Background: I've adapted SCAP into the Eberron setting. I DM to one player, who plays three gestalt characters. I provide various NPCs to fill missing abilities in. He gave me the backstory of the PCs, and one of them, "Sharrow" was a Kalashtar who wandered out of what was once Cyre, without any of her memories.
Everything was going to plan. I scaled back XP for a bit, and launched a side-jaunt into the Mournland right before Zenith Trajectory. In that side-adventure, Sharrow located Dreadhold, which is a massively famous, top-security, multinational prison. She investigates, and finds live, healthy people inside, all of whom refer to her as "Lord Warden Zharo". She unravels secrets and figures out that she was Lord Warden on the Day of Mourning, and that SHE caused the Mournland accidentally in an attempt to stop an in-progress prison-break. Fine. Dreadhold has been in a 24-hour time-loop for years now and the people who run it still think it's a few years ago and that she's only been gone a couple hours. Well, Sharrow and her friends stop the prison-break and shut down the magical device that caused the Mourning.
Back to Cauldron. We run Zenith Trajectory, meet Zenith himself. The party wizard had /see invisibility/ running, and noticed Zenith's mark. They refuse to hand Zenith over to Vhalantru when he comes knocking, so the Derro does his /teleport/ trick and takes the poor dwarf away.
Unfortunately, that just made the player-characters angry. They go into full-sleuth mode and eventually visit the Lantern Street Orphanage, where they discover Terrem also has an invisible birthmark.
So, the player figure that the bad guys, whoever they are, want people with these birthmarks. They've GOT Zenith and there's not much to do about it. But Terrem... he's easy to get to.
Long story short is that they talked to Jenya about the danger Terrem is in. Jenya agreed to help, and facilitated Sharrow legally adopting Terrem. Jenya went to the Orphanage (which is being watched), isolated Terrem, then Sharrow and the party wizard used /dimension door/ to enter unseen.
"Hi Terrem."
"Can I call you Mom?"
The wizard then cast a scroll of /teleport/ crafted for him by an artificer friend they know. (Caster level 7th, can only take 2 people with him.) Poof. They go... you guessed it... back to Dreadhold.
Sharrow calls in a bit of a favor from the new Lord Warden, who was once her underling. Terrem is left behind to learn the profession of prison-guard. He's to be raised and taught lawful behavior and to value blah blah blah blah good stuff.
Bottom line is that the Cagewrights are now screwed, and have to break into the most secure prison on Khorvaire if they want Terrem back. (Dreadhold is scrying-proof, teleport-proof, and a-bunch-of-other-things-proof.)
Give the player a length of rope, he'll hang the DM every time.
i believe this would be a great opportunity to demonstrate just how powerful this organisation truly is.
Now I am unsure of the defences you have given the prison but it would prove an excellent chance for your group to learn a little more about the evil group.
What defences does the prison have in terms of extra planar travel? I'm assuming teleport is not an option but would etherness, passwall, gaseous form etc work?
What about an assult. Send in Alurid riding on the back of Moltenwing - this should do the trick. The party can pull the last survivors from the rubble and hear the terrifying tale of the Abyssal dragon riping the walls down with its tremendous claws and blasting the roof with horrific black flame. Once the walls came down the terrifying dragons black knight rider lept from its back and strode through the remaining corridors to retrieve a crazed dwarf and small boy, but not before ripping the skin from the back of the prison chef and licking the blood from his fingers and then taking to the air with the Shackleborn.
or..
Send Orbius and the Jester (The'fish'). Orbuis can disintergrate (sp?) the walls and/or 'The Fish' can sneak his way in disguised as your player.
I would not leave the situation as is. Why is was clever of your group to gather and attempt to protect the Shackleborn, if they succeed then it detroys the whole campaign. Even if you have the Cagewrights find two other Shackleborn replacements it will still feel contrived.
Either way the party's plan need to be upset if the path is to successfully continue.
Good Luck
Delvesdeep
Interesting input. I hadn't really thought of it that way, and that's probably why I only have a privisional membership in the Evil DMs' Club. <Grin>
Dreadhold is documented in the 25th anniversary issue of Dragon this year. It's pretty serious in terms of structural defenses, but I toned down the level of the guards inside to justify the then-6th-level party actually being able to have an impact at the prison.
I'll take your ideas and see what I can come up with, but yeah, it would be somewhat distressing to Sharrow to find out that the prison has been gutted and Terrem has been taken. "Oooops!" They party is only a level away from getting /teleport/ for themselves, so frequent trips to and from the heart of what was the Mournland becomes likely.
Thanks for the ideas.
Beauty is that I made damned sure that there's a paper-trail. Jenya forced Sharrow to legally adopt Terrem, so while nobody saw the boy leave, someone in City Hall has got to have access to the name of who took the boy. Given Vhalantru's penetration in the day-to-day running of Cauldron, I can only assume Sharrow's going to be in for a world of hurt, and soon.
Another 'interesting input' ;) which may cause less immediate anguish and be more manipulative is to have the Cagewrights 'swap' the shackleborn for dopplegangers (perhaps underlings of the same doppleganger who impersonated Zeniths 'cursed' father).
The party would not know of the deciete immediately but as time goes on the dopplegangers will begin to become irrate at their position in the prison and the rewards they were offered to undertake the role will seem less appealing.
Perhaps during Chapter 5 the prison guards notice the dopplegangers change their eye colour or their clothes look change etc
If this doesn't stir suspicions, during Chapter 6 the dopplegangers attempt to escape by pretending to be a guards who were locked in their cells by escaping prisioners.
eventually the party will clue on and question how the swap was made. Prison records will reveal that one of the guards returned early to work one day, signed in and out within the hour and then began his offical shift only hours later. Questioning the gaurd reveals that he never came to work twice and that the first 'guard' was a imposter.
This 'gaurd' may have been 'The Fish' or the main doppleganger (Zenith's Dad) who turned them invisible after gagging them.
Just another suggestion/option.
Have fun
Delvesdeep
Why is was clever of your group to gather and attempt to protect the Shackleborn, if they succeed then it detroys the whole campaign. Even if you have the Cagewrights find two other Shackleborn replacements it will still feel contrived.
Not necessarily. I agree that using some of the suggestions for the Cagewrights to try and get Terrem back are the better routes as they are more of an emotional investment for the PCs. However, if the attempts fail, it doesn't mean that the Cagewrights can't move forward. I seem to remember somewhere it mentioning that the REASON the Cagewrights concentrated on the Cauldron area was that it had a high concentration of Shackleborn. They need 13 total, and it doesn't HAVE to be the same 13 they originally targeted.
They party is only a level away from getting /teleport/ for themselves, so frequent trips to and from the heart of what was the Mournland becomes likely.I'm not sure if this is in the ECS, or if our GM added it as a feature of the Mournland, but the teleportation mishap percentage went through the roof when the Orien hier in our party tried it. And the resulting adventure was... Odd... to say the least...
No problem. After stopping the jail-break, Sharrow found the mechanism her previous-self had used to create the Mournland in the first place, and they ultimately disabled it. The Mournland is no more in this campaign. They met with King Boranel over the accomplishment and the whole deal. Snazzy "you're special" paperwork and everything. Of course they can't 'port into Dreadhold itself, since it's heavily warded against that sort of thing (scrying included), but they're familiar enough with Gaolgate, the city just outside that they've got an 88% chance of success currently.
Oh, and yes, multinational salvage and exploration teams have been starting work in ex-Cyre.
I placed Cauldron close to New Cyre in Brelland. Since the Mournland is now defunct, the people of New Cyre are likely to dissolve the city and move back to Cyre, leaving Cauldron an important trade town.
Not necessarily. I agree that using some of the suggestions for the Cagewrights to try and get Terrem back are the better routes as they are more of an emotional investment for the PCs. However, if the attempts fail, it doesn't mean that the Cagewrights can't move forward. I seem to remember somewhere it mentioning that the REASON the Cagewrights concentrated on the Cauldron area was that it had a high concentration of Shackleborn. They need 13 total, and it doesn't HAVE to be the same 13 they originally targeted.Why is was clever of your group to gather and attempt to protect the Shackleborn, if they succeed then it detroys the whole campaign. Even if you have the Cagewrights find two other Shackleborn replacements it will still feel contrived.
Agreed. I don't want to literally undo my player's clever thinking but rather side-step it. Since the only shackleborn they've "saved" is Terrem (Zenith is known to be in some unidentifiable prison cell somewhere) getting one more should be do-able. I plan a new rash of kidnappings in town. Consequence. I'll also stage a deadly assault on Dreadhold along delvesdeep's ideas, but stop short of actually penetrating the place and obtaining Terrem. I'll reward the player for his actions by keeping the kid safe, but make sure there's consequence to his cleverness.