Well, they have managed to get to the end of the first adventure but they have completely over looked the fact that Kullen and his gang were working for someone else. They all swore an oath to return the Land boy to his family, which they did, but they seem to not even care that his family was taken away. So they bury the Al's bones and after confronting the owlbear they move back to town.
After returning to town, one of the PC's takes it on himself to go down to the Ferrel Dog and outright attacks Kullen. He almost kills him with an Alfa-strike Psion blast (can't think of the power) and claims he wants to join the gang. So Kullen tosses him in the dog pit and he is about to fight with two dogs in the pit.
That background given, I can see no way they will meet up with Filge because there is no way the gang will be talking with them after this. Not that it is a bad thing for me, now I can have Filge attack Diamond Lake with a horde of undead later.
I can think I can get them to the next adventure by just sending them to investigate the mines, the question is does that sound good??
I have even thought about making the Land boy a recurring baddy in the following adventures by combining the Ghost and Reverent monsters(zombie-like undead that is able to stalk the people who killed it in life for revenge) so that Land will continue to plague the PC's until they return the bones of his family to the proper grave site. Any thoughts?? Ideas?Kevin
Well, the party could always capture and intimidate Kullen or one of his gang members.
Is the party going back to try to get into the inner sanctum, or don't they care to find what's inside? If they go back, Alastor's ghost tells them they haven't fulfilled the terms of the bargain--he's buried, but his family's remains are not next to him because they've been dug up. If Kullen's gang is already dead at this point, there are other ways to drop clues that there's a creepy necromancer in the observatory. Maybe Filge even approaches the party himself, seeking to hire them as grave-robbers.
And what hook are you going to use to get them to go into Dourstone Mine? Smenk hires them?
The thing is, Filge isn't really there to raise an army of undead: he's acting as an "undead specialist" for Smenk, doing research on the green worm that Smenk nicked from the mine. What I would do is have Smenk contact the characters and introduce them to Filge, then send Filge with one or two zombie bodyguards (wrapped in cloaks with some of Smenk's disgusting cologne to disguise the smell of rot) with the characters into Dourstone Mine. This could end up setting Filge up as an ally for the PCs, since the only reason they would fight him is over the Land remains.
That being said, if the characters specifically swore an oath to "bury Alastor Land's remains with the remains of his family" they haven't fulfilled his oath and Alastor should appear to collect. Maybe they could negotiate with Filge, their new "ally" for the return of the Land skeletons but only on the condition that they find Filge an equal number of replacements. Have fun leading your characters into being Filge's new gravediggers.