I don't know how to make a spoiler button, so if you're a player in the Second Darkness AP, don't read any further.
Please forgive my occcasional digressions in this rather lengthy post.
Next session, my group will be heading into the Boneyard. They're highly suspicious of Saul Vancaskerkin, having seen through his Bluff attempt. The party rogue actually saw through his second Bluff as well, but decided not to say anything to Saul about it.
The party wizard, an exceptionally paranoid (he says insightful) dwarf, said to the group: "Of course it's a trap. We're being sent into the city garbage dump in the middle of the night." He went on to list the party's enemies: Clegg Zincher, Boss Croat, Gaston Cromarcky [maybe not an enemy, but they know better to expect help from the gendarmes], Avery Slyeg, and now even their 'friend' Saul's motives are suspect.
Ondred, the wizard, summed it up by saying, "Our list of allies grows thin." Which led to endless ribbing from the other players: A dwarf quoting an elf. He now denies ever saying that.
I'm afraid the wizard has the right of it, though. Who the heck is on the PC's side?
Now, in our first session, as a bit of window dressing for Riddleport, I had the PCs stumble across a pimp who was trying to turn out a local girl. The party rogue and cleric intervened, using Intimidate to scare off the pimp. I hadn't planned on their doing that, and I should have forseen it (the rogue was a girl inspired by Lavender Lil to break away from her pimp, and the cleric is a LG, charitable type),but the encounter made for some good local flavour.
In preparing for the upcoming session, I went over the Boneyard ambush, and what Ondred said stuck with me. Basically, the PCs have no allies within the town. Riddleport may be a rough place, but everyone has to have some friends, otherwise why wouldn't the party just skip town? The wizard suggested just this course of action after the raid on the Gold Goblin by the local crimelords, arguing that Riddleport was getting to be too dangerous for the party.
So, I want to turn the ambush in the Boneyard on its ear. Instead of having the wererats attack the party, I want them to wind up allying with the PCs. Maybe they won't make the best allies, but it's better than having none.
What I'm thinking of doing is this:
The girl rescued in the first session is Ziphras' daughter, this gives the wererats a reason to aid the PCs. The wererats follow not only the PCs, but also Saul's ambushers, who are intruding on the family's turf.
Second, Kwava is leading the ambush. Saul hired who he thought were some random thugs with no known links to him. Vancaskerkin was unaware that the muscle he was paying for actually works for Kwava. The Shin'Rakorath operative intends to capture the party for interrogation, to find out what Saul's employees know about their boss' dealings with renegade elves.
This may be adding more complexity than is necessary, but what I'm hoping happens is that the party can use their ties to Ziphras and the wererats to secure things on the homefront while they complete the rest of the adventure path. The party can still end up working with Kwava and still maintain ownership of the Gold Goblin, with fewer worries about how to run the place in absentia.
Any comments or aid in possible troubleshooting would be appreciated.
It is certainly an interesting way of handling matters, and incorporates what the PCs have been doing in town to their benefit as well.
The only problem I foresee is this: What happens if the PCs kill Kwava? Of course they can still be intrigued by what the dark elf is doing, and you should not have any problems running the second part of the AP without Kwava (just have Ziphras hire them to go if they don't do so on their own).
However, moving into the third part of the AP could pose problems if Kwava is not there. It should be possible to work around it though :)
This is nothing but one long list of spoilers:
If I am to suggest something you should play Kwava as your teams best-friend new ally mate (make them REALLY like him) if any of what I've heard on the messageboards are correct, the elves are already hated PLENTY, without making them work against the PCs from the start.
Remember that the wererats are allied to Saul and that you WANT the party to be ready to kill Saul. The biggest problem might be to make them stay in Riddleport long enough to get to Depora (but Kwava should be an excellent tool in making them search the tunnels IF they don't do it by themselves)
If not you can always save Depora for the next book as suggested. What you, really, desperately, need to be aware of is giving the right view of the elves from the start - I'm having problems getting my team OUT of Riddleport, they all LOVE the idea of using the GG as a base of operations, but well, you shouldn't have that problem.
Best approach to the Boneyard situation is probably to make them go there due to wanting to give Riddleport a last chance and wanting to find out what Saul's up to.
Or you could introduce Kwava as the group wants to leave town (portray him really sympathetic to the team) and have him suggests to attack the Gold Goblin (and then save the Boneyard for some other time (if you're in desperate XP need, you could simply add the wererats as additional defenders at the Gold Goblin, it's not exceptionally hard anyway and if Kwava (as the team's OVERLY lovable new ally) is helping them out all the way, it shouldn't be too much of a problem - you'll have to skip the creepy flesh-eating crockroaches of course, but well, if you're teams wanting to leave the city, it might be good the same not to get them attacked.
Other tips for getting them to stay a bit longer:
If yoy have a wizard in the team you could attempt to establish some (short, but) positive relationship to the Cyphermages: Remember that they're opposed to Cromarky and that the PCs good friend Samaritha is at the Cypher Lodge by now. You could work to emphasis her meaning if you need more friends - she's important in the next book anyway.
You could play on their urge to get revenge on Saul and let them get more friendly with Zincher (not my suggested course of action, but certainly possible).
Mainly you should consider using Kwava to finish this story of as it's supposed to go though. I believe that there's a good chance for him being really friendly being a real trouble-saver for you.
Just my input hoping it helped.
However, I think the PCs can do well without any official Shin'Rakorath involvement until book 3, if they are sufficiently motivated to seek out the dark elves on their own. You'll just have to make sure they find enough clues to make their way to the Mierani Forest in search of Celwynvian. Once there, they'll meet up with the elves naturally.
Alternatively, if you want the Shin'Rakorath involved earlier, you could have a scouting party arrive on Devil's Elbow in book 2. Either they could come the PCs aid if they run into trouble with the akatas, or the PCs could find the elves fighting off akatas and rescue them. Either way, you've created some sort of bond between them. (And if the PCs killed Kwava earlier, there's no need for that to come between them; the Shin'Rakorath probably don't know exactly what happened to their operative among the crimelords in Riddleport.)