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Starting at the Paizocon I did something fun. I decided to run my favorite of the Pathfinder stories, but to do it totally no maps or minis--a dungeon crawl but all in our heads. We used the signature characters and started at Thistletop with the hope of getting to finally tell the story of Nualia, perhaps my favorite character in the whole setting. Just a beautiful, sad, horrifying tale.
So we didn't get too far, basically to the Tentamort lair and we had to go and say goodbye to two of as fine roleplayers as I've ever met. The rest of the group were in my home group and have been pestering me to finish the game--pretty much since we got back.
So today we got the next session under our belts. They got their butts handed to them by the Yeth Hounds in the shrine (which as I understand is sort of a rite of passage in Burnt Offerings) and took off back to town as fast as they could.
There they ran into Aldern Foxglove--a character who reading the adventure I'd never much cared about. Then I played him off of them and the results were hilarious and gratifying like crazy. See he's this aggrivating obsessed fop aristocrat who has a thing for Seoni. Thing is he's also the guy who goes on to become the Skinsaw Man. So playing him there's this beautiful duality to him that's sort of sinister just under the surface. So he finds out that Seoni is trying to do research to help them plan their next assault on Thistletop and he presses her to go with him to the eccentric retired adventurer's place with all the rare curios in his basement, so they can go research together. It was really creepy and he eventually pressures her into going along. Eventually Merisiel ends up having to save her and the rest of the group rib her relentlessly about it. On one level it's like "ha-ha you were locked alone in the dark with the dorky aristocrat who's obsessed with you" but on a deeper level it was a lot creeper because of the truth behind it. Cool stuff. I'm really getting to like the character of Foxglove as a result. He's a lot more fun a badguy than I would have ever imagined. Just goes to show that sometimes in something as well written as Pathfinder, occasionally something just pops out and suprises the heck out of you. Kudos to the writers.
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We had a lot of fun with Aldern in my campaign as well. I put up a full post about our adventures with this that was long and rambling(I think it was titled something like 'Pett should be proud' or the like) but even more then the haunted mansion, the build up with Aldern was wonderful.
In my game the PC had actually almost taken to Aldern, half heartedly accepting an offer to come join him at his manor once it was restored(she said she would throw him a party) and all of this, then later when things started disappearing she was really spooked, but though one of the other party members mentioned Aldern, she shook of that thought because he seemed charming enough and she genuinely liked him.
Later, really play up the obsession, it does wonders for adding to the creepiness of the whole thing, not just to the object of it but all the players. Emphasize the notes and if you can find a reason or two to leave extra ones for the character do so, play out the jealousy of grayst that she is the masters favorite, and if you can find a chance for little objects(especially important if not valuable objects) to disappear its all the better when they finally meet Aldern. My player had really cherished a few little trinkets that reminded her of Desna that were taken, but when she finally found them amidst all the other things and realized just how deep the obsession went, she didn't know if she even wanted them anymore. And go ahead and be extensive about all the things Aldern has taken. The players all agreed that the empty potion bottle was really the point of it just being totally nuts.
-Tarlane
My player told me flat-out that he'd be bitterly disappointed if the PCs couldn't save Aldern, so I changed the off-stage events a little. They ended up dealing with a still-living Aldern who had used Vorel's notes to save his own life...but not prevent his partial transformation into a ghoul.
A fun confrontation followed, which I was expecting. What I was *not* expecting was for the PCs to then decide that they were responsible for Aldern's redemption, or at least making sure that he did not turn completely into a monster; so they adopted him into the party, and there he was, ghoulish to the bone, all the way through Spires of Xin-Shalast!
One of my best party NPCs ever. I particularly remember the moment when he was lurking in the Sandpoint graveyard waiting for the giants he'd personally killed to rise as ghouls. Midnight came and went, no ghouls-- and he realized that Karzoug had beaten him to their souls. Suddenly the PCs understood the real point of the whole giantish-invasion plan, which was cool. I also enjoyed contrasting his personal and very dark hatred of Karzoug with the PCs' somewhat more heroic feelings.
Watching the PCs try to quietly discourage Shelalu from falling in love with him was cool, too, and the "Aldern Foxglove as hero of Turtleback Ferry" moment.
Mary
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We had no female characters so he became fixated on our magic user.
THe magic user helped saved his life in Burnt Offerings and
it has continued to play through the story and back stories even
now that the npc is dead.
I actually had Aldern givesome property near the academie to the characters to use as a hq.
Jamie