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Book 3 tomorrow must burn

 At kidnapping, Heubrek Thropp offer a job: work for us at the scarlet triad. They are always looking for good and strong adventurer like you. Not what if the PC actually want to join the group either if they are actually evil group or to infiltrate. The scenario doesn’t help us too much if the hero takes that path as my group did. I do personally think it’s a very good approach to this scenario, letting stealthy/sneaky/deceitful hero shine for a while.

 I don’t think we really need to do too much work to change the scenario for that side, while using most of the work already in place. In this version I would strongly suggest having the Heubrek have the gate key and not the Elves from book 2. In my case I gave the star to the hero but its just a fancy weapon and false key (I decided it was stolen by the Triad months/years ago when they discover about the portals. That way it forces the hero to do a long journey on the land to deliver slaves. And reward them once they find out Heubrek also has the key (only when they meet him in Kintaro as described below).

Chapter 1 (Breachill)

 Have Heubrek still use the wainwright shop or other place that the heroes don’t want to see burn, but also capture either a very close associate, an old hero if they chance hero after book 1 or 2, or even a missing PC if it matches the game timeframe. That way they will feel way more involve and understand he his not joking.
 Find and bring back 3 slaves to replace those lost so far, you have 12 hours before we leave.
 Take over Heubrek (he has more business in town… he tells them he will see them in a few months once he brings next shipment, hoping by them they will have climb the organisation ladder) and drive/march the 12 slaves with 2x triad sneaks to Cypress Point to deliver them to Captain One-eye Anmin. Heubrek will give them a triad paper that “should” let them reach the boat safely.
 The PC are warned that they will be penalised for every slave missing by the time they reach the boat… but at same time, they will get a rewarded for any extra they bring (up to 20 but they won’t know that yet [not enough place on the boat].
 If they decide/can use the gate, then just change the exit point so it’s further from Cypress Point so they can at least have the champion/knight encounter if nothing else and also a chance to replenish their rank since there is a good chance the Hag will ask about payment...
 On way to Cypress a few key encounters will happen regardless of how party want to travel with slave. The main important one will be with a group of 6 with knights/champion (4 Cpl lvl 4, 1 Sgt lvl 8 and 1 Lt lvl 12). Party can fight them or find a way to explain what is going on, regardless of how it ends, the Lt (or the Sgt) needs to escape for now so he can be captured later and reveal their plot to higher triad boss after being tortured, in case things goes too well for the PC in Kintaro (that way, the quarry chapter won’t change since Laslunn will know of them by then and use it as a trap, as intended (the PC will find the Lt as a prisoner too). I intend to have him chained to the floor near the giant who just beat him for fun all the time (leaving him to 2d6 hp).
 Stumble on a broken caravan being attack by local raider try to make a name for themselves with the triad. Player should deal with them (kill/make them flee or join their rank…) and have the scared family who try to thank them for saving them only be rewarded by joining the rank of the PC slaves... the two scarlets thug will take note on their action and report to Amnin for bonus or penalty.
 Have monster attack the night camp (or day time if make more sense), using weak but numerous monster so that the hero must split resources to protect the slaves. Maybe use this encounter near Cypress Point and have 3+ blood boar who have escaped their mentor and now run free in the wild… good way to introduce them to these beast before meeting them in town and linking things a bit. Give them a bonus if they bring the boars back alive.
 ??? Maybe add more if things get boring or the player want to have it more challenging...

Cypress Point

 Once the hero arrive near Cypress Point, read the same portion since as it turns out the captain couldn’t wait any longer and just decided to enslave the town until he gets his quota before he leave next morning, but not before he burn the town down to the ground as he saw from the vision he has been receiving in his dreams (I slowly want Dahak influence to spread and influence weak and gullible mind more and more as the scenario progress).
 As they make their way to the ship, they should encounter 1 slave patrol and/or 1 resistance patrol to see how they react to those. Once they reach the boat (most likely using their triad paper) they will learn that the captain is not on the boat, but Bullbutcher will accept the slave and tell them to go in town help troops get more and report to Captain in middle of town when they have a min.
 If they brought more than 20 slaves. Butcher ask them to select the lucky 20 (telling them they need to diversify the stock to bring better price), then once he have those secured in ship basement, he will murder the extra and feed on them in front of PC, offering them some part to eat. If the hero help him do the killing or eat some, they will gain reputation with him and the crew/captain.
 The rest of this chapter should play like in the book, except that you should mix between slaver and town folk who are trying to put a resistance (re-skin slavers as farmer/militia, dropping boar or using dog) to create some challenge for the players.
 Have 1 encounter were some slavers are burning townsfolk in their home for fun. The hero should try to save them and punish the slaver somehow for that since captain won’t be happy to lose slaves. The important part is that later the hero will need to explain their action to Captain Amnin…
 After all is done with the raid on Cypress Point, the slavers (instead of the townsfolk) will have a party by the dock before they leave on the ship the next day. Captain Amnin will reward the group for good work (use same reward from saving village) since they pillage all of the town. Amnin will give the adamantine battleaxe to the PC who did best offense in the fight and the +1 resilient breastplate to the one who protected to group the most and so on…
 He will then tell them to report next to Kintaro, after he give them a sealed letter to give to a Miss Scarlet, a recruiter for the organisation.
 They need to make their way to Kintaro (about 3 days) and meet with that person at the Coffee house in 5 days. They don’t have to worry the person will be waiting. They just need to put the seal letter on the table and wait for him to contact them. If they arrive early, the captain advises them to find a room and enjoy/explore town while they can before they get put to work once more.
 Depending how things turns out, I would propose to move Halleka Shadeborn as a road encounter, arrive at their camp at night (injured and need help to make it to Kintaro) or they see his fire camp and join him or… That way it doesn’t change that part of the scenario and give them a chance to learn more.

Chapter 2

 Arriving at Kintaro … comming soon.

Due to a twist of fate, during our first session, I prep 2 extra hero since I was supposed to have 7 players, but in the end only 5 made it to the game. During session 1, they met those 2 extra heroes at the wizard grace tavern, but they didn’t show up at the town hall the next day (I receive a txt from both players during the game saying they wont play for the next 2 months, so I just remove them for now).
The first session finish with the 5 heroes saving everyone, killing the fire mephit, but having 1/3 of the building burn down.

At the start of session 2, Counselor Greta ask ppl to know what happen, but I didn’t like having the answer right away and too convenient that he ran at the citadel. Since my player are still trying to figure how PF2e work I decide to have them do the investigation to find Calmont.

Here is my story for Calmont and after what my hero did.

Around 9 months ago Calmont arrive in town to try to work for the Posandi family since he heard that they are a bit like construction mafia and control most of the town from the shadow. What Calmont didn’t expect was that they would refuse his help. They give him a lame reason that he could do nothing about (they told him he was too short to work for them the min. high being 5’).
Enraged, Calmont left and went to see his cousin Crink Twiddleton who run the quarters and bits general shop. Crink was able to help him right away, but after 1 month h found the now poor and drunk Calmont and hook him up with the librarian Voz as a scribe since Cink saw that Calmont had a nice and professional handwriting.
This wasn’t what Calmont wanted, but at this point he needed the money more. Of course, Voz abused him and treat him as cheap labor always reminding him that SHE saved him from the street and the grip of death. During that time, while re-scribing a book about old war, he found the info about the elf gate (same as book story).
Now time to put his plan in motion to go investigate, but sadly for him local hero could be trouble. Luckily for him the previous call of hero before the game started didn’t brought any new hero to town. That is when Calmont decide that he only needed 1 more month to get ready to go explore the citadel without any hero nearby.
On a side note, I decided to give him nightmares sent by Dahak about the end of the world if the gate weren’t fix… and put in his mind the recurrent phrase «Tomorrow must burn… » which is a funny way to link this to the end and Mengkare.

In his growing madness, a plan surface, burn the town council and then no more new hero would come. And the best way to send a clear message would be to do it during the next call of hero.

Since I was sure, I have decided that my version of the town hall had a 5 rooms so different meeting could take place at the same time. And that the building had four exterior doors: the main front door, back entrance leading to the monument circle and 1 service door on each side.

Calmont learned that 7 keys exist to open the town hall: 1x guard on duty, 1x chief of janitor crew, and one with each counselor so they can go in when they need to. Since the guard and janitor key were pass from 1 shift to the next it made it impossible to steal it without getting noticed. But luckily for him the council had one halfling with their group (Ms Sprizzlegig).
He first pretended to fall in love with Counselor Trini Sprizzlegig since she had access to the town hall and as it happens live in one of the building facing the townhall. He starts spending a lot of time at her place since from her bedroom at the second floor you had a great view of the area. That enable him to learn who moved around and their schedule.

Talking to his cousin, Calmont saw that it could be possible to ask the Posandi Brothers to get magical scroll (he never mentioned to Crink what his intend was, only that he wanted to become and adventurer). Calmont decide to go pay a secret visit to the Posandi and “borrow” what he would need (after all they owe him right; if only they had let him join their family…).
After 1 week of planning, Calmont was able to visit the family building and found to his surprise that they worship Asmodeus and in the mist of his search came upon a demon summoning scroll. He figured that demon live in hell which is fill with fire so that should help him burn the townhall.

Since my hero decided right away that the two missing heroes at the meeting were suspicious, I decided to transform them into NPC for now and use them to connect part of the game with them. Help making it as if the world is alive and that things happen even of the PC take a day off or wait (I will replace the dead corpse at A13 of the citadel with one of the two suspicious guy).
One week before the beginning of the game, Calmont met with those 2 NPCs, Rene Krug (human female rogue) and her brother Iveri Krug (human male fighter) pretending to be a member of the council (Mr Sprizzlegig). Calmont knew he had to get rid of them, but also, they could make nice scapegoat for his crime. Through the week he convinces them that the call of hero was a bad thing since they would need to share the reward with everyone else but instead propose to have them work for him and give them missions.
By now most people in town heard that there was some trouble with the goblin at the citadel, so Calmont told the siblings that the citadel was overrun by goblin and that the council would pay them 5gp per goblin head they bring back. He convinces them that the best time to go would be the morning of the call of hero so they could be done with the mission before the council sent another team.

During that week, he visited his cousin Crink to have him prepare an adventure kit for him since he would be officially a town hero after the meeting, and he wanted to become the town best hero they ever met. Crink was so happy for his cousin he didn’t ask too much question and even told him to pay him back for the kit after his first mission.

3 days before the call of hero, Calmont saw an opportunity to steal the townhall key and end it with Trini (he didn’t need lose end). What he didn’t know was that she was deeply in love with him and this would break her heart.
He also ask/told his boss Voz that he had urgent family business to attend since his mom was sick and needed the week off.
He then hid in the attic of Trini house so he could continue to watch the townhall and finalize his plan (also ppl would expect him to be gone to his mom after all).

The day of the meeting, he waited for everyone to enter the building and the guard to leave on their round. He then went and discreetly start locking each door so no one could escape. He started by locking the west door, then the main then the east but when he arrived at the back door leading to the monument circle, he was interrupt by 2x city guards passing by. He was able to mumble some excuse before leaving toward the east door but end up dropping the key and couldn’t risk coming back. After 10 min (which let me have my hero introduce themselves to the council before Ms warbal start talking) he decided to just force open the east service door and get inside.

His plan was to start 2 different fire so that it looks like 2 ppl started the fire (he did plant evidence in the siblings’ room earlier that morning once they left). He starts a slow fire behind the door were the counselor were sitting, then moved to prep a fast burning fire by the east door, dumping nearby garbage and using 2x lamp oil vial he brought.
Then he used the scroll to summon the demon to do his bidding. This was the first time Calmont ever delt with magic and he wasn’t able to control the spell. The spell summons a fire mephit just where he put the garbage and oil which ignite everything and spooked Calmont.

At that moment, a Hailu (male human janitor) came around the corner and saw the fire. He ran toward it and tried to extinguish it, but the mephit hiding in the fire made that impossible. Hailu called for help and saw Calmont ran away by the side door. After yelling at him one more time to come back to help, Hailu ran inside the council chamber telling everyone that the building was on fire (just like in the original scenario).

In the end, my players end up killing the mephit in 3 rounds and saving everyone from the townhall, but they lost the fight with the fire. By the time they got out, I had the town start the fire brigade and end up saying 1/3 of the building was destroyed by the fire.

My players used all their magic and skills to heal/help everyone that were in the building.
After that, Greta came to hug and thank them and ask if anyone had seen or know anything. Of course in my version the answer is no. She then Ask the hero to investigate the strange fire and promise them the normal reward from bringing the person(s) responsible to justice alive so they can pay for their crime against the city. I had most town agree to this and encourage the hero to start the investigation right now while the matter was still hot .

- The PC start investigating the fire trying to locate were and how it started. Rolling a few natural 20, they learn that 2 fire were started and that a magical scroll was used (confirming the mephit presence) and that at least 1 person got scare and ran away.

- The PC first found Hailu who end up being burn by the fire and was in shock. They manage particularly good rolls and learn that he saw a small teenager 10-15yo with dark short hair running away.

- They then walk the surrounding and found that most door had been locked (strange for an open meeting). They decided that someone wanted the council members dead.

- They then talk to the town guard and chief of janitor learning a bit about the town history and that everyone like to help everyone, that the current counselor were well liked and that no strange things has happen in the past 2 months, except the fact that strangely no hero showed up to last month call of hero (just a coincidence, but enough to have their conspiracy mind start spinning).

- They learn that someone saw the teenager pass by and jump on a nearby canoe to escape. 2 PC went looking for the canoe and found out it was discarded by the bridge leading to the general store (#12). There they met with Crink and learn about town business being a bit slow but that he was proud his cousin Calmont became and adventure. He told them he came by 2 hours ago to pickup his gear to go adventuring. He went to the north gate. My PC ran to the north gate but learned that the guards weren’t really looking for anyone in particular at the moment (I roll 18% to see if they spot anyone…). But they promise to be on watch until further notice and if Mr. Calmont try to exit or enter the town, they would bring him for questioning.

- By then the other 3 players KNEW that the 2 siblings were the bad guys. Just needed to bring them to justice and case close.

- While 2 PC went to arrest them at the tavern, the last one found that 7 keys existed and that only Trini lost hers (she has been a mess since she was dumped…). Most likely the key was in her home somewhere. Learned that she met the man of her dream Mr. Trenault a month earlier, but that when she started mentioning wedding plan and visiting his family, he just dumped her (4 days ago).

- By now the hero were even more sure that there were 2 culprits since they did find 2 started fire.

- At the tavern the poor pc rolled badly and was able to find any new info about the siblings, the owner even hint that money could help her remember detail, but as t turn out, that hero hate giving away his money…

- The PC got invited to Trini house to help find the key and for diner as a thankyou for their help. After 2 hours of search they confirm that the key was no were in the house. And they found that someone as been standing by the bedroom windows a lot (a smoker). Trini try to convince them that this was impossible since Mr. Trenault was a very deep and snoring sleeper, but she had to agree that he was a smoker.

- The PC also found a discarded note under the bed written in code (Calmont was making note of patrol road and timings) but Trini confirm it was written in the beautiful handwriting of her ex-lover (they compared it to a love letter to confirm).

- After dinner they went to the Library were Calmont worked. There they met with Voz who I decided to play as a proper language freak that first was mad to be taken away from her novel and kept correcting them on the proper way to speak. They confirmed that Calmont and Mr Treanult were the same person. Learned that he actually lived there and that even if he needs a lot of work to become a well spoken person, his scribing skills outset that lack.

- They convince her that she loved good mystery book and to help them in their investigation. Due to good roll and to keep track of them, she agreed. They ask her to help decipher Mr. Trenault code and she told them she saw something like that in a book once but would need at least 12 hours to find the info. Then she let them go look at Calmont bedroom but made them promise to put everything in place, mentioning he was working on an important book about old wars that happen many century ago (the book he found the elf gate mention in; I love leaving obvious clue that can only make sense in 1 or 2 book from now). She didn’t want Mr. Trenault to be upset when he came back from his family business. She gave them paper and ink to write down any discovery. The hero found a journal with note confirming all they had found so far. Under his bed they found a strange paper written over and over «Tomorrow must burn… » they figure out that it was written over a long period of time, maybe each time he got frustrated or in a crisis (they don’t know about the nightmare yet). They also found a mention of a treasure hidden in the north that he must go find.

- With that, politely took their leave from Voz and decided to move back to the tavern to try to find what must be Calmont associated. Because after all, there was 2 fires started and a spell that was cast…

- As we stand now in the game, my players know that Calmont and most likely his 2 associated left to go find the north treasure. They still wonder why he did it yet. They also learned that the goblin citadel is located somewhere in the north. So now in the morning they intend to leave and go finish both those quests (intending to quickly deal with the goblin trouble before pursuing Calmont), not knowing yet that they are at the same location.