I would offer that perhaps you should ask yourself "What information do my players not have that would be helpful in advancing the storyline and how could these stoned adventurers' backstory be written to assist". In the case of the Cagewrights, I would think maybe one of them might have the entire plot line...if that's what you need as a GM at this point.
As I recall, Drakthar has several beings dominated including the goblins and the red-eyed dwarf. If all these have not already been killed or incapacitated, he might order them to remove the bodies. I'm guessing the dwarf might take them to the nearest trash dump or midden pit. The goblins might do the same, or they might even eat the bodies themselves.
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Those are all workable options. Another idea I used was to let the party shop from the Bluecrater Academy which has (in my world) a bin of items created by students pursuing magical studies. The items may not work exactly as intended all the time but they are available at reduced rates and generally available if on the lower end of the power spectrum.
The siege seemed to early to me to put the party in direct, armed opposition to the city council. I had them go straight from DSL to ToTSE and then come back to find that time on Occipitus flowed at a different rate than on the Prime Material Plane, giving the party time to intercede and quell the attack since Sir Alec was dead.
The intellectual property rights for both still belong to Wizards of the Coast, so there is little likelihood either will ever be officially converted. You can find a lot of material on these message boards as well as at http://therpgenius.pbworks.com/w/page/22143327/FrontPage if you're interested in home brew conversion material.
A group of chaotic evil (and insane) fish men, a chaotic evil dragon, and a lawful evil devil could possibly be too diverse to come up with a coordinated plan. A piecemeal attack with each faction attacking on its own timeline and with each having their own motivations, might give the players enough slack to complete the adventure in one sitting.
Great adventure you've got going. All your listed options could work just fine; I read the thread on #5 and really like it. In case you're still looking for other ideas: 6. Crazy Jared might be an option to show up and help the party out of a tight spot. Assuming you followed the book as written, he knows where they are and knows somewhat of the threats they face. 7. You could re-write the trigger that summons Aushaunna to some event that occurs later so that she would not pose an immediate threat. Good luck and post your outcomes; this sounds like a great opportunity for you and the PCs (well, maybe not the PCs).
CampinCarl9127 wrote: Such flippant arguments don't even deserve a response. Good day. That's the problem with almost every thread. The original post asks for an opinion; 10% of the respondents provide a reasoned opinion. The rest spend an inordinate amount of time explaining why the responses won't work instead of developing opinions and input of their own.
I wrote it such that Kaurophon was able to manipulate the starry mirror devices to drop the party into a desert on another unspecified plane. When the party druid shapechanged into a raptor and flew around to scout the area, she saw Kaurophon sitting by a fire. The party collectively moved to engage him and he explained that he was going to a location that would allow the party to teleport without error anywhere in the multiverse. He then offered them the opportunity to go with him. I described the Lesser Amulet of the Planes as allowing the bearer to walk through planes such that the changes were subtle (ie Chronicles of Amber)to preclude him seeming false by teleporting to Occipitus. My party assisted K and followed the TOSE as written but it was obvious to them that I was railroading them to follow Kaurophon. They returned to Redgorge from Occipitus in time to defuse tensions and stop the invasion. I described time as running slower on Occipitus so that the actual time away from Cauldron was very small.
The wands were stolen by Triel and Tongue Eater for their monetary value; I don't beleive they had a specific intent to flood the city. Based on that assumption, I believe you'd have to come up with an opponent or dire condition to be overcome to make this a memorable event for the players; as Balacertar states: success is inevitable once the wands are secured. Perhaps using the rising water provides an opportunity for the morkoth to begin attacking residents and flooded buildings along Ash Avenue. Merchants along Ash would need to evacuate merchandise, providing an opportunity for attacks by the Last Laugh or Alleybashers. Either of those would provide the party an opportunity to get involved in a heroic way.
Yes. I used it almost verbatim. I converted my material to a Golarion-based campaign so I didn't have to worry about naming a layer of the Abyss; instead only naming the region where Adimarchus, the demon Occipitus, and the chunk of Celestia came to rest. Since Occipitus' skull would be a major landmark, it made sense to Adimarchus to name that area of the Abyss after his dead general.
Possibly some good background for your situation would be the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The citizens with the means and sufficient warning (ie nobles, religious caste members, powerful arcanists) would be able to flee in relative comfort while the average guy on the street would be found encapsulated in ash from the pyroclastic flows at the dockside (or convoy staging yard, etc). After 3-4 days the party might return to a scene of anarchy as civil authority breaks down, food becomes scarce, and predators from the surrounding jungle begin to scavenge both live and dead citizens. I think the players might find a hostile scene, particularly if the citizenry already know the PCs' failure put the populace in their predicament; conversely the PCs might be able to establish some sort of order and gain status if their failure is not widely known. Assuming your Sasserine looks like the city depicted on Greywiki (15+k population, combination of oligarchy/democratic government), I think you can safely justify any solution you present to your players regarding Sasserine's response and outlook on refugees. If you want to present a humanitarian response, the various churches would probably be good catalysts. Finally, please post how this plays out. I only run this one campaign and am always looking for ways to change it up from iteration to iteration. This is the first time I've read of a full blown eruption in the various posts. I'm interested in how you'll run this.
I suspect the logistics of moving 5k refugees across hostile terrain would be a pretty formidable challenge. Perhaps the church of ST Cuthbert might push some divine help forward capable of creating food and water to assist. Likewise, the governance of Sasserine or other settlements might push forces forward to provide physical security.
Some story threads I used for my 2nd and 3rd iterations of SCAP: I re-wrote Drakthar's Way so that Polk D. Thar (Drak Thar) was a vampire spawn of Mahd (Lords of Oblivion), whom was smuggled into Cauldron in her coffin on a caravan the party was guarding. Made for interesting role play for the 1/2 Orc whom became a regular feeding stop for Drakthar. Mahd was initially a guest of Thifirane. Thifirane regularly hosted a "fun day away" for the children of the orphanages in order to allow Mahd to feed. The children all started exhibiting symptoms of light sensitivity, nausea, soreness in joints, weakness, etc. All signs of a viral infection (or a vampire feeding on but not killing its victims) I also used Paizo's Dawn of the Scarlet Sun module. Instead of Shax, I wrote the succubus as a follower of Adimarchus and developed a demonic unholy symbol which she carried in common with the members of the Cagewrights.
I've got an inquisitor who infiltrated the lower levels of the Last Laugh. I've actually written up the Last Laugh and Alleybashers as 2 competing organized crime families similar to the Godfather movies, with Ankhin Taskerhill as the head of the Last Laugh and Zachary Aslaxin I as head of the Alleybashers. Just like in the movie, neither family head will ever give direct orders to commit crimes. They do it through a series of underlings so that they can never be fingered short of high power divination spells. Inbox me for my simple wiring diagram for each family and associated businesses each family owns or interacts with. Our inquisitor began by helping one of Fish Weijeron's (Caporegime of the Wererat Regime) low level button men (also an employee of Arlintal Shipping Company's Cauldron warehouses) steal some high dollar wine and sell it on the black market. The inquisitor did this enough that he gained a small amount of trust and was brought in for an interview for a full time job within the regime (most button men in my campaign are hired on a job-by-job basis). They blindfolded him, cast silence on him, darkness, etc and then drove around until he lost his bearings) and brought him to Fish for an interview. Fish was wearing a hat of disguise and looked like a halfling so that he couldn’t be recognized later. Of course while the inquisitor was there, the LL scanned him for alignment, detect thoughts etc and learned that he was good-aligned and wasn't wholly telling the truth about why he wanted to work for the organization. They opted not to make him a full time employee but offered him a part time job smuggling khat (a illegal mild narcotic) into the city. He gets 200 gp per month (per chapter for ease of accounting) for the work. We have since ceased role play on this thread and just let the story work on autopilot in the background of the campaign. Little does the inquisitor know that the Last Laugh now has pictures of him smuggling khat, stealing from Arlintal, etc and plan to publish a story in the newspaper if he or the party ever accuse the LL or related public figures of corruption etc That should be coming out in another week or two. I also have an email string associated with this role play for anyone who is interested.
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