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I am running Smuggler’s Shiv and my players have gone in a direction that I wasn’t expecting. I’m hoping that I can get some suggestions around where to go from here.
Here is what has happened so far:
The party woke on the beach and interacted with the other castaways. They developed good relationships with Jask, Ishirou, and Gelik. They started making their way towards the southwest part of the island. Along the way they helped Ishirou and Jask with their quests.
They eventually came to the banyan tree and met Aycenia. The interaction was friendly and she gave them some general information about he island. She described the Silent Island and asked the party to investigate and defeat the evil that resided there.
They travelled to the island. Along the way they met Pezock and were able to establish good relations with him. He would not accompany them to the island, but seemed interested in slaying cannibals in the future. The party seemed pleased about this offer of help. They made their way to the Silent Island and dispatched the vegepygmies and violet fungus without much trouble. They also investigated the Nightvoice and helped Gelik fulfill his quest.
Aycenia welcomed them back with a feast and presented each party member with a suit of darkwood armor (etched with an outline of her tree on the front). The players seemed to enjoy this unexpected award. Aycenia told them more information about the cannibals and the lighthouse and them seemed intent on traveling their next to the confront the cannibals. They even discussed strategy around how to lure the cannibals out in small groups, so they would not have to face them all at once.
Then...the timeline became interesting. :) They had encountered the chupacabra while on the island. He had dropped blood-drained monkeys and sheep on their camp and watched them at night. There was no direct interaction though. Now...they decided to travel to the chupacabra’s nest (Aycenia told them the location of the chupacabra’s nest) and rid the island of it.
They make their way to the chupacabra’s nest and discover the Tide Stones. That’s where things got interesting. I planned on the chupacabra a few minutes after they got there. The sorcerer in the party started to inspect the stones and suspected that they were some sort of magical device. He attempted to the active the stones blindly - and rolled a 26 UMD check! Lighting shot up to the sky and the water fell. I figured the chupacabra would notice this and take more care approaching his lair. He stealthed in and the party did not notice. He got a surprise round in and really took it to the party (they were only 2nd level at this point). It was a tough fight, but they eventually took the creature out.
That is where our session ended (after the party looted the nest). I suspect that the party will make their way down and enter the Temple. I’m not sure how I should handle this. I don’t think Yarzoth has arrived yet, so they might actually be the first ones to enter the temple...not her.
Any suggestions on how I should handle this unexpected turn of events?
The point about Yarzoth not having arrived there already can easily be solved. She simply has. If the PCs had enough time to reach the temple so did she and she even knew (probably) where to look.
About your players getting in over their head... I think I would let them test their luck. It's a sandbox after all, testing the waters before entering some place that might still be too dangerous is a big part of it. I would try to impress the "in over your head"-feeling during the very first encounter inside the temple while also keeping everybody alive. If they overcome this and still want to press on they brought it on themselves :)
Of course, you could simply talk to your players OOC and tell them that this will be very, very challenging and is not appropriate at this point.
Also, if the sorcerer doesn't succeed on the UMD check (which is quite likely) the next day you could say that he "bricked" the device and will have to wait a day. Time during which the PCs will probably keep themselves busy and earn XP.
You have several options.
1)Yarzoth is already there. The adventure explains that she went "with all haste" to the cannibal camp and then spent "several days there." I don't know how long your group has taken, but given the difficulties of moving around the island she could easily have had enough time to get to the temple are start her research. If you go this route, you will probably want to lower the difficulty of the temple. To make up for this, leave something in her notes about the rescue ship she hired being told to come pick her up when the lighthouse is lit. This will give the PCs a reason to clean out the cannibal camp, which you can increase in CR to make up for the backwards nature of events.
2)There is something preventing entrance into the temple at this time. The text talks about the air being stale... perhaps it is poisonous right now, and will need time to air out? The PCs would hopefully take the time to clean out the camp, then discover Yarzoth has snuck into the temple while they were away. Alternatively, place a locked door or other barrier that they need a MacGuffin to get through. Give that MacGuffin to Yarzoth or the Cannibals, and hopefully things will right themselves.
3)They are there first! Yay! Let them explore the temple. Do your best to make them interested in the carvings, so that they will investigate them themselves (and make up for the lack of Yarzoth's notes). They will still want to raid the cannibal camp, hopefully. You can either have Yarzoth fight alongside the cannibals, or have her pretend to be a captive or something. If you could get the PCs to "save" her and take her with them back to the mainland, she could be set up as a recurring NPC / eventual betrayer in any number of ways.
Just some random ideas. Serpent's Skull is a sandboxy enough AP that you can fiddle with the story a lot without making things weird down the line. If anything, saving the reveal about Yarzoth could make the AP more interesting, and make up for its lack of a central BBEG.
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Thanks for the feedback. I like the idea that she is already there. Perhaps she has only arrived a day or so before the PCs. They have meandered around the island instead of heading straight to the lighthouse like Yarzoth.
I think I'm going to let the events play out. It was rather exciting when the sorcerer made the UMD check and activated the Tide Stone. One of the characters was actually killed by the chupacabra, so that should be warning enough of the danger they might encounter.
If they do explore the Temple first, then I might bump up the stats of the NPCs in the cannibal camp. Maybe add a few levels to Malikadna and Nylithati.
Thanks for the feedback. I like the idea that she is already there. Perhaps she has only arrived a day or so before the PCs. They have meandered around the island instead of heading straight to the lighthouse like Yarzoth.
I think I'm going to let the events play out. It was rather exciting when the sorcerer made the UMD check and activated the Tide Stone. One of the characters was actually killed by the chupacabra, so that should be warning enough of the danger they might encounter.
If they do explore the Temple first, then I might bump up the stats of the NPCs in the cannibal camp. Maybe add a few levels to Malikadna and Nylithati.
It is very likely that Yarzoth is at the temple by now, especially if your PCs made there way to Aycenia the silent island and back to Aycenia by now.
Since your group will probably be level 3 by the time they reach Yarzoth, it would probably be a good idea to have her escape post-haste instead of sticking around to fight, since that encounter would likely slaughter most of your group.
You could have her retreat to the cannibals, since she's in good relations with them, and have most to all of the remaining cannibals there for a feast in her honor, which would bump up the challenge rating of that area enough to compensate for removing Yarzoth from the temple.
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I decided to let events play out without changing anything. The PCs had traveled around the island, so it seemed reasonable that Yarzoth would be in the temple.
Here is what happened...
The PCs decided to make their way down to the door. The boarded the water mephit's boat and spoke to him for a while. He gave them some information about someone "strange" entering the temple. Their interest was piqued, so they entered the temple.
They had Jask with them, so there were a total of 5 party members:
Jask
Alchemist 2
Sorcerer 2
Barbarian 2
Gunslinger 2
They did not have a lot of trouble with the javelin slinging serpentfold skeletons. They took a few hits, but nothing serious. They made their way through the double doors, went East. They had a little trouble with one of the pit traps and made their way to the Flensing Room. This one gave them a lot of trouble. They took a lot of damage and retreated from the room.
Jask healed them and they went to the other side of the temple (Priest Cells). The human skeletons gave them little trouble. At this point Jask was out of channels and had one non-domain slot left to cast CLW. Jask told them this, but they insisted on going back to the Flensing Room.
The party took more damage in the Flensing Room, but disabled the trap. They had some healing potions, but they did not use them before bursting into the Temple. Yarzoth was waiting for them…
They bantered for a bit. She “monologued” about her discoveries. They became antsy and started moving towards her. Things went bad from the beginning.
She won initiative and her skeletons moved forward to attack. The skeletons gave the party a lot of trouble. They were rolling terrible and I was rolling very well. The skeletons hit several party members and I rolled max damage serveral times. Yarzoth dominated the barbarian and order him to approach her.
She cast Blur and Mirror Image on herself while the party battled the skeletons. After buffing she ordered the barbarian to kill the alchemist. He had thrown a bomb at her and did some damage. I gave the barbarian another save to break out of the domination, but he failed. He moved forward and cut down the alchemist.
There were still two or three skeletons harrasing the rest of the party (sorcerer, gunslinger, and Jask). The next round Yarzoth ordered the barbarian to kill the gunslinger. He made his save against the domination. The party was elated! They had a chance now!
Jask moved forward to feed a potion to the alchemist. The gunslinger took out the remaining skeletons. The barbarian moved to attack Yarzoth. She used her bite attack once or twice as they tried to get past her defensive spells.
As her mirror images disappeared one by one she decided to channel. This was devastating. All but one failed their save and I rolled 11 damage. The only ones standing at this point was the sorcerer and the gunslinger. The sorcerer moved up to feed a potion to the barbarian…Yarzoth bit her and she was in negatives. She taunted the gunslinger as she moved forward to slay him. He went down shortly thereafter.
Jask failed a few stabalize rolls and was dead.
There is where we left it. TPK. It was the first time that any of them had a character die, so it was kind of weird. They seemed to have fun though. I think the barbarian breaking out of the domination spell really gave the encounter some excitement. There were down…then up!
We are going to restart at 3rd level. The players are excited about rebooting the story. I’m going to have them disembark towards the southern end of the island, so we can move the story along. The plan is that the new party is investigating what happened to the Jenivere when it did not arrive at port. It is probably several weeks since the original party was killed.
I think I’m going to have Yarzoth turn the original party into ghouls just like the captain...they will be her new guardians <evil GM laugh> :)