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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).
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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
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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.
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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.