As noted - there are spoilers for The Skinsaw Murders as well as possible other adventures in this path. If you are a player please stop reading now.
That said, I am looking for some advice on what steps to take next. Here is the story thus far:
Party consists of:
Paladin of Erastil 5/Bard 1
Rogue 5/Ranger 1
Sorcerer 6
Cleric of Shelyn 6
We have played through almost all of The Skinsaw Murders. The party has learned all about the cult of Norgorber, infiltrated the sawmill in the dead of night while they were performing a sacrificial ritual and defeated the cultists in a knock-down drag-out fight. Ironbriar escaped during the fight and headed to the clocktower in an attempt to meet up with his "love" and warn her of the PCs.
The party had a couple of cultists that they stabilized and harshly questioned. Through the use of some great Intimidate checks and some creative threats using the still-functioning sawmill equipment they were able to get some vague idea that the clocktower played some part of this whole cult business, though they did not get any information about Xanesha.
They took a short time to turn over the living cultists to the city guard (the paladin in the party has already established a relationship with many of the watch captions so they are on good terms with the guards) and then headed straight for the clocktower.
Using fly spells they completely bypassed the interior of the tower and flew to the top, encountering Xanesha berating Ironbriar for cowardice and leading the PCs to her. Combat in the sky around the tower quickly broke out. The party was able to kill Ironbriar and quickly realized they were outmatched with Xanesha. They wisely retreated with his body as evidence of his corruption. Xanesha chose not to pursue.
The party has exposed everything to the city government and been granted limited authority to investigate further. Xanesha quickly moved her lair to an abandoned warehouse in the vicinity of the clocktower as a temporary solution until she can find a more permanent living space. She brought the Scarecrow with her as a guard. Her plan was to call some extra-planar help using some purchased scrolls, but before she could put her plan into action the party was able to track down her new lair and destroy the Scarecrow. They discovered the beginnings of a binding circle that she had started as well as the information on the cult's targets. I also included a letter from Lucrecia providing a link to Turtleback Ferry as mentioned in a thread Lisa Stevens posted a long while ago. Xanesha herself was not at the warehouse when the party stormed it. I had her out gathering the final items she needed to call in some help.
The party has exposed the cult and silenced it for now. The mayor is on their side and has given them half the indicated reward in the module - he is holding out the other half until Xanesha is destroyed and the cult finally put down for good.
The PCs are planning on doing some cursory investigating around town, but feel that their focus is now on Turtleback Ferry and the further threats they have uncovered. They have only seen Xanesha in her humanoid form - they still do not know what she truly is, though they have some hints and think that she is probably a shapechanger of some sort.
SO...after all that...what would Xanesha do? I would like to keep her as an opponent for the group. Another wrench I can throw in the pot is Tsuto. He was arrested in Sandpoint and sent to Magnimar, but Ironbriar got him out and inducted into the cult. The PCs defeated him a second time and put him back in jail. Maybe she can get him out again and really irritate them with him a third time? Hire some mercenaries to shadow them and hunt them on their trip to Turtleback Ferry?
Any ideas or thoughts are welcome at this point. Thanks for reading and for your time!
It has been suggested on these boards to have Xanesha join forces with her sister at Fort Rannik, and it's probably what I would do. From Xanesha's point of view, she has little interest in confronting the PCs if she knows they're probably powerful enough to kill her, unless she has a big edge over them. That's where Lucrecia comes into play.
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Another idea is to have her replace Leucretia in Turtleback Ferry. Give the party several months off and then start HMM as normal with X playing Leucretia's role. In my campaign, she escaped twice there, was with the ogres at the dam and escaped there too and finally met her end flying in on dragonback leading the stone giant invasion at the start of FotSG.
Dimension door and invisibility means she is a perfect recurring villain.
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In my campaign (and I really do need to get back to posting those logs here) she escaped after the PCs retreated. She met up with Lucrecia. And when the PCs rescued the captive Black Arrows and built up trust with Kaven Windstrike he revealed that he left the door to Fort Rannick unlocked because Xanesha had 'threatened' to kill his lover, Lucrecia. He told them that both were at the Paradise barge.
The PCs put two and two together. They didn't know what Lucrecia was at the time, but suspected she might be in on the con.
So, in a scene ripped straight from the original Conan the Barbarian film, the PCs went to the paradise barge to ambush Xanesha before Xanesha could ambush them. They brought bane-arrows and everything. It was a massacre.
Anyhow, I like Xanesha escaping to join up with other lamia because it emphasizes that the lamia are forming a network for the purpose of destabilizing the region ahead of an assault.
Good thoughts - thanks! I think I'll do that and have her head up north to team up with Lucrecia. I really like the idea of conning Kaven into betrayal with the threat of killing his supposed lover. Gives a bit more "bite" to why he does what he does.