I just DMed the Morast arc tonight and thought you other DMs might find it interesting. Perhaps this gives you some insight into what some players might think when you DM it. I'm also interested in your thoughts (as DMs) on where to go from here given their deductions that follow:
Parts of the interview with Lazne I wasn't ready for and I suggest if you haven't done this yet you maybe learn from my (regular) missteps. For one, my PCs repeatedly badgered Lazne about what he saw. Was the man that they chased off into the night "stitched together like he was scarred". I played it like he couldn't tell in the dark. Then the PCs wanted to know if Lazne had personally seen the beast abscond with other villagers before this final encounter. I played it that he had seen some, others his kin had told him - everyone had mentioned this tall 7 foot man.
The 7 foot man thing really brought up a problem in that my PCs didn't think a 7 foot tall human was *THAT* strange - "so you're telling me if we put two 7 foot tall men in front of you you couldn't tell us which it was". I wished I had made the Beast 8 feet tall instead, just to make it less probable. So I played it like perhaps his ability to calculate height at a distance, in battle, wasn't the best. Just consider this angle (problem?).
You'll notice as a DM that it doesn't say what happens after the villagers take the PCs to the boneyard - what happens to the villager escorts. I had them retreat about 100 yards off the coast of the island to be ready to take the PCs back when they were ready because "we don't go there no more".
When the Manticore attacked, I had the villagers shouting "woots" and "go get em!" and "yeah boy!" and things like that in character. When the manticore retreated it was an "aww shucks, man!" That was fun.
The whole repeated rolling of Perceptions on the island was very cumbersome. I'm not sure how to fix that, but constantly saying "ok roll perception again" "and now again" "and now at the south side of the island" was pretty kludgy.
The manticore fight was great. That thing can really dish out a lot of damage in a short amount of time and I was really hurting the party badly until they started hiding around the base of the tree of its nest and the mage cast Obscuring Mist. At that point I had the Manticore come in close trying to find them knowing full and well that this would be its downfall. The PCs then were able to take it down but it still got several rounds off where it hit much of the (albeit bunched up) party with its spikes (one even critted for half the health of our witch).
So after fully searching the island here's what my PCs think.
The dwarf corpse might be the one who the villagers thought was the beast. Afterall, his boat is still here. If his boat's here, he never left the island. We as DMs see the flaw in that, knowing that the skinwalker in the "beast costume" just stomped off toward home. But that's a cool plot diversion.
They think that its suspicious though because a dwarf wouldn't need darkvision (they haven't yet made the next connection - that a flesh golem wouldn't either).
The basic conclusion of the party is that this whole thing looks very damning for the beast. They believe that the dwarf might have been the beast's creator. He created it on the island from body parts dug up from these grave sites. Their current plan is to take Lazne to see the beast (though I don't see how that's possible before the trial in the morning) and ask him if the beast looks like pieces of "his kin".
And that brings up an interesting question I don't think I saw covered in the module - what pieces *IS* the beast made up of. There's talk about the gorillion-flesh-golem contraption late in the module being made of that gorillion beast, but what about The Beast? Is it human pieces?
Further, my PCs basic strategy is to use magic outside of the courtroom to get to the bottom of this. They are really annoyed that the court won't allow magic cast in it. Luckily, none of the witnesses are lying, they all believe what they are saying to be the truth, so even Zone of Truth and Discern Lies type spells aren't of use.
The PCs found the surgeon tools, found the Raven's marking on them, tried to identify it with Knowledge: Local (I made it fail, which was annoying since one of the PCs - a historian bard, rolled a 30). One of my players though said "we don't know what this is, but I bet someone in town will". That's perfect and right along the storyline.
So given all that above, anyone seen anything particularly interesting I should do? Anyone see anything that the PCs might next try that I can prep for?
Thanks!
I have to say I had quite some similar experience with my players
The trouble began after arriving in Morast. Out of a sudden I could not come up with a good answer WHY the PC have to go the Boneyard. The Beast struck people who where alone in the night and later attacked houses…so WHY should the PC’s go to the Boneyard? I came up with the point that there where the people staged the Trap and droved it off.
My Pc’s wanted to investigate the houses the Beast attacked and to be honest THAT makes sence...the TimeLine helped (see later)
So finlay at the Boneyard and the Manticore crashed in the swamp (couldn’t get out of range quickly enough). So they find the dwarf and the empty graves…conclusion as above Post, until I “made them” realize that the nest is kind of new. So they ignored the dwarf but came to the point that the Beast was created HERE.They finaly came by themselves to ask when the Beast was first seen, and after understanding that its been around 15+ (looking how old Caromarc is, I thought that’s about reasonable).
Timeline
- Beast been around for 15y+ (History or Local Knowledge 15, ask the Kin!)
- Body Stolen 1y go (Graves, Nature 20, Survival 15)
- Nan Klebem killed 11m ago (Face, Heal 25)
- “Beast” scared off 9month ago (Elder)
- Manticore Nest 1 month old (Nature 15)
- Killed Dwarf 2-3 weeks old (Heal 15)
Another problem
The Beast is supposed to curse VERY badly...that should be also a Deduction if they can show that in cort...
I updated my GM Material langenhan.info/RPG