In preparing for my upcoming Shackled City game I am readying the low-level (1-5) adventures, Life's Bazaar and Flood Season. I am running from the magazines so I have the first two chapters ready to go for the game start in a few weeks.
I have pulled lots of information from theRPGenius.com (thanks bunches everyone for all the awesome content) and this includes Skaven's Diary. However, in converting it to my homebrew I noticed an overt mention of Vhalantru by name.
"15 – Unicorn – 1013
Today Vhalantru paid us a visit and asked about our progress with the cages. It must be of some importance if they send such an important messenger. We better get our things done properly."
The party will be finding this toward the end of Flood Season. Is this too early for the party to start pointing accusing fingers at Vhalantru? Should I remove this reference and just call him 'the Demon' (I changed Vhalantru to a glabrezu) or something? Or is it okay for the party to start suspecting him of wrongdoing by the beginning of Zenith Trajectory?
After spending some time reading in more detail the articles suggest at the beginning of Secrets of the Soul Pillars that the party may now begin to suspect Vhalantru of wrongdoing. Of course, this is also where the party finally strikes out at him and given everything it seems they should suspect him sooner.
Also, I am using delvedeep's superb alterations on foreshadowing (excellent work) and it implies the party is friendly with Vhalantru before Secrets of the Soul Pillars. This leads me to believe the line should be changed in Skaven's diary.
On an unrelated note I seem to be missing at which point the party receives Alkhast. It is mentioned that the party already wields Alkhast in the siege of Redgorge event so it must appear sometime during Zenith Trajectory or Test of the Smoking Eye but I'm not seeing it anywhere. I wanted to build a little side trek around retrieving Alkhast but I'm not sure where it should go.
...its not that hard to change that one word in the document.
Indeed it isn't. I'm just not sure if I'm ruining some good foreshadowing or if it is appropriate that the party suspect him. I changed him from a beholder to a glabrezu because I wanted to keep the demon theme strong from the beginning but I kept his name as Vhalantru. :P
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...its not that hard to change that one word in the document.Indeed it isn't. I'm just not sure if I'm ruining some good foreshadowing or if it is appropriate that the party suspect him. I changed him from a beholder to a glabrezu because I wanted to keep the demon theme strong from the beginning but I kept his name as Vhalantru. :P
In my opinion, the party should not be suspecting him as of yet. Right now the party is supposed to believe the Ebon Triad was behind much of the stuff going on in the city. Later they are supposed to falsely suspect the Demonskar is the big challenge of the campaign. All the while Lord V. should be helping them out and pushing them to accepting more dangerous missions hoping that they end up dead. After they vanish into the Starry Mirror/Occipitus, he is basically free to go all out and take over the government.
Hi,
I was the one who uploaded the diary to therpgenius and looking at my own document now, I'm pretty sure, I used "Orbius", not Vhalantru. Reason is that I never used Vhlantru's full name, which DMs some refer to as Lord Orbius Vhalantru. IMC Vhalantru was always just Lord Vhalantru (I recently gave him a French sounding first name: Sibour as an additional hint (we're at chapter 7) *cough*ana*cough*gram*cough* ) and they've met the beholder and heard of him multiple times. He was always referred to as Orbius.
I can't wait until they discover that Orbius and Vhalantru are one and the same. BTW, how does Orbius do the imposting ? He doesn't have any spells that polymorph him into a human, does he ? Does he always need Thifirane for transformations ?
Cheers,
Nib
I used your extended verion of my diary and there is no mentioning of the name Vhalantru.
In the HC his name is Alahind Vhalantru. Among the cagewrights and allies he is known as Master Orbius. He is disguised by means of a simulacrum suit, prepared from the skin of the original Lord Vhalantru. Sometimes, when Orbius is too busy to attend public meetings Gortio the doubleganger poses as the Lord.
According to the HC he is only an ally to the cagewrights, but I made him a Master cagewright and one of the 13 (thanks to Delvesdeep).
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On an unrelated note I seem to be missing at which point the party receives Alkhast. It is mentioned that the party already wields Alkhast in the siege of Redgorge event so it must appear sometime during Zenith Trajectory or Test of the Smoking Eye but I'm not seeing it anywhere. I wanted to build a little side trek around retrieving Alkhast but I'm not sure where it should go.
I don't have the HC with me, but I think they find it hidden during the Demonskar Legacy.
On an unrelated note I seem to be missing at which point the party receives Alkhast. It is mentioned that the party already wields Alkhast in the siege of Redgorge event so it must appear sometime during Zenith Trajectory or Test of the Smoking Eye but I'm not seeing it anywhere. I wanted to build a little side trek around retrieving Alkhast but I'm not sure where it should go.I don't have the HC with me, but I think they find it hidden during the Demonskar Legacy.
Correct, Alakast is hidden behind the watchful eyes (a couple of monkee masks) in the lair/room of the three hags in Vaprak's Voice.
That's the chapter called the Demonskar Legacy.
Hmmm, maybe I changed his name earlier and don't remeber. Anyway, I know to remove the reference now. Thank you.
I see where Alkhast is now, V14, thanks. The entry is really buried in the text. I think I might send the group out on a side quest to recover Alkhast while they are still in Redgorge, before they head for the Demonskar. Or maybe after Zenith Trajectory, before the tax riot, probably not though.
Thanks for the help everyone. I would have found it eventually but I would have gotten annoyed first.
I am using that (excellent, nib!) diary as well, and saw "Orbius" there originally.
I hummed and hawed about even using that name for a while (the residents of Cauldron have been referring to him exclusively so far as simply "Lord Vhalantru"), but I don't want to foreshadow that Vhalantru is a villain in any way, shape, or form quite yet [as of Flood Season, in which my players are in the middle of] - and they can find it out easily since they can use divination spells (it's not often they do, but they have).
So, after much thinking and waffling, I decided to change that section of the diary to "that beholder". I'm still not entirely sure I made the right decision, as I wouldn't mind giving a name to the beholder that the PCs saw back in Life's Bazaar - and there's no actual guarantee that the players will see the name "Orbius" and connect it to said beholder they saw earlier, even if it's fairly obvious. But still... I don't want to give Vhalantru away quite yet, as I'm making him out to be a 'good guy'.
Ah well. They're nowhere near Skaven's room yet, so I still have time to decide.
[And then, maybe I can do what I see the HC does, and use a different first name. Hmmm.]
So, after much thinking and waffling, I decided to change that section of the diary to "that beholder".
This is what I decided to do as well, essentially. I want to play Vhalantru as a friend for as long as I can so that his betrayal is more profound. The drow blackguard will have fun with her sweet revenge, I'm sure. We're still a few weeks out from the start of the game but the wife has been talking endlessly about her character for the game.
Yeah, I changed the dates to mesh with my homebrew but I didn't remeber changing the name. Either way the name that appeared wasn't important. I just wasn't sure if it was good idea, I didn't think it was, to give any indication of suspicion on Vhalantru at that stage.
I have changed the reference in the document I'm using so that it refers to him by creature type instead of name. I hope that will allow the party to identify the big bad that came barging in at the end of Life's Bazaar.
Hmm, those foreshadowing articles are different than the Adimarchus and the Cagewrights document. Or am I mistaken and they're both pretty much the same? The foreshadowing events look different at first skim.
Either way, thanks for the pointer, Nib. Anything that helps me run a smoother and more interesting game is useful. theRPGenius.com has been invaluable for this. I put together a killer Player's Guide from a number of the articles on there and a healthy dose of original content.