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Currently, I am running Council of Thieves for a group that have decided to play an evil party, consisting of a rogue, a ranger, a wizard, and a fighter/wizard. They have just finished the 2nd chapter and are currently working on trying to unlock the Chelish Crux. In any case, I've found that being evil actually made a lot of their quests surprisingly easy. For instance, they had no qualms with using the intelligent glaive and wearing the symbol of Asmodeus (found in the Knot) and controlling the mummy to do their bidding (like killing the Outcast King). Also, they decided to do lots of mischievous and dastardly thing during the Cornucopia at Aberian's Folly. Nevertheless, they've decided to attribute all their criminal deeds (stealing, murdering, etc.) to the Bastards of Erebus. I should back up and say that during the first chapter, they recovered the stash of Bastards of Erebus coins (the ones the Bastards used as their callsign) but kept a large amount of them so that they could leave the coins behind various crimes to make people think the Bastards were still at large. At the time, I thought this was a somewhat hokey plan, but now that they've continuously been doing this (to the point where they are now seeking out a woodcarver to make more coins; and then murdering the carver afterwards, of course), I'm wondering if there is a way to weave this into the story somehow. Ultimately, it seems that all of characters goals in the evil party are to eventually take over Westcrown and rule it on their own (without the House of Thrune mettling). Currently, they are only using the Children of Westcrown as a stepping stone to reach higher goals. I know that the Bastards come back in one of the later chapters (as undead, I believe), but I'm wondering if anyone had any clever ideas of weaving this into the plot somehow. Perhaps the Drovenges see these evil PCs as being useful and may try to recruit them? I'm not sure... any suggestions and/or comments would be greatly appreciated.
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Currently, I am running Council of Thieves for a group that have decided to play an evil party, consisting of a rogue, a ranger, a wizard, and a fighter/wizard. They have just finished the 2nd chapter and are currently working on trying to unlock the Chelish Crux. In any case, I've found that being evil actually made a lot of their quests surprisingly easy. <snip>
see these evil PCs as being useful and may try to recruit them? I'm not sure... any suggestions and/or comments would be greatly appreciated.
Depending on how the next bit play out, remember, the endgame for a certain BBEG lies in controlling Westcrown.
Opposing BBEG becomes the real driving force, so if they ally with him and complete the 3-6th books "backwards", so be it.
Delvehaven: Awesome dungeon, no reason they can't be pointed there for $ and useful items.
Spiral: The big boom is good enough to bring inquisitive "heroes," and you can take it from there with motivation.
Book 5: This honestly needs VERY little modification. Ally with an evil guy, get info on more evil guys, go kill some evil guys. The only thing you'd have to change are the names and NPC's who deliver the missions.
Book 6: Final showdown with BBEG and his mini-onions...run it as a drag-out slugfest on a super fast timer, and it'll be an awesome climax to your AP.
For general motivation, I've found my Evil Party adventures usually write themselves. Evil PC's need to work to get their schemes off, and they ALL scheme. Roll with that, let them have some down-time in between the adventure encounters, and it'll be great.
If you instill in them the fear of mightier arms from an early level (like, say, now), prodding them away from the "wrong path" and against the written NPC's becomes fairly academic. If your evil PC's want wealth, BBEG has it. Power and prestige? Ditto.
Are they revenge based? Have some members of the Children taken out. Heck, use that to introduce some of the book 4-6 NPC's. Not to mention, devils are always fun to use, and handily come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and flavors.
Generally, wherever their machinations lead them, that just so happens to be the place written up in the adventure. We tend to collect houses and other property, so all the scattered "mini dungeons" have become de facto party property. That can get rather fun, if you want to incorporate some of the Kingmaker city building rules towards the end.
That way, they get to take over the city just as Mr. Cranky-Pants and his boats show up...do they attack, with a shiny improved city, risking it all and gambling with their lives? Or do they choose another path?
Keep it loose and actiony, which is good, since CoT is written in just such a fashion.
If I remember any specifics from my CotCT game, I'll add them in. We had plenty of Evil in that group.