So, an interesting conundrum that I'm facing - The party in my Kingmaker game managed to defeat the Stag Lord without ever reaching Nettles Crossing. As such, they slew the evil bandit lord and then proceeded to burning the Stag Lord's body, wanting a fair amount of satisfaction from his death.
So, this begs the general question - Davik Nettles won't rest until the body of the Stag Lord is tossed into his river, and there's no body to provide with these PCs. Should he remain and continue to haunt the river, posing a problem to their fledgling kingdom, or should he let himself rest now that the Stag Lord is dead?
The evil DM in me definitely wants the former, but maybe I should be nicer to them.
Just thought I'd pick the brains of the very awesome folks here as to how you might approach Davik Nettles and his need for revenge.
Even when burned, there’s something of the remains left. Should be enough to give ol’ Davik some satisfaction. After all, he himself was burned as well.
That's assuming that he's recognizable after being burned. I wouldn't think Davik would be satisfied by just a charred, unrecognizable corpse.
I guess I should mention that the Stag Lord in my game wound up being a little bit more... fiendish than the one normally written. The party was very keen on destroying him as thoroughly as possible. But maybe they could do some Diplomacizing to convince Davik of the body's identity.
My PCs also killed the Stag Lord before they got to Nettle's Crossing, so I just didn't use the encounter. Seemed easiest, since the encounter has lost all meaning, and would just be a "beat up on the undead" encounter.
I do vaguely find the idea of an undead menace that keeps coming back over and over, no matter how often you destroy him to be an interesting issue for the kingdom to deal with as it expands. I'm just not sure exactly what sort of repercussions I might be missing and am keen on some other takes on it.
I figure that being a restless spirit and all Nettles would just "know" that it was the Stag Lord - ghosts in stories always seem to have that kind of prescience.
Symbolism. If the body's gone, there's going to be something that represents the Stag Lord or his regime, with some choices crueler than others. That's the folklore answer at any rate.
I would vote to skip the encounter entirely.. or perhaps simply have the spirit come out of the water and thank them, leaving them asking themselves why.
Greetings, fellow travellers.
I am a big fan of leveling monsters - so I would definitely have him at a challenging level no matter when in the campaign the finally meet.
Depending on the amount of work you want to put into that encounter - let the PCs have to find something (else) belonging to or resembling the Stag Lord. Maybe, by chance his father escaped and they have to track him down to deliver his body instead of the Stag Lord's to Nettle. Or maybe his helm might be enough to release Ol' Nettle from his torment.
Ruyan.
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Even when burned, there’s something of the remains left. Should be enough to give ol’ Davik some satisfaction. After all, he himself was burned as well.That's assuming that he's recognizable after being burned. I wouldn't think Davik would be satisfied by just a charred, unrecognizable corpse.
I guess I should mention that the Stag Lord in my game wound up being a little bit more... fiendish than the one normally written. The party was very keen on destroying him as thoroughly as possible. But maybe they could do some Diplomacizing to convince Davik of the body's identity.
Like MaxAstro suggested, I’d figure Davik as being all after-lifey would “know” that it was his remains. But the suggestion to have your party “talk him into” taking the remains is pretty cool. Maybe he has to be talked into it, and then can sense the truth of it after?
You could always change Davik's murderer to be someone else in the Stolen Lands, like Hargulka the troll.
For more effectiveness, let the players meet and befriend the living DN and his bridge, maybe he could come to them, proposing to build the bridge under their aegis? Then kill him off by that threatening NPC, and have him return as a vengeful undead.
If I wasn't already past this point in the campaign, I may have done something similar. In fact, it may be even more fun for Davik's murderer to be some NPC that the PC befriend and perhaps even have a good relationship with before the "truth" comes out.
In fact, it may be even more fun for Davik's murderer to be some NPC that the PC befriend and perhaps even have a good relationship with before the "truth" comes out.
Oleg!