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One of my PCs, a kitsune with Fox Shape, investigated the Royal Apartments ahead of the group during a normal stay in Lotheedar. Carr was under the blankets when he entered that room, but he heard the sobbing and felt the effects of it, so he was spooked. But he was looking for the teleportation circle so he moved on.

After encountering and running away from Ehlers, he ran into Carr who was woken by the noise of Ehlers trying to kill the intruder and noticed that he was sort of pathetic.

When the whole party went in, Carr wasn't aggressive, and so they didn't have a reason to attack. They talked to him and tried to figure out what was going on. The paladin was interested in taking him away and seeing if something could be done to soothe what was clearly a distressed and broken soul.

Their conversation moved towards Ehlers. Carr said he was scared of the monster. The kitsune asked "The monster in the other room?" Carr replied, "The monster right behind you."

Ehlers had snuck up on them with invisibility and then crit Enervation on the paladin.

The fight was super dangerous with that, Carr cowering in a corner. In the end, I had Eutropia order Carr destroyed by a Cleric, and she explained the situation with Carrius's death and what happened with Carr based on the notes from the lab. Her sadness that the party saw as she explained will help set up the Twilight Child, I think. They're only just about to start that.

I started mine on 8th Sarenith, 4719. My party in Part 2 is currently on 8th Erastus. Figured that something like the Week of Exaltation or whatever it's called would be a midsummer type festival. Makes the Harvest event in Part 2 fit well into late summer.

My recommendations would be for her to hint that something that Okerra did while he was serving disgusted but that she doesn't want to say since she doesn't have all the details.

The goal would be to sow some distrust and hamper a future friendship with Okerra.

I love this idea!

Ok so in our session on Wednesday...

We got through the rest of the Jubilee. Things were going great! Dorius bribed Titus's assigned servant (Yellow Canary) to screw up his hunt. Combined with the party bagging the Iron Lash, I had them win the hunt. They seemed to like trading barbs with and antagonizing Titus.

Things were going really well! They got all Dramatis Personae to Helpful (those with listed social stat blocks in Part 1). Literally their last round they got the final success with Baroness Voinum.

It took them to their last round because they decided to start the masquerade by prodding Titus. He insulted Shelyn, which prompted a strongly-worded response from her paladin, which prompted him challenging the paladin to a duel. Pretty straightforward, right?

Well... things escalated.

The "duel" was cancelled and replaced with a 3 on 3 fight at dawn. No rules, just a grudge match. The party was taking on a fight from Part 3, Titus and his goons. Three level 5 PCs vs three NPCs with 6 levels of PC classes.

Dame Carodd prebuffed--she was flying and mirror image'd up front, since the party was buffing beforehand, too. She flies out of melee, taking an AoO for half her health, and fireballs the party. The mesmerist, Casimir, retaliates with blistering invective.

Dame Carodd takes a bunch of damage, going to 1 from the d10 fire damage and the mesmerist's painful stare. She caught fire, dropping to -4 and falling 20 feet, taking 8 falling damage, bringing her to -12. Her Con is 12.

So the party killed a noble.

Syras, the other goon, is up next and stops the fight, running to Carodd's side and putting out the fire. The party pulls out the scroll of breath of life they got in Book 1 and tries to use it, but Casimir fails to emulate the requisite Wisdom.

Count Lotheed and Sir Gul rush out to assess the situation, drawn previously from the sound of the fireball. Lucretzia was watching the whole time.

With a masterful speech condemning Titus complementing a Diplomacy roll of 34, the party led by Cedric the paladin gets Count Lotheed on their side. He banishes Titus and has Sir Gul send to Cassomir for a cleric to raise dead the victim. He's also going to put a bunch of money into the guests' pockets and call in some favors to try to make sure word doesn't get out about what happened.

I rolled to see if Dorius noticed Lucretzia watching, and he rolled high. He noticed her and noticed that she seemed almost pleased by Dame Carodd's death.

That's where we ended. The party knows that next thing they need to do is go apologize to all the guests. So I've been figuring how they'll all react.

They already got Bartelby on their side. He doesn't really give a crap about Carodd, but he is annoyed that such a bad PR accident happened at his party. Luckily, his rage is directed at Titus. No penalty to the party.

Lucretzia is actually really happy that some fat hog noble got what was coming to her. Combined with Casimir's talking to her at the masquerade, I have her up to indifferent to him rather than unfriendly from the party getting Okerra to helpful. So she has a different attitude towards each member of the party. Apology probably won't change her attitudes, if she even sticks around for that. I'm wondering about whether she might do something to prevent the raising.

Okerra is mad, and thinks they should have kept it to a duel, following the established rules and procedures. Definitely reducing his attitude by one step short a very compelling apology, defense, and/or astronomical Diplomacy/Bluff check.

Crabbe didn't have a high opinion of Carodd, and is kind of happy for the gossip material, though she certainly blows a lot of wind bemoaning the poor girl's fate. She's too invested in any of the PCs potentially marrying her daughter to drop from helpful.

Voinum... I'm not sure. I don't see her being too torn up about it, and she's going to get revived. But, it having been a fight and not a duel might lower her opinion of the PCs.

Onora is probably a little put off by the PCs having jumped to violence, but the politics of it all is kind of over her head. If they botch the apology, she'll probably drop one level, but a reasonable defense or roll should keep her level.

SO YEAH. Lot to think about, and next session is tomorrow (Sunday). I'm planning on having Titus come back, staggering up to the Betony estate drunk off his ass, where he'll remember the PCs were at the Exaltation Massacre wearing the same pin as Martella. He'll declare his revelation and start staggering towards the Palace of Birdsong. I want to see how the party handles that. I could see Syras or the Night Swan showing up, either to talk Titus down and take him out of Meratt, or to kill the f++#er and give the Night Swan some leverage over the PCs.

My group of 3 is through day 1 of the Jubilee.

I've incorporated some of the NPCs in the campaign into the PC's backstories. One of my players, a swashbuckler by the name of Dorius, is the elder brother of Lucretzia. Their reunion at this party was a surprise to both of them.

This has been some great fun so far, since he made fast friends with Baron Okerra. The Baron is helpful, so Lucretzia is mad at him but isn't getting too deep into why, just saying she has reason to dislike him.

I'm wondering how best to play up the tension between the three, and what exactly to do mechanically with her attitude now that Okerra is helpful. At the moment I have her friendly to Dorius, but unfriendly to the rest of the party. Basically, she trusts her brother has some sense and some similar motivations as her, but is suspicious of his friends, knowing basically nothing about them except that they seem quite comfortable among the nobility.

What's interesting is that she's going to know from the get-go that Dorius and co. are behind the recent goings-on.

Any input is appreciated, especially since the next session is in two days.