ajbaker's page

My PCs let him go (and even let him keep his gear!) on the condition that he'd take the horse from Thistletop back to Sandpoint and then disappear, which he did. After knocking around Magnimar for a while looking for Lirie, he ended up in some sort of trouble and shipped off to the Black Arrows rather than face the noose. I levelled him up comparable to Vale Temros and replaced him, since both Kaven and Jakardros have compelling reasons to remain in the story. A couple weeks ago during the assault on Fort Rannick, he helped set up flanking for the party rogue and ended up neatly bisected by two hasted ogres and an ogre hook crit.

I generally go off last names to guess in places where it's not specified, but as others have mentioned the ethnic makeup is largely Chelish, Varisian, with a sprinkling of Shoanti or some mix of those. Given the fact that it's a port town I wouldn't be surprised to see a few Ulfen faces as well, and the town's nobility (with the exception of the Kaijitsu family) is stated as Chelish in origin by way of Magnimar.

I don't know much about the Abbey's purpose besides what's available in wiki format, which is:
Windsong Abbey was built as a pacifist refuge for followers of all religions to come and resolve their doctrinal and political differences in a non-violent manner and to peacefully further their own goals.

Keeping that in mind, here's how I'd tie it in to Skinsaw Murders:

A conference of sorts is being held to discuss the encroachment of Asmodeus worship in southeast Varisia, as brought in through Chelaxian immigrants/missionaries. Representatives from the major civilized religions of Varisia are in attendance, as well as a mid-level Hellknight representing the "cooperative" side of the Asmodean sects (and as a not-too-thinly-veiled show of might). Father Zantus either accompanies them or sends an acolyte or two from the cathedral to represent the various deities that the cathedral is dedicated to.

Shortly after they arrive, a highly-contagious disease starts spreading through the delegates, causing fatigue, coughing, rash, and ultimately death in about a week. This is blood veil, the disease engineered from Vorel's Phage by the Red Mantis assassins who bought the diseased rats from Foxglove Manor. By mutual agreement, no one is allowed to leave, lest they spread the plague outside the Abbey. Strangely, the Hellknight appears to be completely unaffected the disease- he/she is kin to Kasanda Miromia (Foxglove), Vorel's wife (and thus immune to blood veil/Vorel's Phage thanks to Kasanda's spirit watching over her relatives from beyond the grave).

The disease was actually brought in by a follower of Urgathoa, posing as a worshipper of a different deity or a member of one of the other clergy's entourage. The goal was to sow chaos and perhaps sway some folks to seek out Urgathoa's grace to let them survive the disease.

Plenty of opportunity here to do a murder-mystery type thing- suspicion of course falls on the Hellknight first, as some sort of plot to destabilize the established religions of Varisia or some such, but in this case the Hellknight has nothing to do with it, and in fact is the only person who it's safe to allow to leave to go get help/remove disease potions/etc.

Just spitballing ideas, but it might be a possible direction to go with an interim adventure and introduce more of the setting. I'd have the Hellknight have the last name Miromia, and include that name somewhere in Foxglove Manor as well (Kasanda's portrait is the logical choice) to tie it in later.

1) Well, Shalelu's death isn't catastrophic- they'll be lacking her expertise on the local goblin tribes, and Hook Mountain will lose some of its dramatic punch without her, but if it's important to you... how much did the PCs know about her? She's been kind of a cipher in my game- she's not prone to talking about herself, and the PCs have been respectful enough not to ask her a bunch of personal questions. Keeping that in mind, you could take the relevant parts of her backstory and personality and layer them on to any number of other NPCs.

2) I'd say probably no to the extra goblins and yes to Nualia realizing what's happened if any time at all goes by between regrouping (say, if the PCs head back to Sandpoint to heal up and recruit new party members). It seems like, judging by the attitudes of the goblins at Thistletop, that not everyone was enthralled with Nualia as Ripnugget. If he's alive, he might be able to get some additional goblins to come back. If not, they'll probably regroup under the next toughest goblin and wait until things at Thistletop have settled down a bit before trying to move back in. In my game, the PCs' assault on Thistletop basically broke the Thistletop tribe- not all of them were at the lair when they attacked, but between the failed assault on Sandpoint and the PCs' wiping of the lair, they basically were splintered and the Birdcrunchers went hunting them for stealing their queen. As to what Nualia can DO with the information that the PCs are coming, that really depends on what kind of forces she has left. She's probably not going to give up on freeing Malfeshnekor, but short of having any remaining yeth hounds standing watch and reporting back to her when the PCs arrive again, all she can really do is reorganize her spell selection and keep her fingers crossed.

I'd probably go with a two-fold assault here.
Given that his side business is a rumor you can acquire around town, I'm running on the assumption that the Sheriff already knows, or suspects, what else Podiker is up to, and simply hasn't confronted him. Whether due to lack of proof or just wanting to keep old Pillbug in his back pocket in case he needs to lean on him to get info about other ne'er-do-wells around town. Either way, though, Podiker's a taxpaying businessman and mostly-upstanding member of the community, and would be well within his rights to report the rogue for the threats and the two clear arson attempts. Sheriff Hemlock isn't likely to lock up one of the Heroes of Sandpoint out of hand, but he might try to address it with whoever's perceived to be the party leader and mention that the rogue is quickly wearing out their welcome in Sandpoint- "You take care of it, or I will." The citizens of Sandpoint are likely to react very, VERY badly to people trying to burn their city down for a third time.
Secondly, Pillbug has no shortage of shady characters who would like for him to stay in business. Just simply dropping the hint that whoever takes care of this troublemaker can look forward to some discounts in the future might be enough to get a small army of individual lowlifes gunning for this rogue.

Story Archer, that's a thing of beauty. My players are VERY emotionally invested in the people of Sandpoint, and consider Cyrdak and Jasper to be honorary party members (and sometimes guest PCs), so either one of those two dying would WRECK them. So I'll keep that in mind when they get to this point :)

Yeah, like others have said I'd use this as an opportunity to introduce Justice Ironbriar in a cooperative fashion, and plant the seeds for what's to come in the next chapter. Note that he's also be wanted for murder in Riddleport, so depending on how organized law enforcement and bounty hunters are in Magnimar, that's likely to come up too. If it were me, here's what I'd do:

The PCs escort Vancaskerkin to Magnimar, and turn him over to the law.

There's a speedy trial, where they're introduced to Ironbriar, and perhaps he does some quick questioning of Orik and the PCs in a zone of truth spell. This serves not only to establish Orik's guilt but also to potentially ferret out some info about the PCs' identities, loyalties, and tactics in a very general way (explain exactly how he came to be in your custody, etc.).

As a mercenary employee rather than the mastermind behind the plot, Orik is found guilty of conspiracy to destroy one of Magnimar's holdings (Sandpoint), and his murder charges are simultaneously uncovered. The murder charges are deemed the more serious of the two.

Ironbriar throws him in a cell to await the next ship to Riddleport, and rewards the PCs with half of Vancaskerkin's bounty (they can just sell Vancaskerkin to whatever bounty hunter will escort him to Riddleport and claim the full reward). He commends them for their efforts in preserving the peace, and asks them to check in with his office if they find themselves in Magnimar and looking for work in the future.

This dovetails nicely with the events of The Skinsaw Murders, and positions Ironbriar as a highly-placed contact in Magnimar's government that they can come to in the future when they're following Aldern's trail. At which point he can send them on fool's errands, use them as patsies, or simply monitor their investigations to report back to Xanesha. Fun!

SOME SPOILERS BELOW:

I agree that sending a relatively-disposable 1st-level cleric is right in line with what Asmodeus's hierarchy would see as appropriate in a case like this where success is difficult but possible. I could see this being an interesting challenge, but far from insurmountable. Some things to consider- aside from the normal pitfalls of playing a (secretly?) evil character, you've got a few things going on in Sandpoint/Magnimar:

1) Despite the proliferation of Chelaxian-ethnicity humans in Varisia, there's a strong anti-imperial undercurrent as part of the culture (note that Magnimarians disdainfully refer to Korvosa as "Little Cheliax").

2) There's very little that's asked of the PCs that would necessarily be offensive to Asmodeus- the PCs come in conflict with Lamashtu's and Norgorber's followers, but don't have goals that run counter to Asmodeus's aims in general.

3) Sandpoint is already pretty well-covered with the cathedral dedicated to six different generally wholesome deities, and it's settled largely by people who want a little bit less restrictive life than Magnimar allows. It doesn't seem to be a particularly fertile ground for infiltration, though Magnimar might be.

4) The demise or banishment of Justice Ironbriar presents some unique opportunities, and unique difficulties, for someone looking to infiltrate the power structure of Magnimar. If the Lord-Mayor considers himself in the party's debt, he might be amenable to recommendations for Ironbriar's replacement. And while there would undoubtedly be serious background checks made to ferret out any corruption in a potential candidate, an *openly practicing* Asmodean justice might be just the sort of iron-fisted law & order type to fill the shoes of the undermining Justice Ironbriar.

Well, Daviren is a former adventurer and accomplished hunter who gets around (or used to, in his younger days). If I had some other unrelated boon that I wanted to get in the party's hands, I'd just have good Mr. Hosk send the players to some other appropriate person in town, with the message "Daviren Hosk is calling in his favor. He says you'll know what that means. He's asking you to help us and then you're square." Good opportunity to get some face time in with some other local NPC.

I'll probably end up using the Kingdom rules for Fort Rannick if my PCs decide they want to try to hold it. Otherwise, I've offered them the downtime options to purchase and run individual buildings in Sandpoint, and one of the PCs opted to buy the Sandpoint Theater from Cyrdak Drokkus- he and Jasper moved back to Magnimar after the events of Skinsaw Murders, and I allowed the player to re-recruit the theater troupe just by spending the money (not the time) since they hadn't dispersed yet. So far she's got the theater's production solely focused on GP generation rather than any of the other downtime capital, but with the option to switch to other capital options when she starts her next civic improvement project in the spring (a glass-walled butterfly garden dedicated to Desna at the Cathedral).

You might also consider the Sandpoint Glassworks as an option- Ameiko is likely positively-disposed toward the party since they rescued her, and lacks the time or technical know-how to manage the place, so she might be willing to sell at a discount or on a payment plan if your PCs are interested in recruiting a new staff of workers and cleaning up the Glassworks to get it producing again.

I've house ruled to allow magic item crafters to make purely cosmetic changes for just the cost of the new masterwork item (old item is destroyed). If you're not trying to change the slot of a magic item, or the type of weapon, but simply would prefer that the +2 breastplate you looted from that demonic cleric not look like you pulled it out of GWAR's wardrobe? Then by all means, buy (or make) a new masterwork breastplate and go to town.

Here's a question: is there any way to break Ironbriar's code WITHOUT the Linguistics skill? I ask because of the four players and one NPC, none possess all three required languages AND the Linguistics skill. We've a couple with Draconic, one with Infernal, and a couple with Elvish... and the one player with Linguistics (which is only a 6) only has Draconic.

But without breaking the code, how would the players learn of Xanesha's role with the Brothers? (I mean, outside of the ravens... and I'm not sure people would necessarily think "messenger raven")

I had a couple of guest players along for the game session that culminated with the Ironbriar fight. I statted up Cyrdak Drokkus and Jasper Korvaski for them, had them show up in Magnimar after Jasper had a vision from Abadar that the city itself was somehow being used to thwart the PCs and try to get them killed. In the process of picking out equipment for them, I picked spectacles of understanding semi-randomly as a good fit for Jasper, as detecting forgeries and working in documents in a variety of languages would make sense for his job at the Sandpoint Mercantile League. And then promptly forgot about them. The player remembered though, so when it came time to decipher, he had the glasses and a couple ranks of Linguistics from his level of Expert. However, what basically amounts to a permanent comprehend languages effect is not the same as actually *knowing* the language. The journal is a cipher, rather than being written in a real language, after all. I decided that Elven is a fairly standard phonetic alphabet (like most Western languages), while Draconic is a syllabic language (each "character" is a syllable, and combining them in different ways can alter meanings), and Infernal is an logographic language (each character represents a single word). It would be immediately obvious that permanent comprehend languages is helpful but not a cure-all, when you look at a string of alternating text and it translates to "F-La-Cruel-Sh-Nur-Head/Skull", etc. So I decided that he would still need help from Sandpoint's other local scholars in working out the cipher.

Basically what it amounted to was that I let Jasper make the main Linguistics roll, and allowed "aid another" rolls from other people, NPCs or PCs if they fit any of the following criteria. Note these are all my own personal rulings, to incorporate NPCs the party was familiar with:
Trained in Linguistics and knows any of the relevant languages (as many people as fit the criteria): Ilsoari Gandethus, Brodert Quink. In my game, Brodert was still working on safely collapsing the Catacombs of Wrath, and thus unavailable to help.
Trained in Linguistics but doesn't know any of the relevant languages (no limit to number of assistants, roll at -5): Chask Haladan, Ameiko Kaijitsu. These people understand the mechanics of cryptography and can suggest strategies, but need native speakers or dictionary translations to understand what they're working on.
Not trained in Linguistics but knows one of the relevant languages (one "untrained" assistant per language, roll at -5). Sabyl Sorn, Cyrdak Drokkus, any number of elf or half-elf locals. This is where PCs could primarily help out, though they have the hardest roll to make (untrained Linguistics means Intelligence check at -5, target 10). Even though they don't understand the deciphering process, they can still contribute by doing things like offering how a specific character in Infernal would sound when spoken aloud, or whether a specific set of sounds means something in another language they know, that sort of thing.

Ultimately I wanted the journal to not be completely indecipherable, but to force the PCs to make decisions regarding:
1) How many people are in the know. Once they hit the "aha" moment and are able to start working on the mechanical substitution process to understand the journal, who knows what secrets will be spilled out for every assisting NPC to see?
2) The deciphering process is still SLOW. Can they wait five days for the journal to be translated, if it means Xanesha is using that time to continue having her faceless stalkers murder people? Are they willing to refuse Ironbriar's offers of assistance and take the moral high road, and risk wasting days and his journal being completely irrelevant? After all, it's not even clearly HIS- it was just among his trophies, some of which absolutely aren't his, and doesn't handily say "Justice Ironbriar's Big Book of Misdeeds" on the front cover.

I was worried about this encounter from day 1, as all six of my players are female and I was worried that none of them would bite. As it turned out two of them played male characters, one of them (the cleric of Torag) as the foolishly heroic type- he bought her lies wholesale but wanted nothing to do with her when her true purpose was revealed. Unfortunately of course daddy was coming down the stairs at that point, and a single max-damage critical hit dropped poor Haern in one swing.

As it happened, the OTHER male character in the group, Harold the half-orc fighter, was following up on the rumor that you could get orcish rotgut from Vinder if you knew what to ask for, and happened into the shop at the same time the fight was going on downstairs. He convinced Solsta Vinder (who was unaware of what was going on downstairs) to take him down to the private "wine cellar" and once there he managed to talk the Vinders into letting him drag Haern away from the scene.

Now, even a half-orc fighter will have a little trouble wrangling the body of an unconscious, fully-armored cleric up the stairs and through the streets. As it happened, part of the reason that poor Haern was alone to be singled out at the time was that most of the rest of the party was out on the town with Aldern Foxglove. They were currently at the Hagfish trying the Hagfish Challenge. When I checked the map, I realized the Hagfish was literally right across the street from the General Store, so that meant EVERYONE got to enjoy Haern's humiliation. They ended the evening early and everyone dragged him around the corner to the Sandpoint Theater in the hopes that either Cyrdak or Jasper would be there and able to throw some healing on him and get the party's only healer back to consciousness.

Cyrdak was there, fortunately. Unfortunately, that also meant he got to hear the story, and he's a bard with (Comedy) as one of his primary Perform skills.

My players' PCs (party of six):
Arya, elf sorceror (destined bloodline)- she's a little spacey, but brilliant (highest stat is actually Int rather than Cha, thanks to elfy bonuses).
Chitat, aasimar (Ulfen descent) sorceror (celestial bloodline)- sold as a bed-slave by her brothers when their parents died, she got unceremoniously dumped off in Magnimar after her sugar daddy/owner died unexpectedly and his wife found out about her existence.
Haern, human (Chelaxian) cleric of Torag- on the run from Cheliax after his family was murdered in one of House Thrune's periodic purges. Always looking over his shoulder.
Harold, half-orc fighter- all the way from Drenchport, the newest arrival to Sandpoint when the game started, out for drink and glory. Strangely thoughtful, though. He can always be counted on to fail a clutch Will save.
Korel, human (Varisian) monk- albino dropped off at the House of Blue Stones as an infant by superstitious parents, she's the only PC actually raised in Sandpoint, and who was present during the Late Unpleasantness.
Naionna, elf rogue- devout Calistria-worshipper and sneak-thief. She fell hard for Aldern Foxglove after rescuing him at the Swallowtail Festival.

My group let Lyrie go (Orik had requested they not kill her, if possible). In my game she ran to Magnimar and is getting up to some mischief there, continuing her history of choosing her coworkers poorly. I'm blatantly stealing the ideas presented in this thread and turning her into a drug addict/dealer, but I'm thinking it's unlikely the players will run into her any time soon since they've got a lot of other stuff that they're trying to work on and I don't want to overload with plot threads. May be a little side adventure next time they're in Magnimar after the events of Skinsaw Murders.

It's not until the second chapter, but I found that having a printed-to-scale map of the Misgivings was extremely helpful, because even when there's not combat going on, there are a lot of times where it's important just where people are standing in relation to each other, whether they're split up and in different rooms, and so on. I printed each floor separately and covered the rooms they hadn't opened yet with paper cutouts which I then removed once they had investigated a room.

Seems like a stretch to get the Brotherhood involved with Habe, who seems to me to be very likely to actually go straight (having been a basically decent guy from the beginning who just got greedy). Caizarlu is a powerful object lesson in doing background checks for him, in the future.

Now regarding the tiefling- if they hadn't been brothers I'd just say he'd probably let it go, but depending on what the remaining tiefling knows about the PCs I'm sure he'd try to find SOME way to get back at them. Since they've already demonstrated they're superior physical threat, he's likely looking for an equalizer- allies would be great but I don't honestly see a good connection for involving him in events in Magnimar.

If he knows that the PCs came from Sandpoint, or even flees there and starts looking for info about them, then he runs into the problem of them being local heroes and pretty universally well-liked. However, there's one person in town who is likely quite sympathetic- Ven Vinder. If I were inclined to have the surviving tiefling brother be an actual threat to the party then that's where I'd start- teaming up with Vinder to smear their reputation and gradually turn folk against them. Perhaps while the PCs are in Magnimar, further rumors get spread about them (specific to the PCs- accusations of petty theft or vandalism, or perhaps escalation to rumors that they were working with Tsuto to destroy the town and betrayed him when they saw more profit in appearing to be heroes?)

I have a couple of questions about exorcising Vorel's spirit after dealing with the Skinsaw Man.

According to page 108 of the Anniversary Edition, the party need to cast 'hallow and a consecrate spell or a dispel evil spell.'

First of all, how are they supposed to know this? A knowledge (religion) check (and if so, what DC)? Or do they need to consult with Father Zantus?

My party's cleric is only 6th level, so still several levels away from being able to cast hallow (and dispel evil). What's the 'normal' way this should play out; is the party expected to leave the manor for some time while they go off to Magnimar etc, or are they expected to procure scrolls, e.g. from Sandpoint? I know my players; they're like a dog with a bone and won't want to go anywhere until the house is dealt with once and for all.

My players wouldn't let it go either, and in fact their first goal when arriving in Magnimar wasn't to track down Aldern's townhouse or Pug's shop, but rather to find information about hauntings and liches. I had secretly decided that if they destroyed the fungus in the basement (with holy water, acid splash, whatever) then there was a brief window in which the house could be burned down before Vorel's spirit reinhabited the place and grew the fungus back. In fact, their consultations with Father Zantus and later with Zadendi in Magnimar (pre-events of Dawn of the Scarlet Sun) found them in agreement that fire was the cure-all here. For whatever reason though, they either didn't think to burn the place or didn't want to.

Well, there are a few things in play here. The activities of the Skinsaw cult are known through Magnimar, and the Lord-Mayor has directly gotten involved by posting Ironbriar to look into them. This is relatively public knowledge, and would be an easy entry point for someone who knows the name "Brotherhood of the Seven" or "Skinsaw Cult." Even the most basic inquiries will point the person to Ironbriar's "investigation" of the cult. The following facts are, in my opinion, fair game to reveal to the players with some successful Knowledge (Local) checks or Diplomacy checks to gather intel.

First, I changed the name to the "Seven Brothers Sawmill" and gave them a cartoony seven guys log-rolling logo for their sign to make it less immediately sinister-sounding. The place does appear to be a properly functioning mill though; if your PC goes investigating it while it's up and running there's very little to separate it from any of the other sawmills in Magnimar. No one will answer the door (because there's no one downstairs to hear anyone knocking and they aren't expecting anybody) but there are a few windows where an investigator could run into one or more of the cultists out of uniform and loading the wagon with lumber for one of their legitimate orders. Public records would show that it's been in business for several decades, and they pay their taxes on time. Boring is better here, as it discourages the investigator from breaking in for some solo exploration and getting himself murdered.

Any investigations into the Skinsaw Cult itself could head down a few different roads depending on how trustworthy you want Ironbriar to seem. My players never sought him out (even though they were recommended to do so, if they wanted to help), but it's reasonable to be able to figure out that they're likely a cult worshipping Norgorber (in his Father Skinsaw guise). Investigating with shady types might reveal that they're assassins-for-hire if you know the right people to ask, but that they have actually been turning down work even as the number of murders attributable to them increases. Implication is that someone already has them booked solid, which is absolutely the case. If it were me, and the investigating character came off as at least halfway competent and respectful of the law, I'd have Ironbriar bring him in on the official investigation, in which case he could see the dossier they've got so far:
Skinsaw Cult is a cult worshipping Norgorber (true)
Their murders have become either more numerous or more daring in the past several months (true)
They seem to be striking targets randomly, across all strata of society (false to the first part, true to the second)
Their base of operations is somewhere in Underbridge (dangerously false, and could lead to the wrong cult of Norgorber)
Ironbriar is on the case because of his decades-long history of being able to root out and stamp out cult activities in the city (true in my game- he was eliminating competition)
He hasn't yet been able to bring in a member of the Cult for questioning- they tend to strive not to be taken alive, or fear threats of death if they are (technically true, but he hasn't actually been trying)

The above info would only be available to a PC who's interested in cooperating with Magnimar's law enforcement, and of course Ironbriar will have a lot of questions about the PC (and his allies, if he lets on that he has them) to find out why he's so curious about this and whether he's actually interested in helping or just a looky-loo. He'll be hesitant to bring in outside help but eventually give in because he's running out of options. The real purpose, of course, is to learn more about the PCs for Xanesha's benefit, and alert the Cult to their existence so they can be on the lookout. On the off-chance that one of the cultists IS captured, Ironbriar can participate in the questioning and arrange for the cultist's escape from custody if necessary.

Ironbriar himself has a good (though not spotless) reputation as a cop who rose to his position on the Justice Council over the course of several decades, working his way up through the system largely based on just being alive and effective for a long time. Of course, it being Magnimar he has no shortage of detractors whose toes he's stepped on during his rise, and if you ask the right people they'll probably tell you he's known as effective AND ruthless. Those who know him will be able to share that he's seemed out of sorts and distracted lately- no doubt losing sleep due to the frustrating walls he's been running up against with his current investigation- this was supposed to be a couple weeks' work in addition to his regular duties, but is stretching out interminably.

As far as Tsuto's trial goes, I've got no idea what you've got going on with that. You're on your own :)

I have a pc who is currently on a two week vacation. He asked me before he left if it was alright for his character to investigate the brothers of seven in magnimar while in game the other pcs investigate aldern and the ghoul problems. Question: What information would it be fair to give this pc about brother 7, skinsaw cult, ironbriar, and tsuto's trial? The fact that the pc still wants to "play" and be useful while away on family vacation makes me want to reward him....

I am looking for a curse that has some kind of game effect. Something he can play on, yet neither be too debilitating nor too harmless. Perhaps something that would get progressively worse, like sanity loss. Maybe he could slowly turn into a devil form, losing charisma as time goes on. Or any time he drops below 10 hit points he flies into a diabolical rage and...

Interesting character concept! As far as the curse goes I'd consider a combination of your ideas above- living with the knowledge that he's going to be suffering damnation as a traitor is one thing, but some sort of manifestation of his fate is even better. I'd go with something that happens each time he goes below 0 hp (does this happen often?), as that's when he's hovering at death's door and he's in greatest peril. Losing charisma is pretty harsh for a paladin, so you'd probably do better to just apply penalties to specific charisma-related activities. I like the idea of a creeping panic in the back of his mind as he's approaching 0 hp- even though he's immune to fear, it's a subtle way of corrupting him into behaving just a LITTLE more cowardly. Which might cause problems with his *new* god as well, and would suit Asmodeus just fine :)

I'm running the Rise of the Runelords adventure path, and am coming to the end of the first chapter, so prepping to head into the Skinsaw Murders. My concern is this- my players took a real shine to Aldern- including the target of his obsession. I take partial blame for that, since I like to assign photos to NPCs to make them more memorable and I made the mistake of using Kit Harrington for Aldern. And his "Lust" target is now *into* him, despite him being overly familiar early on. She encouraged his crush on her and sought opportunities to hang out with him far beyond what the module suggested, and gave him a keepsake to remind him of her when he left.
So on the one hand, this is great- the players are super-involved and that will make him turning out to be the Skinsaw Man all the more horrifying for them. However, I strongly foresee them figuring out it's him almost immediately- even as the current adventure wraps up they're talking about going to Magnimar to hang out with him, so as soon as the name "Foxglove" comes up in any context (Manor, River, etc.), or most likely as soon as his obsession target gets the very first note addressed to her specifically, they're going to be on it like white on rice.
Anyone have any thoughts on how to handle the mystery such that it will actually be something resembling a mystery? I was toying with the idea of the Skinsaw Man actually being Aldern's brother, and making Aldern simply end up as one of his victims (with the obsession transferring out of Envy more than Lust). I just feel like the blindingly obvious culprit for this group is going to be Aldern, and would rather it not be a case where the party rejects it as too obvious and then has it turn out to be the case anyway.