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If you are a player in the PSU Shackled City game please don’t read this!
Hello fellow SCAPers! I’ve run into a little snag in my own campaign after the events of Zenith Trajectory. The party successfully saved Zenith and all was well as they returned him back to Cauldron. They made their way through the city and eventually brought him to ‘Celeste’ (Vhlantru’s doppelganger) in the Cusp of Sunrise. She told them that the clan leader of the Splintershields had returned to his home in the mountains for health reasons and that he had left the funds to pay a mage to teleport Zenith to him. The party seemed fine with this and gladly excepted their awards. He is where the problem hit however….One of the PCs is a member of the Splintershield clan. When the mage went to take Zenith to ‘his father’ she wanted to go with him to see her people again. The mage (a Cagewright minion) was rude and asked for more money in order to convince her to relent, but when she wouldn’t (and actually said she would pay) he decided to take her with. The party does not expect her back for a few days at least and we ended the session there with the party beginning downtime.
You can see my problem now. Both dwarves have obviously not been teleported to the Splintershield Clan home. I’m thinking they are either in the Fiery Sanctum or Oblivion right now and she is essentially going to be overwhelmed by the high level baddies waiting to bag Zenith. The player herself already knows she did not reach the home of her people, but I have not shared what she actually sees with her yet. What are my options here? The PC has the Scarred Soul trait and is a shackleborn just like Zenith so I can’t see them killing her outright. What would they do with her? Where is she? Is there any chance the other PCs can find and save her without disrupting the later adventures of the path?
Thanks!
I guess it's not great to take a player's character out of action without appropriate die rolls, but I'd almost say you should just tell the player to roll up a new character. The ideal hook is [player's former PC] has disappeared, new PC is somehow connected to the old PC, wants to find out what happened. Since the old PC is shackleborn, that probably means the party will find her in a cage, 8 episodes hence.
Alternatively, you can figure out a way to put the PC into the villains' clutches, but in a way that doesn't reveal everything. It's OK if they know something fishy is going on, but don't know that Vhalantru is connected to it. Maybe you can get the PCs thinking that Celeste was a doppelganger all along, or something like that. You can then figure out how to string them along by somehow using this as a hook to the next adventure in the series. This solution is harder to pull off, but much less arbitrary for the player involved.
Unless maybe you can figure out a way for the teleport spell to purposefully shunt the PC to a completely different location than the other teleportees, leaving the PC none the wiser.
Well, so what if they arrive at the Splintershield Clanhold, and Davked is not there? "Wow, that's weird, I was sure he'd be here!" They teleport back to Cauldron.
Of course, then the party is going to want to find Davked. Now the Cagewrights have to come up with something. Perhaps "Davked" turned aside on his journey to go to a local hotspring that is reputed to have healing powers. The Cagewrights set up some illusions or whatever is required. Remember, at this point they are _much_ higher level than the PCs, so you can probably just gloss over it.
Now the party (or just the relative) teleport in there, hand Zenith over to "Davked". If they don't want to, have a few of Adrick Garthun's dwarven thugs on hand to add some "persuasion". The party may end up suspicious, but that's OK.
Have fun!
Steve
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Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'm still a bit torn about what exactly I'm going to do. Here is a little more information about the situation that might help explain what options I have. The real Davked actually IS at the Splintershield clan home. I have not decided whether or not the real one has expired, but if the PC, wizard and Zenith actually teleport to the clan home then the gig will be up no matter what. This is because Davked never actually left the clan home to come to Cauldron and the dwarves there will most certainly wonder who was impersonating this leader and will most certainly want to protect Zenith.
The wizard is also not a fool, he is not going to teleport into a dangerous situation like that. He is going to go to a Cagewright stronghold and just let them "handle the spare". Here is how I'm handling the party's suspicions. Celeste will look like the bad guy here. The party already suspects something since the warlock detected a minor transmutation aura (the glibness potion) on her. When the return to Vhlantru to ask why this evil woman was staying with him, he will claim he was charmed by her and the spell recently expired. He has not seen her since. He will be very apologetic and promises to help the party locate the evil doer. 'Celeste' will not be seen again of course since her usefullness as a decoy is over.
My main problem with the PC just biting it and not appearing till 13 Cages is that the player has voiced discontent with dying 'off camera' and does not want to die in the first place.
As another suggestion you could have the dwarves captured and separated. Zenith is whisked away while the PC is held over in a lower security place until the Cagewrights decide what to do with her. Perhaps, early in the next session the remaining PCs catch wind that something is up and stage a daring rescue.
This could tell them that something major is going on and perhaps tie back to the events at the end of Chapter 1 when the captured PC sees a mysterious beholder along to fetch Zenith.
That's the way I'd play it anyway. That gets things back on track and foreshadows future events without the player having to make a new character.
Just an idea.
Use the spell "Modify Memory" (Bard 4, PHB 255). Character returns to party remembering the happy reunion between father and son, and the grouchy wizard who made them teleport back right away (or better yet, have them teleport on a couple of the wizard's random errands to other cities, as an excuse why he was pressed for time). He doesn't remember the group of high-level baddies who bushwacked him... but maybe he will start remembering things (dreams, etc) in the future. A good way to foreshadow events and give the characters some idea of what they're up against.
I don't remember if there is a Cagewright Bard, but you can always invent one. Also assume that the wizard had time to do a Sending to set everything up.
You don't want to just kill the guy's character, or take him out of play for a half-dozen modules. Nobody likes that. What I'm really suggesting here is rationalizing DM fiat -> you don't want a certain thing to happen, so find the reason why it doesn't.
Steve
I recently re-read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The situation in the book regarding Alistor Moody sounds perfect for yout game. If your player wants to play along that is.
I would ask the player if he wants to play a doppleganger traitor for a while. His PC would be captured and held by the cagewrights while they introduce a mole into the group. The in-game explenation is that the cagewrights (or Vhalantru) is impressed and wary of the PCs and wants to keep a closer eye on them. If something is amis, the doppleganger can step in and remedy the situation, perhaps even helping the cagewrights plot along.
The original PC is kept alive to provide details about the pcs their abilities and a mirand of other information the doppleganger can't remember. The doppleganger would have to keep the PC secure and within reach in order for this plot to succeed. The added bonus is that if the PCs discover the doppleganger, they have easy acces to the original PC.
If your player is scared soul, then the CWs want her as badly as they want Zenith. Maybe the mook doesn't realize this about her. Sadly there is no easy way to lock her up in a near future module. The party will not be interacting with the CW's until the assassins attack. Locking her up in the church on Wee Jas is a possibility but would require a stealth rescue. I don't know if you want the party to know that much info this early.
In the end I think the easiest out you have is to just have the mook teleport away without your PC.
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I think I've found a solution to the issue that makes sense in the mind of the CW while still allowing my player to keep her character. The Cagewrights only need 13 shackleborn in order to suceed on their mission and they most certainly want the rest of the PCs dead. Therefore they are going to set a trap for them using the lost PC as bait! Perhaps I can run the Necronaunt encounter that Delvesdeep came up with? I'm trying to think of a nasty death trap that could be used in this situation. For now I'll let her play as Shensen until her original PC is located.
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Another possibility would be to have the mage panic and teleport the PC to some random location. This works especially well if he doesn't know that she is Shackleborn, otherwise he would have a reason to attempt to capture her. If the mage just teleports her away, he can later claim that something went wrong with the spell and Zenith could be anywhere, which could also explain why he never arrived at his clan's home.