My players met (and loved) the Crooked Kin. Has anyone used them in the continuing Carrion Crown AP? I would love some advise of what to do with them. (I am playing Jade Regent, but so is one of my players ~ she hates the caravan rules, so while I may have them as a guideline as to what is possible with a caravan I probably won't be going the full caravan stats route.)
So far our oracle has asked if Trollblood can be her cohort meatshield if she takes Leadership. (I was going to go barbarian with him for her... but after a discussion with a friend of mine, ragechemist has good fit for him.)
I'm GM, we just wrapped up Trial of the Beast.
I have long-term plans for the Crooked Kin, but not as allies. They were initially friendly towards the party, especially after they helped them on the (modified) mini-quest before Lepidstadt.
One PC is a 7-foot half-orc monk, and once the Kin arrived in Lepidstadt, they offered him a job portraying the Beast in a dramatic reenactment of the Beast's creation, crimes and apprehension. He declined, mostly because they were on a tight schedule investigating the crimes. The Kin didn't take kindly to being turned down, especially when there was profit to be made. They left vague, threatening messages in his room, and even set traps for two other PCs (ie. help us, or we'll hurt the ones you care about).
Eventually, the monk went to meet the Kin, to tell them to lay off. I timed it so that he arrived just as the play was about to start (with Trollblood playing the Beast). When the MC spotted the monk in the audience, he coerced him up onto stage...but the monk cleverly changed the script, improvising some new explanations for the crimes which called the Beast's guilt into question. (This quick thinking helped them later by reducing the size of the mob.)
Finally, the Kin interfered with a chase scene in the streets of Lepidstadt, after the golem-dog at V&G's escaped and ran wild. They tried to trap it, to use it as a sideshow attraction. The PCs insisted it be killed instead. The Kin swore revenge and scurried away. They'll probably turn up in Caliphas or something.
I would have had a hard time justifying to myself the threatening notes and attacking the PCs based on the book alignments, but it sounds like your players had a great deal of fun with it. :)
My party just met them last session and seemed to have taken a liking to them and have worked to protect them (they escorted the Kin through Tamrivena where I played up the whole militant paladin zealot on the lookout for orcish spies).
For me, the Crooked Kin represent one of the reasons why the party are adventurers, ultimately the Kin are good honourable people that help one another. They're the people who the PCs are fighting for and they are one of the few good guys in this AP and in all of Ustalav. Additionally, as helpful forces they reinforce/mirror the theme of judgement in ToB. Still I could see them as interesting and certainly memorable villians as the other poster had.
I plan to include them in ToB as helpful gatherers of info, assist them in distracting the mob, and well I'm hoping they have suggestions as I made it clear that Caleb believes the Kin are in the PCs debt and wish to repay the favour. So nothing too specific but will post after next session probably.
As I play in Winter, I had the Kin heading for Calispa after TotB for WinterCamp. maybe they meet them there....
In my PbP here I had the Kin performing in Ravengro. I added musicians; the 'Two-Headed Nightengale' and the 'One-Man Band' and they were the trigger for the stirges. Then as a reward for saving them from the stirges, Aleece cooked them a meal.
For those who don't know: Freaks
(I don't know, maybe NSFW? I think it's pretty tame now, but it's been called disturbing throughout the years)
Anyway, I bring this up, not to be funny or film-snobby, but I intend to familiarize my players with the movie before they are introduced--even if it's running it on mute during the session.
I am a DM of limited powers and find the idea of playing the Crooked Kin daunting.
Also, there's the Billy the Kid comics by Eric Powell.
Since I have never seen Freaks I was basing them more on the dynamics in Geek Love... well except that I saw the N and G alignments so removed the megalomaniac character from the dynamic. (Although, it is perfectly possible for Prince Zar to grow into that role if I need it.)
I'm curious how many of you would be interested in a collaborative effort to breathe life into the Crooked Kin? Something like, one of us takes on the Pinheads and someone else takes on Kaleb. Our job isn't so much to provide stat blocks (though that would be cool, too), but to give a sense of personality, eccentricities, background, and so forth.
One of the big "ugh"s in developing characters for adventures is that they all have a bit of "me" tethering their full range of possibilities. Plus, many hands makes light work.
Just a thought.
And if this works, maybe we could collaborate on other personalities. One very notable personality I would like to see expanded is Kendra. I played Daramid as a very erect, almost-snooty, proper woman. Someone who expects respect and has an iron-like will to see it through.
I love that idea. I've already been pinging some of my friends to help with personalities for the Kin that I know I'm using.
One suggestion with Trollblood was to go with the 'classic' circus strongman of someone actually very sweet and kind when he isn't on stage. And as for his appearance (since I described him as a horribly ugly man who face was then flattened by a frying pan) that something horribly embarrassing happened... and so whenever someone asks he gives a different explanation. :)
So, I ran this encounter last game. It was pretty fun--I got Freaks from Netflix and none of them had seen it before. One of my players was really excited because he had a book about circus freaks that had lots of still photos of some of the actors in the film.
Funniest part was when the cleric cast zone of truth and asked each member of the troupe if they intended the party any harm. After satisfactorily getting "no's" from everybody, he then asked Kaleb if he intended Aleece any harm. He answered "Apart from exploiting her deformity in order to get rich? No."
Anyway, since the Crooked Kin are, imho, transparently lifted from the film, it helped a lot. I don't like playing large amounts of NPCs, though, so I basically whittled the group down to Kaleb, Prince Zar and the Wolf Boy.
I love that idea. I've already been pinging some of my friends to help with personalities for the Kin that I know I'm using.
One suggestion with Trollblood was to go with the 'classic' circus strongman of someone actually very sweet and kind when he isn't on stage. And as for his appearance (since I described him as a horribly ugly man who face was then flattened by a frying pan) that something horribly embarrassing happened... and so whenever someone asks he gives a different explanation. :)
Personally, I'd love to put together a "coalition of np-character creators" who take a city or town in an AP and just "blossom it" for the good of everyone. The towns would come alive with a life of their own as the influence of so many disparate personalities brings a disparate group of personalities to the characters. There's also the possibility of developing a character as something like an improv game. You begin it and let someone else or a few others finish it. This approach would develop characters that are uniquely flavored.
One caution, of course, would be to use "surprise personalities" sparingly. Most people are who they look like with unique eccentricities/passions/beliefs. If you see a short guy walking into the tavern in which you're sitting with a cocky swagger, chances are he really has a cocky attitude. I suspect that if NPCs are frequently not what they look like, then player trust and "buy-in" to the NPCs would be compromised.
I don't know how this group could/would be put together, but I think it's a great idea. A volunteer NPC-development crew. It would help if they all had a vested interest, I suppose, in the characters being created for a given town (for instance, they were all playing TotB at the same time), so that would be a problem.
But so far (if I may take the liberty of appropriating Trollblood):
Kaleb Hesse, the Ringmaster: Booming voice and a quick smile come to this albino's face easily, but not comfortingly. There is a bit of creepiness to his mannerisms and assumption (on his part) of charm where only a little exists. But a gifted orator, Kaleb is able to sell an audience regardless their misgivings regarding his appearance. He might slaughter puppies for supper, but the mysteries and dark aura he seems to exude like skunk scent (repugnant, yet powerful) keeps the listener and viewer intrigued in spite of themselves.
Trollblood, the Giant Man: The ugly, highly loyal, fierce defender of the Kin, Trollblood, is also extraordinarily sweet to those "accepted" into the caravan. He speaks with a slow and gravelly voice, but isn't quite as stupid as he looks using good diction and a vocabulary that bespeaks an education, albeit meager.
I've also been playing up the mother hen aspect of Lidia (who is also tattooed in my game in reference to the Marx Brothers song).
I think another one of my friends (since the Kin are being taken on in a more permanent role) suggested Urban Barbarian for her. With the triggers for her rage being when one of the customers is trying to take advantage of one of her charges.
I've also been playing up the mother hen aspect of Lidia (who is also tattooed in my game in reference to the Marx Brothers song).
I think another one of my friends (since the Kin are being taken on in a more permanent role) suggested Urban Barbarian for her. With the triggers for her rage being when one of the customers is trying to take advantage of one of her charges.
In one of my threads on the subject of intimidation, one of the posters talked about his mother being a short but very scary individual. That she was fierce and would not just berate you, but would hone in on your weaknesses and vulnerabilities to exploit them. She would emotionally hurt you to the core of your being. As a result, you never wanted to make her angry. Something like that?
Yep. Which also works with a above 10 CHA. (Since they are performers, which totally calls for at least some charisma) Additionally the Urban Barbarian lets you add to dex/con instead of str if you want, so you can build her as a finesse barbarian... which i think is fun (far from optimal mechanically, but very fun).
Ohhh...i like the idea. How do we collaborate?
Well, I think, the first step is to find the people who are interested in teaming up for these kinds of projects. That requires we have a "place" (such as a specific forum or outside space) where we can bring everyone together and get some form of communication going (such as yahoo groups or a wikiproject or something like that).
Your thoughts?
I liked them so much I took them as followers for my bard and when we went to Lepidstadt I had the Kin working the town to gather enough money to resurect Aleece and I took her as a cohort. She came back as a Titan Mauler(I know right?). Since she was killed by a giant spider she has a compulsion to kill spiders in all forms.
To start with, I do love the notion of the Crooked Kin...it seems perhaps a bit bland, though. I don't know, maybe it's just the common sideshow tropes in conjunction with a fantasy setting - why should there be so many people with limb issues, for example? I know that Regenerate spells don't grow on trees, but...? Also, those types of shows play on the disease we feel encountering people we define as 'less than whole' - which is fine as an effective means of fleecing the marks, only it's less interesting for some players, I think. I don't know - not trying to turn this into a criticism thread.
So, a few thoughts :
Is a calliope too modern? I was just thinking of Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show, you know? I'll have to have some other form of music, as well, but I can double-up if need be. Oh, or they may have haunted instruments! Will save versus possession for the duration of a song? Anyroad...
Lidia! I love the idea of making her a tattooed lady; I thought maybe tattooed sorceress? Illusionist-style, a storyteller. Then I'm debating a flavorful twist - each tattoo covers a horrible scar of some kind and, being magic, makes her appear unscarred. She walks up on stage, a beautiful woman, drops her robe (grabbing the audience's attention, if she didn't have it already) and begins to tell her tale by 'stripping' her tattoos into illusions which fill the stage beside her. A few examples I had were a compass rose over her left breast (hiding a puckered arrow-wound?) which could form an illusory beating-heart, or simply a flower, and also a snake tattoo wound around her neck (her familiar?) where it covered an attempted strangulation or hanging scar.
The Prince, I think, I would remake as Mwangi shadowteller - a voodoo-style ombromancer, perhaps a summoner who summons actual Shadows? Perhaps he was an accidental Synthesist - that could make for an interesting affliction. This could be used in conjunction with Lidia's show, or as a separate one. I was thinking of blending this with a sort of kabuki shadow-show, when I thought of...
Tian contortionist(s) - also may work either with the Prince or separately. They may be double-jointed, or lacking in joints, or half-bred vishkanya, or just plain freaky-flexible, as happens. Also - and something you could do with the other acts - they may or may not be Tian at all. Of course the show wants to bill as 'exotic' to draw people in, but it could as easily be a rather pathetic make-up job.
As for the Clowns, I was thinking contructs. Badly sewn-together constructs, all stuffed with leaves? Oh, and sewn out of what I wonder? I had another notion, for a white-haired witch, a young albino maybe, and I see how this could go together now. The witch crafts the clowns...and secretly is a construct herself. A patchwork girl, all twisty-Oz style.
The ringleader, I don't know - not an albino, if I'm using the witch. I'll have to think on that.
For the behind-the-scenes leader, though, I'm thinking of an old gypsy werewolf, a Harrower...male or female? Not sure yet. (S)he's also going to replace the Harrow-card system, though, for my purposes. I play-by-post, and that system is really much better suited to an IRL dynamic. Also, I intend to have the Kin either escorting the party or following them around for the entire AP.
That's as far as I've got, yet. Thoughts?