Hello fellow AOW DMs. I was happier than a pig in slops when finally wandered into these messageboards. You all have been a source for inspiration and understanding. Thanks!
We just started the AP recently and everyone's having a great time so far (especially me). My PCs have recently blundered a bit when they met Tirra in the Feral Dog. One of the characters was wearing some flashy Seeker armor that she'd found in the Cairn and Khellek was mighty interested and then a bit pissed off when Tirra introduced the party to him. A couple of unfortunate slips about how the party was trying to make money to get out of Diamond Lake and a poor response to Khellek's admittedly aggressive questioning and hey presto! The party has a rival group on their tail. Luckily they sent the rivals off in the wrong direction and I had planned on giving them several days before the rivals discovered the mistake and found out the true location of the Whispering Cairn. Then two members of the party died and now the two remaining are talking about getting drunk for a week in remembrance (and hoping to find some more beef to accompany them back into the hole).
It's time to use the rivals as the goad they're supposed to be. I have some ideas about how further encounters with Auric and co. could go, but I'd really like to hear how other people have dealt with this. What happened when your PC's met Auric and others wandering around the Cairn? Where do you go from there?
Thanks for the help and suggestions!
My group actually never met Auric, but they did meet Tirra at the Feral Dog and later met Khellek at the place where everyone plays dragonchess (I forget its name). They paid Khellek to write them two scrolls of polar ray so they could get past the brown mold or whatever that was in the lower levels of Whispering Cairn.
I actually have Auric's Warband set a couple levels higher than the PCs. The Warband is actually exploring Stirgenest Cairn alongside the PC scout's older elven brothers (the Knights of Graycloak). Stirgenest has been plundered by orcs and they now lair there. The Cairn is acting as a branching hideout for the orc citadel in Sons of Gruumsh, as I'll be working that module into Age of Worms.
Tirra is actually sweet on the PC elf scout in the party. He made some excellent diplomacy checks with her and we ran some fun role-playing scenarios. Khellek is a different story. He doesn't like doing anything for the PCs aside from giving them one word responses to questions. He has this air of, "Ask Allustan. He's the 'smartest man in Diamond Lake' after all, isn't he?" As I said, the group hasn't met Auric yet. Probably won't until we run Sons of Gruumsh (which will be a great stealth/assault using the PCs, the Graycloak Knights, and Auric's Warband, the latter two creating a diversion while the PCs (and perhaps Tirra) slip inside. Should be lots of fun.
Of course, the relationship between the PCs and the Warband will take a major shift during the Champion's Belt module, which I am literally DYING to run.
Hmmm... I didn't do much, as my players pretty much assumed they were evil (no idea why, they just did), and as soon as they found all the lanterns and what they did, they took them all so the rival gang couldn't get into the hidden parts of the Cairn. So I just had the rival team muck around "off camera" fora while then go back to the Free City.
Later on, Auric did return for the local wrestling matches in Diamond Lake - some miners festival, which happened to be just after the PC's collapsed the mines after destroying the Ebon Aspect. Anyway, my PC's are in fact not local to Diamond Lake, so I said they could not enter the wrestling contest. Auric won, beating the half-orc in the final. So the PC's got to see him in action, winning by skill rather than brute force (my group correctly guesses he was a fighter, the half-orc a barbarian). One PC bet on him winning, so was happy. Another PC got jealous, and yelled out he'd see him in these "Free City Games" Auric talked of in his winner's speech. So one of my players has been amped to see (and defeat) Auric in the Games for months now... (only a few days to go now).
A couple of the PC's met Tirra in the pub early on, then just last week at the pre-games dinner, that went as per the module, they conversed politely and took her bet (I do wonder if the thieves guild will actually pay up!) They have never actually conversed with Khellek, to them he looks like the typical evil mage. But then pretty much all the pictures of NPC's in this campaign look evil, even NPC's like Eligos who have turned into good friends of my group have a picture that makes them look really surly, so luckily my players do not judge an NPC by his illustration.
I like recurring characters, but am careful to use them only sparingly, as otherwise you can end up with a huge ever-growing cast of NPC's that the PC's never see the end of. So far I've used the "rival adventurers", the half-orc, and will soon re-introduce Theldrick (he escaped alive in my game, and the PC's lost his trail). Theldrick is probably the only one that the PC's will actually kill, and even then he might survive as he'll be in the Champion's Games so may surrender before he dies (like he did the first time he met the PC's).
I am having a lot of fun with the rival adventurers in my AOW campaign. We have just about finishe dup with TFOE, however the players have already made one trip into the Free City, for information and to pray at their respective temples (Wee Jas and Hextor). I had them show up to join Fester and his son on their way to the City, only to discover that Auric's Band and their Gaudy Travelling Wagon (with a huge carved version of the Champion's Belt and Auric's name above the muleskinner's seat). They ended up travelling to the city with them, while the Half-Orc Paladin of Hextor lost the knife throwing contest to Tirra, the Cleric of Wee Jas beat Khelleck at Dragon Chess (see my post about my rules for Dragon Chess). It was good fun and also made for a closer connection between the groups. This will lead to interesting challenges and inner conflicts once we get to the Champion's Games.
My group just had the big confrontation with the rivals inside WC last night. The talkative bard had already met Khellek and Tirra within town and given them a bit too much information about their Cairn. So when our party returns to WC after interring the Land bodies, they find Auric's group inside. There was a tense moment where they discussed sealing the tomb versus exploiting all its treasures, but the conversation was peaceful. Khellek pushed for info on which alcove led to the Seeker's bodies and they went down, leaving the characters to their own designs. Our party hurried up to the True Tomb, found everything they needed and returned before Auric and party re-emerged. Then, much like the above party, they took all the lanterns with them and left Auric's group behind.
It's sure to be a nice rivalry down the road.
My group first met Tirra at the Dog´s basement during a dog-fight (where our 1st lvl Druid had the chance to heal and rescue a half-blood wolf, his later companion). Tirra and a few others were engaged in a dart game (which she won easily) and our elf paladin (sadly deceased yesterday - pls read in another post) immediatly started to flirt heavily.
Later our warforgend fighter engaged Auric but found out that Auric, who also has fought in the Last War (Eberron players do know what I am talking about) and did had some nasty experiences with the ´forged. This conversation nearly ended in a tavern brawl if not for some smoothing tunes by my groups bard.
During CB Tirra approached my group and offered her special deal but for some reasons my group ignored Khellek and Auric, even if these are the last ones standing in the arena underground.
|
I repost this rather than make the links to the original. This was originally posted in Nov. '05:
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...
The rogue in our party was a local guide and scout that led people around the local ruins, and was hired by Auric and Co. to lead them around. After wasting their time and making some decent coin, he decided to use that money to pay for a trip into the Whispering Cairn (salvage permits, supplies, and such costing what they do). Khellek later found out what happened, and wasn't pleased at all with the group.
It was because of that failed expedition to Diamond Lake that Tirra split from the group and started working for the Boromar crime family of Sharn (Eberron). Khellek also competed with the party wizard for entrance to the Order of Aureon in Sharn; thanks to a little prodding by the party wizard, Khellek was shown the door.
The group then ran into A and K in the Champion's Belt, and thoroughly trounced them, even turning Khellek into a peacock on a failed save vs. polymorph.
Tirra meanwhile ended up getting a price on her head and sought the party out for help. They allowed her to join their adventuring guild under a new identity and the rogue took her as a cohort.
Tirra's actual identity is something the party still doesn't know; she's a rakshasa masquerading as an adventurer who's been trying to find the "next big thing", and help propel them to greater heights. Her plan is that she'll be there at the precise moment things hang in the balance, and tip the scales in a supreme act of betrayal that has near-epic ramifications.
Hmmm . . . my groups interactions with Auric's Band.
So far the group mage, who also has a side job at the emporium, has hada fade-to-black scene with Auric. The group rogue, a halfling, invited Tirra to be the mother of a new race after beating her at dagger tossing.
They are nearly through 3FoE, and I think I'm going to have Auric's Band be the re-inforcements that Diamond Lake sends to blackwall keep. During the WC and 3FoE, Auric and Co. have been cleaning out the Stirgenest Cairn . . . which surprizingly has a whole lost more than just nests of stirge's.