After a number of party deaths, my players were feeling a bit overwhelmed by the SCAP, so, after raiding the church of Wee Jas, they decided to go back to Occipitus, grab all the shiny things they saw in the Plain of Cysts, and track that black dragon back to his lair, and presumably his hoard.
So they did. But for a couple of nights before they did, the bard went from tavern to tavern performing the story of how the Blue Duke bowed down to Nabthatoron at the Battle of Redgorge, and how Lord Vhalantru is not the lawful leader of Cauldron.
Basic rabble rousing, then the party headed off to Occipitus for 2 weeks.
They come back to Cauldron to find the Tipped Tankard overrun by low-level bards (about 50 of them). The bard took the leadership feat, so his followers have arrived. He teaches them an abridged version of his "Ballad of the Battle of Redgorge" and sends them into the city.
Meanwhile, the party wizard has a scrying list of people he's checking on every morning. He gets to his day for checking on Vitriss Bale, and poor Vitriss rolls a 1 on his Will save. The wizards sees a dragon skeleton with a greenish tinge talking to a pillar made of grayish white flesh. He puts two and two together and, understandably, poops his pants (figuratively).
So they're not much interested in going to Kurran Kurral. When they get back from Occipitus, Fellian (who has become a cohort) gets the telepathic call from Meerthan about Fario and we start on Lords of Oblivion. They save Fario and put house Rhiavadi under surveillance.
The rogue follows Kazmojen (who is replacing Adrick Garthun IMC) leaving House Rhiavadi, and misses his Listen check, so instead of hearing Kaz grumbling about how everyone's waiting for Lord Ashmantle and they'll give him 2 more days until they hold the meeting without him, only hears "Lord Ashmantle."
Meanwhile the bard sends half of his followers off to take over the Lucky Monkey, and the wizard researches Kurran Kural and finds out where it is. The party decides to head off to Kurran Kural!!!
Argh. So long background leading to a request for advice: I've set the LoO meeting at House Rhiavadi for 2 more days. The party could quite easily be at Kurran Kural longer than that, so they'll miss the big meeting. If so, the wannabe Cagewrights are going to come after them.
Step 1: The Blue Duke and Kazmojen lead the Town Guard (who they now run) on a massacre of the remaining bards at the Tipped Tankard.
Step 2: A simultaneous assault on Fario, Fellian, and Meerthan at the Drunken Morkoth by Khyron Bonesworn and Velior Thazo that should pretty much kill all three of them.
Wait one day for the party to show themselves, if not, target more of the party's known associates (Skie, another assassin strike on Shensen who's now in Redgorge, Jenya).
I'm hesitant to run these things "in the background" while the party is away dungeoneering, but I find it ludicrous from a story point of view to postpone the LoO meeting indefinitely until the party can be a part of it. They're going to miss a big reveal for the campaign overall (the Cagewright plot), and I'm afraid of the larger implications of having them miss the meeting, then basically having the Striders wiped out as a political force and its impact on Foundation of Flame.
So any thoughts? How do I keep the bad guys moving their plot along w/o screwing over the big reveal the party needs?
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The easiest fix I can think of would be to have the Striders maintain the surveillance of House Rhiavadi and allow one of them to get the information. You can then have most of the Striders get wiped out by the badguys when they try to put a stop to them but allow one to get away and report to the PCs, or you can just have them track the characters down to fill them in on what happened at the meeting as soon as it's over.
Have Meerthan or another Striders tell them that all the assassins in the region will be in one place at one time in 2 days. Then ask them to postpone there dungeon crawl for a few days.
The easiest fix I can think of would be to have the Striders maintain the surveillance of House Rhiavadi and allow one of them to get the information. You can then have most of the Striders get wiped out by the badguys when they try to put a stop to them but allow one to get away and report to the PCs, or you can just have them track the characters down to fill them in on what happened at the meeting as soon as it's over.
That's a great idea, except the party specifically told the Striders NOT to go near House Rhiavadi in order to keep them safe (since Fario was kidnapped while on a stakeout there).
Though there's no reason the Striders have to listen to the PC's...