|
At the end of Seven Days to the Grave, it was promised that future issiues of CoTCT would feature information about possible ways to include Rolth the necromancer if he manages to escape th PC's. well, Iv'e carefully scanned "Escape from old Korvosa" and "History of Ashes" ans finaly "Skeletons of scarwall", but there wasn't even a sidebar about him (Rolth). anyone know where is he?
thanks.
Creative Director
|
At the end of Seven Days to the Grave, it was promised that future issiues of CoTCT would feature information about possible ways to include Rolth the necromancer if he manages to escape th PC's. well, Iv'e carefully scanned "Escape from old Korvosa" and "History of Ashes" ans finaly "Skeletons of scarwall", but there wasn't even a sidebar about him (Rolth). anyone know where is he?
thanks.
Those promises were broken.
Basically, we had to choose between continuing Rolth's story or focusing on the rest of the story. I wish now that I'd not said anything about him escaping in Seven Days, honestly... and I suspect that most PCs won't let him escape anyway.
I believe that somewhere later on in the campaign we DO talk a little more about what he's been up to IF he escapes... we might not have been able to do that until the last adventure though.
But basically, the campaign itself DOES assume he's dead after Seven Days.
|
|
A real shame. I know my players and I know that when the time comes, they will love to hate Rolth. I also made up an adition to the plot where Rolth comes to hunt one of them in his dreams.
You can't have Evreyhing, I guess. I'll manage without him. By the way, Seven Days is probably the finest advanture ever made and I admire you for it, Mr. Jacobs. you'll have my vote for the ENnies! (and good luck, by the way).
|
Creative Director
|
A real shame. I know my players and I know that when the time comes, they will love to hate Rolth. I also made up an adition to the plot where Rolth comes to hunt one of them in his dreams.
You can't have Evreyhing, I guess. I'll manage without him. By the way, Seven Days is probably the finest advanture ever made and I admire you for it, Mr. Jacobs. you'll have my vote for the ENnies! (and good luck, by the way).
Keep in mind that just because we don't tell you what he's up to doesn't mean if he survives in your game that you can't use him to harry the PCs. The thing is... recurring villains are really tough to do, since you CAN'T assume that they'll live unless you cheat. And that's no fun. If the PCs defeat a bad guy fair and square, it's frustrating and lame to have boxed text or some other deus ex machina hardwired into the adventure that lets him get away just because he's got more stuff to do in the future. As a result... whenever we give a guy's stats, I usually assume he's not gonna make it out of the fight.
Word space is at a premium in an adventure, and as great as it would be to be able to include information on "what if" scenarios... detailing the adventure itself has to take precedence over things like "what if Rolth survives?"
So, if the PCs don't kill him, you don't have to let him go. We just don't have time to plot out what he does next. Same goes for most of the villains in any adventure.
I associated Rolth to one of my PCs as well. He was an orphan and Rolth eventually sold him to Gaedran Lamm when he wouldn't help him kidnap other kids.
I plan to use Rolth as the way to get the PCs to Scarwall should they fail the trials. I'll leave a few clues that Rolth is looking for a very powerful place of necromantic magic early on, and if the PCs can't get the Quahs to help them then they'll have Rolth to track down as a secondary objective and he'll lead them into Scarwall.
Otherwise depending upon whether the final book allows it he'll either be plugged in to replace another guardian of the Queen or he'll just be someone living beneath Korvosa waiting for the PCs to get just a little bit complacent. :)
|
Anybody familiar with the [url]Lone Wolf adventure books[/url] that were popular in the '80s/'90s? Mongoose published a d20 series based on the world. If you haven't, and might someday, don't read the spoiler.
So, to the tangential point of villains escaping: in Book 11 of Lone Wolf, "The Prisoners of Time," Lone Wolf ends up on a pocket dimension into which the worst of the world were tossed. These Villains of Sommerlund are fought as a single foe at the story's climax.
I'm thinking that one of Ileosa's more twisted subordinates--eagerly awaiting "Crown of Fangs"!--might let the crazies loose near the end of the campaign. Even though they'll be pushovers, it'd still be a helluva lot of fun to see the looks on the players' faces when they enter a chamber in Castle Korvosa and come upon the group of them dining like royalty.
|
|
spoilers! warning!
As a matter of fact, I planned to get Rolth into "Crowen of Fangs" too- but as an alley. While the PC's were out of towen kicking some undead asses, Rolth will return to Korvosa and start defieng Ileoses's autoraty with all his might, for he would fill (justly) threatend by the power of the queen. he will still despise the PC's, and won't officaly cooperate with them, but the divertion he will create with the hordes of undead he'll unleash throuout the city will be a great help for them.
End of spoilers!
James Jacobs- I know that I can't let Rolth run away without justification, so I figured I'll just add three or four grey maidens into the room. than, if enogh of them die and/or someone will manage to get Rolth into melee, he'll retreat.
and, if the PC's still kill him... well, I always wanted to have a Lich fighting the PC's...
My players faced him down with a bunch of priests and undead in the room, so he had time to play around. The guy playing the rogue always likes to have his character badmouth the baddies. So when Rolth showed up (I decided he'd had time to uncover who it was that had trashed his lab, his apprentice, and his golem) he promised pain for ruining his golem. The rogue chimes in and says "Our burning all the books in your library probably didn't help much either." That character spent a good chunk of the combat paralyzed on the floor from a ghoul touch spell delivered via a spectral hand, with the ranger busy guarding him against a coup de grace attack from various skeletons and scythe-wielding priests.
In the end, Rolth escaped. I plan on using him as a thorn in the PCs' sides once or twice more. As per a prior suggestion posted here, he'll show up in "Escape from Old Korvosa" with the Emperor. Depending on what goes on in "Crown of Fangs" I may have him make an appearance there as well...perhaps breaking Jolistina out of the Citadel.
Depending on how many died of the plague, there could be plenty of corpses around for Animate Dead as long as he enough onyx gems (since he knew this was coming, he might have stocked up - maybe the PCs can follow up with jewelers to get some trail on him.) He won't be able to control all of them, but Rolth could get his jollies by randomly animating the dead all over the city. That alone would keep guards and lots of clerics busy to add to the confusion of the city. It might even spice up some wandering or planned encounters.
The text implies Rolth has plenty of laboratories all over the city plus his mysterious home somewhere in Korvosa. You can have any number of mini-dungeons to play with. And again depending on how many died, there may be plenty of unoccupied buildings he could move or set up shop at. Personally I'd set him up at an estate right outside the city, similar to feudal manor and farm. He'd have all sorts of weird half-pig, half-lizard animal carrion golems, and a proper place to perform vivisection. I'd give him well preserved ju ju zombies as servants.
In the city, he could do all sorts of things like raid a weakened Acadamae for special materials. Send zombies en masse to terrified noble survivors of the plague to extort them.
Maybe he's able to seal off a neighborhood with zombie guards so that the plague cure cannot be administered without a good fight.
I'd give him a wry sense of humor by magic jarring into a person with zombies behind him carrying a cart, ringing a bell and saying "Bring out your dead."
He'd send a zombie with a note pinned on him to merchnats and guildsmen offering "low skill labor" at low, low prices. And then send a mass of skeletons over to the butcher shops, shipyards, and coopers.
He'd animate dead Otyughs which would come shambling out of the underground vomiting sewage.
He'd set undead to mindless work, like directing traffic or setting up roadblocks and detours. Repetitive tasks he could abandon them to.
Animate dead rats or vermin and send them into the grain stores to contaminate and rot the food. Or go into the wells and other supplies of fresh water.
I'd have him dress up a zombie as Blackjack so he could go out and "save" the city. It'd terrify everyone. I'd even have him find a pretty blonde whose hair he could cut to be his "Trinia." Then hang a note over their necks with writing of "Savior of the City."
Send a huge mob of zombies and skeletons to "rally" in front of Castle Korvosa with signs that read "Thanks for saving us!"
I'd do anything I could to taunt and harass the PCs without ever giving them a target. Wear them do. Provoke them into doing something rash or stupid.
You have an entire city filled with dead people. Use it!
|
It just seems like it could add that much more This to the "This Is Going Down, Now." feel of Korvosa at that point, whatever This is.