The are not the heroes the city deserves, they are the heroes the city needs


Hell's Rebels

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

First of all, having read all the Hell's Rebels adventures, I think it indeed is the best Paizo AP. It's consistent, coherent, doesn't deviate from urban environment too much, has a great BBEG and feels like it was written all by one author (or a group of authors).

Second, I'd love to discuss how people handled situations like the one I have right now, which is having multiple secret identity PCs. Specifically, a Vigilante and a Mysterious Avenger Swashbuckler. We've have had some rough moments during the second session where both "superhero" players tried to keep the secret identities secret from fellow players, but we kind of shaked that off. New challenges arise, however. One player wishes to smash Dottari skulls as his vigilante persona AND romance a Dottari sargeant as his meek barrister persona. Any experiences with having the Scarlet Pumpernickel and the Boy Wonder in one party that you folks could share? :)


Sorry, but I don't understand, is your situation/problem arising from having secret identity PCs who are secret from the rest of the party, or secret from the NPCs?

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Secret from the rest of the party is problem one and "my social persona poses as a Chelaxian loyalist and wants to worm his way into corridors of power in order to help Silver Ravens" is problem two.


So. The latter is beyond the scope of the AP as written, but is something that you can definitely work with. Keep in mind that Thrune, upon moving in, has immediately went to work establishing loyalists, so high ranking Dottari and the like have changed overnight. Thrune loyalists exist within the writing and vie for his approval though, so there is definitely space to work with that.

If you are working on romancing the Dottari, feel free - but keep in mind that the rank-and-file Dottari are going to be limited in what information they can give. They are the town guard dealing with Thrune coming to town for the most part, trying to do what they feel their job is despite these strange proclamations. They are not card-carrying villains who have their finger in the evil pie.

I will warn that the Adventure Path as written does have some issues with a secret rebellion. Many parts assume that the players are open and approachable as the Silver Ravens. This can be worked around (my party is really focused on being secret), but it is definitely something that needs to be considered as you move forward. I would say try to find a way to unmask them, but that feels rude to your Vigilante players... so just work around it!

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

Something I wished I had actually installed earlier (I know Mr. Jacobs suggested that they had wanted the noble info in book 2 but didn't due to space constraints) was adding in plot efforts to push the party to interact with the nobles earlier.

If you are interested in doing some downtime with one of your vigilantes you could start it all very early and have him/her interacting with the noble families in downtime learning over the course of the adventures which ones are super pro-Thrune and which ones might be interested in a free Kintargo.

In addition that would make it far more emotionally effective when those nobles end at the Ruby Masquerade and dying, standing up to 'Barzillai', or cowering in fear.


OK thanks. Unfortunately we don't have any vigilantes - or rather, not the UI class. They PCs all have secret identities, but don't have any vis a vis the party. I'm not really sure how the vigilante class is supposed to work with a secret identity towards the party, sounds like a lot of one-on-ones and notes being passed back and forth between the player and the GM. Which might get tedious and boring for the rest of the group. I think campaigns with PC secrets and agendas vs. each other can be lots of fun, but only if all have them, and they don't take over too much. It easily otherwise becomes that one player's fun comes at the expanse of the others'. The "worm his way into the corridors of power" part sound like fun though, as long as he can get the other PCs to come along somehow. But that might entail him having to spill the beans to the rest of the party, I suppose.

So not much to add about the specific problem, but I can yammer a bit about how a whole "vigilante" party is working for us.

My players have taken a "on the QT, and very hush-hush" approach to the campaign in general. They have taken some backstory quite literary and tell all allied NPCs that they are following orders from "The Silver Raven", use the Disguise skill and similar spells extensively, keep up several different personas, and refer to their made-up leader as "the grand silver raven itself". They had Rexus play this character once in a big meeting wearing a mask and a costume, lots of fun. Laria and Rexus are in on it, but not other allies.

As Asurie says, since the campaign is written to allow for the usual gang of cocky PC murderhobos, there's not much support or material included for a secretive party. So to create some fun with my player's approach I have added some stuff instead. Some of the usual masked hero tropes, such as the efforts to keep loved ones and their normal life out of their nocturnal activities, but also some additional storylines.

More stuff, with spoileros:
Another pre-existing rebel organization were taken over by two Thrune agents, and then changed by them to a honey trap. They managed to trick one of the PCs and got his real name and signalment out of this. After the PCs found evidence on the currently real purpose of this rebel outfit they attacked their stronghold (by sneaking in, looking around, retreating and then siccing the Order of the Torrent on them - the outfit had lots of wanna-be rebels held captive and no papers or anything proving their ties to the government, which didn't end well for them vs. pissed of Hellknights. Which also gave me a player-driven additional reason for Thrune declaring the Hellknight order outlawed after sticking their halberds where they shouldn't have). The two Thrune agents fled, and started concentrating on uncovering who this "Silver Raven"-person was who was causing all this ruckus.

So here I started another story, which was also possible because the PCs are not public - Thrune starts looking for them much sooner than the AP allows. The party made some mistakes with their masks and disguises in Hocum's, and Nox fled, so this gave the two Thrune agents more information from Nox. Now the Dottari have their signalements and people looking like them are getting arrested in the street. What I did was to give them clues about who was orchestrating the search for them (the two Thrune agents behind the honey trap rebellion) and where they were headquartered (I used Clenchjaw's for this - I didn't use the faerie dragon). The players then planned an elaborate heist, where they kidnapped the two agents, changed all the evidence the agents had been gathering at Clenchjaw's (I made them find a large notice board full with information, hypotheses, arrows and drawings, very inviting to mess with) to lead the government astray. They made a very good job of it, with disguises, excursions, forgeries etc., and the Thrune inquisitors are now chasing the traitorous Nidalese agents that attacked Hocums, later assasinated Nox in a trap (they had to risk this since she had seen a couple and could identify them), and then fled to a village in north Ravounel where they killed the pursuing Thrune agents. Nidalese shadow-buggering scum! They're supposed to be our allies! :)

Another thing I'm planning to do with the secretive Ravens comes from that I have added the iconics from Hell's Vengeance, as foils for the PC party. They are Barzillai's new lieutenants now that Nox is in a box. I will have them impersonate the Silver Ravens at the reward ceremony at the end of Turn of the Torrent, where they will praise Barzillai and the Queen, and tell the people that Thrune is the best for the city. I wonder how my players will respond to this...Of course these Thrune-hugging false Silver Ravens could be played by anyone, maybe actors that Barzillai hired.


My players did not like the idea of an vigilante actually. One of my player is a Hellkngiht with paladin levels. And we got a Bard

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