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I am about to start Cruse of the Crimson Throne, and an idea on how to start the campaign has been burning in my head. However it would be good if someone with a better overview of the campaign could give me some advice.
When reading the campaign traits, the Unhappy Childhood made a strong impression and brought the movie "Sleepers" to mind. The premise would be the following. All PCs were Little Lamms when they were children. It was like a family, tough a very rough one, and they grew up very close. At some point, they were arrested by the guard, in a move by Lamm to save himself. The PCs ended up in an orphanage where they were badly treated.
Now 10-12 years have passed, and the PCs have taken different paths, although the scars have marked all of them deeply. I want to push the players into having different character concepts: a family man with responsibilities who wants a better life for his children than what he had, a priest who found in faith a hinge to reintegrate in society, a messed up good-for-nothing who has never fit into the real world... I also want them to think very much about the links between their characters in that distorted family they used to have, and how those roles reflect on how they feel towards each other nowadays.
But of course, this is a problem, as it puts EVEN more pressure on killing Lamm. There are two ways to solve this: one is that Lamm escapes so he can be used as bait, which was discussed in here.
The other is shifting the focus to someone else. Now, this could be quite complicated. I have had a look at the whole campaign, and for the moment I am leaning towards the Red Mantis. The story convolution I have figured so far goes like this:
Before joining Lamm, as babies, the PCs lived at an orphanage (either they were orphans, or maybe had been kidnapped) were the Red Mantis supervised prospective members from their very early steps. The children were submitted to terrible tests to select only the most physically fit. Some children died in the process. The PCs were not good enough, and were sold to Lamm.
Now, how I *hope* this will play: the dying Lamm will tell them about how ungrateful they are, looking at what those monsters in the orphanage in [location] had done to them. When the PCs go to the orphanage, the horrible memories will come back to them. About then, the riots start, they get arrested, and Queen Ileosa has decreed that every able man has to help to keep peace. Martial law should keep them busy until the end of the module. In the meanwhile, they should figure that something weird went on in the orphanage. In Seven Days to the Grave, it should become clear that the Red Mantis was behind. I was thinking about some orphanage buddy, now a proper assassin, showing up nicely, and then trying to cut the PCs throats.
OK, I know, this is complicated. But I want to experiment a bit, and I am also rather obsessed with realistic PC motivations. I guess the biggest problem is that the PCs end up attempting a front war against the Red Mantis, so I might have some higher ranking member being behind the orphanage, and hopefully that will make the PCs happy.
Suggestions, comments?
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I'm planning on playing a prelude adventure first, with the PCs being kids in the service of Lamm. It will take place four years prior to the start of the adventure, against the background of Ileosa's arrival in the city.
The PCs will experience firsthand some of Lamm's evil, before being rescued from his clutches by the mysterious Blackjack. This way their hatred for the old man will be heart-felt.
The encounters I’m planning are:
- a rat hunt in the sewers to gather food for Gobblegut;
- an experiment to ‘milk’ dream spiders in an old abandoned theatre (which will fail);
- an encounter with the purchaser of the dream spider milk, an ugly alchemist (Rolth);
- the failed escape of a fellow lamb, who is cruelly killed before the eyes of the other lambs and whose corpse is later fed to Gobblegut;
- a pickpocket trip to the Golden Market on Korvosa’s birthday, where they witness the king visiting his people and a beautiful girl staging an accident to get the king’s attention (Ileosa);
- the girl also looses a brooch, the PCs find it and have to hand it over to Lamb;
- one of the PCs being molested by Lamb;
- a couple of weeks later the king is planning to get married to the girl he met in the market, the celebration will take place on Saint Alika’s day;
- a Varisian actor who hires some of Lamm’s lambs to perform in his play (an adaptation of the Pied Piper), including some theatrical exercises to prepare the children (for the PCs for roleplaying fun);
- on the king’s wedding day, the PCs military parade which ends in the Korvosan guard giving the new queen a small private guard: the Grey Maidens;
- during the play the PCs discover an old woman under the stage who directs the rats on stage and find out she is a wererat (who will help them later in the AP to find the wererat lair);
- later that night the PCs have to join Lamm while he’s picking up some stolen goods;
- Lamm starts drinking and playing the dice where looses badly, so he sells one of the PCs to a captain to cover his losses;
- on his way home Lamm is pissed-oof and takes his anger out on the PCs, when Blackjack steps in to save the PCs;
- (optional) the PCs return with Blackjack to Lamm’s hide-out to free the other lambs;
- Blackjack sees the PCs off to a safe foster family.
One of the PCs’ sisters is also a little lamb. She will end up a Grey Maiden.
There will also be a traitor lamb who will be part of Lamm’s gang when they’ve grown up.
MrVergee, those are very interesting ideas indeed! Let me know how it is going.
Finally, what I tried is generating the PCs backgrounds by storytelling. We were sitting at the table, "recollecting memories". I was giving pieces of information and asking them questions, and they filled in the gaps, and we figured how their characters were when they were children, how they grew up, and what are they doing nowadays. So we have a Priest of Pharasma who found in faith a refuge; a Varisian dancer that cannot find a place between non-Varisians because of his skin color, but neither between Varisians because he did not grow up among them; a successful businessman that buried all his scars becoming a respected member of the Korvosan society; and an urban druid, a messed up halfling that never managed to become a normal member of society.
So, there are the f***-ups I'll have as PC's :) It sounds so exciting!
Next game, the dancer, after 13 obsessive years, has tracked down Lamm thanks to the help of a powerful seer... It is time to get the old gang together, and give Lamm what he deserves.
MrVergee, those are very interesting ideas indeed! Let me know how it is going.
I will certainly post my experiences on these boards, but the campaign won't start for at least another year or so, since our current campaign (in which I am a player) still has a long way to go.
That doesn't prevent me, though, from already preparing Curse of the Crimson Throne. I really like this AP, but I'm making some small, but also some major changes and additions. This requires a lot of time and by starting this early, there is no pressure. On top of that I like the mental challenge of reworking adventures to suit our group's taste.
I'm currently working on the fifth installment. I've decided to totally skip 'Skeletons of Scarwall' (not because I think it is a bad adventure - it looks like an excellent piece of castle crawl, but my group is just not into mega-dungeons). Instead I’ll have the PCs return to Korvosa, where they will aid in the rebellion.
Finding these bones will not be easy, which gives me the time to involve the PCs in the revolution before they rush off to kill the queen. My fifth installment will probably look something like this:
- the PCs find their way back into the city and witness the significant changes;
- they try to trace the rebels;
- they meet a false Blackjack (I’ll be using a devil who imitates Blackjack, instead of the efreeti NPC, who works to give the rebels a bad name and who wants to draw the real rebels out);
- after meeting up with the rebels, the PCs free the Leroung family, who have been placed under house arrest for raising doubts about the queen’s reign in their latest issue of the ‘Korvosa Herald’ (a small newspaper which is published once a fortnight). The PCs then consult the Leroung library to find out more about the sun shamans’ burial places;
- during the attack at the Leroung estate, some of the Gray Maidens turn out to be ‘blood clones’ instead of real people. The PCs trace the blood cloning to the temple of Asmodeus and investigate the place;
- the PCs stop the blood cloning and discover that it was aided by devils, who are bound to Ileosa because of an infernal contract;
- the PCs try to befriend the Bank of Abadar, luring them away from Ileosa’s camp and getting their help in rescuing the surviving victims from the blood clone factory and nursing them back to health;
- the PCs understand that they have to break the infernal contract to weaken Ileosa’s powers. Since the contract was forged in the Acadamae, the PCs invade the thieves’ guild, which has competed in the Breaching festival for many years, so they can learn more on how to get into the Acadamae;
- the PCs make their way into the Acadamae and destroy the contract devil (adaptation of ‘Academy of Secrets);
- with Zellara’s aid and research from the Leroung library the PCs finally discover the burials grounds of the old Shoanti shamans, invade the place and obtain the sun shaman hero’s aid in preparing their weapons for a fight with the dragon-empowered queen.
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I'm planning on playing a prelude adventure first, with the PCs being kids in the service of Lamm. It will take place four years prior to the start of the adventure, against the background of Ileosa's arrival in the city.
The PCs will experience firsthand some of Lamm's evil, before being rescued from his clutches by the mysterious Blackjack. This way their hatred for the old man will be heart-felt.
This is a fabulous idea. I am *so* stealing this for my upcoming CotCT game.