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All of the hooks in Seven Days to the Grave are of the “NPC tells the party to go to X” variety. I want the PCs investigations to lead them to the various hooks, not for NPCs to lead them there. Also, the story of the Direption has some issues as noted in other threads. My ideas for changing the adventure to give the PCs clues to follow-up on:
The cult is going to spread disease by having others unknowingly spread it for them. They find some greedy merchants willing to turn over some of their merchandise, the cult infects it, gives it back, and asks the merchant to sell it quickly and cheaply. In return for this, the merchant is paid handsomely. Unfortunately for the merchant, the cult is going to kill the merchant shortly afterwards so that no trace is left.
The cult also used an intermediary, Girrigz and his gang of wererats, to make the deals and distribute the Death Head Coffers (DHCs).
The merchants in question:
Giotorri's Toys: Infected items were some simple rag dolls. Giottorri put these out for display on the street where many children played with them and they were quickly stolen (not that Giotorri cared). Brieena is clutching one of these dolls when the PCs come to see her. At the temple of Abadar, they might also see one or two other sick children with the dolls. This is the major clue to start the adventure.
At Giotorri’s, the PCs hopefully find the Death Head Coffer (DHC) and the key to the vault of Abadar. Using Locate Object, they can track down other DHC. At Abadar’s, they can check with the sick priests to see if anybody else unusual made a large deposit.
Kreel McGee: Runs a small stall in the Reefclaw Run Market that sells crackers. The Red Mantis assasins found Kreel, killed him, and stuffed him into his flour bin (the ragged cut across his throat being a chance to forshadow the Red Mantis). Kreel had finished with the DHC and tossed it in the small creek behind his stall. PCs can find this with Locate Object.
Brio Sage: The elder member of Hessim, Newby, and Sage; Brio was happy for a chance to earn some corn he doesn’t have to share with the others. He happily received dozens of small tainted jars of white paint. Brio can come to the PCs attention because of the priest that was made sick when Brio came to open a new, private account. Brio can be found in his home, his throat cut out by a Red Mantis blade. The assassins took the DHCs with them.
Ruis Vindmel: Ruis worked at the West End docks selling fish dumplings on a stick. His tainted sticks have infected dozens of dock workers. Rius got nervous about the deal and decided that it would be best to leave town in a hurry. He booked passage on the Direption and sailed away.
He would have made it except for the Red Mantis that were hot on his tail. The Red Mantis ended up having to kill all of the crew and they then burnt the ship to hide their tracks. (So, rather than the Direption being a plague ship coming in, it is a ship that burns and sinks in the harbor as it was leaving.) Bodies that float ashore have the jagged cut throat that Brio and Kreel do.
The PCs can learn about Ruis from a sick priest of Abadar who describes a very nervous Ruis emptying out his account. Ruis’ home is ransacked by the Red Mantis. Gather Information at the docks will let the PCs know that Ruis was on the Direption. Locate Object in the harbor (it’s too far out and too far down to have worked from land) will lead to the Yvicca encounters (might move that to sea caves rather than remains of the ship).
Lavender: Received several bottles of tainted perfume from the cult. She happily sprayed thes on her customers. Once all of her customers got sick, Lavendar needed a new line of business and started selling fake plague cures. (Lavendar hasn’t put 2 and 2 together though to realize she helped do it).
Lavendar still has the DHC in her office and it can be found with Locate Object. The spawn that killed Giotorri were supposed to kill Lavendar but they never got around to it. If Lavendar can be made to talk, she can lead the PCs to the inn and identify the gang member who was her contact. That member will give up the location of the wererats in the sewers. Papers in Girrigz lair might implicate the doctor again or perhaps he has a doctor’s mask.
Carowyn Manor: The Queen wanted the Carowyn's gone and got that message delivered to Dr. Davalus. Dr. Davalus approached the Carowyn's and told them of his desire to be "introduced" to Korvosan society. He gave them a large supply of tainted money for them to throw a party in his honor.
Unfortunately, Lord Carowyn turned this money over to his servants without touching it. The servants spent it at the Three Rings tavern buying the party supplies. Once Davalus saw that the Carowyn's themselves were not getting sick, he told Rolth to finish the job (who then sent Jolistina to do it).
The PCs can learn of the Carowyn's by questioning the sick staff at the Three Rings.
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1: Do your PC's regularly prepare Locate Object?
2: Do they routinely do the "Law & Order" question everyone thing?
3: Are they good at/do they enjoy the whole "put together little bits of clues" to find the end mystery thing?
If yes on at least 2 of these 3, I would say you're very well set for some investigative funtimes in a plague-city.
If they start floundering, you may want to place the DHC a bit more obviously, or risk the group missing out on that rather important bit of info.
Of course, they could get jumped by a red-mantis, or interrupt one on his mission, and get some info off of his corpse, too.
-t
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Are your players likely to have issues following the clues, because I'm currently running this and in order to get them to be the correct level of experience I'm having to restrain them for going straight after the Doctors because they went straight after Direption.
You have the key in the toyshop that leads them back to the Bank which enables the perfume lead to be passed on.
If they miss out on any of the clues, then I can always fall back on the adventure as written - an NPC arrives and tells them to go to one of the locations.
With the changes above, there's no reason for the PCs to go straight to the Direption. They wouldn't know about the DHC yet, so they couldn't track down Yvicca even if they went there. I'll find out tonight if that works or not.
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The thing is if you mention the ship then there is a definite chance your players will want to head straight for it. I do think in retrospect it would have been better not to have the level of clues that there were on board because as soon as my players heard about the ship that was where they directed their efforts.
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If they miss out on any of the clues, then I can always fall back on the adventure as written - an NPC arrives and tells them to go to one of the locations.
With the changes above, there's no reason for the PCs to go straight to the Direption. They wouldn't know about the DHC yet, so they couldn't track down Yvicca even if they went there. I'll find out tonight if that works or not.
I like your clue-based technique, DMFTodd. I think it should mesh "okay" with my party, although not great -- I have a few players that tend to "rush in where angels fear to tread" and they can be a bit headstrong. :)
How did your group do with PF#8, DMFTodd?
This is very good information as my group is just finishing up the Dead Warrens at the end of Edge of Anarchy. We'll be on hiatus for a few weeks while another GM runs the same group of players through his own campaign in another setting, so this is my "breather" time to review the next couple of books, build images and tokens for MapTool, and so forth.
Thanks!
It played out pretty well. They followed up on the people that made the priests sick first and got a bit frustrated that all of those lead to dead bodies. The cleric never thought of Speak with Dead for some reason but the wizard eventually thought of Locate Object which lead to the diary and the direct evidence against the doctor.
I like it. I might try this out once the PCs get out of the Dead Warrens.