TPK before "The Skinsaw Murders", need advice (Spoilers Inside)

[Jesse Brake]

Hey all, first post here, but been reading for a while.

I had a TPK in the Catacombs of Wrath last game session. As a DM, I am wondering what to do about the storyline with Foxglove and his obsession he had with a female PC along the 'lust' scenario. I wanted to post my idea and see if I could get some feedback.

After the party was killed in the Catacombs, the Mayor had the entrance via the Glassworks bricked up (the town guard assumed the PC's died when a gnome PC's wolfhound mount ran out of the tunnels half dead and bloody and the PC's did not follow suit during the rest of the night). Unfortunately with Hemlock out of town requesting soldiers, there were not enough men to send to recover the bodies. I was thinking of having Foxglove sneak into the Glassworks and break through the wall, stealing the dead female PC's body once he heard that she had died and the town left her body down there. Then when the Skinsaw murders happen, his notes are along the 'wrath' scenario, using the new PC's as scapegoats since they are the best the town has to offer. As apposed to what was written and have the notes target one PC, I figured just target all of them. Foxglove wants to see these new heroes hung for daring to outshine his dead beloved PC and the town in general punished for the lack of respect for his 'love'.

Fast forwarding towards the encounter with Foxglove, I thought it would be a sick twist to have the dead female's PC body dressed in his dead wife's clothing, maybe something slinky, when they encounter him. I'll spare the readers of how dark I would take this, but if you're ever seen "Aftermath" by Nacho Cerda, you get where this is going. Another idea I was toying with was to have the dead female PC return as some sort of undead...maybe have her skin animated (ala Forsaken Shell from Libris Mortis) and have it tear off of her dead body and attack the PC's after Foxglove gives her a kiss...or maybe just zombified and chained to a bed Zach Snyder Dawn of the Dead style.

Either way, I really enjoy the connection that the adventure has for the PC's to Foxglove. Does anyone else have ideas? Criticism on my idea? All is welcomed. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

[cwslyclgh]

What I did when the characters suffered a TPK at thistletop after one of the characters had attracted Aldern's obsession was to play up the heroic angle when the new characters finished the burnt offerings adventure, and having Aldern become obsessed with one of the other characters, but in a different way, instead of lusting after the character, he obsessively hated the character for stealing the thunder of his "lost beloved".

I like the way you think though, and wish I had thought of adding something like that to the final encounter with Aldern (although the bodies were not really that recoverable after the TPK, as they were washed into the sea cave and eaten by the bunyip).

[Ice Titan]

I dig it. It's a pretty slick idea and I like how you managed to connect the modules. Maybe having Foxglove animate the dead PC as an intelligent undead would be more interesting, but I can definitely see the humor in the Skinsaw Man wrangling a zombie to try to get it to flank with him and stuff.

And you get to see the look on your player's face when you describe their character to them as an undead monstrosity in a little black dress.

[Jesse Brake]

Ice Titan wrote:

...I can definitely see the humor in the Skinsaw Man wrangling a zombie to try to get it to flank with him and stuff.

The image in my mind when I read that was a collar around the dead PC's neck chained to the waist of Foxglove, trying to bullrush those that attacked him. Maybe when Foxglove gets injured the first time and starts crying, the dead PC crawls around him in an animalistic and protective fashion and Aldern recounts his story if asked while stroking the dead PC.

Probably won't do that, but it was an amusing thought.

[cwslyclgh]

Jesse Brake wrote:

Ice Titan wrote:

...I can definitely see the humor in the Skinsaw Man wrangling a zombie to try to get it to flank with him and stuff.

The image in my mind when I read that was a collar around the dead PC's neck chained to the waist of Foxglove, trying to bullrush those that attacked him. Maybe when Foxglove gets injured the first time and starts crying, the dead PC crawls around him in an animalistic and protective fashion and Aldern recounts his story if asked while stroking the dead PC.

Probably won't do that, but it was an amusing thought.

Ha I like it.... it would never work with my players though.... my players have a nasty habit of interrupting such "Cinema scenes" ("what they're just laying there crying... okay then" :::Chop, Chop, Chop:::)