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My players were behind in experience points so I ran the side quest "Slay a shadow beast." I didn't bother to get too creative here and just ran it exactly as worded without any fluff. I also gave almost no details about the NPC named Bluehood. The issue is that my characters are now obsessed with Bluehood! I had thought she would just disapear into the shadows and never turn up again but the players want more and who am I to deny them. They want to know who she is. Why she would know anything about the characters. Where is she from? How did she just disapear like that? I'm excited to be able to create more detail on this NPC on my own but I'm worried that if she does come back in the actual adventure path I may have some conflicts. So my question is does Bluehood come back and if so what details would I need to know about her?
My players were behind in experience points so I ran the side quest "Slay a shadow beast." I didn't bother to get too creative here and just ran it exactly as worded without any fluff. I also gave almost no details about the NPC named Bluehood. The issue is that my characters are now obsessed with Bluehood! I had thought she would just disapear into the shadows and never turn up again but the players want more and who am I to deny them. They want to know who she is. Why she would know anything about the characters. Where is she from? How did she just disapear like that? I'm excited to be able to create more detail on this NPC on my own but I'm worried that if she does come back in the actual adventure path I may have some conflicts. So my question is does Bluehood come back and if so what details would I need to know about her?
It's been asked and revealed that she's not a major NPC.
In my campaign, the players dropped off a shadowbeast corpse and left. A couple days later, as one (the cleric) was sleeping, a mysterious and hooded female showed up, perched on the window-sill. She cleared her throat and started a whispered dialog. She basically revealed herself to be sort of a freedom-fighter in her own sense, and offered up the info in the shadowgarm creature write-up. "They're not native to this area, so someone's bringing them here." She stayed hooded, cloaked in shadow, and didn't offer any personal background. Then she left.
The campaign is a bit stalled right now, but I have some plans for her. The PCs are likely to try following shadowbeats, and are likely going to make it to delvehaven. I need to express to them that the place is deadly dangerous and that they need to research and acquire keys and magics to get in (which would re-rail the campaign onto Paizo material).
I figure to have the party cleric solicited by a stranger to "come help". Bluehood will be in a non-descript building, on a bed, badly, badly burned. Also, missing an arm. Dying. She tried to get into delvehaven. I'll let the PC stabilize her, but she's badly, badly screwed up and needing regeneration.
In my mind, I've got a robin-hood thing going. She's daughter of a well-known noble. Has to stay hooded. That sort of thing.
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Thanks for clearing that up. I plan on having her introduce any necessary side quest or just appearing when my PCs are getting off track in order to stear them in the right direction. I'll keep them guessing though as to who she is and probably never reveal it. My players have gotten really excited about trying to discover the mystery of this character. I believe that this could be an element of the game that keeps them thinking between play sessions.
I forgot to mention that I have a vague idea of having the PCs approached to try to find a certain missing daughter for a noble. The reveal when they figure out they've known all along where she's at will be priceless. Especially if they don't have the ability to fix her up before sending her back to Daddy.
In my campaign, she is Tascia Leroung, cousin to one the PCs, Traxus Leroung. Her motives are a bit murkier in my game as well: the PCs aren't quite sure if she's genuinely interested in ridding Westcrown of the shadow beast menace or if she wants to try to figure out the cause of it so that she can manipulate the beasts to her advantage.
One of my PCs had incorporated the shadow hunters in her backstory, and when the PCs - on the way earning financial and experimental awards - went to hunt a shadowgarm left on its own in the sewers the other day, she disposed the cadaver in a barrel on the shadowhunter's tavern [named The Dissimuling Shadow Boxer], leaving her younger brother with a friend in that tavern the whole night to observe Bluehood dropping the reward in that barrel, just to discover the next morning a bluish tinted leather bag on the bed of the awakening PC. She's now half mad about the "burglary" and obessed with finding out who or what Bluehood might be.
I think, I let her be a scion of Leroung family, perhaps...
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The party I'm running was interested in what Bluehood found out about the Shadowgarm they killed for her after they defeated the Bastards. She arranged to meet with them once her research was done. The day of the meeting as the PCs made their way to her home, someone sicced a Tinder Devil on her, killing her. The PCs came upon the Devil, her body and her research facility on fire. They defeated the devil and saved some of her documents which indicated she had found a connection between the Shadow Beasts and the closing of Delvehaven. They forwarded the information to Arael who contacted Ailyn which set up The Six Fold Trial after Ailyn confirmed Bluehood's research.
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If you really want to screw with the PCs, then have Blueblood turn out to be a Diabolist who wants shadow parts to improve her summoning.
Or perhaps she is a plant from Thrune who 'pays for shadow corpses' to find out who the potential trouble makers are...and then kills them.
I like what you did with this Barbazul. I think I would also like to use Bluehood in my CoT campaign as another character in disguise, but I'm not sure which one yet.
I entirely agree with what you're saying (and rather wish I'd thought of this before myself).
Thing is, however, I've already introduced her as an extra-ordinarily skilled illusionist (actually, little more than a an aristocrat with a few extremely valuable magic items) and a scion of a noble family.
Still, this may be alterable... I'll have to look at exactly how much my people have learned again if I decide to make this change.
My Blue Hood is Iomedaelessa Tilernos, a second level aristocrat and the third oldest daughter of the Tilernos family, thus completely unable to do much (forbidden to go to the war by her oldest sister who runs the family, as the second-oldest already maintains that family tradition, and the oldest wants Iomie around "just in case").
She is stuck in Westcrown to tend to the family's interest there.
House Tilernos is headquartered in Lastwall, but is one of the major families of Westcrown.
The way she gets by with being Bluehood in my games, is by using the Bluehood - actually one of the Seven Veils of Dreams, a suite of minor artifacts that have potent divination and illusion magics at their disposal and are lightly tied to Sin/Virtue magic, granting further abilities.
She will be at the Cornicopia party, and hired Malkistra a few months ago, being shaken by her sudden disappearance recently.
In my game, I've had Bluehood serve as a point of contact for the PCs who'd like to try and get information through some of the less public channels of Westcrown, as well as a black-market connect for trying to deal with antiquities that shouldn't be sold on the open market.
Bluehood is Bruce Wayne.
I didn't mention "the other Tilernos" aka Sascar.
She not only exists, she's actually "the social one" and the reason "Yomie" (the nickname the PCs have subsequently given Iomedaelessa) is even in town: being a complete alcoholic, Sascar isn't able to reliably control the family's interest, so Yomie was sent to keep a watch instead of her. Since Yomie can't control Sascar's actions, she tries to funnel her spending in philanthropic and subtle ways, while channeling money secretly into the Westcrown Shadow Hunters and those who slay shadow beasts.
Yomie is going to be a contact when Sascar disappears in part four.
Rez Thread.
I have plans while rewriting the city guide to include bluehooh, now she will be in the special subjects section. My current plan as others is to have her as a scion of the Leroung family and also an agent of Ailyn. Now I will probably have her as a Vigilante, but the problem I am having is what archetype to give her. The only thoughts sofar are for it to be arcane in nature, but that can be changed.
Any advise would be brilliant.
Thanks
EtG
Thinking Cabalist or Warlock. Thoughts?
EtG.
