| NoNameRequired |
I typically don't post on these forums (I enjoy reading everyone else's experiences) but I had to jump on, as my group is finishing this book tomorrow night.
I absolutely love Serpent's Skull. It's something that would appeal to me as a player and I think I didn't take into consideration what my player's thought to the campaign was before I just kinda jumped them into it, so that's my fault. With that being said, they LOVED Souls for Smuggler's Shiv. I mean, who doesn't? A supposedly deserted island shrouded in mystery. Surprisingly intriguing fellow castaways and villains. Not to mention TWO ancient Azlanti structures.
Racing to Ruin unfortunately lost them their appetite for this campaign as it's rather slow and linear. I took some of the suggestions I've seen from other posts and threw in flairs of my own to try to get their interest back but sadly Book 2's close will also be Serpent Skull's. So, tomorrow they face off against Issilar AND Raogru, whom they mistakenly forgot about after defeating him in the snake temple. So instead of killing or at least restraining him, they grabbed the stone and left, letting him wake up a few hours later to retreat and lick his wounds. I plan on having him wander around the ziggurat and having them roll for the chance that whatever room they enter they'd run into him.
I turned the pillars of light into a sort of sequencing puzzle with riddles and 4 stands on each pillar. Each stone has a number to match the numbered stands. If the wrong stone is placed on the wrong stand (I know them and I know they're just gonna try putting stones down instead of attempting the puzzle) then it'll activate an alarm that drives Paleflesh completely mad. I've hidden the remaining stones in various parts of the ziggurat rather than Issilar having them in hopes the party will explore and thus increase their chances of running into Raogru. My goal is for the puzzle to be the last thing they do. With it being a small room, I thought it would be interesting to have a sort of "wave defense" encounter and having Paleflesh attempt to squeeze into the tiny room from the various entry points, which could be very bad given his size versus the space they have to operate.
They know this'll be the last session of Serpent's Skull, so I'm sure they will be much more brave and/or careless. I held a vote for the next adventure and we will be starting Carrion Crown next week. Hopefully we can some day return to Serpent's Skull. I'm running it for another group when the other GM is in down time between modules, so I will still be fulfilled regardless.
I did really enjoy the Zakiyya and Itombu encounters. Itombu left such an impact on them that I had to make him a recurring thing. Instead of him going back to the abyss when they defeated him, he was sent into a special copy of The Book of Night Without Moon and he occasionally pops out of the book to mock and mess with them. He does not yet have enough power to be able to reform into a threat but it's a fun downtime interaction for them.
I made Zakiyya kind of an emissary of Zura, so she brought up events that happened on the shiv, sort of a call back to book 1. She was dispelled with the monkey head but not before our barbarian killed our dominated arcanist, who was extremely valuable and quite a loss. I had Zakiyya suggest everyone leave the room but him where she managed to give him a kiss and he took a negative level, so that itself was already impactful. She then asked for his help as "she believes one of the dancers was plotting to kill her." I had already sewn the thread of one of the dancers subtly asking for help against Zakiyya, so they were all trying to figure out who the real threat was.
They really enjoyed Nkechi's guidance, although he was very cynical of the team and still a little iffy on how they managed to survive two weeks on smuggler's shiv.
I am looking forward Carrion Crown but I hope this post gives someone inspiration and ideas on how to make this book a little less (okay, a lot less) dull and uninteresting.