My party is halfway through Flood Season and still hasn't even heard of the Stormblades. How important is this sub-plot? Can I leave them out altogether, or would one or more of the adventures suffer significantly if I did? There's just so much going on in this campaign, SO many NPCs, that I'd just prefer to omit them if I can. What do you think?
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My party is halfway through Flood Season and still hasn't even heard of the Stormblades. How important is this sub-plot? Can I leave them out altogether, or would one or more of the adventures suffer significantly if I did? There's just so much going on in this campaign, SO many NPCs, that I'd just prefer to omit them if I can. What do you think?
Ultimately they're not that important.
they can be used a number of ways however.
1) throughout SCAP, Todd slips towards evil due to the madness encircling the city; this can of course occur to any other number of persons, but it works easily with Todd.
2)ultimately they are competition for the PCs. Its a way to kick the PCs into gear that if they dont help, the stormblades will - this tactic when used properly is a good motivator to get the PCs onto the right track or motivated. They may buy a magic item from Skie that they want. They may buy a magic item that the PCs sold to Skie. They may buy real estate the PCs want, they land the girl that one of the PCs is wooing, etc... Ultimately its just a competitive group of spoiled brats who are rivals but not necessarily evil; just provides a different kind of element, encounters and fun. And ultimately it is meant for the purpose the eventually the PCs rise in stardom far above those spoiled brats and as the changing of the guard happens (so-to-speak) and the city comes to see the real heroes, it is a wonderful coming of age moment of aesthetic victory for the PCs.
3) They provide elements as to their backgroung/family/heritage to better describe all the differnt nobles; it helps in this since the stormblades are similar to the PCs in age and such.
4) The competition carries over to the demonskar ball and other events that cause face-to-face contact with them. It creates a good amount of animosity, story, and fun.
5) Due to the competitive nature, theire are events where the Stormblades act to deface, embarass etc the PCs. This again is mostly for flavor.
6) you can tie your PCs in one way or another to them at the onset of the game so as to add more development to the story.
Now all that being said, - In my opinion they are not imperative to the story at all as a evil vs good theme. They are pomp and circumstance and garnish. To me, they add a lot of flavor and I look forward to using them to really rile up the PCs and make them hate them (all for the sweeter taste of victory later). I have one PC who is Todds younger step-brother (having been adopted from the Lantern Street orphanage and is treated like the "red headed stepchild" by Todd), and I have another PC completely in lust with Annah but knows he'll never have her so he spends a lot of energy trying to woo her. Good story stuff indeed. Maybe they'll both work together to kill todd in an effort to win Annah for themselves. HAHA.
But truthfully I think you can remove them if you want and the campaign can continue just fine - you'll just be missing out on a lot of fun fluff is all.
Robert
Creative Director
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It's up to you, but I'd recomend not cutting them out. Later in the campaign, one of the Stormblades plays a more important role in the campaign, and later still a few of their parents have important roles, and the ways the PCs have treated their kids can sway the future of Cauldron. But beyond that, they really help to give Cauldron a feeling of being a vibrant adventuring site. As competition to the PCs, they give the PCs something to work against in a more friendly-competition sort of way. In the grand scheme of things, I think I'd suggest removing pretty much any other NPC except the Striders, the members of the Chisel, and Jenya before I'd remove the Stormblades, to be honest.
And further, if your players come to know the Stormblades, and then several years down the road play Savage Tide, they'll have a much more enjoyable time when they recognize names here and there.
The stormblades do not advance the plot in any significant way. In that regard, you can leave them out. They have another important, if not crucial role, however: they are the spice of the setting. Together with Skie and a few other NPC's of your own making, they give Cauldron it's flavor.
They also serve as a more obvious example than retired adventurers of one of the plot points of the SCAP: Non-evil adventuring parties have a strong tendency to go out on adventures over their heads and get wiped out. My party's about a third of the way through the SCAP, and nobody's mentioned anything about it yet. They haven't talked to many of the NPC's in-depth yet, so having the Stormblades show up as a fallen group of heroes later on will clue them in to this.
My PCs started out as rivals to the Stormblades, with the nobles looking down on them and jumping at every opportunity to make fun of the PCs. However, in our last sessions, they actually hooked up with the Stormblades in 'Secrets of the Soul Pillars' (Dungeon # 109) to assault the temple of Kelemvor (Wee-Jas).
Since I only have a two-men party I usually have one or two NPCs joining the PCs. For this part of the adventure, there were three, Annah, Cora and Zachary, but I put them in control of the players. Heck, I even had one of the players - who is a character building fan - make their character sheets.
It was a blast, the fight in the tower against Ike Iverson was a real climax which lasted all of last night's session. The extra help for the PCs also allowed me to include two recurring bad guys in the same fight, an elven sorceress and a death slaad, who are both Cagewrights in my campaign. The party killed Iverson and the death slaad, but the sorceress got away ... again (you gotta love those recurring villains). Zachary was turned to dust by a ray of disintegrate.
I think I'd suggest removing pretty much any other NPC except the Striders, the members of the Chisel, and Jenya before I'd remove the Stormblades, to be honest.
I must admit, in two SCAP campaigns - one that ended after a TPK from the assassins in Secrets of the Soul Pillars, and a new one that has just returned from Occipitus - I never found much opportunity for the players to interact with the Striders. Somehow, Meerthan seems to static, and my groups have never been in need of help from the half-elves, so they faded into the background. I tried to bring in Shensen for some role-playing, but that never took off either.
I wonder how others managed to assign greater importance to these characters.
Stefan.
Well, both of the groups that I'm running through SC love to hate the Stormblades. The second group even named their adventuring party "The Others" so people would see them as not the Stormblades.
As to the other NPCs, only my first group has gotten far enough to really interact with them. The Cleric of Farlanghan joined the Striders, while the Ranger declined. I think that the Diviner and the Monk/Rogue might hook up with the Chisel, but first they're going on a little trip to Occipitus.
~Qualidar~
My PCs interacted with them a bit. I think I need to bring the Stormblades in more though, to set the stage for the council meeting in the later adventures. I don't think my PCs saw enough of the Stormblades.
Dedekind
I have just finished running a Stormblades encounter which takes place at the end of Flood Season. When the Order Ascendent came back from the Lucky Monkey, they were gathering information about Triel to find out where she was. While they were gathering information, they caught wind that the Stormblades were asking about Triel also, and also about what the Order Ascendent are doing. The Order Ascendent were able to catch the trail of clues to the Kopru ruins faster than the Stormblades, but Todd was shadowing them while they were doing their thing. As they were going into the tunnels, they failed a couple of Spot checks, but the Order Ascendent determined that the Stormblades were breathing down their necks.
The Order Ascendent do a marathon dungeoncrawl and clear it out in one day, burning lots of resources while doing so. They felt that they couldn't rest or else the Stormblades will scoop them on the rest of the contents of the ruins. Like they did with the Malachite Fortress. But when the Order Ascendent were done, the urban druid changed into a bird and was going to fly across the phantom lake and out the tunnel to get assistance in moving prisoners and other stuff. The dwarven fighter was at 0 DEX but was working at 4 DEX thanks to a Cat's Grace. As the bird druid was flying toward the winch operator's barracks at the top of the ledge of the overlook, he spotted Todd spying through the winch window while hiding. He went back and informed the rest of the Order Ascendent (because of a tongues spell that was cast earlier and still going) about what he saw.
So, they decided to have the urban ranger, two riding dogs, and a captured Skaven go up the lines in the cage. At this point the rest of the Stormblades stepped out of the barracks and stood in the available squares in front of the landing where the cage ended up. In the past, they regarded the PCs with disdain and scorn. But this time, they appeared very angry. Probably something to do with the fact that the PCs pwnd them at the Demonskar Ball. Zachary steps forward and holds the cage door closed. Annah states "Give us the wands and everything else you have taken from this site." The urban druid bird then flies by them. Todd hits him with a sleep arrow, but the urban druid keeps flying out of the tunnel. The Stormblades hold their ground.
The Order Ascendent decide to bring down the caged halflings and riding dogs. At this point, they are ready to kill the Stormblades. But they come up with an idea. They use one of the control water wands to raise a column of water to the top of the ledge, which spill over where the Stormblades are standing. Annah commands them to hold their ground. Shortly afterward, the Skulvyn demon swims up the column of water and ends up in front of the Stormblades. At this point, the Stormblades run away, their plan foiled.
Basically, I was working to have the Stormblades prevent the PCs from leaving by controlling the spaces in front of the cage, but without needing to directly attack the PCs to do so. Any plan to bypass the Stormblades would result in the PCs striking the first blow, which would be fine with the Stormblades. But, the players solved this political encounter with cleverness and ingenuity. And I was very pleased to see that they did so without playing into the Stormblades hands.
One last note, the denouement indicates that it takes several hours of wand use to lower the lake. But at a standard action, it would only take five minutes to empty a wand. Perhaps because of the 70 minute duration, it would be best to keep some charges in reserve for when the durations of the first spells go down. But the dramatic conclusion doesn't match how the spell works.
Several people have noted this about the wands. My suggestion is that they are wands of a control water-like spell that was specially designed by the churches for the specific use in Cauldron. This takes care of a many of the issues people find with them and still keeps the story intact.
Sean Mahoney
As for the "Stormblades" - my group loved (as players) and loathed (as characters ) them, especially since I used them once or twice to bail out the PCs from a sticky situation. Shame and embarassment is a great motivation.
Besides this, the players went for "city-politics" big time, and hence the "Stormblades" became an easy route to relate to Cauldorn's nobility (ah, he is the son of XYZ...), too.
Of all the standard (non-hostile) NPCs in the SCAP, they were the most notables besides the high-priestess of St.Cuthbert (Helm). Wouldn't have been the same without them =)
I had a lot of fun using the stormblades. For about the first half of the AP, while the group was still making a name for themselves, half the heroic stuff they did the Stormblades would get credit. Not because the Stormblades were taking credit for things they hadn't done, just because that was the established group in Cauldron so that's who the general populice thought was responsible. They'd be in a tavern and hear a bard singing about the Stormblades recovering the wands for Flood Season, they'd hear people talking about something that was happening and say, "If only the STORMBLADES were here!" etc. Drove the PCs nuts and created a lot more emotional investment for the players to make THEIR PCs the established group.
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I just wanted to add something to this thread. We just played our 4th session. The PCs just reached Kazmojen - that encounter to be resolved next game in two weeks.
The party has really come to despise the Stormblades. I have to say I played them up perfectly for their purpose: the party feels that they are in dire competition with the other adventuring group and they're determined to do the quests faster, better etc. One of the characters, a swashbuckler named Dailen, is the younger adopted brother to Todd Vanderboren and boy does Todd constantly rub Dailen the wrong way. There is no love lost from Dailen's perspective - he despises him.
The animosity towards that group started the previous game - after the PCs spent a whole gaming session in Jzadirune trying to "save the children....save the world." :-) They came crawling out of the dungeon after fighting skulks, and creepers, and raggomoffyns, pulverizers, and a choker. Two were unconscious, the others out of spell energy, and badly beaten; their potions of curing depleted. When they reaced the surface the Stormblades had just returned from the lavatubes "killing a few kobolds" and the city was throwing a parade for their return. Since then whenever a major NPC thinks the PCs aren't moving fast enough, one makes a snide under their breath comment, "I knew we should have asked the stormblades to do this." It doesn't help that Mr. Vanderboren makes barbed comments to the swashbuckler PC like, "When are you going to be a real adventurer and join a real group like the Stormblades." As I said, Dailen absolutely despises his older brother, and the Stormblades.
In yesterday's game, the party returned from jzadirune just before they went down the elevator into Malachite Fortress, and returned to the city to rest etc. Dailen went home to spend the night there with his adopted family. When he was leaving, Mrs. Vanderboren wished him luck, with mom-like hugs etc, and handed him some packed food (a sack lunch) to take with him.
The other players started giggling and making children with their "lunch-box" references, and someone asked if it was a spiderman lunchbox....then the wizard-player piped in and said, "No....it's a Stormblades action figure lunchbox!!" LOL OMG we had gut-busting laughter for the next 5 minutes.
Robert
I have to concur with the general consensus here. My group has only just finished Chapter One. In last week's session I foreshadowed the involvement of the Stormblades by having Ghelve mention that some of the party's friends had dropped by to discuss what happened. Now, before I go any further, two of my party members have the noble trait, and both of them have the hots for Annah Taskerhill. One of them just happens to be the younger brother of Cora Lathenmire, and the other one has a long-time grudge against Todd Vanderboren, whom I've really played up as a total troublemaker.
So, after totally skipping Jzadirune the first time around and basically moving just about as directly as possible to fight Kazmojen, the party explores it briefly and manages to recover Starbrow despite nobody being able to speak Undercommon. The party did a good job of negotiating with the Mimic while I basically made up words for different things and tried deseperately to keep them straight. Eventually, they made a trade - Starbrow for some food.
So, the party heads up to reunite master with familiar, only to discover that the Stormblades have gotten Ghelve to sign something admitting what he did and brought the City Guard, led by Sgt. Skyler Krewis, down to arrest him. Todd, being the weasel that he is, thanks the party in front of the guard for their assistence, but advises that now that Ghelve's locks is a crimescene and the Stormblades have been awarded a charter to investigate it, no further help is required.
This naturally cheeses the party off, and some great roleplaying occurs over the next hour and a half, with several players even inquiring about the rules governing duels in Cauldron, and a couple challenges even being levelled at Todd - who naturally ducked them like the wonderful bastard he is. Cora and her brother seemed mostly unconcerned over what was happening, although they each expressed distaste in the other's choice of companions. Finally, Annah and Zachary broke up the confrontation and the two parties seperated, but not before Sgt. Krewis led Ghelve off in manacles almost totally unnoticed.
I plan to have some more fun with the upcoming Trial of Keygan Ghelve, but that's another story involving another character's backstory.
Eric "Critic of the Dawn"
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I have to concur with the general consensus here. My group has only just finished Chapter One. In last week's session I foreshadowed the involvement of the Stormblades by having Ghelve mention that some of the party's friends had dropped by to discuss what happened. Now, before I go any further, two of my party members have the noble trait, and both of them have the hots for Annah Taskerhill. One of them just happens to be the younger brother of Cora Lathenmire, and the other one has a long-time grudge against Todd Vanderboren, whom I've really played up as a total troublemaker.
That sounds great, Eric! I love it when the PCs get so emotionally invested in NPCs like that, and I especially love that their dislike for the Stormblades totally overshadowed Ghelve's arrest.
I'd like to work in greater ties to the people of Cauldron the next time I go through the path as well. Can I ask how you worked in the ties to the Stormblades before they entered Jzadirune? Did you have roleplay sessions with each player before you began the campaign proper, or did you just sit with them and work things out through discussion?
That sounds great, Eric! I love it when the PCs get so emotionally invested in NPCs like that, and I especially love that their dislike for the Stormblades totally overshadowed Ghelve's arrest.
I'd like to work in greater ties to the people of Cauldron the next time I go through the path as well. Can I ask how you worked in the ties to the Stormblades before they entered Jzadirune? Did you have roleplay sessions with each player before you began the campaign proper, or did you just sit with them and work things out through discussion?
Basically it's something that came up during character creation. I didn't do individual roleplay sessions prior to starting up, but what I did do was give the players a lot of information which would be appropriate to them. For example, I sent both of the noble characters an overview of the various noble families including a list of major NPCs in each. The Cleric and the Paladin got a page or two describing the various temples in the city, their leadership, and their relationships with each other. The Artificer got a list of prominent magicians in town.
After giving them this information, I urged them to familiarize themselves with it, and to incorporate some of the information into their backgrounds if possible. I also made myself available to answer any questions they might have - and there were indeed several. Finally, I offered 200 bonus XP for anyone presenting me with a character history at least a half page (single-spaced) long, and 5 of my 6 players took advantage of it.
Consequently, I've got a pair of nobles with ties to the Stormblades (they went to Bluecrater Academy with them) AND to Captain Skellerang (which will be interesting once the taxes start rising and crackdowns begin), A cleric of Pelor paranoid that the Temple of Wee Jas is out to drive his church out of Cauldron, an illegitimate child of Vervil Ashmantle who despises slavery and wants desperately to kill her father, a gnomish Artificer who is a good friend of Skie, and (of course) the Paladin who couldn't be bothered to create a history.
Eric "Critic of the Dawn"
First off, thank you to all who answered. You've given me some valuable insight.
My PCs are finishing Flood Season. Tarkilar's quasit still possesses the final Wand, but the PCs have only a bit of "clean up" in the kopru ruins remaining to handle. An interesting twist in how the PCs won in the ruins will provide just the opportunity I'm looking for to introduce the Stormblades.
What happened was that the characters fought an extremely tough battle with Skaven Umbermead and several hirelings. By that time, they had already killed Triel, and cleared out most of the northern half of the ruins, so Skaven had very little left to fight for. He called for a truce and negotiated with the party. He would hand over the Wands in his areas if the party swore to stay out of his areas (he trusted the oath of the PCs' cleric of Heironeous). To this, they agreed, but later, they reported the deal they had struck with Jenya.
Being the lawful neutral cleric that she is, Jenya was not about to let Skaven remain remain comfortably where he was. So, despite her distaste for dealing with the chaotic Stormblades, she asked them to investigate Skaven and bring him to justice or kill him. They agreed.
That's where I left off last session.
My plan for tomorrow's game is this. The Stormblades succeed totally against Skaven and start to exit the ruins, when the quasit finds them. Sensing kindred spirits, the quasit takes a liking to the Stormblades, especially Annah, who would be clever enough to flatter it shamelessly. The quasit turns the final Wand over to Annah, and the Stormblades take the cage to the upper ledge.
As they are about to leave, the PCs will exit the kopru ruins. Jealous of the attention the PCs have been getting, the Stormblades decide to play a little prank on them, cutting the rope as the first load of PCs starts ascending! The Stormblades figure a little dunk in the water should cool their heels without doing any real harm. What they don't know about is the existence of the outsider (forget what it's called) and the kopru, who attack in succession!
During the battle, or just after it, the quasit will swoop in and taunt the PCs, telling them "we" have the Wand they're seeking. We who? "We, the Stormblades!" it will answer triumphantly.
Once the PCs get out, they will find that the Stormblades are planning to conduct a demonstration of the quasit's Wand at the lake, creating quite a stir about town. The threat will be that the Stormblades are claiming to have recovered ALL the Wands, and we shall see how the PCs react to this potential indignity, since they have already turned all the rest, safe and sound, over to Jenya.
Feedback on my plan and suggestions would be much appreciated!
<snip>
My plan for tomorrow's game is this. The Stormblades succeed totally against Skaven and start to exit the ruins, when the quasit finds them. Sensing kindred spirits, the quasit takes a liking to the Stormblades, especially Annah, who would be clever enough to flatter it shamelessly. The quasit turns the final Wand over to Annah, and the Stormblades take the cage to the upper ledge.
As they are about to leave, the PCs will exit the kopru ruins. Jealous of the attention the PCs have been getting, the Stormblades decide to play a little prank on them, cutting the rope as the first load of PCs starts ascending! The Stormblades figure a little dunk in the water should cool their heels without doing any real harm. What they don't know about is the existence of the outsider...
If your goal is to make your party hate the Stormblades, this will definately do a good job of that. My one concern is that giving them a fiend as a follower (even a little one) may press the idea that the Stormblades are not just rivals, but are actually outright evil. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but when it becomes increasingly evident that there's a conspiracy afoot, the Stormblades and their fiendish friend are going to stick out more than they normally would as possibly being involved.
That leaves you with the choice of using it as a red herring, or actually having the quasit manipulate the Stormblades into becoming Vhalantru's new cronies once he takes control of the city. The latter might actually be interesting and could lead to an interesting Civil War type situation in Lords of Oblivion, culminating in a clash between rebel forces led by the Party against the Half-Orc Guards led by the Stormblades.
Alternately, if your party is in to roleplaying and diplomacy, they might be able to convince the Stormblades to turn on Vhalantru's forces at a key moment during such a confrontation, thus giving your party the chance they need to go after Big V himself.
Eric "Critic of the Dawn"
The PCs in our game decided early on that the Stormblades were an example of one of the great ills besetting Cauldron: good people get killed and not-quite-good ones become more and more corrupt. As such, they tried to have as little to do with the Stormblades as they possibly could, including (to the player's disappointment) boycotting the Demonskar Ball. They felt that competing with the Stormblades would just lead to their own corruption.
They saw the Striders exactly the same way and refused to have anything to do with them either, except for Shensen, whom they recruited.
Now Todd Vanderborn lies dead in the Temple of Wee Jas, and the new high priest (a PC) has to decide whether to honor his temple's obligation to raise him, even though diamonds for Raise Dead are now more precious than anything else in the city. It's a nice situation. I think he will probably have to do it.
The Stormblades have been pretty important in a roleplaying sense even though they have hardly ever been onstage. The PCs killed a bunch of drow for what they later realized were inadequate reasons, and one thing they said about this, unhappily, was "We acted just like the Stormblades. Shame on us."
As a player, though, I felt a little uncomfortable about how the Stormblades could possibly remain always the same level as the PCs when they were supposed to have killed a few drow, a couple of dinosaurs, and some kobolds while the PCs did the killer Adventure Path scenarios. It felt rather like cheating. GMs might want to make up a few more things for them to have done on the side.
On the other hand, SCAP has a lot of good roleplaying possibilities, and if this one doesn't click for your group, it's not necessary--you can use others. My group was permanently and completely indifferent to Skie and to the Striders, and that was okay. (They made up for it with *intense* relationships with Jenya, Thrifane, the Dark Stalker from Jeziderune, and the Temple of Wee Jas.)
Mary