron Gods


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So, I'm getting ready to run Iron Gods for a group of friends and I was disappointed by how late the PC's Meet Casandalee given her importance in the end. So I was planning to have them find her in the ruins below Torch, missing large portions of her memories(Everything I don't want them to know yet.)
My question is where in the ruins to place her; I was thinking somewhere in the Science Deck, what do you guys think?

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

That's actually a tough question. I understand your instinct, because Casandalee is the character who ties the entire AP together.

However, given her history I am not at all sure that there is a good way to introduce any elements of the character. Even rumors of her would be a stretch.

Meyanda might have heard the name, but why would even she mention it?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

If it helps, consider viewing the AP not as one adventure path but as a trilogy. This is sort of how I looked at it when I was creating the AP—a trilogy about the three technological deities that play roles in the overall path. Casandalee is the Iron God whose story takes up the bulk of the middle of this trilogy—while she does have an important role to play in the last third, her story really isn't meant to start until the second third of things.

The introduction of robots, lasers, and technological stuff is already a pretty outlandish thing to hit players of a fantasy game with, after all, and hitting them with Casandalee right at the start might be going overboard.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

James Jacobs wrote:
If it helps, consider viewing the AP not as one adventure path but as a trilogy. This is sort of how I looked at it when I was creating the AP—a trilogy about the three technological deities that play roles in the overall path.

A problem though is that this leaves the transition from Book 2 to Book 3 feeling kind of awkward.


The key problem with hiding Casandalee in the ship beneath Torch is that androids need to eat. You could give her access to the Greenhouse and Hydroponics in the Science Deck, but that would displace the vegepygmies there. And she would be complacent in the disappearance of Khonnir Baine, which would make the PCs hostile to her.

A better solution would be to put her in suspended animation in the Medical Lab or Sick Bay. Those rooms lack a suspended animation chamber, but you could squeeze one in. She put herself in suspended animation as life support for some long-term nanite-based repair, but the insane medical drone disobeyed her orders to wake her up after a year. She has been asleep for almost 500 years.

She would have to be a 3rd-level character to join the party at a proper power level. If the party lacks a healer, they would like an oracle. Do you want to run Casandalee as a sympathetic GMPC? If she doesn't join the party, then her effect on Lords of Rust would amount to, "Hey, wasn't that android we left behind in Torch named Casandalee? I guess we should go back there before visiting Iadenveigh." Casandalee would have no foreknowledge of Hellion, because it was created after she left Silver Mount.

Finding Casandalee is the hook to get the party to visit Iadenveigh and the Choking Tower in The Choking Tower. Going to Iadenveigh in your version could be about Casandalee trying to recover her memories by visiting one of the places she might have left her Compact AI. They find evidence that Furkas Xoud found something useful inside the Aurora, but of course, he did not find Casandalee's body. Therefore, the party heads toward the Scar of the Spider two levels too early. If you are up to writing sufficient challenges on the road to the Scar of the Spider, they might level up first. Perhaps Furkas Xoud was a Technic League member in good standing but with fewer apprentices, his tower is near a village on the road to the Scar of the Spider, he recently died in a lab experiment unrelated to Casandalee, and escaped monsters from his lab complex are attacking the village.


I flipped it and it seems to be working out fine. One of the PCs actually started out receiving Casandalee's AI core as a dubious gift- which only meant that he had some mysterious piece of tech junk with the image of a confused woman who could barely remember her name. I had intended that she might occasionally identify an item or something useful, but that didn't last long when the characters took her swimming right off the start and she shorted out which took her out of the picture until she dried out enough to function again by the end of Book 1.

Then the player with the AI core left the game. So I had the newly NPCed character return to the PC's home base while the others went to Scrapwall only to realize that the useless artifact was actually something quite important. That's where we are now and the Book 2 to 3 transition will be recovering that AI core and then under its guidance finding Casandalee's body. If the player hadn't quit, the AI core may have just been traded (the players didn't find it very useful) or stolen by Sanvil Trett, who survived but proved a very questionable ally.


Thank all of you for your responses. However, I see that I should go into a little more detail about what I am planning.

So, I am thinking of having the party find the compact AI core containing Casandalee somewhere under Torch. However, because of either an incomplete copying process, or because of damage to the core itself, Casandalee is missing most of her memories; she remembers just enough to provide foreshadowing and give the party help with tech stuff(in case no one has the requisite skills). After they defeat Hellion, Casandalee recovers some more of her lost memories(either because interacting with hellion jogged her memories, the party found parts/knowledge to repair the core, or some other reason I come up with later). These new memories guide the party to the Choking Tower, the party already finds some of Casandalee's memories at the end of this book, so that needs very little alteration; I'm also going to foreshadow the events in the next book by having her start to experience odd glitches as a result of the Dominion's activities, nothing major, just enough to let the party know that's something is wrong, and hopefully give them motivation to fix it. At the end of book 4, Casandalee recovers the rest of her memories and her role in the rest of the campaign remains the same.

I wanted the part to get to know Casandalee better, and to have a chance to influence what kind of person she becomes, and by the time that party hits Starfall, I'm worried that they will be too busy overthrowing the technic league and attacking a god to do that.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
voodoo chili wrote:
Then the player with the AI core left the game. So I had the newly NPCed character return to the PC's home base while the others went to Scrapwall only to realize that the useless artifact was actually something quite important. That's where we are now and the Book 2 to 3 transition will be recovering that AI core and then under its guidance finding Casandalee's body. If the player hadn't quit, the AI core may have just been traded (the players didn't find it very useful) or stolen by Sanvil Trett, who survived but proved a very questionable ally.

I was wondering if you were going to spot this thread.

Acquisitives

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Lord Fyre wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
If it helps, consider viewing the AP not as one adventure path but as a trilogy. This is sort of how I looked at it when I was creating the AP—a trilogy about the three technological deities that play roles in the overall path.
A problem though is that this leaves the transition from Book 2 to Book 3 feeling kind of awkward.

my thoughts exactly.

2-3 is not well bridged. there's not enough motivation to get the characters looking for some robot AI that doesn't impact their lives anymore.

i suggested that Iron Gods be run as a kind of "Suicide Squad", where the PCs are pushed by an outside power (I suggested Alling-Third) along the way. Elsewise, they just don't have a reason to go where they go or do the things that they end up doing.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

Yakman wrote:
Lord Fyre wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
If it helps, consider viewing the AP not as one adventure path but as a trilogy. This is sort of how I looked at it when I was creating the AP—a trilogy about the three technological deities that play roles in the overall path.
A problem though is that this leaves the transition from Book 2 to Book 3 feeling kind of awkward.

my thoughts exactly.

2-3 is not well bridged. there's not enough motivation to get the characters looking for some robot AI that doesn't impact their lives anymore.

i suggested that Iron Gods be run as a kind of "Suicide Squad", where the PCs are pushed by an outside power (I suggested Alling-Third) along the way. Elsewise, they just don't have a reason to go where they go or do the things that they end up doing.

Yakman, check out some of the ideas in this thread.


I think I'm going to have Casandalee contact them over intercoms when the party enters the Science module; she will claim to be a prisoner here, and give the party advice on reaching Khonnir.

Hopefully, by the time they finish book 2, the party will be invested enough in Casandalee that they will want to recover her memories on their own. In addition I'm probably going to splice in "Doom comes to Dustspawn", so if they need more motivation I can have the falling star happen where they can see it. Then The Emissary will help bridge to book 4.

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Nathan Monson wrote:

I think I'm going to have Casandalee contact them over intercoms when the party enters the Science module; she will claim to be a prisoner here, and give the party advice on reaching Khonnir.

Hopefully, by the time they finish book 2, the party will be invested enough in Casandalee that they will want to recover her memories on their own. In addition I'm probably going to splice in "Doom comes to Dustspawn", so if they need more motivation I can have the falling star happen where they can see it. Then The Emissary will help bridge to book 4.

that's a good idea.

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