My party is in the middle of Encounter at Blackwall Keep right now, so I'm trying to get all of my ducks in a row for the next adventure.
I'm running Age of Worms as a high-powered, gestalt game set in Greyhawk. My party lineup at the beginning of Hall of Harsh Reflections should look like this:
Khalavas - human bard/barbarian 5 // dragon disciple/dragonsong lyrist 2
Kellen - human ninja/cleric of Nola 5 // ninja/shadowbane stalker 2
Quince - human warmage/wizard 7
Darion - human fighter/knight 5 (cohort)
I basically want to run this adventure as written (it's really quite excellent) with one exception: I want to tailor the opening portion to Kellen a little bit more. He's a crime fighter by night, and I explained to his player at the beginning that there really weren't going to be too many opportunities for him to play this aspect of his character up in Age of Worms. But Hall of Harsh Reflections, especially the doppleganger section, seems like an ideal time to let him shine. The problem is that, as written, the events that lead the party to the doppleganger lair are driven by the dopplegangers. It would be far cooler if Kellen sniffed out the place using his investigative skills. So I need to add in a short section in between the doppleganger attacks on their inn and the moment they arrive at the Sodden Hold. Instead of having one of the dopplegangers they defeat drop a key, there needs to be some other, more subtle lead-in.
Any ideas?
My characters really botched the doppelganger sections of HoHR, so they had to do some investigative legwork to find out where the base was. I ended up modifying Mad God's Key. In short, when the PCs began nosing around after who tried to frame them, their efforts were noticed by the Green Dagger Gang. The GDG had done some minor jobs for the doppelgangers, knew about their attempt on the PCs, and wanted to impress them by finishing the job. When the PCs survived the GDG's attack and traced them back to their hideout, the surviving gang leader escaped and led them to the Tomb of Blood Everflowing. I changed the Tomb a bit such that it served as a sort of "back door" for the doppelgangers, providing them with a means of secretly leaving the city. Between the tomb and the Hall of Harsh Reflections I adlibbed a small dungeon/sewer/cave complex. The tunnel finally led them into the entrance of the doppelgangers' hideout via a trap door. It worked out great.
If I recall correctly, there's no actual connection between Xyrzog and the Ebon Triad et.al. - they're just local criminals hired to do a job. So an investigator is liable to run across the fact that someone was hiring assassins for that job. Does the investigator have contacts in the Free City already?
If the investigator doesn't have any contacts in the area, then have some low-life opportunist recognize the PCs as the ones the contract was for, and decide to try to collect it himself. His bungled attempt will hopefully result in interrogation, upon which they'll start trying to figure out more about this contract on their lives, and continue with the middleman in the paragraph below.
If teh investogator DOES have contacts, the easiest is for one of the contacts to tell the investigator about rumors of the hit job, and then any investigation he does leads them to a specific middleman (soemone known to arrange such contracts), who they can follow back to Sodden Hold, making a check along the way to keep tailing the right guy when that guy changes appearance along the way (the investigator might assume it was just a Disguise Self spell, although it's odd the fellow didn't bother to change his clothes along with his face and hair...)
If I recall correctly, there's no actual connection between Xyrzog and the Ebon Triad et.al. - they're just local criminals hired to do a job. So an investigator is liable to run across the fact that someone was hiring assassins for that job. Does the investigator have contacts in the Free City already?
If the investigator doesn't have any contacts in the area, then have some low-life opportunist recognize the PCs as the ones the contract was for, and decide to try to collect it himself. His bungled attempt will hopefully result in interrogation, upon which they'll start trying to figure out more about this contract on their lives, and continue with the middleman in the paragraph below.
If teh investogator DOES have contacts, the easiest is for one of the contacts to tell the investigator about rumors of the hit job, and then any investigation he does leads them to a specific middleman (soemone known to arrange such contracts), who they can follow back to Sodden Hold, making a check along the way to keep tailing the right guy when that guy changes appearance along the way (the investigator might assume it was just a Disguise Self spell, although it's odd the fellow didn't bother to change his clothes along with his face and hair...)
I really like this idea (bungled assassination leads to an interrogation, which leads to a middle man, which leads to the Sodden Hold). It makes the PCs, especially Kellen, a lot more proactive in the adventure's opening part. Of course, during the investigation they will still be attacked by dopplegangers from Telkanin's gang, but they won't be sitting around waiting to be attacked.
The middle man should be a seedy information broker who doesn't directly involve himself in the assassination attempt. I might have him be a wererat.