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So...I have been running a modified/mixed RoTRL and CoCT campaign. Two of my players are Shoanti, and two of the others are Varisian. The Seneschal was rescued and taken to Fort Rannick (remember we are mixing the two) at which point an invasion of Korvosa to remove the queen once they get the sword seems to be the way they are going. A treaty has been agreed between the Shoanti and the Seneschal that the Grand Mustaba (and only the Grand Mustaba) will be returned to the Shoanti people, in exchange for them ceasing attacks on settlements below the Storval plain and agreeing the City of Korvosa has a right to exist.
Taking out Hellknights (I have a side quest handling removing them from the battle) and assuming the loyalty to the Queen in the city has been undermined by suspicion that the Seneschal is innocent...
How do you see Korvosa defending herself. I have ideas, and I'm not going to post to many specifics of my plan in this forum in case players are watching, but I wanted other peoples ideas of how to do this as a mass combat.
I plan on the invaders making clear that they are coming only to remove the Queen from the Castle, under the lawful authority given to the Seneschal, and that therefore they will not attack civilians, and will do as little harm as possible.
The sides as I see them
Invaders include
Shoanti
Sable Company Marines
Possible support from Magnimar via Fort Rannick
Defectors from Korvosa (I have the queen doing a full on expulsion of Varisians and Shoanti, using the Bloodveil as an excuse.
The Party
Korvosa
Korvosan Guard
Church of Asmodeus (Church of Abadar will likely sit this out for reasons I'll handle in game. And the Church of Pharasma will I assume stay neutral.
Possibly some of the Wizards from the Wizarding School.
I'm looking for ideas. Like I said I have a rough plan in my head which involves having the party be responsible for opening and holding one of the gates to allow the Shoanti riders into the city toward the castle, and go from there.
So ideas and thoughts?
I'm looking for ideas. Like I said I have a rough plan in my head which involves having the party be responsible for opening and holding one of the gates to allow the Shoanti riders into the city toward the castle, and go from there.
So...
I had a somewhat similar deal when we got to the last adventure as the party had helped organize an alliance of Shoanti, Varisians and a mercenary force from Magnimar to help liberate the city. For the most part I described the action rather than play out the streetfighting. I made it clear that the PC's forces drew away defenses from the Castle and otherwise gave them a better chance. However,they were generally aware of Ileosa's true designs so were focused on getting to the Queen.
But if you wanted to do the take the bridge thing/hold the gate I would probably just port in either the Trifeccia encounter or fast fwd to Sabina and the dragon.
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I'm looking for ideas. Like I said I have a rough plan in my head which involves having the party be responsible for opening and holding one of the gates to allow the Shoanti riders into the city toward the castle, and go from there.
So...
I had a somewhat similar deal when we got to the last adventure as the party had helped organize an alliance of Shoanti, Varisians and a mercenary force from Magnimar to help liberate the city. For the most part I described the action rather than play out the streetfighting. I made it clear that the PC's forces drew away defenses from the Castle and otherwise gave them a better chance. However,they were generally aware of Ileosa's true designs so were focused on getting to the Queen.
But if you wanted to do the take the bridge thing/hold the gate I would probably just port in either the Trifeccia encounter or fast fwd to Sabina and the dragon.
I don't really like the Trifeccia encounter, it didn't make any sense to me why he was there helping the queen.
I was thinking about the Dragon encounter, but I don't know how it would work with her turning the dragon in the middle of an invasion and switching sides. I was thinking of having the dragon attack while they were moving into position for the charge, but I guess it makes as much sense to have it come attack the gate if it is being attacked. Then having her turn at that point could move the fight to the castle.
Good idea, thanks. I'll think on that one.
I would have the PCs try to hold off an invasion of the city. The Shoanti may lay seige to the city, but the PCs have to negotiate them into stalling the attack so they can take care of the real problem: the queen.
In case of a full-blown attack, many innocent soldiers and civilians will die. But having thousands of Shoanti camped outside of the city walls might increase the pressure on the city officials and the PCs alike (if the PCs don't stop the queen before a given point, the Shoanti will attack and take care of her themselves).
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I would have the PCs try to hold off an invasion of the city. The Shoanti may lay seige to the city, but the PCs have to negotiate them into stalling the attack so they can take care of the real problem: the queen.
In case of a full-blown attack, many innocent soldiers and civilians will die. But having thousands of Shoanti camped outside of the city walls might increase the pressure on the city officials and the PCs alike (if the PCs don't stop the queen before a given point, the Shoanti will attack and take care of her themselves).
Two of the PC's are Shoanti. And at this point the Seneshal and the Shoanti have negotiated a "Lesser of two evils" treaty working with the PC's and Thousand bones that will return the Pyramid to the Sun Clan in exchange for the Sun Clan acknowledging Korvosa's right to exist and stopping raids below the Storval Plain.
This will be fun politics later, but basically Korvosa has become mostly Cheliaxian thanks to the Queens purges, both by blood veil and decree, and the Shoanti, Local Varisians, the PC's and the Seneschal have found common cause against the queen.
Re Trifeccia, yeah I had the same impression about it when I first read the adventure and like you said to myself no need for it.
So when running the adventure things were going off on a tangent and I decided I needed something to quickly throw into to get the focus back. So pulled out Trifeccia.
It worked beautifully and was one of the encounters that the players continued to talk about. It works very well especially if you have a successor Blackjack in the party (kind of a spiderman, venom thing). That and his personality combined with the wishes, well like I said it was a lot of fun and I had never expected it to be. And yes, one of the party members was sent to hell.
As for the whole why would the efreeti be working for the Queen. Well 1, who cares? 2) if you need to explain it it would be fairly easy to rationalize that the efreeti owed Sermignatto a favour.
So all in all I'd say Trifeccia was an unexpected gem of a character and an encounter.
