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Does anyone have any ideas on how to convey Nualia's back story to a party that wasn't there for it? I'm running Burnt Offerings as a standalone, 1 PC adventure. The PC has a grandmother who was there and a mother who grew up in Sandpoint, but no longer lives there.
The best I've come up with are telling the PC the stories of Nualia and the Chopper, one from each relative. But that's a little passive. Anyone got any better ideas?
Does anyone have any ideas on how to convey Nualia's back story to a party that wasn't there for it? I'm running Burnt Offerings as a standalone, 1 PC adventure. The PC has a grandmother who was there and a mother who grew up in Sandpoint, but no longer lives there.
The best I've come up with are telling the PC the stories of Nualia and the Chopper, one from each relative. But that's a little passive. Anyone got any better ideas?
Not sure if it is better, but I made a carefully-edited document and handed it to the players once they had defeated her, explaining it away as a summary of a diary she kept. Not ideal, but I don't see any good way of doing it.
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Does anyone have any ideas on how to convey Nualia's back story to a party that wasn't there for it? I'm running Burnt Offerings as a standalone, 1 PC adventure. The PC has a grandmother who was there and a mother who grew up in Sandpoint, but no longer lives there.
The best I've come up with are telling the PC the stories of Nualia and the Chopper, one from each relative. But that's a little passive. Anyone got any better ideas?
Not sure if it is better, but I made a carefully-edited document and handed it to the players once they had defeated her, explaining it away as a summary of a diary she kept. Not ideal, but I don't see any good way of doing it.
The cleric in the party was sent to the Swallowtail festival by his superiors as a representative for the opening and knew of the fire and deaths of the former head cleric of Sandpoint and his 'daughter', but no details beyond that.
I dropped hints during Gather Info checks that mentioned the "Late Unpleasantness", though no details during these initial checks. It was enough to get the PCs curious enough to press for information when the sheriff asked for their help. He gave them a slightly watered down version of the events which filled in most gaps.
I used a combination of Shayliss Vinter for the local 'man on the street' viewpoint, and the PC cleric of Desna's interactions with the clergy at the church to bring the information out.
As you might guess, Shayliss' viewpoint was somewhat skewed, but the cleric's was as well. Between the two, however, the party figured things out.
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Does anyone have any ideas on how to convey Nualia's back story to a party that wasn't there for it? I'm running Burnt Offerings as a standalone, 1 PC adventure. The PC has a grandmother who was there and a mother who grew up in Sandpoint, but no longer lives there.
The best I've come up with are telling the PC the stories of Nualia and the Chopper, one from each relative. But that's a little passive. Anyone got any better ideas?
flashbacks
let you player take by times the places of a younger grandmother... or maybe another, younger relative
I believe that various takes on the topic of conveying Nualia's backstory have been suggested in a number of previous threads, including on the *Upping Nualia's Presence* thread.
I've nabbed the scenes in that thread for mother's reminiscences and I might do the dream journal stumble upon suggested there (she worships a luck goddess), but a lot of the other stuff is for afterwards or assumes a PC with a home town connection.
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In my campaign I invented a reason why her father was so outraged when he discovered that she was pregnant. It wasn't her condition itself it was that she was already promised to Tobyn's most promising acolyte, the young Abstalar Zanthus.
Which means several things:
1. Zanthus knows that Nualia was pregnant. He also knows that she gave birth to a deformed child.
2. He was also aware of the bad feelings between Nualia and her father and in fact suspects, that the Great Fire wasn't an accident but a family drama. He never talked to anybody about this because he didn't want anyone to thinke or talk bad about his teacher and his great love.
3. Zanthus was able to forgive Nualia that she betrayed him but this and her death left him broken-hearted, which explains why he is so an unusual worshipper of Desna (not travelling).
There is one Person knowing about this: Hannah Velerin, the midwife. She was the one assisting in the birth of Nualia's child, and as she knew about the relationship between Zanthus and Nualia she's actually thinking that he is the father of the deformed child. She has never had the heart to talk to Zanthus about it.
I added another detail. My players heard about Nualia after they learned about the grave robbery. I made it so that when the rescue team had found the remains of father Tobyn after the temple had burnt down they hadn't been able to separate them from those of what they thought was his daughter Nualia , so they buried them together as they had been united in death. Which naturally made my players think about if the goblin's had come for Tobyn's or for Nualia's remains (especially after they had learned that Nualia must have been something truly special). They started to ask questions and already know that Zanthus had fallen in love with her. They also suspect that there must have been more to it as he behaved somehow guilty. So they already started to investigate and I'm just waiting for them to visit Hannah. Which will lead them back to Zanthus and if they push the right button he will break down and relate them the story.
This together with Tsuto's journal and some hints given by Erylium should enable them to make some informed guess what happened before they confront Nualia.
Update: My player rolled a natural 20 for her search check in the Curious Goblin while looking for books. So, because she worships the demigoddess of good luck, she found a dream journal with a few blank pages at the beginning. So, all this possible investigation, while AWESOME is for naught.
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Woah, thank you, that's high praise from the one who made me envious with the very first entry of his campaign journal (I would have loved to restart my campaign just to steal your idea with the swallowtails sitting on the PCs)
Luckily my campaign (playing PBP) is going very slow so I'll have lots of opportunities to rob you of others of your (often awesome)ideas. :)