I've got an interesting problem I'm trying to plan for before starting this path, and I'd like to get thoughts from other GMs who might have already handled it.
My group is big on the Iomedan angle in Kintargo, suggested-culture-be-damned. The Player's Guide suggests that the Glorious Reclamation should elicit head-shakes from Iomedans in Kintargo, but it would really, really help to have a solid reason why, other than 'the Glorious Reclamation is stirring the pot'. After all, the PCs in Kintargo are about to do the exact same thing themselves.
I've got a few ideas on how to keep Iomedan PCs separated from the Glorious Reclamation in thought and in deed, but they're likely to fall apart as soon as Hell's Vengeance comes out. That's my real frustration in trying to plan this out in any kind of elegant manner. That said, here are some of the attempts I've made in my planning notes:
- The Glorious Reclamation's leader is not native to Cheliax. He/she is basically a bull in the china shop, with no real understanding of the local customs, social mores, and consequences that might occur because of certain actions. As such, that leader keeps making obvious mistakes, getting good people killed, and drawing attention when subtlety might have been more advisable. Basically, any rebellious Iomedan organizations actually native to Cheliax, which might have been slowly building up resources for a rebellion proper, have just had their plans rudely upended by some well-intentioned but arrogant outsider who thinks they know best. This outsider angle also helps starkly separate local Iomedans in a literal way-- even if this outside leader has amassed native followers, it would certainly chafe longstanding Iomedans to watch a bunch of recent fresh-faced converts join the Reclamation, and go immediately running off to their deaths.
- (Possibly in addition to 1) The Glorious Reclamation has a zero-tolerance attitude toward evil. A large number of Chelaxians are LE, or at least tolerant of such attitudes. If you kill everyone in Cheliax who's evil, you may not have much of a country left to save. So far in my games, I've portrayed good-aligned religions in Cheliax as being more predisposed toward redemption than smiting, rather by necessity. If we go with point 1 as being true, outside Iomedans would be much more smite-y than redemptive, and therefore their methods might strike native Iomedans as shortsighted and/or actively harmful to the people of Cheliax.
That said, since we're hoping to eventually use stuff from Hell's Vengeance and not conflict with it outright, I'm worried that this take on the Glorious Reclamation will immediately conflict with the way those modules are set up. It's probably bugging me all out of proportion to the possibility, but I'm still interested in seeing if other people have dealt with the problem differently.
While I could always just tell PCs "Don't play an Iomedan" (who am I kidding, I *hate* doing that), I'd rather just provide them with roleplaying fodder ("Damn those Glorious Reclamation fools! Did you hear that they did X? They're going to get us all killed! Now we have to clean up the mess they've made out of our city!").
Anyone else have thoughts on this?
