Starting up a CoCT game

[Grimsh]

Now I plan on starting up this AP in the next few weeks, and one of my players has expressed alot of interest in playing a character who is going to join the Red Mantis Assassins. So I was wondering if anyone can, in spoilers, what this will do for the overall story if he joins them?

[wspatterson]

Grimsh wrote:

Now I plan on starting up this AP in the next few weeks, and one of my players has expressed alot of interest in playing a character who is going to join the Red Mantis Assassins. So I was wondering if anyone can, in spoilers, what this will do for the overall story if he joins them?

Nothing good. Nothing even remotely good. I'll leave it to others to drop the spoilers. Though who knows, maybe I'm wrong.

From my understanding of things, you have to kind of impress them for them to accept you. You don't just join their cult. If the invite never comes, no Mantis Cult Assassin for you.

[Paul Watson]

wspatterson wrote:

Grimsh wrote:

Now I plan on starting up this AP in the next few weeks, and one of my players has expressed alot of interest in playing a character who is going to join the Red Mantis Assassins. So I was wondering if anyone can, in spoilers, what this will do for the overall story if he joins them?

Nothing good. Nothing even remotely good. I'll leave it to others to drop the spoilers. Though who knows, maybe I'm wrong.

From my understanding of things, you have to kind of impress them for them to accept you. You don't just join their cult. If the invite never comes, no Mantis Cult Assassin for you.

This. Squared.

Spoiler:

The Red Mantis are one of the obstacles in this adventure path. One of the quite large and persistent obstacles. They are a bad guy in Escape from Old Korvosa, frustrating the PCs and trying to kill two of the people they need saved to continue. A PC Red Mantis would have to murder the Senescahl and Vincarlo. That would majorly derail the plot.

And in History of Ashes, the Red Mantis are THE major opponent to the PCs. Having a traitor in the poarty twho will have to sabotage them, or kill them, as ordered, will not be fun for anyone.

So in short my advice is: Not just no, but hell no! Be nice, but do NOT allow Red Mantis PCs ins CoCT. They'd wreck it even more than a normal assassin would as they have plot points associated with them.

[Gamer Girrl]

Grimsh wrote:

Now I plan on starting up this AP in the next few weeks, and one of my players has expressed alot of interest in playing a character who is going to join the Red Mantis Assassins. So I was wondering if anyone can, in spoilers, what this will do for the overall story if he joins them?

As has been said, this will wreck the campaign.

Spoiler:

The Mantis are also present in the final chapter of the AP, when the party storms the castle to take out the Queen ... if they managed to survive the potential betrayal in History of Ashes, they will be destroyed from within in Crown of Fangs by the traitor in their midst if that character still survives.

I would seriously doubt the PC of a Red Mantis to make it out of Escape from Korvosa alive once the party runs into the Mantis during that adventure ... and PCs slaughtering PCs is just never fun.

Let the player know it is not an option for Korvosa, and I'd say tell them that the Mantis are definite enemies of the City, so that belonging to such an organization would be a death sentence waiting to happen, and you don't want that to be messing with the storyline.

[Brutesquad07]

Yea, I would have to agree with all the others here.

Spoiler:

There are 2 things I won't let Players do in this (And I am running my second game of it). 1 is head for Red Mantis with any realistic belief that they will become part of them. Zon-Kuthon Clerics are also a no-no in my runnings of the campaign. To much story tied up with these two groups to let a PC try them.

Now, that all being said...

Spoiler:

If the player wants to play a character who wishes to join the Red Mantis but can accept the fact in the beginning that you are just not prepared to have them join the group, ie it is a character goal that will not happen in the scope of the AP, then that is different and quite acceptable. I will leave it up to you to figure out how you explain all that to a player without spoiling the fact that the Mantis are a hefty obstacle in the AP.

[Clee]

I foolishly allowed a player to try this option and this is what happened,

early on, after the PC's aid in blackjacks rescue of Trina Sabor, the queen realizes or suspects that the pc's may be potential enemies. The PC playing the Mantis (who finally met the requirements to the class at the beginning of Seven Days to the Grave) was contacted by an agent of 'B7' and was given a reward of 200 silver pieces to be divided amongst his companions for his help during the riots of the first adventure. The PC of course, kept the reward for himself, unaware that they were

Spoiler:

contaminated with Blood Veil

This caused him to research the origins of the events of Seven Days with the rest of the group with passion. The PC's began to suspect the queen was involved before they suspected the Red Mantis. This caused my Mantis PC to search out his contact and reveal that he suspected the queen of being behind the recent events. As the PC mantis was new to the guild, the contact (who realized the PC did not share the coins with the rest of the group), decided to show the PC the business end of a sawtooth saber.

The PC mantis was dropped to -4 and left for dead. He managed to stabilize and was discovered later by the other PC's. I was hoping that it would rally the character against the evil guild, but instead the player running the Mantis felt robbed by me the DM for trying to be bad, and soon felt is character was ruined.

Just one experience, but I'd recommend not allowing it.