HMM: Convolutions and Timelines (spoilers)

[eyelessgame]

My players are almost to the best epic visual (imho) of the whole RotRL - they're in the dam, about to sneak past the trolls and get to the control room.

But they're irritated - well, one of them is, anyway. He asked a really good question.

"So I get that with all those people in Turtleback Ferry marked with the Sihedron rune, Lucrezia was doing some kind of ritual, like Aldern and the Brothers of the Seven were doing on those people they killed, and she wanted to drown the town and get power from it for something. But all this is really convoluted. If she could get thirty or more ogres to attack the fort *and* try to sabotage the dam at the same time, why not just use thirty ogres to slaughter everybody in the town, including all the ones with the rune? The highest level guy there is what, fifth level? Most of them are first-level commoners. They'd be no match for thirty ogres."

I allowed as how this was a good question. I don't know yet whether (a) there's some good reason that I haven't noticed yet in the module series itself, (b) I'll come up with a good reason, or (c) I'll just tell them "okay, so the bad guys are kind of insane, just go with it". The problem with (c) is that it discourages players from trying to "figure out" the bad guys - if the bad guys are this convoluted, why bother trying to duplicate their thought processes and figure out their plans?

We had a similar problem with the timing in the module. My players noticed there seems to be an inconsistency in how long it had been since the ogres took Fort Rannick.

By the storyline, the ogres had to take the Fort, at which point the Fort would "go dark". It didn't make everyday contact with the outside world, so some amount of time - a week, at least - would have to pass before anyone became alarmed by this -- and then they'd have to realize this was something beyond "bad weather can cause messages to get lost" ... and after that, a message would have to get to Magnimar that something was wrong -- and the travel time is ten days. And only then would the Lord-Mayor decide to send the PCs to investigate. Then it takes the PCs another ten days to get there.

So it seems like it has to have been at least a month since the fort was taken. But there were still prisoners alive -- and some of the evidence suggested it had only been days since many of the rangers were killed. I can't make the timeline work.

Any help on either of these from anyone?

Edit: I should stress that we all are loving the series and the writing is, in general, excellent. These kinds of questions and problem-solving are what I've wanted my players to do for a long time, and could never get them to put this kind of effort into. It's because the adventure is so good that this kind of nitpicking comes up - they're no longer satisfied with "okay, it's an excuse to go beat up monsters and go up levels". They're actually investing in the world and the story, and I love it. So this is all nitpick. But I'd like to know if anyone's answered this.

[eyelessgame]

I also couldn't figure out how long the trolls had been at the dam.

Why is this important? The PCs are having fun trying to figure out what caused the flow gates to stop working. Right now their two theories are (a) the fungus grew into the controls and gummed it up, (b) the trolls sabotaged it somehow. Knowing how long the trolls have been there is an important clue for whether they might have been the ones to break it.

So I looked. The scrag has been there for "most of its life". So how long to scrags live? No good evidence I can see. There's a comment that the Turtleback citizens (and Rannick survivors - Vale is still alive in my game) know the trolls are there, and have been there for a while.

But that led to another problem -- the ogres' (and Lucrezia's) miscalculation in sending the force they did to sabotage the dam. If they'd known there was a big force of trolls there, they'd not have split their forces and taken Rannick at the same time. But how would they not know, if the trolls had been there for decades? It's a glaring hole in what seems to have been an elaborately planned campaign... (which still has the "why not just kill the town directly" problem too.)

[TwoWolves]

IMC, I had the PC's actions trigger a lot of this. When Xanesia was killed, she dropped out of contact with Lucretia (via Dream spells or Sending). Lucretia gets spooked and sinks the barge before she wanted to, harvesting a fraction of the souls she planned.

Meanwhile, when Barl took over the Kreegs, he helped them take the fort, partially as payback on the ogres' behalf, partially to remove the only real military encampment between Jorgunfist and southern Varisia. He has no interest in really helping Lucretia, because he has his own agenda. He lets the ogres go nuts on the fort for a while, and then has them making weapons just before pulling out to join the main army. Lucretia "persuades" him to help her finish the job she started, so while some ogres are at the fort and some are making weapons, he sends a token force to sabotage the dam while also ordering the hags to amp up the bad weather. This lets him satisfy her with minimal effort on his part. The ogres in the fort are on the verge of getting their marching orders back to Jorgunfist, Lucretia gets her souls, and most importantly, the flooding of Turtleback Ferry looks like a natural disaster, thereby not giving the humans of Varisia any warning that an army is amassing.

And then the PCs show up...

[eyelessgame]

That makes a ton of sense, TwoWolves. I'm going to steal it. Thanks.

[golem101]

Possible explanation: as the Black Arrows are rangers patrolling the border, moving a sizeable force of ogres (not the stealthiest creatures) towards Turtleback Ferry could have alerted them in time to organize guerrilla raids and a proper defence of the settlement, or even a complete relocation of the populace inside the fort, giving the Kreegs a much harder time - and even remotely possible defeat.

What's more, the Sihedron rune is inscribed in individuals "tainted" by sin (greed), a requisite that simple slaughter could not accomplish. So the elaborate plan of the gambling house brought forth by Lucretia.

Another thing to keep in mind is that even if Lamia Matriarch(es?) are cunning and capable creatures, they're not really accustomed to the "modern" Golarion, as they've kept a low profile for a very long time, until the awakening of Karzoug.
Being prideful and with an alien mindset of sort, even these infiltrators are somewhat prone to miscalculations when dealing with the people of a land they now know very little of - mostly remembering humans as slaves of a mainly monster ruled empire, millennia ago.

Regarding the dam, the Lamia Matriarch has simply sent the most hard-hitting force at her disposal against a band of independent trolls, hoping that the ogres would be strong enough to dislodge the trolls from their lair, while she would deal with the residents of Turtleback Ferry with a more subtle approach.

The timeframe of Fort Rannick attack/survivors is more complex to deal with.
Maybe the Magnimar's Mayor has a faster way to learn that something has gone wrong (magic: Animal Messenger or even Sending spells are not out of the possibilities). Even a divination spell, cast every Wealday - or Moonday, or Oathday - just to check everything's OK with the border of Magnimar's holdings, may have alerted the autorities that something bad has happenend. So, a faster response time - excluding travel - is reasonable.
The surviving rangers may have not been captured in the initial assault, but a short number of days later, returning from a long range patrol duty or failing to escape their hunters while desperately fleeing from the massacre at the fort. Or they're just the last of long line of victims butchered by the Grauls, having experienced the horror of seeing their comrades tortured to death at the hands of the demented ogrekin...

Hope that all of this makes some sense.

[Old Drake]

It seems that the only question remaining is how long the trolls have been living on the dam. While it's not explicitly stated, I would go with centuries or living memory. It is a very good lair, so it's unlikely that it was empty for a long period of time; for simplicities sake I would rule that the trolls have been there so long that nobody remembers who lived there before and no signs of their presence remain. The scrag has lived there for most his life, but he merely encountered the troll tribe already living there.

Why didn't Lucretia know about them? Would she have cared, when she set up the barge in town? I highly doubt it, and it's not something that'd come up in casual conversation. Don't forget that she isn't human and probably tried to avoid getting too close to anyone; as long as she stayed professional and semi-distant there was very little chance of anyone discovering her duplicity. Second, while some in town know about the trolls, it's just a few; and none of the IIRC was interested in gambling.

The ogres either don't know because they live too far away (with rangers in the way, making the trek very dangerous) or were never asked for their opinion. One common failing of leaders is that they are so isolated from their troops that they don't learn about dangers 'everyone' knows about until too late. And in this case I doubt the leaders would care for the opinion (or life) of the troops. Just because bad guys are sane and smart doesn't mean they are great leaders and can develop (good/working) plans.