I was wondering how you, my fellow DMs have managed to work the rival adventurers into the Whispering Cairn plot. The plot as written seems to assume that they will encounter and have dealing with Auric, Tirra and Khellek at some point. But when exactly.
So far my group are still wading through the first part of the Cairn, bobbing out to the mine manager house to take a breather. A couple of the PCs have encountered the rivals in their backstory, and they have seen the group in the valley bottom riding past while they were holed up in the house.
I guess it slightly depends on what they do when they inevitably head back into town. Any suggestions?
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In the search engine, type in "rival adventurers" and you'll see forty entries that speak about the Free City Trio dating back to June. You ought to find some good information there. The Free City Trio has been an interesting element for me.
Khellek is uniformly despised, having been dubbed "The Mutterer", partially because he comes off sounding like Emperor Palpatine. He's been the instigator of the Trio's exploration of the Stirgenest Cairn because of new facts he uncovered in the Seeker Hall in Greyhawk. Ulavant had planted information in the Seeker Records that his research in the Cairn Hills revealed that an intact Wind Duke of Aaqa tomb is accessable via a cleverly hidden secret door in what locals call the "Stirgenest Cairn". Ulavant purposefully misreported this information trying to detract rival Seekers from getting to the "loot" before him. The loot Ulavant was seeking was non-other than the Rod of Seven Parts. That too is Khellek's overall ambition. Thus the Free City Trio is mired in day after day of fighting off stirges like Alaskan mosquitos looking for a secret door that doesn't exist. Thus the Free City Trio has been working Diamond Lake hard for information hoping someone will offer some relevant information if they name drop "Stirgenest" enough times.
Auric and Tirra have been less annoying to the PCs. In fact, Tirra has been rather "pleasant" to the party rogue, providing much of the above information as pillow talk (I love players that max-out their Charisma-based skills). He in turn steered Tirra away from "that other cairn you've heard about from the local teenagers" until a time that the PCs were effectively finished with the Whispering Cairn. Later he speaks with her relating a story of some rangers from the Bronzewood Lodge rooting out some "rabid" wolves in a cave that led to a "looted" cairn. The Trio moves out immediately and after a couple of days of searching (the lanterns have been removed by the PCs as they're using the sphere room beyond the Hall of the Face as their personal vault now...) the cairn, they leave Diamond Lake. Apparently Khellek is rather furious and is heard blaming his failure on someone called "Ulavant".
Auric's main cameo was during the Freeday Fights that go on in the central square. Auric and Kullen had a wrestling match which was related via prose (rather than die rolls) to make it clear that neither of the two were anyone the (at the time) low level PCs wanted to mess around with. Auric won and gave a victory speech that the Guvinator would be proud of. Yes, the obligitory "you killed my father, you killed my mother, you took my father's sward!" quote did make an appearance...
Rexx, those are nice touches you've added - worthy of the Jedi archives I might add. But the Conan rip that Auric got off was classic! :)
I also need to work them into the plot...
My characters have just finished exploring the Whispering Cairn. They are on their way back to town. Once they get to town I may have a few kids surround the characters asking "Are you the adventureres exploring the abandoned cairns?" Before my characters can even answer... Auric (who just happens to be nearby) will speak up in his deep heroic voice, "That would be us!" *flexing his muscles and cocking his head to one side showing off his square jaw and perfect teeth.* "Squeeze 'em they're real" he'll say kissing his arms. Khellek will role his eyes at Auric and say something cruel quietly to himself. While Tirra will smirk at the paladin in the party. I imagine this will start an interesting conversation.
I did very little, at least in the way of direct interaction, to introduce the party to the rivals. My party had a great rivalry with the Stormblades in the last campaign, and this time I think I'm going to ease off a bit on the whole "rival party" schtick since it played a big role in the last one. Instead, I've set them up as individuals who happened to be in Diamons Lake working together.
Khellek was searching for a piece of the Rod of Seven Parts, which will be revealed to the party when they arrive in the Free City. I'm writing a whole other adventure to use between the Hall of Harsh Reflections and the Champion's Games because I want more time for my players to get used to Liberty (my Free City, from The Game Mechanics' City Quarters series) and get attached to it. In this adventure they're going to investigating a recent expedition by the Seekers, unrelated to the Whispering Cairn, that has turned up evidence of Kyuss worms found elsewhere on the continent. During their investigation, the party will discover that Ulavant and Khellek were searching for the piece of the Ro7P. Of course, this investigation won't be complete until Khellek and the party have a little...chat.
Tirra has already pissed off the party by stealing from the Diamond Lake barracks and framing the party for it. Auric...well, Auric hasn't done anything yet, but I'm trying to cook up something to make the party care about him.
I was wondering how you, my fellow DMs have managed to work the rival adventurers into the Whispering Cairn plot. The plot as written seems to assume that they will encounter and have dealing with Auric, Tirra and Khellek at some point.
I haven't involved them as much as I'd like - They've been more of an "invisible" threat that caused the party to try to stay as quiet about the WC as possible.
Although, one of my party isn't happy with Khellek, because I'm having Khellek be a sort-of-magic teacher for the PC's NPC sister, in exchange for some, well, "companionship". It's been a fun foil, but I think the gag is about played out, and it may be time for the heat to be turned up during 3FoE.
I haven't done anything with them, really. The party tried to avoid direct interation with them, so I didn't press the issue.
The one encounter I threw in was as the party left the Whispering Cairn after they met with Alastor. The rival group had finally found enough information to go towards the cairn, and they ran into each other on the road. The party still prefered minimum interaction with them.
I think I had Tirra ask them what they were doing so far out of town, and one player simply averted her gaze and kept walking as one other said they were just out to look at their new house. Then Khellek said something about how cute it was that they had a clubhouse, but the players didn't take the bait.
Like Rodney, I used the Stormblades extensively in the SCAP, but I have none of the same players in this group from my previous group. So, where it is pretty much a dead horse for me, it might have been fun for my players.
I just don't feel a real connection to these rivals as I did with the Stormblades. The Stormblades had a neat mini-encounter in an on-line supplement, and were mentioned here and there throughout the AP. The fact that these rivals don't have a team name doesn't help, either.
...I want more time for my players to get used to Liberty (my Free City, from The Game Mechanics' City Quarters series) and get attached to it.
I thought about using Liberty. It is such an outstanding city, with the City Quarter books and all. Maybe I'll use it next time, if it fits. I'd like to have a couple more books on the city, though I don't think I'd have to.
Are you putting the Muddle in the Theives' Quarter, or somewhere else?
Are you putting the Muddle in the Theives' Quarter, or somewhere else?
I haven't decided 100% on everything yet. Obviously the arena will be in the Mercenary Quarter, and the Crooked House will probably be in the Old Quarter as well. Eligos' house will either be in the Arcane Quarter or the Noble Quarter, though I've not yet decided.
I guess that makes sense. I like the idea of the Arcane Quarter. He'd probably stick out, or be snubbed by others who assume he's not too practiced in magic. Either way, I imagine others would raise eyebrows to the types of people that solicit him.
Do you have any "inside" information on the next City Quarter books? I check the site periodically waiting for more information, but it seems to come pretty sparely for the City Quarter books.
My group encountered each of them individually in the first adventure. Tirra showed up while they were in the Feral Dog to play some darts. A couple PCs played her and they had a pleasant chat. Auric was pleasuring himself with a whore at the Emporium. He gloated about his champion's belt and that was pretty much it. Khellek was seen at Lazare's playing dragon chess with Smenk and other unsavory characters. Rumors floated all around town about these three before they met about their intent to investigate the Stirgenest Cairn, so the PCs had already heard of them.
It was really fun when the adventurers showed up to bail the PCs out in 3FOE and claim first dibs on treasure from the Hextor temple as their "reward." With four of six PCs in the negatives they weren't in a position to do anything about it.