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I just got my copy of CotCT #1 today, and while flipping through it I noticed something a bit odd. Zellara claims that Gaedren Lamm's thugs stole her treasured Harrow deck, yet a few moments later claims that those very cards are the ones in her hands...but she never bothers to say how the deck was returned to her.
For those who've already started playing the adventure, did anyone catch this discrepancy and confront Zellara with it? If so, how did your DM have her explain it away?
Creative Director
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I just got my copy of CotCT #1 today, and while flipping through it I noticed something a bit odd. Zellara claims that Gaedren Lamm's thugs stole her treasured Harrow deck, yet a few moments later claims that those very cards are the ones in her hands...but she never bothers to say how the deck was returned to her.For those who've already started playing the adventure, did anyone catch this discrepancy and confront Zellara with it? If so, how did your DM have her explain it away?
Well...
How it SHOULD work now: she should just say that she's got a new harrow deck if the PCs ask; she had to sell most of her belongings to get it (hence her barely-decorated home) though.
Hey James -
This may be a stupid question, but, I'm not getting it...
Why would she lie to the PCs?
James - Thanks for the quick reply.
Hey James -
This may be a stupid question, but, I'm not getting it...
Why would she lie to the PCs?
Not stupid at all! My guess is that Zellara's walking a fine line between recruiting the PCs for the mission and scaring them off of it. The more honest she is with the PCs the better an adventure lead-in she is.
If, on the other hand, the heroes somehow find out immediately that A) she's a ghost; B) she's lied to them; and C) going after Lamm is what got her killed in the first place, they might become seriously suspicious of Zellara and her motives and not be very gung-ho about taking up her mission.
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Creative Director
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Hey James -
This may be a stupid question, but, I'm not getting it...
Why would she lie to the PCs?
Because she knows she's a ghost and she's afraid that if the PCs find out she's a ghost she'll scare them off. She's pretty much put all she's got into contacting this group of PCs, and she knows if she messes it up she'll probably never get another chance to do the same, so she's just taking it VERY carefully.
Cool- thanks guys!
This part gives me a good insight on how to play it:
"She's pretty much put all she's got into contacting this group of PCs, and she knows if she messes it up she'll probably never get another chance to do the same..."
Desperation - I love it!
Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you’re my only hope. :-)
I must have misread it ** spoiler omitted **
You're right. The cards are merely illusions. The issue is that the PCs don't know that, and she tells them she lost her deck. Thus, they might wonder how she has cards now.
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Creative Director
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I must have misread it ** spoiler omitted **You're right. The cards are merely illusions. The issue is that the PCs don't know that, and she tells them she lost her deck. Thus, they might wonder how she has cards now.
Correct. Actually, her telling the PCs that the cards were stolen and then her having cards is kind of a cool clue to observant PCs, to let them know there's more going on here than she says. If they confront her, I suggest having her pause for a moment and then give the line about selling her stuff to afford a new deck. It's a simple explanation that should suffice, but when the PCs find her "stuff" later on, it sets up a cool spooky moment.
Correct. Actually, her telling the PCs that the cards were stolen and then her having cards is kind of a cool clue to observant PCs...I must have misread it ** spoiler omitted **You're right. The cards are merely illusions....
Now wait a minute, the background gives the sequence of events as this:
(and no, I'm not using the spoiler button. If you're a player reading this board, then you're cheating, and I can assume you'll just hit the spoiler button anyway to continue cheating, so you should slink off in shame now)
1) Zellara's Harrow deck ("a family heirloom and her only source of income") is stolen
2) Her son, Eran, goes to get it back
3) Gaedren's thugs kill Eran, sending his head and hands to Zellara in a box
4) Zellara tracks down Lamm using the Harrow's divinations to aid her
This is all before she dies, with no mention of the deck being returned to her.
If you're offering this as a solution for DM's to use to fix an error in the module, that's fine. But this isn't how it's written.
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1) Zellara's Harrow deck ("a family heirloom and her only source of income") is stolen
2) Her son, Eran, goes to get it back
3) Gaedren's thugs kill Eran, sending his head and hands to Zellara in a box
4) Zellara tracks down Lamm using the Harrow's divinations to aid her
I think that 4 can be split into
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Creative Director
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Now wait a minute, the background gives the sequence of events as this...
Here's how the sequence actually went.
1) Zellara's Harrow deck ("a family heirloom and her only source of income") is stolen
2) Her son, Eran, goes to get it back
3) Gaedren's thugs kill Eran, sending his head and hands to Zellara in a box
4) Zellara buys or acquires a new harrow deck. They're not THAT expensive.
5) Zellara tracks down Lamm using the Harrow's divinations to aid her .
Sorry it wasn't more clear, but there ya go.
I'm not sure where you're going or what you're trying to say when you say "If you're offering this as a solution for DM's to use to fix an error in the module, that's fine. But this isn't how it's written." If you're trying to get me to admit that there IS an error in there, I've already admitted as such. EVERY Pathfinder will have errors. I wish it weren't the case, but it is. We don't have the manpower to do exhaustive edits of these guys and still keep them on a monthly schedule. What I CAN do though is do the best I can to make sure that the majority of the errors are caught.
Again, sorry this one crept through, but I hardly think it makes the adventure unplayable. Especially when you keep in mind the fact that Zellara herself is hardly in the position to remember everything that happened to her. Dying and coming back as a ghost has to have SOME effects on your memory!
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I explained it this way:
1. Zellara's deck is stolen.
2. Her son steals it back.
3. Lamm has Zellara's son killed for stealing from him.
4. Zellara uses the deck to find Lamm.
5. Zellara goes to confront Lamm (with the deck on her person) and is killed.
6. The deck and cards the players encounter when they meet Zellara are ILLUSIONS!
Made sense to me.
JoS
I explained it this way:
1. Zellara's deck is stolen.
2. Her son steals it back.
3. Lamm has Zellara's son killed for stealing from him.
4. Zellara uses the deck to find Lamm.
5. Zellara goes to confront Lamm (with the deck on her person) and is killed.
6. The deck and cards the players encounter when they meet Zellara are ILLUSIONS!Made sense to me.
JoS
That's a fairly elegant solution.
*Yoink*
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My solution was to slightly edit Zellara's speech on page 11.
Change "...his thieves stole this, my Harrow deck, from me" to simply "his thieves stole a Harrow deck from me." Plus, delete "and also my sole means of support."
The speech still flows fine, emphasizes that the deck is an important heirloom, and doesn't draw attention to the deck in her hand. Everything else plays as written.
My players never questioned it, perhaps taking it for granted that a fortune teller would have a lesser-quality "backup" deck on hand. The way I understood it, Zellara's divination comes from her latent magical skill, not the deck, so it didn't matter which deck she used to find Lamm.
The only way I knew to do that was by reading this thread, so a big "thanks" to the OP for pointing it out!
We don't have the manpower to do exhaustive edits of these guys...
Darn, I'm still a year away from finishing my copyediting certification. If you haven't filled that copyeditor position by then, I'll be sure to reapply!
... If you're trying to get me to admit that there IS an error in there, I've already admitted as such.
Yep, actually, that's all I wanted. I didn't say it makes it unplayable or that it's a major error. And I don't expect them to all be 100% error free, especially not at the pace you folks are trying to keep. I'd rather have great stories coming each month like they are with a few mistakes than spotless stuff coming every other month or quarter.
I thought I HAD seen you say that it was an error in text and I thought, "OK, cool, it's a mistake and here's how to fix it." In later posts, however, I thought you were contradicting that a la jedi mind trick (this isn't the error you thought it was... she never got the cards back and the deck is just an illusion). THAT's why I posted, and I apologize if I misread your earlier posts. I get now that you were saying the current deck is an illusion because she's a ghost, irregardless of what happened to the original physical deck.
We don't have the manpower to do exhaustive edits of these guys and still keep them on a monthly schedule.
SHAMELESS PIMPING:
Being a novice DM and playing with an experienced player, my PC's DID question it. Luckily, I managed to blag it and said it was a 'special' deck that was stolen. I'm glad they didn't figure out the twist or it would have spoiled the
I ran this last Friday, and the way I got around it was to have Zellara tell the players at the first meeting that Graeden still had the deck.
Since the death of her son, Zellara managed to put together an incomplete deck, which she used as calling cards to bring the players together, and for the first reading (the one with the Dex cards only).
I kept the focus of Zellara's speech on seeking justice against Graeden, rather than retrieving the deck. At the end of our first night the players ended by taking the retrieved deck back to her home.
I just got my copy of CotCT #1 today, and while flipping through it I noticed something a bit odd. Zellara claims that Gaedren Lamm's thugs stole her treasured Harrow deck, yet a few moments later claims that those very cards are the ones in her hands...but she never bothers to say how the deck was returned to her.For those who've already started playing the adventure, did anyone catch this discrepancy and confront Zellara with it? If so, how did your DM have her explain it away?
What I would say the deck she's shuffling could be hers. Like she claims she managed to snatch them back even though in reality she was killed.
I explained it this way:
1. Zellara's deck is stolen.
2. Her son steals it back.
3. Lamm has Zellara's son killed for stealing from him.
4. Zellara uses the deck to find Lamm.
5. Zellara goes to confront Lamm (with the deck on her person) and is killed.
6. The deck and cards the players encounter when they meet Zellara are ILLUSIONS!Made sense to me.
JoS
That's how I read it as well.
Glad these boards are here; I'm going to start this AP in, say, February. Getting the hiccups and burps out pre-play will help a lot.
In my campaign, this is how I presented it.
1. The deck gets stolen by one of Lamm's Lambs.
2. Zellara's son tries to get it back but gets caught.
3. Lamm sends Zellara her son's head and her cards in a box as if to say "You want your cards... then have them. *spit*".
Zellara the ghost only tells the PCs the story up to #3. Her son is dead, she has her cards, and she wants revenge.
Of course in reality the following events also happen:
4) After several months, Zellara divines Lamm's location but gets caught and killed.
5) Zellara's ghost contacts the PCs. At this point everything (including her deck at her house) is a ghost/illusion.