How much does this guy really know?
My players are foaming at the mouth for this guy to be a fount of information on these strange runes they are slowly finding all over the place. So far they have found them in the Catacombs, Chopper's Isle, the Cathedral Stones, and in various Shoanti Tatoos. I had Madam Niska Mishvanti clueless to their meanings and in my game she is an elderly Dragon Turtle shapeshifted.
Thassilion was around 10,000 years ago and basically all that remains at this point are some wierd symbols and occasionally some buildings. My player's might strangle me if I don't dangle a carrot for them, so how much should I reveal about anything?
I gave my players (through brodert) a bit of history. like the sin-theme, the seven provinces, but nothing specific, no names no info on the borders of the provinces.
Brodert told thme that sandpoint must have been a border region and that he suspects the old light to be a border keep.
They brought him into the catacombs of wrath and he suspected that the red statue must be a runelord - from Karzougs neverending message in thistletop they later found out that it must be alaznist and wrath
I had Brodert show them a map from an old dwarven book of a sketch that a dwarven miner made of something he found on a wall halfway across the world. It was a map of ancient Thassilon, without any names or anything on it. Obviously Brodert cannot read ancient Thassilonian. He related that this was probably a border region between two countries that may have once been here.
My players are going to be thrown for a loop when they find that statue in Thistletop. Right now they are putting together the clues that point to Nualia's survival and some reasons she could have turned really bad.
Anyways, Brodert referred to the Old Light as the "flume" and they wanted to know why he guessed it was a weapon. I told them he had just made some sketches.
I think he's a fraud. He claims to have worked in the Great Library of Magnimar for 30 years. Only there is no such library... :)
I used him in almost exactly the same way as Aeglos. Once they cleared the Catacombs of Wrath, he turned up with 'adventuring gear' (goggles, notepads, pencils, and other gadgets) to search the place.
Took him nearly a day, the group babysitting the whole time. He thinks the group are great now, and they happily use him as a font of knowledge on everything historic.
Still, even Brodert don't know everything ;)
In general, I feel okay with having Brodert know anything that the PCs could know with a Knowledge check.
For example, the PCs can identify the statue in the Catacombs of Wrath as Alaznist with a DC 35 Knowledge (history) check. So when the party talked to Brodert, described the statue, and showed him the replica ranseur that it was holding, he was able to deduce that it was a statue of Alaznist.
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I had some goblins sneak into town and kidnap the sage for Nualia a few game sessions ago. When the party went after them, Bruthazmus, mounted on a giant gecko, shot the party up bad, nearly killing half of them, despite the priest chain casting postive energy bursts. They eventually gave up the chase and went back to town, so the sage in my game is now a captive in Thistletop. On the bright side, the party hated Bruthazmus with a passion, and celebrated last game session when they finally killed him (they were more excited about that than leveling and killing Erylium, which was a much harder fight). Whether or not Broderick Quint is around in the future to answer Thassilonian questions depends on how fast the party rescues him. If they wait too long, Nualia will figure out the can't help with Malfeshnekor and sacrifice him. Soo, they might have to either find a new information source in Magnimar, or start studying Thassilonian lore themselves.
Up to this point, the bard in the group has been rolling extremely lucky rolls whenever they needed something Thassilonian figured out. For example, she rolled a nat 20 on Alaznist, which made it a 30, plus her bonuses gave her success. Maybe they don't need an outside source after all....
I might have to do something similar, because the goblin heroes are pretty cool. When I introduced them via Shaelu the party glazed over them. I'm definitely going to need to reintroduce Shaelu, maybe put in somekind of daring rescue, does she have an animal companion?
Because not to steal something from Lassy, but that would be cool, then again doesn't that happen in AP#3?
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One completely incidental and hilarious accident that has happened in my game is that my party is completely paranoid about the goblin leaders. Especially true of Ripnugget, who they have not met yet, since Bruthazmus and Coruvus kicked their collective butts so badly (Coruvus one rounded 2 characters in a row, through luck and suprise). They keep plotting ways to get at Nualia without having to face the goblins, which is sort of reverse of how I had expected it to be. They are actually more afraid of Ripnugget than the "demon" Malfeshnekor they think she is summoning!
Yes the goblin heroes are one of my favorite parts of all the details in BO as well. Except for the bard in the group (she writes down EVERYTHING), the rest of my group also tuned out when I read the details of the goblin leaders. Needless to say, since then they have grilled her multiple times for more info about the goblin chieftains lol.
The only bad thing about all this is that I am going to have to work hard now to teach them to hate Xanesha more than the goblin chiefs...
I'm using Nualia in my game as a corrupted innocent completely under the thrall of a demonic presence that possessed her when she THOUGHT her baby miscarred.
Yes, I said thought, lol. I had Hannah the midwife secretly stow the baby away when it was born dead, but she used her medicine to bring it back. Of course it was somewhat deformed and she threw a wrapped up doll in the fire, because she was afraid of what Tobyn might do to the demonic looking child.
I was thinking about an assimir baby with redish skin and horns, somewhat like a teifling with silver hair and violet eyes. If the players look into it enough they can find this child and maybe shock Nualia back to her old self. I might even let a player run her.
My players got chocked up over my Chopper's Isle sidequest so, maybe this one will turn out good too. Gotta love plot twists.
Is there a special subforum for game journal entries or do you just chain a post?
But, yeah, I'll totally post my group's progress. It should be posted in bursts of three or so then the other two GM's take their 3 game turns.
Turns out they had so much fun they wanted to do an extra game during the week, typically we do an 8 hour game on Sundays. Whoot! And thanks for all the good ideas everyone.
Edit: As far as my game goes, at least for AP#1 I'm using a theme of corruption. For instance, I'm saying that Jervas Stoot didn't build the Pazuzu statue so much as he was drawn to it and driven mad by it. Eventually he became corrupted and did horrible things. As far as Nualia, I'm going to probably play her as a puppet of Malfeshnekor. I want to portray Malfeshnekor as a servant of Lamashtu. Maybe he wasn't originally, but over time the proximity of the statue of Lamashtu acted as a thinning of the veil. For instance, having her miscarriage being some type of catalyst not just for her own weakness of mind and body, but a gateway for Malfeshnekor's influence.
Basically I want to have the option for the players to step up and defeat Nualia, then watch as the "spirit" of malfeshnekor seeps back into the room he is trapped within. Then having a recently freed and possibly dying Nualia ask the Heroes to save her life. I definitely intend for there to be a climactic battle with her, but I may make her possession a bit more obvious.
My party went to Quink to find out info on the seven pointed star image they keep seeing. I figured he knew enough to tell the party that it was the symbol of an ancient empire that has seven equal and powerful leaders, but thats all he new about that. They only got that much from him because they used conversation about the Old Light to get him intersted in speaking to them. He went on and on about his ideas of the Tower of Fire and that the stones that make the tower up prove his theroy. Since I have a dwarf in the party he went to check it out with his stone knowledge and rolled over 20 with bonuses. I decided that the stone was indeed unique and not from the local area. It also had qualities about it that indicates the stone can act as a heat sink. The group is now very eager in learning more about the ancient empire and the Old Light too.
So would Brodert know the Thassilonian language? Its mentioned in the Player's Guide so people probably know of its existance.
I don't see why it would hurt that much, just because you know a language doesn't mean you understand the culture.
A link to my Game Journal,
Group 1 Journal
I will have a second group starting the advenuture tonight as well.
I had Brodert be a font of information... almost all absolutely useless, or apparently crazy, like:
On the other hand, given time to research, he could provide *some* good info, like on the race of the BBEG at the end of book 2.
I'm looking at it this way.. Brodert is a 7th level expert that means he could have upto 7 ranks in Knowledge Thassilion, a +3 from it being a class skill and a +3 from Skill focus. That's 13 with out adding intelligence modifiers. I'm thinking he can recognize common items/relics (coins and the like) without effort though I've also decided that common items are fairly rare and valuable to collectors around Golarion. For items like the medallions or rings... those will take time and research.. by no means will he automatically be able to tell the party that you need that to get past Guardian X and open door Y.
I'm also going to have him be a place they can take relics to for conversion into cash. I think that his "obsession" with the fallen empire will cause him to want to be the guy they bring them too. I will let the feathered serpent buy the items too, but at a lower price... just to mess with the party.