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I am about to run the Kopru Ruins. I have been struggling with this in my mind for quite some time.
Triel stole the wands (along with Tongue-Eater and Skaven) in order to ransom them back to Cauldron. She is apparently part of the Ebon Triad (which has a more prominent role in the next AP Age of Worms I see); but what does this scenario and her involvement have to do with the overall theme of the AP and the CageWrights?
Is it just a red herring or just something extra thrown into the campaign? I'm just a bit confused as to whether or not Triel and her role affects the ultimate storyline of what the Cagewrights are trying to do.
If not, I think it makes more sense to somehow link them - otherwise it's just a superfluous scenario that in my opinion should link in better somehow.
Thoughts....?
Robert
Is it just a red herring or just something extra thrown into the campaign? I'm just a bit confused as to whether or not Triel and her role affects the ultimate storyline of what the Cagewrights are trying to do.
If not, I think it makes more sense to somehow link them - otherwise it's just a superfluous scenario that in my opinion should link in better somehow.
They're just a red-herring and don't link to the overall story.
My players have just finished Life's Bazaar and will soon go to Flood Season (we're running out of the mags and not the HC) after a couple of intervening adventures, and I've been thinking about it too. Unfortunately, as it stands I haven't thought of any way to satisfactorily link the Triel/Ebon Triad to the greater campaign.
I do agree - it's definitely a superfluous scenario, and as it stands now, I'm not a big fan of Flood Season as part of the adventure path (though it is a nifty stand-alone adventure).
Sorry I'm not much help. :(
The adventure (Flood Season) is mostly there to play some hooks into the player's hands about the cages. Very loose connections, the PCs could act upon. I used (find it at rpgenius.com) Skaven as a source of information to the players by having them find a diary describing his involvement. That helped to place the whole Ebon Triad thing into the storyline.
I just finished Flood Season. Next Wed (hopefully) I will start the Demonskar Ball with my players.
Skaven's diary is like a Rosetta stone for your group if they fail to capture/question Skaven or Triel. I took the diary from rpgenius and slightly altered it to make Skaven responsible for the Filth Fever from 7 years ago (testing something he stole from Bluecrater). I used a "handwriting" font to make it more realistic. My group are now investigating Bluecrater records to find out about Skaven's history in Cauldron.
At the same time, I removed Grehlia completely and put Fetor as Skaven's contact in the Cagewrights. This foreshadows the Soul Pillars.
I also followed the DelvesDeep suggestions and included the Skylar love plot. This makes the party more involved in the tax riot.
This thread also gave me a connection between Triel and Andimarchus. The pic of the ravings was on rpgenius. I didn't use the Lathenmire angle, though it is an interesting one.
My group failed to gather any of the pieces of the cages from the workroom, as they didn't find them to be of interest.
The hardback implies that the Cagewrights have a tendency to use other cults as a front for their own work. Maybe there could be a more direct link then the detritus of the forging process in the Kopru Ruins?
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I also followed the DelvesDeep suggestions and included the Skylar love plot. This makes the party more involved in the tax riot.
This thread also gave me a connection between Triel and Andimarchus. The pic of the ravings was on rpgenius. I didn't use the Lathenmire angle, though it is an interesting one.
My group failed to gather any of the pieces of the cages from the workroom, as they didn't find them to be of interest.
Thanks for all the input guys and big thanks for the link to the other thread - I just read that and I found it very helpful! I probably would never have seen this had it not been for your handy link there.
Thanks,
Robert
Another alteration I made with Triel which I think I included in the Alternative doc was to have her the cohort of Fetor. My idea was to have her a priestess of Adimarchus who had infilrated the Ebony Triad under Fetors directions to find more relics of the Spellweaver Empire. The rationale was that the random of the wands was a ruse to allow Triel to lower the waters of the Phantom Lake to find the ancient relics that Fetor had traced to the Kopru Ruins.
In my game when the party eventually faced Triel with Skylar in tow, she was wearing an eye-patch which covered her missing eye and surrounding tatoo of smoke (symbol of the Smoking Eye). When she eventually was defeated by the party (after mocking Skylar etc) they found a note to Fetor which explained the ruse.
The party then descending into the lake and battled the demon and then Kopru to eventually find the underwater cave and a series of strange discs (Spellweaver relic).
This made much more sense to me than to just have a random cult with a tenious link to the overall plot featured so prominantly in the adventure.
Another idea is to change the organisation altogether to all be followers of Adimarchus and in fact be the same cult that the Cauldron soldiers unfortunately stumbled across in the city above before Triel murdered them all years earlier who were now using the Kopru Ruins as their headquarters.
The theft of the wands had nothing to do with the flooding the city but everthing to do with lowering the Phantom Lake to find (a) an ancient statue of Adimarchus (b)rock/metals required to make the cages or (c) Spellweaver Relics to assist in the ritual of release to free their master.
Anyway just some ideas
Delvesdeep