Cable17's page

Gottrod did not survive, unfortunately. Not sure if I'd want to revive him either, my players would probably be a little salty about that. They're also already engaged with Vitriss Bale, so I can't have some agent contact them beforehand, but oh well. I could maybe hybrid some of these ideas though. If Dhorlot later attacks Redgorge with Nabthatoron, the copper dragon could take on the role of "removing Dhorlot from the playing field via body slam", etc.

I'd love to hear more of your NPC tweaks if you can find your notes on others! I particularly like the Hookface one, though I haven't foreshadowed an NPC for that purpose, so I don't know if I can swipe that idea or not. But still, pretty cool idea.

I may use some of the Adimarchus+Far Realm stuff too, since our party's Binder spends a lot of time bound to the summoning vestige from the Far Realm. He even picked up a weird talisman with some kind of consciousness trapped inside of it that jumps inside of his summons sometimes, and its connection to the Far Realm could be expanded to include a connection to Adimarchus' insanity.

I like it! My only reservation is that I don't know if Dhorlot would be ok with someone riding on him, but it seems gratuitous enough that I should try it anyway. Can you say army of demons AND half-dragons?

Glad you like the copper dragon rescue! I'm pretty happy with that concept.

While I agree with you that Dhorlot would probably be smart enough to back off and plan revenge against their descendants, it's just not a very satisfying conclusion for the party. They're pretty angry that he got away in the first place (one final arrow that they fired at him across the lake in Bhal-Hamatugn would have done it, but it missed and he was gone), and I feel like getting a note like that would only further convince them to hunt him down. Moreover, I think access to 9th level spells and 20th level class features at the end of the campaign will mean that they definitely can find him (Discern Location being the first option that springs to mind), so I'm more interested in bringing him in at a dramatic moment. If it doesn't make enough sense that he would strike on his own, I feel like I could justify it behind the scenes as the Cagewrights goading him into doing it. Perhaps they could even threaten him to force his hand, er, claw? Either way, they could also maybe buff him with items and spells to level the challenge rating a bit.

Nabthatoron also survived his earlier encounter with the party, so I was playing around with the idea of him laying siege to the city of Redgorge, probably during the volcanic events that start in Foundation of Flame. Maybe Dhorlot can have his minions raid Cauldron and/or Redgorge during this crisis? It would certainly create an intriguing dilemma for the party, as far as deciding how to allocate their resources in order to save the maximum number of people. I do want to be careful not to overshadow Hookface with Dhorlot though. Hm.

Thanks for the reply! I definitely like the idea of the super-module and the lack of resting. I will probably try to make that section one long marathon until the Cauldron is either saved or extinguished. I am going to post some other ideas or questions that I was hoping to get feedback on, if you feel so inclined:

--
The AP says that Vitriss Bale has not gotten around to acquiring a dragon corpse as a backup for the potential demise of his current form. What if he had though? Better yet, what if he had acquired a fairly young dragon, and was keeping it alive to let it get bigger and stronger, with a failsafe designed to kill the new body if his current form expires?
So my plan is to have a young copper dragon, unconscious but alive, hidden somewhere at the bottom of the soul pillars. When the party defeats Vitriss Bale’s current form, a trap triggers that floods the pit, and the unconscious dragon begins to drown. The party will most likely be tipped off about the dragon’s presence through the Mindsight ability of their Beguiler, and they will have to decide if it’s worth investigating. Even a young copper dragon could survive for a relatively long time underwater, in terms of combat, but it will be chained to its enclosure and unconscious. So getting it out of the water before it dies should be manageable, but at least somewhat nerve-wracking, which seems ideal to me. I don’t believe they have the simplest solution at hand, which would be granting the dragon waterbreathing. If I discover that they do have this option, I may need to make the water do constant cold damage too (which is an easy thing to imagine in Karran Kural), so that there is still a time pressure.
If or when they wake it up, I plan to have its mind be somewhat shattered, courtesy of psychic torture that Vitriss inflicted upon it during his leisure time through the use of a magic item or something. This mental damage is not fixable with a simple Heal spell, and they will have to decide if they want to take the time to mend the mind and body of this copper dragon. If they do, they may acquire a useful ally (or perhaps an even better ally if they take this copper dragon back to where he came from…). If they ignore this whole thing, then they obviously have an angry Vitriss Bale in a new body to worry about someday (in a new body that I would rule to no longer be bound to Karran Kural, no less).
Thoughts on this subplot?

--
I’m not quite sure how to resolve the Dhorlot subplot. Since the party returned from Occipitus, he has stopped sending his minions to attack Cauldron and he has moved his base of operations. He did this both because he knew that losing his trail would infuriate the party, and because he is being cautious because he realizes that they are probably scarier to face directly than before.
So how do I resolve this? Realistically, the party is actually way stronger than him now, so unless I artificially increase his power, he’s going to get trounced in a straight up fight with the party. Should he attack again during a chaotic time to force the party to choose what to deal with (maybe during Foundation of Flame)? Should the Cagewrights give up his location to the party somehow? Door number three? Happy to hear any suggestions!

Hello everyone!

I have been running a group through the Shackled City since January of 2014 (so almost a year and half now). We have made pretty quick progress (relative to the majority of stories I’ve read), and the party is now fighting the dracolich known as Vitriss Bale in Karran Kural, which is near the end of Secrets of the Soul Pillars.

I am writing this post (as the title suggests) to ask for advice, feedback, suggestions, and anything else constructive that you might be willing to give me to help me improve the quality of my campaign as we head into high levels and the endgame of the story.

Chief among my concerns is the fact that I have not done a great job of introducing the Cagewrights early on in this campaign. When I first started running the table, I was pretty bogged down with real life work, so I struggled to just provide the material of a given chapter. As I’ve gotten a better handle on everything though (and I owe a lot of that to the great materials at provided at this site), I have realized that I really should have dropped more hints and introduced more seemingly innocent appearances of the Cagewrights. However, I don’t think it’s too late, so I am open to any advice about how to start moving them on to the scene (and I’ve done a bit of it already).

---
I’m happy to provide detailed info on any of these folks. For now though, here’s a list of the party members in The Best (which is the name of the party, silly, I know):

PCs
Kha-Chi Du - Male Thri-Kreen Archivist
Kitiara Trisana Cataegis - Female Windsoul Genasi Beguiler/Mindbender/Unseen Seer
Ragnar "Earthbreaker" Galfyrmedvåpena - Male Goliath Warblade
Untver Smadcrak Skellerang - Male “Human” Binder/Knight of the Sacred Seal
Aedron (Previously a player, now a DMPC) - Male Dragonborn Human Sorcerer/Fiendblooded/Escalation Mage

---
For the most part, our plot has stayed on the tracks of the adventure path. I own the hardback book, so I’ve been running the game from that, for the most part. Things have started to veer away from it a bit ever since the party got back from Occipitus, but I’ll try to briefly highlight any major deviations from the ‘expected’ plot:

-Dhorlot escaped death in Bhal-Hamatugn.
-Dugobras survived his encounter with the party in Vaprak’s Voice (because the party chose to talk their way past him).
-They arrived back in Cauldron after Occipitus to find Jenya and several acolytes murdered in their own church. Kha-Chi resurrected Jenya. I personally haven’t decided which Cagewright made this power play, but the party correctly observed that she was killed with a save or die spell.
-They also learned that a small army draconic heritage has been sieging the city in their absence. They discovered that these minions were sent by Dhorlot, seemingly out of revenge, though Dhorlot was convinced to do this by the Cagewrights. The Cagewrights convinced Dhorlot that they shared the common goal of the party’s destruction, but their real intent is to further distract the PCs from the events transpiring beneath Cauldron.
-After storming the temple of Wee Jas and killing Ike Iverson, Kha-Chi was asked to temporarily take over the day to day operations of the church, for the sake of the city. He accepted this request.
-The party later met with Dugobras, who explained how he had been contracted to build the Soulcage. He initially met with a minotaur (Gau) and a human woman (Freija) for the request, but an “elf with a bow” (Kyan) checked in on him periodically afterwards, which he interpreted as a threat. Almost on cue after saying this to the party, he is hit with a poisoned arrow (Kyan’s doing). Kha-Chi healed him and the party shadow walked away. For his safety, Dugobras was then taken to Occipitus to serve as Ragnar’s personal blacksmith on the plane, but not before he revealed the general location of Karran Kural.

Here’s a rundown of the presence of the other Cagewrights (or plans to reveal them):

-Prior to the Demonskar Legacy, I ran the ambush in which the Necrocants attacked the Striders. After that was resolved, the party glimpsed Alurad Sorizon through Meerthan’s scrying pool and heard a bit about him.
-Thearynn is acting as headmaster of Bluecrater Academy, and they have have met him there.
-When they first met Thearynn, they almost walked in on him having a discussion with his “good friend from a nearby temple” Shebeleth.
-Considering having Ssythar be the Cagewright that spoke with Dhorlot (tenuous connection of yuan-ti and draconic sorts).
-This one is a little out there, so feedback is welcome. Ragnar has a bad history with wolves and stone giants. Namely, a stone giant raid with trained dire wolves destroyed his home village as a child and caused the apparent death of his father right before his eyes. Plot twist time. Viirdran, being an alchemist, captured the injured and near-dead giants and goliaths from this attack. He then created a modified strain of lycanthropy, and kept the captured survivors alive by turning them into vicious, less sane werewolves (no hybrid form though, only enormous wolf or regular form). He attacks the party as they emerge from Karran Kural with a horde of these creations. One of the wolves lunges at Ragnar, only to hold back at the last moment, and revert into its base form: Ragnar’s father. Viirdan gleefully sees this tragic situation, and teleports (or something) Ragnar’s father away before they can save him, intending to strengthen the dose of the modified disease in order to use the father against the party later. I may allow Viirdan to die in this encounter, only to reveal that he was a simulacrum of some kind (again, alchemist). The real one is elsewhere.

--
So that’s where I’m at. Do these foreshadowing events seem reasonable, or are they shallow and poorly conceived? Should I be attempting to reveal most of the Cagewrights one way or another, or should I consolidate the ones that hit the scene early on (Dhorlot could be contacted by a Cagewright the party has already seen instead of a new one, for example)? I know a lot of folks strongly urge the removal of a lot of the Cagewrights altogether, for the sake of sanity, but I kind of like a lot of them, so I’m digging my feet in and using the characters the adventure path gave me. I’d be happy to hear ideas for bringing in Cagewrights I haven’t mentioned yet (particularly if I can tie it to another PC, since giving each PC someone to despise could be fun).

Thank you in advance for any advice or help! I will reply to people as often as I can.