Spoilers below...
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I can't be the only one who noticed the remarkable likeness between Cora and Triel. They could be sisters! In fact... such a resemblance between two NPCs introduced in a chapter of an adventure is too sweet for me to resist!
In my campaign, one of the PCs is in a lust/hate relationship with Cora Lathenmire. He finds her sexy and compelling, but her temper and fierceness drives his delicate sensibilities up the wall. With a rivalry with the Stormblades enhanced by this crush, I figure one way to really up the tension & drama will be if the party ends up faced with the possibility of killing Cora's criminally insane elder sister, Triel. They may end up trying to 'bring her back alive,' just to avoid Cora trauma.
Incidentally, I've been pronouncing Triel with a lilting 'a' on the end, so it doesn't sound as awkward when paired with Lathenmire.
Also... I've been toying with the idea that Triel went murderously mad and went on her killing spree due to contact with the insane dreams of Adimarchus, whom she mistook for Hexor urging her onward. (I might switch her and the gnoll heukuva's faiths, as Erythnal, the god of Slaughter sounds more appropriate to this idea.)
Recent dealings with the Cagewrights have shaken her faith (not to the point of losing her spells,) because she's learned about Adimarchus from them... and the descriptions of him sound disturbingly similar to the corruptive patron who set her on this path years ago. Her chambers are littered with pages of strained scribblings, illustrations of the Carcerian sign, and frantic musings about the mysterious figure of Adimarchus from her attempts to sort out to whom her faith should really belong. This should allow the PCs an earlier peek at foreshadowing for the Campaign's main villain while remaining incoherent enough to avoid giving away the whole of it.
Thoughts? Critiques? Etc?
Really good idea with the dreams and scribblings. My GM did this (in a different part of the adventure, but a very similar idea) and it made the later parts of the game a lot more meaningful. I remember the first time they got someone on Occipitus who had known Adiramachus to describe him. "Holy ****, it's the Serpent Angel!"
I thought it was a pity that Triel didn't connect well with anything that comes later. The other thing my GM did to help here was to emphasize the accounts we got of Grehlia's and the giant's role (the kopru ruins were their workshop, here's what they were making, wonder where they are now?) so that when we met them later, we felt we knew them. But Triel herself was a dead end: after she was dead we never knew anything more about her.
Mary
Drakli,
I'm with Mary - the use of the dreams linking Triel to the overall plot and foreshadowing the main viliian is excellent.
In my campaign I went a step further and had Triel the cohort of Fetor and thus a Cagewright follower herself. She had been sent by Fetor to retrieve some ancient Spellweaver artifacts that he believed could unlock further secrets of the powerful civilisation and possible assist the Cagewrights further in their goals.
Triel had searched the ruins thoroughly and secretly and had come to believe that the ancient discs were lost at the bottom of the Phantom Lake. To these ends Triel engineered the theft of the wands to lower the water in the lake to continue her search. She lead Shaven and Tarkilar to believe that the group needed additional funds that ransoming such valuable items could retrieve.
Once the wands were secured Triel was looking for an opportune moment to use them without the increasingly suspicious Shaven been present.
The discs did indeed lie on the bottom of the lake but were claimed by the Kopru when he first arrived and now rest inside his cave. The discs may act as a key or reveals further Spellweaver feats or spells.
Great ideas all round Drakli and let us know how it all went (assuming you haven't played through this adventure as yet.
Delvesdeep
PS Don't forget to have a look at the Demonskar Ball found in theRPGenius.com site as a nice conclusion/add on on to the Flood Season adventure (if I don't say so myself :) )
Thanks for the thoughts, Mary, Delvesdeep.
I thought it was a pity that Triel didn't connect well with anything that comes later. The other thing my GM did to help here was to emphasize the accounts we got of Grehlia's and the giant's role (the kopru ruins were their workshop, here's what they were making, wonder where they are now?) so that when we met them later, we felt we knew them. But Triel herself was a dead end: after she was dead we never knew anything more about her.
The problem is, much of the villains in the SCAP are like this. They've got loads of style. They've either got a cool background, or a snapshot of a cool background... but the players only really get to meet them just before they kill them. That's kinda built into the structure of D&D.
Delvesdeep's extensive threads on foreshadowing Adimarchus and the Cagewrights is what got me thinking about giving players more to go on regarding the villains of the Path. I'm going in different directions in a lot of places (though I may or may not be cribbing a fair amount of his take on Dry'Yrd. I like the idea of the demodand being a servant of Adimarchus, but I have enough of my own thoughts on foreshadowing Dry'yrd that it may require a different thread entirely,) but thanks for making me think about it, Delvesdeep!And I'll certainly let you'all know how it went when my PCs get to that point. We've only just started Flood Season, and they don't even know the wands and high-priest are MIA yet.
I downloaded an adventure from therpgenius.com, labeled as the Demonskar Ball. Is that the article you meant, Delvesdeep? It didn't have anyone's name tagged to it, credit-wise.
The problem is, much of the villains in the SCAP are like this. They've got loads of style. They've either got a cool background, or a snapshot of a cool background... but the players only really get to meet them just before they kill them. That's kinda built into the structure of D&D.
Some things that can help:
Talking to people who know the villain: defeated or traitrous minions, previous victims, people who knew him in other contexts, etc. The PCs in our game met the ghost of Vervil Ashmantle's master in wizardry, whom Vervil had murdered to secure his power--so even though they met Vervil in person for only about six seconds, they had a pretty good idea about him and his background.
Situations in which the PCs and villain are together but combat is not an option. A lot of modules try for this: it's hard but it can work. The Demonskar Ball might have potential in this direction.
Infiltration/spying scenarios, where the PCs have time to observe the villain before striking.
Villains who pass themselves off as something else. In SCAP, Vhelantru is the poster child for this strategy: by the time they have to fight him, most PC groups will definitely feel they know him, even if they are shocked to find out what he is. (My PCs knew what he was from around Bhal-Hamatagn due to some good legwork, but so far have never felt prepared to take him on.)
Letters, journals, other physical clues. Journals explaining the bad guy's plans are a bit cliched but they do help. I'd like to see the bad guys write *to the PCs* more often, or send messengers. SCAP has a Spellweaver with a 1000 mile telepathy range; if someone in the Cagewright organization wanted to mess with the PCs by sending them offers, information, hints, clues, red herrings, etc. it would be easy and pretty safe for them to do it.
Villains who switch sides. Grehlia Cairnness is now part of the PC group, though it's at best an uneasy alliance. You can also have the PCs need to ally with a minor villain to take out a major one.
Dreams and visions. There is a lovely piece of prose in one AoW module setting up the background of a major villain--it's meant for the GM's eyes only, but it's easy to take the villain's name out and use it as a vision for a PC.
Backstory connections between the PCs and villains. One of our PCs is Thrifane Rhiavadi's daughter, which makes it easy to provide information about Thrifane, and indirectly about Vhelantru. Making one or more PCs Shackleborn can also help here. (Amusingly, in our campaign the *player* pitched the idea of "The PCs are all descended from a mysterious otherworldly ancestor" to the GM. He just smiled and said, "Okay, I think I can see how that would work....")
I don't get a lot, as a player, out of cutting through nameless opponents; it's really much more fun if the GM can find some way to flesh them out.
Mary
Thanks for the thoughts, Mary, Delvesdeep.
I downloaded an adventure from therpgenius.com, labeled as the Demonskar Ball. Is that the article you meant, Delvesdeep? It didn't have anyone's name tagged to it, credit-wise.
Hasn't it! Well I'll have to have a long hard talk to Koramado if that is true ;)
I wrote up the Demonskar Ball some time a go as a opportunity to play a purely roleplay adventure and to provide an abundance of foreshadowing for important NPCs and future events/adventures. My players enjoyed the adventure and have refered back to information they gathered from the night ever since especially during the current adventure they are playing through - Demonskar Legacy.
Hope you enjoy it and glad to hear my ideas inspired you to spend more time foreshadowing yourself. Great work.
Delvesdeep
Rats! You've uncovered my plot to subvert the DMs of the world and become known as the Dungeon Master Master, inserting subliminal messages into campaigns and creating an army of gamers! Mua ha ha!
No, no, credit is there, but you have to click on the "Details" link in order to see who submitted the file. I am merely the humble librarian to the many illustrious authors in the archive. Perhaps I need to take a few moments to modify the display code so that the author shows up front. You know I'm always happy to help.
Regards,
Koramado
Rats! You've uncovered my plot to subvert the DMs of the world and become known as the Dungeon Master Master, inserting subliminal messages into campaigns and creating an army of gamers! Mua ha ha!
No, no, credit is there, but you have to click on the "Details" link in order to see who submitted the file. I am merely the humble librarian to the many illustrious authors in the archive. Perhaps I need to take a few moments to modify the display code so that the author shows up front. You know I'm always happy to help.
** spoiler omitted **
Regards,
Koramado
Well DMM its hard to get anything past you. Must be all your subverted minions...
Delvesdeep
And now I'm going to step away from the topic of foreshadowing a bit, to yammer about the upcoming combat between the PCs and Triel.
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Okay, the moment of truth is coming up. My PCs are about to storm the Kopru ruins this Sunday, and may well be taking Triel on in the process.
Two concerns I have... not foreshadoing wise... but making her a scary-murderess-who's-really-good-at-it-threat wise, so she sticks in their minds as a frightening confrontation. If she falls like a deck of cards, what my PCs find in her notes might not have such dramatic effect:
The favoured soul's gotten some pretty good luck at shutting down big fights with the help of Hold Person. It saved the day against Tongue-Eater. Triel has a +6 Will save, the DC is 14, she needs an 8 or better to pass the save. I was thinking of switching her Craft Wonderous Item or Quick Draw feat out for Iron Will to bump her will save up to +8, if possible... but Craft Wonderous Item is kind of a plot related feat in this adventure, and off the top of my head I can't recall if Quick Draw was one of her bonus fighter feats. I've also thought about having her cast silence in the general point of space of the favoured soul, if she gets cast at and makes her save.
I just don't want this to be a 1 round combat.
The gnome swashbuckler has really good luck at disarming opponents. Thus far, it hasn't really helped too much... disarming Kazmoken opened him up to claw/claw+rend, disarming lycanthropes leaves them with claw/claw, but Triel hasn't got any natural attacks to fall back upon. I've been thinking of giving her a locked gauntlet to prevent that.
And now I'm worried that I'm thinking too much about how to shut down my players' favourite tactics instead of letting them /use/ what they've built their characters up to do.
Thoughts?
Two concerns I have... not foreshadoing wise... but making her a scary-murderess-who's-really-good-at-it-threat wise, so she sticks in their minds as a frightening confrontation. If she falls like a deck of cards, what my PCs find in her notes might not have such dramatic effect:
And... actually... I just re-read Triel's stat-block in comparison to my PCs and... I think if my players Hold Person her, I'm going to call it good. She has a +18 to her disarm checks according to my figures (+6 BA, +4 Str, +4 twohandedweap, + 2 flail, +1 weap foc, +1 plusoneweap.) And that's before we take Bull's Str or that she's bigger than the gnome into account. She isn't getting disarmed.
And she can, on a good damage roll, take out a pc in two hits.
I /hope/ the players hold-person her.
Oh... special note. I did indeed, switch gods with Triel and Tarkilar. I figured that Eyrthanul, the god of Slaughter, was a much better patron for a woman driven to murder by a dark angel's dreams.
Okay... I know delvesdeep and Mary were interested in how things went with the aftermath of the Triel fight, with what I had planned to use Triel as foreshadowing for Adimarchus.
Before the gamenight the party had to start off with getting a full scope out of Triel's chambers, I sat down with a huge page of newsprint drawing paper, and a big ink marker with a fine point and a big blunt point. With the blunt point, I drew up the image of the Carcerian sign in the middle. With the thin tip, I started scribbling all over the newsprint at odd angles, bits and pieces of phrases, many of them refering to "the man in shadow" and the "tatter-backed man." Lines were drawn, trying to relate this being and that feeling to yet another taut conclusion... to decide whether this original 'patron' was who she'd originally thought it was, (Eyrthanul,) or this new being the Cagewrights brought to her attention.
Bits of Eyrthanul litergy and prayer, as well as random notes about the emotions she felt when she slew this victim or that, served as red herrings and clutter. I filled the margins.
I dropped Adimarchus's name in there a couple of times, just so they're aware of it, too. Also, in one corner, I wrote out, "Solar of ####" where #### was "Pain," scratched out by Triel in a moment of tortured 'No, that's wrong. Can't be right,' just to get them thinking vaguely along the ideas of an angel.
She also mentioned the Cagewrights three times, twice as the "Cagers" and once as the "Cagewrights," which so far, the PCs don't know what to make of these references, or assign much to it... other than puzzlement.
The PCs spent about an hour in her chamber... an hour of real time... poring over various portions of the huge page, and general consensus is that... they're really OOCly impressed with it, and ICly, are going to need to pick it apart (along with Triel's more detailed notes, which I'll be asking for Decipher Script checks on,) to find out what deeper, bigger meaning it all has.
So... yes, I'd say it was a success! Props are very handy!
Before the gamenight the party had to start off with getting a full scope out of Triel's chambers, I sat down with a huge page of newsprint drawing paper, and a big ink marker with a fine point and a big blunt point. With the blunt point, I drew up the image of the Carcerian sign in the middle. With the thin tip, I started scribbling all over the newsprint at odd angles, bits and pieces of phrases, many of them refering to "the man in shadow" and the "tatter-backed man." Lines were drawn, trying to relate this being and that feeling to yet another taut conclusion... to decide whether this original 'patron' was who she'd originally thought it was, (Eyrthanul,) or this new being the Cagewrights brought to her attention.
Can this be scanned (even in sections) and uploaded to the RPGenius site? It sounds AMAZING. I love props, and I am about to start Flood Season, so having a huge foreshadowing prop would be great.
Can this be scanned (even in sections) and uploaded to the RPGenius site? It sounds AMAZING. I love props, and I am about to start Flood Season, so having a huge foreshadowing prop would be great.
Ditto. I've also taken the Triel Lathenmire route (particularly satisfying since the PC paladin just started getting interested in Cora), and I'd like to be able to drop this clue just before the Demonskar Ball.
Can this be scanned (even in sections) and uploaded to the RPGenius site? It sounds AMAZING. I love props, and I am about to start Flood Season, so having a huge foreshadowing prop would be great.
Ditto. I've also taken the Triel Lathenmire route (particularly satisfying since the PC paladin just started getting interested in Cora), and I'd like to be able to drop this clue just before the Demonskar Ball.
I'll see what I can do, folks! Not right now, as I need to sleep, but I have a scanner and photoshop, so it can be done.
And wow, thanks, I'm glad you think it sounds cool.
Okay, I'm sorry it took so long to get uploaded, but I scanned the newprint paper scrawls I did for Triel's confused ravings up to RPGenius, under the "Flood Festival" section, with a title of "Priestess's Madness (and Adimarchus Foreshadowing)"
I had to scan it in chunks and re-assemble it afterwards, so that's why it may look a bit patchy (plus, it's insane scrawlings, so it fits.)
Please let me know what you think!
Incidentally, I posted a thread about the interesting similarities in appearance between Cora, Triel and the Lord Mayor in a previous thread and got some pretty good responses.
<snip>
I must admit I'm a little sad to hear that you switched her god from Hextor to Erythnul. I'm running SCAP in Forgotten Realms, so she was a Priestess of Bane in my game. One of the players is very knowledgeable about FR, so he was able to ask some very interesting questions upon discovering she was a Priestess of Bane. He presented to the group that, if she follows Bane then she's almost certainly Lawful Evil. This didn't sit well with the allegedly insane wholesale slaughter of several fellow guards. He was able to piece together the idea that she was acting on orders from a superior she considered legitimate. More foreshadowing for the later conspiracy. Throw in Skaven Umbermeads mad scribblings and they thought they had it all figured out...
First of all, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who looked at Triel, then at Cora, then compared their classes and said, "The characters too alike to ignore, let's see if we can forge a cool link here."
Second, I can totally see how a lawful god like Bane/Hexor(for us non FR-ites) worked better for what you were doing. It seems like you were doing a good job of layering up the secrets to create a real sense of conspiracy theory.... threading paranoia through the PCs, building up the foreshadowing for the sinister secret society.
Myself, I'm trying to outline the idea... bit by bit... that somewhere out there, there's a being known as The Man with the Tattered Back, and The Lord in Shadow... and if you meet him, you go insane.
He got to Triel... he got to Zenith... he got to one of the PC's father.
His sign is the Imprisoned Eye.
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Totally stole the idea for my own campaign. Used a sheet of Gaming Paper to make it, my players loved it, even if they didn't pick up on half the hooks until after the chapter was over. XD
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I've hosted it here. I couldn't find it either, and it may not have survived the site move that happened awhile back. I should really upload it to the site myself.
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Starting Flood season tonight. One of my players is playing a nobleman, so I made him a lathenmire, and made Cora another Aslaxian..I think i'm going to have Triel become his "long dead" sister...Create some family drama..have her having been exiled from the family for her evil ways, but the PC was always told she died at a young age...the party will notice a strange resemblance, and hopefully put it together...
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Last night was cool. They liberated the Lucky Monkey and found out about triel Lathenmire. We ended with the paladin, Irodel lathenmire (PC) finding out from Zachary Aslaxian, that triel was his ling lost sister. His parents told him that she died in an accident years ago, it felt like the heavy reveal music should have been playing..dum dum dahhhhh.
we're starting off with him going to his parents to get some answers. T
Starting Flood season tonight. One of my players is playing a nobleman, so I made him a lathenmire, and made Cora another Aslaxian..I think i'm going to have Triel become his "long dead" sister...Create some family drama..have her having been exiled from the family for her evil ways, but the PC was always told she died at a young age...the party will notice a strange resemblance, and hopefully put it together...
Ah, I do love the family drama at the roleplaying table. A very nice idea! I usually try to weave in some personal background issues as well, which often makes for very memorable roleplaying.
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To be honest Roth, whomever started this thread really inspired me to run with this idea. Thanks Drakli!!
I usually do it in game time, but the player wanted to handle talking to his parents in private. I am guessing he may not want the other PC's to know. It's funny, because the PC rogue got the note from Artus about the wands, and he is not telling yet either.
I have been gaming with these guys for 20+ years, and I consider them among my very dear friends, so we actually are in touch for out of game stuff alot. I just figured I'd let him do it in private.
Now, since we have been emailing back and forth, I need to come up with the story. Here is what I have though up
Triel is actually a half sister, by his father (Lathenmire) and a prostitute. They took her in to raise, but at a young age, she wound up killing another child accidentally. The other childs family were poor, so the Lathenmires paid them to have it covered up. What they did was bury the other child as Triel, and send Triel off to Redgorge. Triel grew up angry and that anger turned her to EVIL. That is when she forund a group who worshipped Urgathoa (subbing for the Triad). She has always wanted revenge, and stealing the wands are an ends to a mean....
Any critiques or ideas to expand upon this are definately welcomed...