The book basically says she is no longer involved in the campaign. this is a bit of a let down as she is one of the more developed NPC's at this point and my party has really grown to like her.
I am curious as to what people have done to keep her consistently in the campaign?
My first thoughts...
Have a funeral for Tsuto and Lonjintsu. Would this happen? Does she still care enough, what about just her dad and not her half brother?
Inherits her fathers Manor and the Glassworks. Does she keep it or sell it? Thoughts with giving the PC either the manor or factory?
What of Ameiko and Shalalu (her ranger freind). Ways to tie them in together?
I have also consider borrowing from the Jade Regent campaign for the romance score. Or perhaps just develop relationships with these two NPCs. Maybe even a love triangle?
Short summary - Ameiko, in my game, isn't actively involved in campaign, but players still have some interaction with her. Recently, they rented from her Kaijitsu family villa in Magnimar, to rebuild it in party HQ (and promote Ameiko as their sponsor - they're now officially an explorer party). Aside from this, when visiting Sandpoint, they always have rooms in Rusty Dragon and informed about recent town news.
Ameiko isn't happy about inheriting Glassworks and other family holdings, but she understands that some people depend on them. So she stoically accepted her role as newborn noble, reopened Glassworks in two weeks and funded plans to bury smuggler tunnels/secure Catacoms of Wrath.
Funeral of her father and half-brother was short and personal.
Ameiko had separate funerals for her brother and her father in my game. I guess Jade Regent changed her to the last of the Kaijitsus, but either in RotRL or something else I read there was mention of other members of the family in Magnimar. So I decided her "cousins" wanted to honor her father, but had no interest in her "bastard half-breed murderous" brother. So she had two funerals. Regardless of how things worked out, she still wanted to honor the memory of the brother she knew before his exile, and duty (and some level of sentiment) required her to honor her father.
Tsuto's funeral was a small affair on the beach (with trappings heavily borrowed from Japanese funeral rites). I ended up handling it via email between sessions.
Tsuto's Funeral:
(Note for reference: The party first tried to attack Thistletop by land, decided they didn't like the look of the bridge and chose to try to bring a captured Gogmurt back to Sandpoint for questioning, but the druid used Wild Shape to escape his bonds enroute and escaped into the woods. Also, the PC Aleksandr grew up in Sandpoint and Maginimar as a friend of both Ameiko and Tsuto.)
Just after sundown the day of your venture to Thistletop, Ameiko walks into the Rusty Dragon, again dressed in white rather than her typical red, though this time in a formal kimono. She gives the group a faint smile by way of greeting. "I need to borrow the loudmouth for a bit," she says, gesturing at Aleksandr, before heading back outside. (If anyone else moves to follow, she shakes her head at them. "The rest of you need to stay here.")
She leads Aleksandr down along the waterfront and out to the beach below the Glassworks. "Sorry about the short notice, but we're having Tsuto's funeral tonight. My cousins' response to my message was that they will make all haste to attend father's funeral, but they don't have any blood by the name of 'Tsuto'." She frowns and swears to herself in Minkai. "I thought about having both funerals together anyway, just to spite the bastards, but I suppose that wouldn't be very 'lady-like'." She pauses, waiting for the inevitable crack about her being a lady.
"In any case, we'll have my father's funeral in a couple days, but I knew you wouldn't want to miss Tsuto's."
"I sent messages to Shalelu, but either none of them got to her, or she hasn't made it back to town yet."
Ameiko and Aleksandr eventually reach a small gathering of people on the beach, holding lanterns and standing around an open coffin sitting on a funeral pyre. Tsuto's body is arranged inside in white Minkai dress. The group includes the mayor, the sheriff, Ilsoari Gandethus (headmaster of the Turakandok Academy), several of Tsuto's former classmates, Sabyl Sorn (owner/head of the House of Blue Stones), Sir Jasper Korvaski (the overseer of the Sandpoint Mercantile League) and the cathedral's priestess of Shelyn, a young woman named Sera. (Aleksandr can't remember Tsuto ever talking about the gods, but he knows Ameiko follows The Eternal Rose.)
Ameiko speaks quietly to each person in turn, thanking them for coming. When she comes to Sir Jasper she smiles a bit. "Jasper, I can't believe Cyrdak would let you be here."
Sir Jasper coughs, glancing around. "I don't know why you believe Cyrdak would have any say on my whereabouts." He drops his voice a bit. "Though if he did, he'd be in absolute tizzy right now."
"I imagine he would be," Ameiko replies. "It's good to see you. Been a long time."
Sir Jasper nods. "It's good to see you as well. I wish the circumstances were happier ones."
Ameiko nods in return, reaching out to give the man's shoulder a squeeze before moving on to the next person.
A short will later, Sister Sera calls for everyone's attention and conducts a short ceremony, focusing on the moments of beauty in Tsuto's life, particularly his music, before carefully placing the lid on the coffin. She then passes a fist-sized stone to Ameiko. Ameiko takes the stone and hammers a nail set in the coffin lid into place, then passes it to Aleksandr with a nod. (Assuming he hammers the next nail in place.) The stone is passed to each mourner in turn until the coffin is sealed. Ameiko then pauses a moment in silence, with her hand on the coffin, before stepping away. Sister Sera then lights the pyre with a torch, the flames quickly engulfing the coffin upon them.
Ameiko pulls out Tsuto's flute and plays a traditional Minkai dirge, then thanks everyone for coming. As the mourners start to leave, she turns to Aleksandr "I'm told the fire is going to burn for a couple hours. I'm going to sit here for awhile, but you've got a busy day of goblin slaying ahead of you. Plus maybe Nualia and gods know what else to deal with. You'll need some rest if you're going to give that b!#~% what's coming to her."
Lonjiku's funeral ended up happening while the party was raiding Thistletop (they took a few days to finish everything up, hiding in the crab room to rest.) so they missed it, but it involved all of Ameiko's family, plus all the other nobles and important people in Sandpoint.
As for what to do with Ameiko from there, by all means keep her involved if the party has taken a liking to her. My party still stays at the Rusty Dragon and talks to her whenever they're in town and I had her play a small but important role in the events at the beginning of Book 4.
When it says she's not involved in the campaign, it means she has no direct contribution to the plot as it unfolds. This does not mean you can't give her things to do as you like, and have her be around as a person the players are going to interact with through the second book. Keep her around, make here interesting, but do NOT hang the plot on her anymore, as it accomplishes almost nothing and just shifts focus to her where it should not be.
A. Eh. Funeral may happen, but I wouldn't play it up. She's all but disowned from her family before the deaths and would probably mourn a bit but just move on. Up to you.
B. She'd likely keep the Glassworks shut down for a while, she's certainly not interested in managing it, and may even sell it to an interested party just to get rid of it. Remember, all the current workers are dead. I doubt she'd go back there. Same with the manor.
C. Shalelu is still her friend, but isn't around that much. They may speak, but Shalelu is more an information source and potential extra muscle for the party. Not much to play up there unless you intend to flesh them out for use in Jade Regent later.
D. Eh. Just play it naturally. And make players work for it.
E. Don't spend time writing arcs for Ameiko. You're not going to spend forever in Sandpoint, and you're only taking focus away from other events in doing so. Her story is done, making her go through more random hardship or challenges just because you want to keep her in the story is kind of dumb.
What of Ameiko and Shalalu (her ranger freind). Ways to tie them in together?
I have also consider borrowing from the Jade Regent campaign for the romance score. Or perhaps just develop relationships with these two NPCs. Maybe even a love triangle?
Thoughts on some good sub plot arcs with her?
One of our PC's, the Bard (Arcane Duelist, actually) and de facto leader of the group became romantically involved with Ameiko, but she remained in town to look after her affairs during most of the AP. Shalelu accompanied the group on their return to Thistletop (a GM-added bit) and then later on the adventure to Hook Mountain. It was during that latter bit that she pressed her friendship with the Bard into something greater and the two became romantically involved as well - he grew quite conflicted about it until Shalelu made it clear that Ameiko had asked her to 'look after' him on their travels. The line in the campaign, as Shalelu was putting up her tousled hair after an amorous interlude, went something like...
"Do you really think you're the first man we've shared?" she grinned and then favored him with an amused wink, "If it helps, you might be the first one we actually keep."
I thought it would be fun to play up the long-standing relationship Ameiko and Shalelu had had as adventurers as well as their similar but still very different free-spirited attitudes. I also wanted both to get a chance to be involved romantically and since the other three PC's included a real life man and wife (whom played character romantically involved with one another) and a goblin, there weren't a whole lot of options to go round. Besides, it was a great fit due to the character's dual nature.
Both Ameiko and Shalelu played a big role in the Stone Giants assault on Sandpoint, the Bard later looking tenderly after her grievously wounded friend as the PC's pursued the escaping Giants and their captives. They loved one another like sisters, though some greater intimacy was implied if never actually played through. The two were never 'the' story, but they constantly added to it, for that particular PC and for the group as a whole. Above all, it grounded him - and them - in the world and made it feel a lot more 'real' to them... when it was discovered that the Giants planned to assault Sandpoint, you can believe that Shalelu and Andurian (the Bard) risked all to get back in time to save Ameiko.
EDIT: As far as the rest of Ameiko's family - Lonjitsu had his funeral in a mostly private affair (he wasn't very well liked) while the PC's were away at Thistletop. Tsuto on the other hand, had become romantically infatuated (obsessed, actually), with his half-sister Ameiko rather than Nualia (whom he was terrified of in our campaign). He believed she alone had ever been kind to him, that she alone was worthy of his love and had come back to rescue her from the fires that would burn the town, quite without Nualia's permission incidentally. When his advances had been met with disgust and then horror, he had beaten and imprisoned her, unsure of what to do next, until the PC's intervened. He escaped and was killed back at Thistletop by the PC's when they ventured there, his body left to feed the Bunyip by the Druids whom eventually made their homes there.
I am curious as to what people have done to keep her consistently in the campaign?
Thoughts on some good sub plot arcs with her?
In my game Tsuto survived the confrontation at the Glassworks and was apprehended, so YMMV.
- The extended Kaijitsu family is involved in a highly contentious probate case regarding Lonjiku's will. The settlement of the case hinges on Tsuto being tried for his crimes in Magnimmar: If found guilty, he forfeits any claim on the Kaijitsu estate. In my game Tsuto will be tried before Justice Ironbriar, with the PCs acting as prosecution witnesses.
- Per chapter 3 of the Shattered Star AP, a group of squatters has taken up residence in the Kaijitsu Villa in Magnimar (Urban Blight, from the section "Missions in Magnimar"). Once the probate case is settled, Ameiko or the family may ask for the PCs help in evicting the squatters.
- Ameiko, if awarded the Glassworks in Lonjiku's will, will need help recruiting Minkaian glass artisans to get it back up and running. Or perhaps she wants little to do with the Glassworks, and offers to sell it to the PCs rather than having her distant relatives move in to take it over.
- Ameiko plays a role in the Jade Regent AP, but I haven't done any reading to see what her role entails.
