My party just finished their battle with Nualia and her henchmen. But Orik and Lyrie got away together, and I'm wondering what they would do next.
Some background:
The party's assault on Thistletop was going pretty well at first. They were able to take out Gogmurt the Druid and the other goblins and dogs without any major losses. The large radius of Entangle made it hard for Gogmurts alies to help him, despite his mobility in the briars. He went down, but he got a warning off.
The party detected the trap on the bridge, secured it, and crossed over. The front doors were barred and all the tower goblins were alert. The party began taking arrows from the towers as the rat-dog riding commandos came charging around the corner of the fort. A grand melee ensued, but the party prevailed, laying waste to the mounted goblins and their dogs and clearing both towers.
They scaled one of the towers and gained entry to the fort that way. They found the throne room fairly quickly and another big fight began. One PC was dropped to negatives, but eventually Ripnugget got his nuggets rippped out.
The PCs finished exploring the 1st level, and decided to take the "back" (North) stairs down to the first dungeon level. They walked right past the room where Lyrie was doing research alone and opened the door to the Temple. The two Yeth hounds both used their Bay attack, and only 2 out of 6 PCs made both saving throws.
Oops. Now everyone with ears within 300 feet knows something is up. The four a-feared PCs bolt back upstairs, while the two un-feared PCs stick around for a round or two to slam the temple doors shut and pick up dropped weapons.
(I assumed that the yeth hounds had been baying once per 24 hours so that all of Nualia's allies would be "immunized" against the fear attack if they ever had to use it in an actual fight.)
Lyrie bravely ran away through the secret door towards Nualia. Orik made a beeline for where Lyrie was, since he's sweet on her, but she was gone by the time he got there. Bruthazmus, with his faster move speed, passed Orik up and figured out that the PCs had gone back up the North stairs. Bruthazmus and Orik blocked the door at the bottome of the North stairs, and then Bruthazmus used the South stairs to sneak up on the Party and stage an ambush.
Bruthazmus dropped a bit of damage on a few PCs and then ran away when the party started to surround him. The PCs followed cautiously. Eventually, fought Orik and Bruthazmus one more time before the bad guys retreated through the secret door to the 2nd dungeon level. The PCs blocked the secret door. They un-blocked the door to the Temple and killed the Yeth hounds. The spotted the Tentamort before it could attack, and killed it from range. Then they rested for the night in the Tentamort's lair. They let the goblin wives and babies get away in the night.
The next day, they un-blocked the secret door and went down to fight Nualia and her crew. Obviously, they were expected. The fight happened mostly in the trapped corridor. It's never good news when a porticulus cuts off the point man from the rest of the party.
It came close to a TPK because Nualia had more support than I had originally expected. I thought one or more of Nualia's allies would have been caught and greased on the first dungeon level, but the all managed to get away.
The PCs killed the yeth hound, then Bruthazmus, and then Nualia. At least two of six PCs were down when Nualia dropped. But Orik was still fresh and he wanted to try and get away with Lyrie so he pressed the attack. He dropped one more PC but then was taken down to 2 hp by the Fumble Deck. So he dropped his sword and surrendered. Lyrie said "Agree to let us go, or I start shooting magic missiles into your downed friends."
The three upright party members agreed.
So Orik and Lyrie took off from Thistletop and never looked back.
So my question is, where do they go now? Orik is hot for Lyrie, so he would probably try to stay with her. But would Lyrie want to stay with Orik? At the end he (and a few mirror images) was the only thing between Lyrie's paltry hit points and the swords of the PCs.
I assume they would probably go to Magnimar. If they do go to Magnimar, do they somehow contact Xanesha or come to her attention? Should I insert them somewhere in Skinsaw?
Another possibility is that they stop in Sandpoint. Orik and Lyrie have a head start, and until the PCs get back to town, no one in Sandpoint has any reason to connect them with the goblins. Lyrie would probably be interested in finding out about Tsuto. The party killed him, so she'll be pissed about that and want to take revenge. But two against six PCs is bad odds. And they wouldn't be able to show their faces around town once the PCs got back.
So does anyone have any other interesting ideas?
In my campaign, Orik hired on as a Sandpoint guard after a different one quit. The PCs have heard about this, but haven't run into him yet. (This isn't contrived on my part--I have a watch schedule and check it when they encounter a guard.)
Lyrie was very badly burned in the Thistletop assault, and is bandaged up and healing while Orik works. The PCs have heard of this, but never learned the NPCs' names during the assault and haven't made the connection yet. By the time that they do Orik will have been working as a member of the guard for a little while and hopefully will have had some time to make some friends. :D
Well Lyrie didn't make it in my campaign. However Orik did and was convinced to help against Naulia. He needed quite a bit of healing.
Anyway far later in the campaign he is leader of the pc's gaurd at the Fort.
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Well Lyrie didn't make it in my campaign. However Orik did and was convinced to help against Naulia. He needed quite a bit of healing.
Anyway far later in the campaign he is leader of the pc's gaurd at the Fort.
Same here. In my group they captured Tsuto, but didn't tie him up very well, so he escaped. Orik surrendered, but they didn't want his help, so they let him run off. He was eventually picked up in Magnimar and set to Rannick to reform. He ended up being the only Black Arrow to survive the move to retake Fort Rannick (and boy, was Shalelu pissed to see her step dad get killed only a day or two after their reconciliation!). The cleric moved to make him the second in command at the fort, and made Orik his cohort.
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In my campaign, the group had captured Tsuto and sent him to Magnimar for trial. I figured that with Tsuto alive but in danger, it would cause Lyrie to leave thistletop to go and try and save him, which she did by alerting Ironbriar(who I decided, for flavor purposes was Tsuto's real father, providing a connection between Nualia and the cult should she have escaped).
When the party encountered Orik in the dungeon, he had little enough cause to stay there, having already become disillusioned with the group and now short his main squeeze, agreed to abandon the building and just walk away when he encountered well armed opposition.
Essentially, when Tsuto was released he learned that Nualia was killed and abandoned Lyrie to try and collect her body and have her raised, Lyrie, clearly a firecracker and now a woman scorned met up with the party secretly and told them of his connection to Ironbriar and why he was let off(a good red herring as they stopped considering Ironbriar corrupt at that point and just thought he was looking out for a wayward son, while still having an introduction to him for when they encountered him later).
Orik, meanwhile had genuinely set out to simply wander without causing further trouble for the group. Our parties paladin, however, decided she didn't trust that he wouldn't come back to bite them in the ass later, so every time they were out and about(or even just in sandpoint) she would ask around at all the taverns to see if anyone had seen him and just generally tried to pick out where he was and what he was up to to keep tabs on him.
This of course eventually got back to Orik and he just caught her alone and asked her why she has been stalking after him, a moment which seems that it could have turned romantic between them(for which the rest of the players have been teasing her mercilessly). We will have to see where that goes when they return from hook mountain.
I have been telling my players that I seem to be running a soap opera as a campaign this time, it is interesting to see all the connections between the different characters and how tangled up they can be.
Ironbriar (who I decided, for flavor purposes was Tsuto's real father).
I remember reading this on the boards before, and I always thought it was a clever idea. Does anyone recall if James Jacobs posted the "Canon" version of Tsuto's father? The way the Paizo likes to weave relationships between the PCs throughout the AP's, I bet they're bummed the didn't think of this first (unless there's another link waiting to be published).
So maybe Tsuto knew his father was Ironbriar. Maybe Lyrie found out as well, and she goes to talk to Ironbriar to try and get support for her revenge.
But she might just lurk around Sandpoint and try to find a way to discredit the PCs. Once the Skinsaw stuff starts, there will be plenty of opportunities for someone to cast additional suspicion on the PCs. If Lyrie were to somehow hook up with the Skinsaw man, that could be interesting. Maybe she just goes crazy and starts blasting at the PCs in the middle of the street or while their eating dinner at an Inn. With Orik chasing after her saying "please don't do it baby, you can't win!" That might be interesting.
One of the PCs is from Riddleport, and he made his skill check to recognize Orik. I figured that the son of one of the local crime lords would be easy to recognize, especially after the incident involving the hot tiefling chick with huge boobs and purple eyes. So Orik has already been "unlucky in love" at least once. Does he learn his lesson and ditch Lyrie? Or does he try to stick with her?
Overall, I think it's inevitable that Lyrie will come into conflict with the party again. I just haven't decided how. So the party may regret letting her go (but the didn't have much choice at the time). But if Orik doesn't manage to win over Lyrie, he will continue to be a somewhat tragic figure who won't pick any fights with the PCs if they don't start one first.
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In my game, Orik became an ally and is now a henchman sweet on one of the PCs and hoping that third time is the charm.
Lyrie was captured and has been taken to Magnimar. I plan to have her show up in Skinsaw, probably with Ironbriar, et al, to add some fire support.
Could be an interesting twist since Orik is with the group now and may be there if he survives the Misgivings.