My group is about halfway through Book 2, the new barony is slowly growing. I am looking to lay down some foreshadowing and direction for later books, and I would like the suggestions of the group here.
One player (the Baroness' player, in fact) gave me some great backstory. Both her parents were adventurers, had settled down about the time Yulianna was born, but then Mother disappeared. Father was a semi-barbarian warrior noble, now a strong supporter of the Tsar; Mother was a half-elf, possibly a wizard or sorceror. We've discussed that both parents were adventuring in the Stolen Lands earlier, I've secretly decided that both were quietly searching for Ovinrbaane on behalf of the previous Tsar, while Mom was also very covertly hunting for Briar, too.
There was an earlier outbreak of fey coming to the Stolen Lands to look, too, and both parents fought that. The Swamp Witch helped them a little bit, Bokken's brother was one of Nyrissa's human agents, driven insane back then, as was Stag Lord's father.
Someone on here (great thanks, whoever you are) had planted a copy of "Zuddiger's Picnic" for a PC to find, her mother's lost copy, which plot point I am SO stealing and folding into this disappearance.
1. So far, I have decided that a partial copy of "Z's Picnic" will be found on the body of the ranger killed by the Big Owlbear (IMC, he'll be an older noble under Nyrissa's influence).
2. Mom's journal of the earlier expedition has already come to the PC, but I haven't revealed all of its contents to the player yet. I think it should include hints or sketchy maps to a lot of buried sites in most of the books, like the Lonely Barrow and the Dancing Lady's Keep. Most of them marked, "to check out someday." It should imply that they were looking for something magical, maybe even that it's Ovinrbaane.
3. Mom's journal for her 2nd expedition, the one when she slipped away from home without telling her daughter, should come up somewhere, right? It should have more detail on things, possibly even a more precise location for Ovinrbaane. But where can the PCs find it?
This is one of the things I really want your help with. It probably shouldn't show up before they set out on Book 3, or we risk the players forgetting about it, or not wanting to deal with the distraction elsewhere. It will point one direction, but the pull of Varnhold is the other way.
- One thought is to put it in Drelev's library.
4. Mom's fate What happened to her? This is the other thing I puzzle over; I have a lot of ideas, but cannot make up my mind. Some ideas:
- Did she die to some danger in the Stolen Lands? Did Nyrissa kill or imprison her?
- Is she Evindra? That seems too pat for me.
- Is her body in the Castle of Knives?
- Is she Ilora, hiding out and still searching, 15+ years later? That seems like a long time to never come in from the cold.
- Is she the dead explorer at 4G?
- Did Vordakai kill her? Then I could use her undead body instead of Cephal in the tomb. That doesn't seem right, either, as it's supposed to be the recent explorations by Gunderson that sets off Big V., not hers 15+ years ago.
- Did Irrovetti kill her, years ago, and some of her gear will be among his loot? If so, one of his tournament champions might have been the actual killer, and let something slip during the Tournament.
- Might she have died while with the Nomen centaurs, and they know where she is buried?
- Did the trolls get her, and some of her gear will pop up there?
- Might she be petrified into one of the statues found here and there? It's already too late to make her one of the ones in the Dancing Lady's Tower, but Candelmere or the troll lair is possible.
Thanks for any suggestions.
Pixies nailed her with amnesia arrows and left her in the forest. Having no memory, the pixies told her she lived in the forest and cared for the animals and forest dwellers. They led her to an old shack that was previously abandoned, and there she has dwelt ever since.
She is now a ranger/witch/herbalist (take your pick) that lives deep in the narlmarches, maybe down towards the trolls. During the process of hunting down the trolls or perhaps tracking down the giant owlbear, the party could run across her hut or her depending on how much you want to draw things out.
Personally, I would have the party find the hut, but have her gone or hiding. You could tease that they never see who lives there and make them hunt her down to find out. There is a possibility they don't bother, then your PC later on has to live with the fact that HER MOM WAS RIGHT UNDER HER NOSE ALL THIS TIME.
Let her figure out what it might take to restore her mother's memory. This is a perfect way to leak information to the party, because once her memory is restored, she could know all sorts of useful things, though some might be dated.
Maybe its just me and its a reaction to all the players who prefer to be orphans who have no childhood friends left (so the GM cannot "mess with them"), but I prefer to keep family of PCs alive as much as possible. In particular if they are thought to be dead. And especially in Kingmaker, where it can be pretty cool to have your extended family there and fairly well protected (you run the kingdom after all!) for a change. This is the main reason I am suggesting to keep the mom alive.
This might also draw Dad down to the PCs kingdom to reunite, and they could provide quite a bit of lore at the right time (end of book 3) and the hook to get the party putting two and two together for Book 4.
What Red said...& imagine the reveal for the player!
The player has gone into the game with a backstory of childhood happenings,
how did they get those memories...?
Did someone tell them that's what happened, or did they see it?
Ever had one of those moments when you think you know how something
happened, but then learn you had it wrong?
Imagine the player has a childhood memory, but then their PC finds out
the truth! Nice!
Redcelt, that's pretty cool, thanks. I agree, keeping a player's backstory characters alive should be a priority, and it is for me. So far, a different player was missing two brothers, and one of them turned out to be Akiros.
I don't really want to shoot down that idea right away, but... read along while I think aloud.
- They just made friends with the Swamp Witch recently, and I had her tell them about all of the friendly or not-friendly fey in the forest (a few less than as-written), and they met some of them after taking down the scythe tree. So, it would seem odd, at least to me, if "Oh, and here's this other person, whom I totally forgot to mention." For instance, the unicorn's absence was noted, a session before they found its corpse, and they knew what it was.
- Durn, if I'd asked about this last month, I could have slipped her in before giving the "who's who in the neighborhood" speech.
OTOH, I did sort of specify that it was solely on their side of the river, I left the trolls out. Everything beyond the lizardman village (gnolls in my game) was left vague, except for the hodag. I'm not sure how I can square someone living alone, that far from the other fey and close to the more hostile stuff.
- It might be neat to have her found, petrified into a statue. That's how we brought in a new PC, back in the later stages of Shackled City. I wish I'd thought of that before reading out the life-sized statue in the Dancing Lady's tower.
- I'm now planning on breaking up parts of Books 4 and 5, so having her (and/or Dad) show up at the end of Book 3 would be just right. Especially with the lore to lead them right to Armag's tomb, as I'm considering letting them run out to that dungeon even before Tatzylford gets hit.
Philip, yes, I have had those kinds of memories, as well as things that my parents thought really significant, that I forgot about.
Keep the ideas coming, please, I will keep working on this end.
There are lots of reasons she could be omitted:
1. The swamp witch respects the privacy of another obvious loner hermit woman (why else would she spend years alone in the middle of the woods?) and does not mention unless specifically asked.
2. she often relies on fey information to know where everyone is. The fey don't talk about her, since they don't want to lose her company and herbalist skills.
3. She is under the protection of someone more powerful than the swamp witch and either is hidden by them or the witch knows better than to anger them by bringing her up. This could be the Dancing Lady, a forest dragon, another fey, or even Hargulka (though a less attractive option since trolls don't really need help healing).
4. Or lastly, similar to option 3, she is located in an area the swamp witch doesnt go and wouldnt know about, like near to the trolls territory or near the ruined keep.
All this being said, you may want to change it up some, since you already had one PC discover a long lost relative hiding in the Stolen Lands. Other options are, she crossed over into the First World and the party encounters her sometime in Book 6. She became a ghost and haunts a location in the Stolen lands, Big V has her in a jug in Book 3, she could be discovered in Book 4 undercover in Drelev's keep trying to get to Ovinrbaane.
I'm leaning towards "crossed over into the First World" (and might find a way to cross back) or "discovered undercover in Drelev's keep."
This morning, I thought of whether she might have successfully found Briar 15+ years ago, and left it guarded by Evindra. Then she went somewhere else in the world, so that Nyrissa wouldn't track her down.
Or, she didn't find it in the Stolen Lands, went to look elsewhere (or find more clues), and will return to resume the search here.
"Drelev's keep"-- what if she's leading her own team of adventurers, perhaps one mostly elves, with the goal of finding Briar on their own? Two heavily-armed teams come face-to-face in the dungeons, perhaps to cooperate or clash.
Despite my desire to not put family NPCs in Aunt May's peril of the week, having Irrovetti find & kidnap Mom, and stick her where Evindra is, does have some appeal. Using that to draw the PCs into the trap at the Abbey?
I'm thinking favorably of having the PC's father (older human) retiring from his estates (she has an older brother), and moving to the PCs' castle, thus becoming another NPC available as an adviser. I did make him the source of the 50 BP that started their realm.
Maybe as inspiration - one of the PCs (who left the game) has been claimed
by my version of the Winter Queen of the Fey, as her champion in the coming
clash with the big N.
He's disappeared from play as a naive 20yr old, & will appear & re-appear
over the course of the next few years. I've decided that for every year of
'our time', he'll age 5 - from being in the fey realms (...well, that & a
little bit of torture etc...)
The current players will either see him wandering in the distance, or they'll
hear tales from villagers/hunters etc of him coming & going... All achieved
via various first world portals (fairy rings etc) scattered around the
place...
You could do something similar with your PC's mum.
Hmmm. I'll note that for consideration.
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