Details of Deception

[w0nkothesane]

After a recent conversion of my Eberron campaign (running the Forgotten Forge series of modules) from 4th edition to PFRPG, my wife decided that rather than competing with two other arcane casters for equipment and spotlight time, she wanted to try a different character.

She is ditching a Changeling rogue 1/illusionist 2, who was going to go for Arcane Trickster. The character has been posing as a Gnome Illusionist for literally the entire campaign, and none of the other character suspect a thing. The gnome persona she is portraying is an extremely bubbly and curious gnome and I think the other characters long ago dismissed her as harmless, something I intend to remedy.

They are approaching the end of the Shadows of the Last War module. For those not familiar with it,

Spoiler:

at the very end of the module, Garrow, a changeling necromancer who disguises himself as a vampire, shows up with a lot of guards, robs the PCs of the schema they just finally found, and then orders some of his men to attack while he flees. Normally, the PCs have a copy of the schema, which clever players will give to Garrow to drive him off and then they defeat the weak remaining troops and make off with the real schema.

I've already introduced her new character and taken control of Fenn (or Winky the gnome, as the group knows her) and plan on her betraying the group.

I have a few ideas for how to do this.

First, I could have her

Spoiler:

betray the group, joining Garrow and negating the PC's ability to keep the real schema hidden from him.

This makes her easy to incorporate into the rest of the campaign, with her arriving essentially whenever he or any group he might command does.

Or, I could have her be an agent of the Cabinet of Faces, spying on the goings-on of House Cannith. Once

Spoiler:

Garrow springs his ambush and takes the fake schema she waits until that night and steals the real schema and possibly leaves a note wishing the group goodbye.

This introduces yet another faction into an already complicated equation and gives me more of an expansion option, should they ever decide to try to exact revenge on her or the group she works for.

Those are the two I've come up with. Anybody else have an interesting ideas for how to make this truly memorable for my players? I want them to be talking about how this for years.

[W E Ray]

Sorry for not reading the spoilers to get a full handle on the situation but, in general, I strongly recommend not using a device that can lead to PC vs PC relationships (which sounds like a possibility in your option 2).

If there's a chance PCs will, later on, feel betrayed or even just 'spied on" by one of the PCs it could become a problem (for many groups/ play-styles).

One other thing, you know your group better than we, of course, but I know many groups get confused a bit when NPC relationships & dynamics get really complicated. Your 2nd option also mentions adding another faction which grossly complicates the game. Is your group comfortable now with all the NPC info they have or do they often ask questions like, Wait, what was that faction with the...? and, Which one of the NPCs...? and, of course, Was he the one that...?