Some Ideas for Running Part 5: Sins of the Saviors

[Patrick Kropp]

Hello,

finally (after 1 year and 3 months of realtime playing time) my group reached part 5 of the AP. They left Freezemaw death behind them (2 real cool fights against him... one only aerial with the dragon never setting a claw on earth, then a suggestion from the wizard drove him back into his cave where he made his final stand to protect his hoard - fullly healed with the potions).

In my campaign I have the agents of Karzoug take a more active role in the world. I stolen Ordikon from Part 5 of the AP and made him a "Tax Collector" who gathers tributes from all Varisian cities on the threat of destruction after Karzougs return (I took him mainly for his exotic look - I played the scene much like in the movie 300 where the persians demand surrender -> Ordikon offered the head of the major from Magnimar as proof of his might). Not a few cities surrenderd and ordered to give the Runelord slaves and gold to rebuild Xin-Shalast. He made the PC´s even offers to join the runelord. But they refused...

But now they just stepped through the portal to Runeforge and we ended our last session. I don´t want it to be such a long Dungeon Crawl. So I´m searching for some ideas to make this part shorter and more believeable. But not boring and meaningless. Here are some ideas. It would be great if you tell me what you think about them or give me your own ideas!

- 10.000 years of inaction in runeforge. I can´t really believe they live that long and do so little. Most of them would be insane I think. Maybe after the catalysm that ended Thassilon – they lost contact to the outer world and concluded that their services will be needet again in future times. So the undergone a ritual went into a magical hibernation? As the runewell flared to life 5 years ago – so the Runeforge did! Maybe even Runeforge itself shutted all down as the Runewells went down and restartet itself after the the runewell in sandpoint flared to life?

- I don´t have Freezwmaw to attack the PC´s in Runeforge, but maybe Ordikon used a spell and traveled after the them to give his awakening runelord the treasures of Runeforge? Good idea? If yes - which servants he would take with him from Xin-Shalast?

[Patrick Kropp]

Hm, no thoughts on my changes? Possible Problems?

What do you think about the idea that the PC´s not just collect sin-related items... they must infuse them with "sin"? One way would be to take part in a appropriate sin! To craft a domineering weapon the pc must make a sinful action (lust and pride in this case).

For Lust I have plenty of ideas. But whats with pride?

[Old Drake]

If Karzoug is acting that openly, he will be recruiting as well. That means you will see a lot more humans and humanoids in the city and far more activity; things like roads being rebuild, statues repaired, and observation/guard posts being constructed. The sighting of messengers from Xin-Shalast and even movement of troops loyal to Karzoug should become routine.
Don't forget that the society is very discriminatory; humans are at the top of the food chain, socially and training wise, and wizards are more respected than any other class. So I would expect an expedition of humans (or at least mostly humans) visiting the Runeforge - I wouldn't take anyone from the existing material but create a few human NPCs for that; maybe to show the players what enormous power they're facing they could ride on enslaved dragons.

Having the Runefore hibernate is a good idea, but would actually lead to a few more involved and dangerous dungeon crawl; a fully intact and staffed Runeforge would probably kill a much higher level party without problems. It was staffed with the elite wizards of the seven kingdoms of the empire after all; there'd be dozens of wizards above the party level. Unless they've mostly killed off one another (unlikely, since they did cooperate for decades or centuries before the fall). I don't know what you've told your players so far, but you might be better off if you replaced it with Karzoug's research lab and staffed it with just a few loyal minions and artifacts taken from the other Rune Lords that can be used to create the rune-forged weapons.

I don't think sin powered items is a good idea. Especially if one a certain combination of sins is useful to the players. As player it would seem like the DM forcing me to act in a certain way, or suffer a major penalty. Not good. It is however an interesting idea; if you have the sin list from the earlier part of the campaign, look at what sin is most prevalent among the party. Then create an item using that sin and have the party stumble on it and learn what it is and how it works; if at all possible something that's mildly useful. Observe how the party reacts and if they all find the system okay, then you can introduce more items like that.
There's three issues you should keep in mind though:
1. Don't make the items too useful, or the players will feel forced to act in certain ways.
2. The system of powering the items can become a lot of unnecessary bookkeeping if you don't design the system appropriately, especially once there's more than one item using sin as power.
3. Be careful about linking plot items with sin power. Wrath is easy enough to power, but even it can become a distraction.

[Patrick Kropp]

Sorry, maybe I was a little unclear.

Thanks a lot for your insight Old Drake! This is the sort of feedback I searched for. You are right. If I make these changes, I should make some thoughts on the further development. How many cities surrendered and send slaves to Xin-Shalast. How many servitors has Karzoug etc.

The thing with runeforge... I just want to use it as written in the module. The hibernate story is that I can better explain my players the 10.000 years!

To the items. The players must done this act one time to create the runecraft weapon!

[Damon Griffin]

Is there any prospect of using Runeforge to create virtue-based weapons rather than sin-based? Linking sins to the PCs in my game didn't work very well at Foxglove Manor, and I think it'd feel more natural to fight a given sin using its corresponding virtue.

If the seven sins are just corrupted forms of the seven virtues of rule, then perhaps each sin-virtue pair represents two side of a coin, and either side might be used to gain access, overcome magical protection, do extra damage, or whatever else the runeforged weapons are used for.

[Old Drake]

Okay, I misunderstood the part about items. Though the idea of sin powered items (or virtue powered items for that matter) is something that won't leave me alone. I'll have to create some house rules and custom items for that soon.

As for the crafting... I have some ideas. Let's see:
To craft the item the players must take the item they wish to enhance and climb into the runeforge pool nude; change the appearance for the pool so that they can climb into it and are immersed in something. If possible end the session there. The creation of the rune weapon would then be a mental process happening in their heads, so nobody knows what the other sees/does. You can then between sessions get together with each player alone and play out the sequence and begin the next session when they emerge from the pool with their weapons.

The seven virtues of rule are very hard to play, but give the players a chance, if you think their characters did display the appropriate virtue; for a dominant weapon that would be 'Wealth'. If the players realize that and attempt to use it (ask the player for their intention when you play the scene; unless the player states he wants to use the virtue, default to sins), have them start in a dream like state, surrounded by mist that they can affect with their mind. They now need to create a representation of wealth without falling into greed; difficult at best, but possible. If he succeeds, then the session is at an end; I'd require not only showing material wealth, but also intellectual wealth (books, library), and friendship, perhaps even sharing of the wealth. I would also accept using wealth for the common good, even if it's for profit (university, useful infrastructure with usage fee, ...). It's up to the player to know what he wants (wealth) and turn the mist into a good representation.
If he fails, you have several choices.
1. You can punish him (gain less experience next session, a curse that can only be removed in a certain fashion, ..) and have him try again.
2. You take it as fulfilling the sin of greed, and allow him to create either a 'miserly' or 'parasitic' weapon.
3. He gets a cursed 'dominant' weapon.
4. The enchantment fails and he gets no runeforged weapon but no penalty either.
5. He gets a dominant weapon but looses all wealth.

Sample Curse 1: It acts normal, unless used against a representative of the runelord of greed, when the boni inverse (a +3 weapon becomes -3, saving throw bonuses become penalties, ...).
Weapon curse.
Sample Curse 2: the PC becomes weak versus illusions and enchantments (take -2 'runic curse' penalty on saving throws versus these schools).
Weapon or PC curse.
Sample Curse 3: The player becomes very greedy. Unless role played the character gains an XP penalty for the session. The character will never be satisfied with anything and always want more!
PC curse
Sample Curse 4: The character looses wealth constantly. Every night there's a chance that he looses 10% of his coins and jewels, and other wealth, regardless of who keeps it save at the time.
PC curse
Sample Curse 5: Lust and Pride! Like curse 3, only with the two opposing sins.

The normal way would be to use sin to empower the weapon. But I'd not just require minor sin, but going all out for the forging.

Lust:

Adults only!!!:

While normally sin doesn't need to get criminal, I feel here it needs to be. Rape. The character wakes up in a house/room with an NPC (you could use a PC but I'd be very cautious about that) and know that to get the weapon enchanted he needs to have sex with the NPC. The NPC however isn't willing and needs to be forced. Female characters should start with a magical strap on.
The NPC should be someone the character knows and if possible likes. Otherwise a priestess of an order with chastity vow or a child may fill the place.
This is revolting, but for a reason: the players are using sin to craft powerful weapons. This should not be a trivial process, or something easily forgotten or attempted again anytime soon! It's a process rooted in evil and the players should realize that.

I can see that this will not work for all groups, but there's not many ways to handle lust. Any attempt to role play the sin will end with adult only material.

Pride:
Since it's the sin corresponding to 'honest pride', this goes well into the area of arrogance. Playing this out should be individualized. A noble may simply go through a few routine events at his estate and deal harshly with his slaves or servants and lord his titles over visiting lesser nobles.
Adventurers may wake up in an arena and be confronted by a number of potential enemies: they can choose who to fight. The weak commoner? Or the master of their art? If they dismiss all but the strongest enemy and act appropriately arrogant towards everyone they pass the challenge without fighting. Of course if they act appropriately after you narrated an easy victory and boast about how they overcome their great enemy, they could pass even with the wrong choice. Otherwise they should get a curse or perhaps simply a negative level, and then be able to choose the next opponent while the crowd loudly complains about how unsuited they are.
You might also want to design some challenges. The players choose how difficult. If they choose the easy way (low DC) the contests keep going on and on endlessly. They need to choose several real challenges (DC 30 or even higher; at least some challenges should require roles over 15 to succeed) to pass; the number of easy challenges means nothing. Every failure will have a real world consequence. A failed diplomacy check may mean a high level character/high CR monster is now out hunting the party while a failed knowledge check could mean that the next serious enemy the character fights has perfect knowledge of all his stats/abilities/spells and chooses optimum strategy against them. Be creative. You'll probably have several days to prepare the consequences before the next session, so there's no need to improvise quickly.

There's of course other ways to play pride and since these are one-on-one sessions it should be easy to customize them for each player/character. The event should be a very strong display of pride/arrogance, going well beyond the normal levels.

Adults only!!!:

If the lust scene played out well enough a confrontation with the NPC could be used; if the character goes the you're-only-useful-for-my-pleasure route in the first scene and utterly dominates the NPC, the one scene could be counted for both sins.

Oh, and be sure to ask the players not to share what they experienced out of character. If they want the others to know, they should discuss it in character only.

Once the PC succeeds, he exits the pool with his weapon (and maybe a few curses) or he exits the pool with only curses after failing. There's obviously a third option: the character refuses to give in to sin and wants to abort. In that case they should be allowed to do so. If there's some penalty is up to you, but I'd simply go with one attempt only so that they won't have any rune weapon.

If the players want to create a different rune weapon, you may have to improvise on the fly; if you can ask them via email before the individual session what they want to enchant the weapon with so that you can be prepared.

[OmegaZ]

@Old Drake: I LOVE the idea of personalized sin weapons/items. For non-combat PC's, you could check out the section in there about the Thassilonian magical items like the envy mirror and sloth telekinetic gloves.

[Old Drake]

OmegaZ wrote:

@Old Drake: I LOVE the idea of personalized sin weapons/items. For non-combat PC's, you could check out the section in there about the Thassilonian magical items like the envy mirror and sloth telekinetic gloves.

Are you talking about my comment about sin powered items? I wasn't thinking about Thassilonian magical items specifically, but items that are 'charged' (or perhaps maintained) by the owner's sins/virtue. That means the more you sin, the more powerful the sin item becomes. (And I'll use sin for both the negative and the positive virtue from now on.)

So a 'wrathful wand of magic missile' would be a normal 1st level wand with some charges to begin with, but in the hands of a very brutal master it could become a 5th level wand regenerating 1d10 charges a day and grant +1 bonus versus conjuration and abjuration. And in the hand of someone that centers his life around all aspects of 'wrath' it could gain almost artifact level power: 9th level magic missiles, recovers 3d10 charges a day, missiles automatically attempt to dismiss outsiders if they inflict more than 10 points of damage versus one target and automatically counter-spells the first dispel magic used against the caster each day; in addition the missiles act as bane vs. summoned creatures. +2 saving throw bonus vs. conjuration and abjuration. And the wand can cast two other evocation spells determined at random at the cost of one charge per spell level.

But to get that much out of an item, you really have to focus on playing out the sin with the character; to the degree that the party will be stressed if they live out different sins and even the same sin (pride, greed, envy) could become problematic and turn the party against one another. It would certainly become hard to maintain a non-evil alignment while powering a sin weapon to max.
The danger in using this kind of item is that the players feel forced to role-play in a certain fashion to get the most out of the items - players who don't want to play that way may feel unjustly punished. In addition the group dynamics will probably make it impossible to get any items anywhere near full power, so the players may feel cheated because the NPC got so much more use out of the item than they do. And of course tracking how sinful a character was is not easy.
A simpler version of the system where items regenerate a charge or two when the character commits a major corresponding sin would be easier to handle but less memorable and a lot of paperwork.
Maybe a sin-focus (essentially like a psionic focus only gained by committing a significant sin only) for weapons that can be expended to give the weapon the bane ability for a (few) round(s). Hmmm... that could actually work pretty well.

I've also though about a feat driven system where characters can gain sin points and spend them for benefits, but it doesn't work well with alignment and gods - religious characters are automatically at a disadvantage, so limiting it to rare magical items (mostly aimed for arcane and fighter types) appears to work better.

Of course the devil is in the details... how to somewhat fairly assess what level of power the PC has access to; for that matter how many levels of powers should a typical item have?
I'll probably use a virtue only system and include various virtues linked to the gods; this avoids most of the alignment issues and provides a reasonable source for where the power comes from (directly from the gods). A sin based system sounds better, but will quickly draw the characters towards evil alignments and that's not something I like in games; at least not in long games. And then there's the issue of self destruction inherent into the sins.