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I'm currently GMing a Legacy of Fire campaign. I am experimenting with a way to play through the modules in a different order so as to offer my players a larger understanding of the campaign's backstory and also let them play a second set of (higher level) characters, something I have often done in the past and that my players enjoy. Essentially, we are playing through The Impossible Eye before having even finished The House of the Beast.
This may be a bit long to read but I would really like to receive comments and suggestions on my alternate Legacy of Fire narrative. It goes without saying that spoilers abound below.
So here we goe:
The PCs have gone through Howl of the Carrion King and then set off for the House of the Beast to defeat the Carrion King and find out what Zayifid is up too. Half the party was captured by Rokova (Zayifid) and his gnoll minions even before they had the chance to fight Ghartok. Rokova (who, in my game, had already discovered the passage under the throne) sent the captured PCs into the Pit of Screaming Ghosts to recover a scroll in Shirak's tomb (without telling them what it does). While entering the secret passage, the captured PCs spot a hidden figure in the shadows, a old human, with burns on half his face and a strangely familiar look. The PCs sleep in the first room and are surprised to find that the escaped PCs are with them in the same room when they all wake up. They then go into the dungeon, defeat the Beast that Waits, and open Shirak's tomb. Then their vision goes all white.
Here is where the space-time continuum split in two. What follow is what should have happenned, but that the players will never live through: The captured PCs recover the scroll of Kakishon for Zayifid, the escaped PCs are killed while trying to save there friends, Zayifid activates the scroll and Jhavul is set free and is back in the House of the Beast. No one from the outside world knows about the effreet's plans, so no one comes to stop him. Xotani is ressurected and merges with Jhavul. The countryside is ravaged, Katapesh city is completly destroyed, the Pactmasters move their capital to Okeno, Solko is overun by gnolls and finally, Xotani/Jhavul planeshifts to the Plane of Fire to go find Ymeri. Only one of the PCs, who was imprisoned all this time in the House of the Beast, survives and escapes. Not having witnessed Jhavul's return, he simply believes that the scroll was a way to bring Xotani back to life. The PC, named Al-Tair, a priest of Sarenrae, is severly burned during his escape and the sight of ultimate destruction makes him loose his fate and he turns instead to Pharasma for answers.
Al-Tair spends the next five years trying to find a way to repair his mistake, traveling the world for answers. He finally hears of a powerfull artifact named the Impossible Eye, a mirror that could show you anyting that happened at anytime and that could let you travel to that place by steping through the mirror. The Impossible Eye (that I made more powerful than in the actual module) could let you travel through time, but only on a one-way trip. Al-Tair thus found a way to possibly change the past. He travels to the City of Brass with a few companions and infiltrates Bayt al-Bazan throught the sewers. The mission is a failure. His companions die and just before he is caught by fire giants, he is teleported against his will into a cell of Bayt al-Bazan's jails on the first level. When he wakes up, he has no equipment, no armor, no weapons and his cell door mysteriously opens. Al-Tair finds himself with a group of four other people, also with no equipment, who have no memories of how they got into those cells or even how they got into this strange place. The last thing they know is that they were in Absalom each for a different reason and don't even know each other.
Those are the second set of PCs. They were in Absalom and have no idea how they got into those strange cells with a priest of Pharasma (who changed is name after the events that led to the destruction of Katapesh, so the player doesn't know that he is actually his own PC, five years in the future). I didn't tell the players that five years had passed since the events with their other PCs. Since none of the new PCs come from Katapesh, I don't have to tell them yet about what happened. So their first mission is to find their gear, that they will find in the treasury (where the PCs should normaly begin the module), if they manage to pass through fire giants and fire-infused lizardfolk without a single piece of gear. (Good thing they have a Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple Icemage from Irrisen).
With their gear, they will find a contract that explains how and why they got here. They were recruted by the Pactmasters to recover an artefact named the Orb of Kadu-Ra (that I took from Monte Cook's Planescape module Dead Gods), a sentient recording device that can make it's users live throught events that were previously recorded. The Pactmasters made a deal with Ezer Hazzebaim, who contacted them with the Impossible Eye. Ezer would bring the party inside Bayt al-Bazan and in exchange, the party would free him. Ezer succesfully hacked into a magical security system that would let the Lord of Bayt al-Bazan forcefully teleport intruders into the jails and erase their short-term memory, while sending their gear into the treasury. Ezer is also the one who saved Al-Tair from the fire giants.
At a time during the adventure, Al-Tair will tell his new companions all the truth about who he is and why he is here, hoping they will help him defeat Ezer (who wants the Impossible Eye for himself) and help him travel to the past to help is past-self. So after finding the Orb of Kadu-Ra somewhere in the palace, finding the Impossible Eye, and defeating Ezer, they will have to fight the red dragon while Al-Tair tries to activate the Impossible Eye. The survivors (probably only 1 or 2 PCs) will need to cross the portal-mirror to save themselves but in his haste, Al-Tair will open a window way to far in the past.
They will arrive in the Pale Mountain region, but several centuries in the past right in the middle of the genie war between Jhavul's and Nefeshti's forces. They will see an explosion in the distance, caused by Andrati activating the Scroll of Kakishan and imprisoning Jhavul and his army. Several minutes latter, they will run into Shirak, the gnoll cleric who stoll the scroll and went to hide it into the House of the Beast. They will defeat Shirak and Al-Tair will take the scroll. Al-Tair will tell the surviving PC(s) to go to Katapesh where the Pactmasters have took over only a few years ago. They need to tell the Pactmasters everything they know about the future to make sure that if Al-Tair is not succesful, the Pactmasters will still send the PCs to Bayt al-Bazan help Al-Tair. That was actually the real mission the Pactmasters sent the PCs to. It had never been a mission to recover the Orb of Kadu-Ra.
The party part ways, with Al-Tair leaving for the House of the Beast with the scroll of Kakishon and the Orb of Kadu-Ra and the PC(s) leaving for Katapeash. Then we will go back to the first set of PCs. The Orb of Kadu-Ra is now in Shirak's tomb so the PCs actually lived throught all the future events in Bayt al-Bazan just as if they were there. In the tomb, they don't find the corpse of a gnoll, but the corpse of a human. The mysteriously familiar figure with burns on his face - the ghost of future-Al-Tair - steps out of the shadows and explains everything. Using apperance-altering magic, he took Shirak's place and did his best to change as little of the past as he could until events led back to the year Xotani was freed. He then used a wish Nefeshti granted him many years ago (he contacted her shortly before leaving for the City of Brass) to gather the party together after they were seperated during their fight against Rokova where half the party was captured. He tells the PCs that they need to take the scroll of Kakishon far from here. Even if he doesn't know exactly what it is, he knows it plays a role into bringing Xotani back to life.
So then the reunited party can storm back into the House of the Beast, fight their way to the surface and go back to Kelmarane. Their next step will obsiously be Katapesh, where they will try to find out exactly what is this mysterious scroll that could lead to the destruction of their country.
So, there it is. I left some details out, but I think this sums it up. As for what will happen when the main party gets to the fifth module, I am not sure what I will do. I though maybe in this altered timeline, the Grand Vizier's curse could have already been lifted so that the PCs could explore the City of Brass and maybe try to find allies in Jhavul's old enemies.
What do you guys think? Any ideas? suggestions? comments?
Wow, this would be really awesome to play through, I must say. BUT:
I think the PCs (not their characters) will be confused and wonder why are they doing all of this, until Al-Tair tells them his story (at the end) at which point the PCs will go: ahhhh, now it makes sense. But before that, it won't. So, I'm just worried at how will that play out on PCs.
And I'm a bit unsure of how all this will appear to PCs - they open Shirak's tombs, their vision goes white and now they're the second set of PCs, don't know who they are or how they got there, they just see open door and that's it?
How does the creation of those character goes? You make them all and just hand them sheets? Or you make a break to make new characters?
I like your goal of letting the PCs learn more of the back story, but I'm not sure how this is accomplishing it. Jhavhul is changing off-camera, the PCs end up in the City of Brass not knowing who they are, etc. It also seems like an extreme railroad - PCs are automatically captured by Rakova, automatically killed when they escape, teleported in by the Pactmasters without their knowledge or consent (and who are these PCs that the Pactmasters would even do that?). In my experience, players don't follow something this complex.
I think there's easier ways to tweak the existing campaign to reveal more info (my Dvashuum post being one way) if that's all you want. If you want to actually play some of the history, I might do something like having the PCs play the Templars. Maybe the Scroll is in the Jhavhul's palace. They have to grab it and then meet Jhavhul on the battle field.
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What I did was after they were caught by Rokova, I just told them : "I want you all to make a second set of PCs, 11th level. You will play them in one or two game sessions. It will all make sense when we get there."
All I told them was that none of their new PCs already knew eachother and that they could come from anywhere in the Inner Sea region. So they created their new PCs themselves and they were actually quite excited to play 11th level caracters for a while.
Also, the PCs were not automatically captured by Rokova. They made a big mistake by disturbing a religious ceremony to Rovagug in the big room near the Carrion King' throne room. They wanted to save a female slave that was gonna be sacrificed, but they just stormed into it without a plan. Actually, I could have made my plan work even if the PCs weren't captured and descended into the dungeon on their own. All I needed was to assume that the PCs would have failed to leave the House of the Beast with the scroll if it wasn't for the warning given by the ghost of the future-PC at Shirak's tomb.
So far, we have played throught the awakening of the second PCs in the cells of Bayt al-Bazan. Al-Tair hasn't revealed them anything because he suspects that they may be agents of the Grand Vizier or otherwise potential ennemies. As for the players, they seem to enjoy the air of mystery of waking up in a strange place and just exploring in search of answers (and their gear).
I do understand the risk of loosing my players if the plot becomes to complexe or to much of a railroad, but I hope they will simply enjoy exploring Bayt al-Bazan (which is really a great dungeon crawl) for the time being. When we will go back to the first set of PCs, they will be able to use what they learned through the Orb of Kadu-Ra to get a greater understanding of what is at stake without actually knowing that the scroll is a portal to Kakishon. Later, this may become a reason for activating the scroll. The PCs may want to destroy whatever is in Kakishon that can bring Xotani back to life and then discover that it is Jhavul and that he has escaped.
As for tweaking the existing campaign, I do intend on introducing Pahzvann (and maybe Davashuum) in the Jackal's Price. Your post did have very good ideas. I had already introduced one of Davashuum's agents (a suli monk) in Kelmarane in Howl of the Carrion King. I wanted to make him a recuring NPC, but the PCs killed him before he had the chance to reveal anything about his master.
Man, this is giving me great ideas for a LOST style flashback campaign.
Maybe Ancestor memory ala Assasins creed, where some weeks they are playing 2nd level characters and some weeks they are playing their 13th level ancestors.
Goo. Focus. I need to focus on finishing this one ;)