Plot Ideas for the good justice.... (spoilers!!!!)

[Stewart Perkins]

So here is the deal. My players have aligned themselves with Justice Ironbriar to take on the Brothers of the seven cult. Now the whole time the good justice is playing the same way he is playing the city watch and recently set them up for a big fall at the lumber mill "covertly" sending them in and leading the readied cultists on them. He kept telling them not to burn the place down "it's an election year". During the fight when things went bad he bailed. Now what would his next plans be? How would an intelligent, evil cultist with massive resources proceed to wipe out the heroes who are thwarting his plans and yet existing under his nose and helping him...

[LoreKeeper]

I suspect he might want to have a chat with his mistress about that. And I think she'd come up with a plan that would have the heroes aid *her* master. ...I'm sure it cannot be that hard to get the PCs to do some greedy things... ;)

[Stewart Perkins]

LoreKeeper wrote:

I suspect he might want to have a chat with his mistress about that. And I think she'd come up with a plan that would have the heroes aid *her* master. ...I'm sure it cannot be that hard to get the PCs to do some greedy things... ;)

Oh there's a few greedy ones as is. The catch is there's a LG Knight and a LG wizard in the group, aswell as many of the members are pretty noble and less than greedy. So that plan is only slightly workable. I'm thinking he might set them up for another couple of ambushes by his minions before a massive confrontation with he himself again and maybe that nice scarecrow fellow :P

But in the meantime I'm sure his mistress has been hearing everything that's been happening and she'll maybe have to do something. But I'm drawing a blank outside of "set them up and jump them". I mean evil mastermind has party sniffing at his and her heels and all the time also following them blindly, so what does he do with it? I can only think that maybe he sends them out of Magnimar to check out some leads on the cults true hideout and unleashes some horrid nastiness on them? Giants and the Like? Ogres? Lots of Faceless Stalkers? Maybe a Lamashtu cult he knows about and throw the scent off himself and his cult? I dunno yet...

[Ice Titan]

If I was a justice with a lot of sway, I'd set them up. Task them to get robes of the cult and have them fight off a few cultists to get them, and then have the party wear the robes into a home where he's convinced them that there is a cult meeting in the basement. The party enters, two cultists attack them with knives, they fight them off, and then the guard arrive to find a group of bloodied cultists who started killing one another inside of the home the moment they saw the guard had come.

The party gets arrested, probably talking and pleading about how Justice Ironbriar sent them here to find the cult/set them up, but Ironbriar is so respected in the community that the fact that these poor and brainwashed cultists are trying to tarnish his name is laughable. And then Justice Ironbriar sentences them to death.

[Stewart Perkins]

Ice Titan wrote:

If I was a justice with a lot of sway, I'd set them up. Task them to get robes of the cult and have them fight off a few cultists to get them, and then have the party wear the robes into a home where he's convinced them that there is a cult meeting in the basement. The party enters, two cultists attack them with knives, they fight them off, and then the guard arrive to find a group of bloodied cultists who started killing one another inside of the home the moment they saw the guard had come.

The party gets arrested, probably talking and pleading about how Justice Ironbriar sent them here to find the cult/set them up, but Ironbriar is so respected in the community that the fact that these poor and brainwashed cultists are trying to tarnish his name is laughable. And then Justice Ironbriar sentences them to death.

I like that, especially considering they have like 7 sets of cultist garb. I may run with that, it definately sets up the reveal nicely, as it then turns into escape and clear names stealth mission coupled with breaking into Ironbriars home and discovering his involvement and relevent info the sawmill is written to have...

[LoreKeeper]

Ya, that is good. I like it too.

[wspatterson]

Perhaps have him ask the aid of the hellknights in town rather than the normal guard, since they tend to be more of the "shoot first, ask questions later" mindset.

[Stewart Perkins]

wspatterson wrote:

Perhaps have him ask the aid of the hellknights in town rather than the normal guard, since they tend to be more of the "shoot first, ask questions later" mindset.

I like that. The way I see it playing out will be the party reports that at least one cultist got away and there were no other evidence at the Mill. Ironbriar will "Pull some strings" and tell them he dug up the owner of the mill's local and his sources have been watching the place. He then sets up the whole of the pcs infiltrating and the Hellknights catching them. The Hellknight in charge will be a man Named Duskknight Tobias (Duskknight sounds like a cool title). Tobias basically threatens them down and more than likely they surrender to prove their innocence. Essentially a mockery trial follows in which a lie detection spell is "cast" by the clerk of courts cleric (a Norberger cleric and Ironbriar's 2nd in command). Who essentially calls any defense the pcs have as lies. No one in town would suspect a thing. Ironbriar will be all "Dont worry I have your back" but in the end with Duskknight Tobias "Vivid accounting" and Clerk Hollis' "spells" the Justice will give them the old Hang by the neck until dead bit. Now either the pcs can break free and escape,(or if things go how I think a few players will be late so they can be off checking a second lead and go in for the rescue) The party then will learn somehow (I have a lil faith here but will make it work as needed) that Ironbriar is having a few close colleagues and friends over to celebrate the ending of the Starkiller (The name the skinsaw murders have been given by the watch). No doubt the party will crash the party to find that other than servants and guards tis an empty house. They will search or ask questions very hard and learn theres a secret basement or find Ironbriar's office stuff in his house office. In his journal it mentions the basement amongst the aforementioned things. In the basement there is the initiation ceremony of the newest cultist Duskknight Tobias and the rest of the skinsaw men. so Ironbriar, a 3rd level cleric, 5 of the 2nd level guys, and a 3rd fighter or 4th warrior... A nasty EL11 but for a party of around 7-8 6th levels is doable ( they did Ironbirar, 7 of the cultists and 2 Faceless stalkers and lived).... Thats the plan. If alot of people are missing I will cut half the cultists and make Tobias the Warrior instead of fighter or knight...

[Charles Evans 25]

The 'oh your employer is an evil villain who hasn't just used you, he's framed you for murder, too' can kill a game if your players aren't the sorts who can roll with that kind of thing.
I would think that if Ironbriars is intelligent, the thing which he will *most* want is the PCs out of town right now, after seeing the way that they dealt with the cult, despite having an ambush set up against them there.
At this point (after consulting with Xanesha) sending them off to Fort Rannick 'to deliver a message to the garrison' when he knows via Xanesha and Lucrecia that the Fort has already fallen is best way of getting them out of town - let the ogres handle them. If the PCs survive somehow he can claim 'news didn't get through to us that the fort had fallen until several days after you had left - you must have passed the messenger bringing that news coming in the other direction somewhere'.
And in the meantime, Xanesha can forward a report to Xin Shalast about the PCs and their names and common tactics, so senior villains in Karzougs network can start saying 'oh it's you - took your tme getting here, didn't you', and so those with scry capability can occasionally start looking for the PCs. (Ironbriars might even tell the PCs that he's going to occasionally scry on them himself to check on their progress, so that they're not suspicious if/when they detect an occasionaly scrying attempt - possibly even going so far as to ask for locks of their hair, or giving them special 'focus items' so he can lock in on them more easily.)
For that matter, since Xanesha, Lucrecia, and Karzoug are happy with large numbers of their greedy associates being stamped out, as it fuels the runewell, if a group of noble adventurers present themselves as unwitting tools to speed Karzoug's return by slaughtering sihedron wearing greedy souls wholesale then maybe they'd actally be quite pleased to assist...
(In this case if she knows the PCs are coming and are unwitting pawns to help Karzoug, Lucrecia presumably absents herself from Fort Rannick as soon as the PCs turn up on the doorstep, as she doesn't want to get in the way. Maybe she might even pretend to be some sort of spy sent by one of the PCs' churches/allies to check out the Fort for them, and give them mixed information on how the Fort is laid out.)

[Stewart Perkins]

Well I know my group well enough I know that a little betrayal will go over fine. So no big there. Although your ideas aren't bad for plan c.

[Perugrin Neveferin]

thanks for the ideas, these are wonderful !