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My player's back story was that she was forced to serve as a gladiator for an evil gem mine owner. Said owner would sacrifice slaves and workers in the arena, etc. I told her weeks ago the owner was Loris Raknian, and decided to make him the leading figure in "Gravel City," which holds the annual tournmanent that Auric/Tirra/Khelleck won. Putting Raknian in the Free City as a major mine owner interfered with other back stories.
(Someone offered a different suggestion, but too late for that now).
I've skimmed the Champion's Belt (I'm only on TFOE). I thought of a way for her character to kill Raknian and free the slaves, which is what her raison d'etre is.
Raknian was increasingly beset by slave revolts and hired Khelleck to create gollums to maintain security a few years ago. Khelleck, however, tied his own lifeforce to the gollum so that Raknian would assure his victory. Thus, he rigged the games so Khelleck/Tirra/Auric would be the victors (had someone secretly spray rivals with ray of enfeeblement or something - I still have a few weeks to figure this out). Tirra finds out later and Auric doesn't know.
My players seem to like Tirra and one has a romance, so I thought about making her a little bit more of a goodguy than she is in the story. I'll have her also a former slave - forced to be a servant in a super polite human household until adulthood, when she runs away. This gives her sympathy with the slaves. When she finds out about what Khelleck did, this adds to her financial motivation to throw the games to the players. If the golems die, the slaves might be spurred to revolt; doubly so if Raknian is also killed. I plan to have Tirra fight in the arena but use her first shot against the invisible forces seeking to undermine the players to keep Khelleck alive.
It's not clear to me how often people are supposed to die in these tournaments - does anyone know? If adventurers voluntarily enter it would be plausible that they are not fights to the death.
Since I want to give my player the chance to kill Raknian, I'm thinking the sacrifice will be the Faceless One - I'll have him escape TFoE and hide with Raknian.
Anybody see any pitfalls? I haven't read beyond Champion's Belt.