Poisoned Cocktail's page

Do the aranea in the northeast portion of the Isle of Dread ever appear again after HTBM?

I'm thinking of adjusting them to be a recluse group of Olman outcasts with natural lycanthropy. One of my players has been pitching an idea for a future character that is a natural wereraptor, and the brief encounter the party has with the aranea had me thinking it would be a good setup for the character's possible entrance. I'm a bit reluctant because I'm thinking the beginning of HTBM is already a little dinosaur heavy, and if the aranea play a part later in STAP, I'd like to know if I'll be needing to do any rejigging of later events.

Yeah, it's silly of me not to read ahead, but I just don't seem to have a lot of spare time these days.

One of the player characters was recently slain during the trip to Tamaochan. The player has been inquiring about a concept he has regarding a character aiming for Blackguard.

As a DM, I prefer keeping the group to one side of the Good/Evil chart. Neutral is always fine within a group dynamic, but I often find my playgroup will ultimately end in conflict if they start mixing the Good and Evil tendencies. Suffice it to say, I've strongly discouraged the players from bringing in evil alignments into what is mostly a good group.

That said, this player's concept involved selling his soul in service to a devil in exchange for his power. This devil has an undisclosed interest in Lavinia and her ragtag of adventurers, and has sent the PC to keep a close watch on them. He left the actual details for me to help fill in.

Now, having been approached from that angle, and knowing how STAP ends up, I thought this could be an interesting opportunity, perhaps changing the pact from devil to one of the demon lords. Indeed, towards the climax of the adventure path, it might even make sense for an inner party conflict, should that occur.

Would it be a good idea to allow this character?

If I choose to go ahead with this, I'd prefer not to deviate too much from the adventure path as written. Which demon lords would be most suited for the task?

My group is meeting again soon after leaving off at the end of "There is no Honor" in December. While the players managed to clear out the Lotus guildhall and rout Rowyn, they have a tendency to glaze over when it comes to investigating. In short, they didn't find Vanthus' letters to Rowyn. After a session through the entirety of the guildhall and its denizens concluded that Vanthus was there, but have no idea where he is now.

They did get really banged up in the guildhall, so they took their portions of the treasure and are recuperating over the next few days leading up until the next session.

My original plan was to have the party's rogue contacted by a black market face in Shadowshore. This shady character is one the rogue has been very dependent on, so a large sum of gold has already changed hands up until now for informational leads and items of dubious ownership. With all the rival guilds vying for top dog in Sasserine's underworld, I reasoned it wouldn't take long for news of the Lotus Dragon's fall to spread. The party wasn't exactly subtle with their raid, having torched the front that was the Taxidermist's Guild to the ground, so I also reasoned unsavory characters would soon find their way into the remains for looting. Thus, after a few days, Vanthus' letters would be found - which would naturally be deemed worthless to anyone save possibly Lavinia (or maybe Rowyn herself). The party rogues' contact gets wind of them and haggles the pages for a cheap sum knowing his customer (who had previously prodded for information of Vanthus' whereabouts) would pay well.

The party gets their adventure hook without things seeming too ordained.

Now I have the possibility of a player interested in joining in on this session as a one-off. Their desire was to simply have me roll up a character and have them jump in and out as a oneshot. I'm thinking this is an excellent opportunity to flesh out the Jade Ravens a little bit. I want to give them a little more exposure before they resurface during the manor attack - it's been some time since their first chance encounter back in TINH, and I'm sure most of the players even forgot they exist.

I'm thinking of maybe sending the players off on a little side trek out of Sasserine and having the temp player jump into the role of one of the Ravens as a tag-a-long. At the end of the side trek, the players could find Vanthus' letters, or else some other less cliche indication that he is over in Kraken Cove.

I'm wondering if anyone has any supportive ideas for this direction I'm planning, specifically:
1) A convincing reason why the Jade Raven member would work with the PCs for this one adventure.
2) A short adventure or map suitable as an outside location that the Lotus Dragons/Vanthus used prior to the events of TINH.

(As a side note, I was also considering using some ideas I saw on the boards regarding Malcanthet testing the PCs, but I'm not if weaving something like that in would be a good idea so soon in the campaign)

Thanks for all the incredible information on the boards thus far (there are many incredible ideas I have "stolen" and plan to incorporate), and thanks in advance for any suggestions directly addressing my predicament!