AoW:TFoE / Unlawful activity in a Lawful situation! Help! LE vs. LG

[xdahnx]

Hey there,
My group just descended into the first temples beneath the mine, the Hextorian Temple. They managed to prevent most of the base knowing about their advance, until the very end.

When confronted in the main battling arena, they fled to the back rooms. They were cornered, and, fearing major death, they fled out out and back up the elevator. This is where we left off.

However! To first get into the mine's secret area, they sucker-punched and stripped the two guards guarding the entrance. So, the guards (plus a few friends) will likely be waiting for them as they ascend back into the mine proper.

I'm concerned with a number of things:

The PC's broke into a legitimate mine on the pretense that there was a cult doing 'something' down there.

They then snuck into the Hextorian temple, and proceded to wallop on them, for no reason.

The Hextorites did nothing to provoke the attack, and were simply defending their temple.

As a LE bunch, I fully anticipate the Hextorites to move for some kind of persecution on tresspassing and murder charges.

However, the local militia and garrison houses the temple to Hieroneous of this town (LG! ack). Nevermind the bitter rivalry between the two god brothers, how would this play out? Would the LG militia have to persecute the PCs for tresspassing unlawfully on the LE territory?

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I can see this developing as far as creating an opening for a Hextorian takeover of the town...

What are your suggestions for how this would play out? What about other scenarios? What will happen?!

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Additionally, what will happen to the structure of the temple itself? In relation to the other two temples?

This is what is left of the garrison: 4 tiefling guards,4 zombies (soon to be more I assume!), theldrick the cleric, and the other two cleric-lovers.

They used a lot of their consumables in the first battle (potions, scrolls, etc); Which of these would I restock with them?

Will they ask for help from the other two temples? They will surely inform the other two cults, so they will all be at the ready, with extra defenses. Would they trap the area? What kind of traps would be reasonable?

Thanks for any and all help!

[Hagen]

First of all, know that if you're setting the game in the Domain of Greyhawk, the mere presence of an evil cult is illegal (check out Greyhawk: The Adventure Begins and the event known as the 'Expulsion of Evil'). The cultists can't just walk up to the authorities of Diamond Lake and claim that they they were unlawfully attacked. Second, the Dourstone Mine is a far cry from a legitimate mine; it's a front for an evil cult that has dire intentions for the town itself. The mine itself is the property of the City of Greyhawk and I doubt the the cultists have a deed to the property.

In my game I had the missing priest of Heironeous a prisoner in the Cathedral of Hextor. The first thing my players did after rescuing him was make their way straight to the garrison and report the presence of cultists. This paved the way for a major offensive by Commander Trask with the help of my PC's.

As for the Ebon Triad, they have a few choices since their gig is up. They could escape and make their way towards the Mistmarsh, but I imagine many of them would see this as an opportunity to accelerate their plans. According to the Faceless One's cipher, Theldrick can possibly summon more warriors. And the adventure also states that the Hextorites have members amongst the guards in the mines. Another possibility is sending out a grimlock/kenku strike force at night to kill the intruders before they ruin the plans of the Ebon Triad. Being fairly antagonistic to each other, I doubt the three temples would cooperate more than that. As for traps, they take a while to make and other than setting up a few stalactites in the Caves of Erythnul to fall on your players, I wouldn't take this route. Others on the boards have suggested boobytrapping the elevator, but since it's the cultists' sole means of contact with the outside world, I doubt they would mess with it. In my campaign I had a few kenku, some zombies, and Kendra (the sole survivor of the Cathedral of Hextor) set up an ambush at the bottom of the elevator shaft on my PC's second foray into the mines. I then had a few kenku retreat into the Labyrinth in an attempt to draw my players in. Unfortunately, the tactic worked wonderfully for them when the party wizard ran into the Labyrinth and got ambushed by another dozen kenku and two dire weasels. Then I had the kenku mimic the the wizard's voice to draw the rest of the group in. Luckily one of them passed his sense motive check and suspected the voice was 'off.' The next time the party saw the wizard, he was lying on an operating table just as the Faceless One was dropping a green worm into his mouth.

This adventure is hard enough as it is. Kudos to your players if they survived an assault against the Cathdral of Hextor without any fatalities (I lost 3 PC's out of 6 in that fight).

[Cynical_Lurker]

I see an interesting possibility:

Have the Hextorites take up the issue, along side the owner of the mine. They have, via the mine owner, legally 'rented' the space, and the PCs not only entered the mine and temple without permission, but murdered a number of Hextorites who had done nothing to provoke them save for being Hextorites.

This is a pretty firm case, regardless of local views of Hextor. In reality, the cult is just doing this as a holding action - to keep the PCs, or anyone else, from coming into the other temples and finding out what is really going on

Now, at this point, depending on the social graces of the PCs, they may just be placed under a restraining order to stay away from the mine while an investigation is underway, or they may even be placed under arrest.

This could pose a problem for the PCs, unless your's like to play litigation...

However, they do have a resource the probably don't realize.

Smenk.

While he's not about to put his neck on the line, Smenk is freaked out by the cults, so has a vested interest in seeing them shut down. Since it's very likely the PCs got information on the cults from him, he also has a good reason to be afraid that his connection to the attack may come out if things go on.

So Smenk, discreetly, flexes his political muscles a bit to ease pressure on the PCs enough so they have a chance to either make another go at the cult or to convince the Militia that something else is going on down in that mine... maybe a certain green worm might be good evidence...

Of course, all three temples will be on high alert, save mabye for the Hextor temple, who would be prepared for a potential legal investigation from the militia, so they have to keep things looking normal.

The others would hide there own entrances with the strongest magic they have access to, and be ready to kill anything that finds them.

If the PCs are good dipolmats, they may end up with back up from the militia to help with the more alert cultists.

[Cuchulainn]

When my players went through 3FoE, they went to the Hextor Temple first also. They succeeded in clearing it out, but then decided to go back to the surface to regroup and re-arm.

Now, I had initially used Smenk as the catalyst to go into the mine in the first place. The party had just killed Filge, and Smenk called them to his home for a little "chat" about breaking into a building on his property and murdering one of his guests.

It's important to know that, since the party decided (after resting) to go to Smenk and demand that he provide them with some muscle to go back in and clear out the rest of the complex.

When the party got back to Smenk's house, the place was trashed and there were signs of a battle and a lot of blood. There were also very large black feathers here and there. Smenk was nowhere to be found. The Faceless One had the Kenku pay him a visit and bring him down to the labyrinth for a little "chat" of his own. Of course, the party didn't know this. The party figured the cultists went after Smenk, but they figured he'd escaped and skipped town.

At this point, the party did a lot of farting around town, not really sure if they wanted to go back to the mine. The Faceless One, initially thinking that the party would come looking for Smenk, realized that they had no love for the big fat liar. So, he decided to force a confrontation by kidnapping a dozen or so children from the town. He exposed them to the soul-trapped pillars in his temple to make them creepy little stalkers, who then started following the party around time at all hours and staring at them.

They also started killing some of the underpriests at the Cuthbert temple, leaving their bodies to be found in alleys with several dozen knife wounds, all of them inflicted by one or more Small individuals.

This set up the party's halfing, and then (after her alibi was confirmed) the halflings at the Able Carter to be the fall guys for the murders. The party then had a choice. Find the real killers or let the innocent halfings hang. They knew the kids were the killers, but also knew that they had been brainwashed. They had to go back into the mine and put a stop to things.

In short, most socieites are not so tolerant as to allow evil cults to exist "as long as their not bothering anyone." The cultists know this, so they are going to manipulate circumstances to suit them.

[john wood]

We went through this from the same point. I actually threw Auric and his warband at the party to "bring them to justice." We played out the litigation that drew on for two days, with Dourstone pressing charges and I had Marzena, (forshadowing and a good reason to rescue her later) defend the group. Based on the the way everyone in this town hated Smenk, and most distrusted Dourstone there were plenty of people willing to witness against these two. Bottom line they were both convicted of treason against the kingdom, there should be plenty of evidence between the three factions trying to raise enough power to ring in an age of doom and destroy the lawfully abiding poeple of any kingdom. Hence the Trial of Two Treasons, the first time the party is celebrated as heroes, freeing the town from the burden of Balabar.

[Belfur]

IMHO, persecution is out of question.
First a hextorite would never ever run to a heironean garisson for help with his tail between his legs. Whatever you could say about hextorites they are surely no cowards and have a code of honor.
Secondly the Faceless one would really be annoyed if the hextorites blew their cover...summoning an outsider to overthrow the existing order is illegal and even the preparation for this would bring the full force of the law against the evil temple (we are in a pseudo medieval society, in the end, so shooting first then looking for evidence is totally legal).
Third you should remember, that the law does normally not apply to monstrous humanoids, so the kenkus and grimlocks would be killed on the spot by the garrison.
What I think would happen: the hextorites will setup an ambush for the PCs (and this should be tough enough, depending on how long the PCs wait until they come back). But I guess the hextorites will not tell anyone of the others about the ambush...think of it, they are a martial order (in contrast to the others), it would be very embarrassing for them if they needed help to deal with some adventurers especially when the adventurers ran away the first time; additionally they do not like each other very much. If the PCs take off some days, sure the Hextorites could set up traps, animate zombies and bring down some more fighters from the ranks of the mine guards. If you think it will be too easy for your PCs, then bring in some of the kenkus or one or two of the faceless one's apprentices, but in the end the hextorites are tough enough.
Hope that helps.