Me and my players have just finished Burnt Offerings and found it an obsolete joy to play, Paizo have did a magnificent job with the RotRL AE.
That said, after having read next adventure I feel somewhat underwhelmed by the second half of the chapter. The first section with the haunted house and Murder mystery seems like it will be a treat to play but after the players reach Magnimar it all feels a little... rushed. As read it does not appear that they will even know who Justice Ironbriar is when they face him, let alone the motivations of the Skinsaw Cult.
I intend to rectify this redesigning the second half of the adventure path with additional encounters. I'm thinking that I will have Sandponts sheriff ask the party to transport a prisoner on their way to Magnimar and stand in on the trial. That way they will at least have context to who Ironbriar is. I'm also thinking of making foxglove manor something of a dead end, the players will have to do a little more digging to find the Sawmill.
Does anyone else have any additional ideas to insert more of the plot into the second half of is adventure?
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I'd suggest focusing more on foreshadowing and providing extra connections than stretching things out. There were a lot of problems in the non-Anniversary AP with there not being enough clues.
A couple suggestions I've seen:
Make Ironbriar Tsuto's dad. This works better if Tsuto survives (or, particularly, is sent to Magnimar for trial).
Have them bring prisoners to Ironbriar for trial (like you're thinking). A number of people have tried this with survivors from Nualia's gang.
They asked Foxglove for help getting reinforcements from Magnimar. He mentioned he knew Justice Ironbriar and could ask him for help. It's probably late for you to do this.
Foxglove sent his crush opera tickets. Some Sczarni rivals of the Brothers of the Seven tried to kill them, thinking Foxglove was with them, shouting "die Sevener scum!" My players think this has to do with the Sihedron (seven blades), but it should be nice foreshadowing.
They spent a bit of time in Magnimar between the opera, seeing the sights, and selling stuff. I made a point to bring up Justice Ironbriar once during this.
I think the best point to make this longer is after finding out about the Brothers of the Seven, but before finding the Sawmill. It doesn't have to be publically known as the Seven's Sawmill, so your players would have to track down information about the Seven and their Sawmill.
The trick with mysteries, in my opinion, is to provide a high enough density of clues.
Off the top of my head, there are going to be some public documents signed as the deed in Foxglove Manor is. So, with some time and access to public records in Magnimar, someone could piece together some of their business dealings. In particular, the deed to the sawmill is probably written up the same way.
Underworld contacts may indicate that the Brothers have a respectable front, but anybody who messes with them turns up without skin or ends up in the Hells courtesy of Justice Ironbriar. This path might discover that they follow the Skinsaw Man, but will probably attract the cult's attention.
Church contacts might mention that the Brothers are secretive, but noteworthy because they're one of the few merchant organizations that doesn't send representatives to Adabar's temple.
The Scarnettis in Magnimar probably know that there's a sawmill owned by this organization. If the players bring a letter of introduction from the Sandpoint Scarnettis or are very persuasive, this works.
Legal officials in Magnimar probably know better than to talk about the Brothers. I'd have them give canned responses like "a merchant organization" and shut down. If they can get someone to talk, this is another good way to introduce Justice Ironbriar.
If they find Ironbriar, it's a simple jump to follow him and find the Mill. You do run the risk of them grabbing him outside and interrogating him, though. So plan what you want there.
Cheers!
Landon
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What I did in my game...
So the party is successful and captures several of the gang members. They take the prisoners to Magnimar, where they are met by the guards at the gate. The guards escort the PCs and their prisoners to the Pediment building, where the Bilger Gang is taken into custody, and the PCs are debreifed. They are asked to come to the arraignment the following day-- under Justice Ironbriar.
After the arraignment, the PCs investigated Aldern's apartment. They first went to the city records office to try to find out the address of the townhouse, under the pretense that they were sent from Sandpoint to find any relatives of the Foxgloves. After a successful Bluff, they got the address, and went to Aldern's apartment, where that encounter went according to the AP.
The next morning, a page from the Justice Court appears at the PCs' inn and presented them with a request to come to see Justice Ironbriar in his office that afternoon. Behind the scenes, Ironbriar found out that the PCs were asking after Aldern Foxglove (he'd instructed the records office to let him know if anyone asked about the Foxgloves). He'd also been in correspondence with Sherrif Hemlock, and learned about the PCs involvement with the events of "Burnt Offerings" and their investigation of the Skinsaw Man. He had prepared detailed dossiers on all of the PCs, based on what Hemlock had told him.
In the office, Ironbriar at first discussed the Bilger Gang case, but then switched gears and mentioned that similar serial killings were happening in Magnimar as were happening in Sandpoint. He told the party that he suspected a local Sczarni gang called "The Gallowed," and thought that they were doing this as part of some kind of demon-worship ritual. He pulled out a book on demonology, and showed them a lesser-known symbol of a minor demon that had seven interlocking daggers, which bore a passing similarity to the Sihedron Rune. Ironbriar asked the party to investigate The Gallowed on his behalf, as the gang had become aware of his own informants.
Of course, that was a red herring to get the PCs on the wrong side of The Gallowed-- a very dangerous gang. From Ironbriar's perspective, if the PCs and the Gallowed came into conflict, any body count would be a good one. After the meeting, though, the PCs figured out pretty quickly that Ironbriar was up to no good and was trying to feed them a red herring. They followed their own clues to the Sevens' Sawmill the next day.
The party found the dossiers on themselves in Ironbriar's office in the Sawmill, which really creeped them out. Ironbriar shared the dossiers with Xanesha as well, so she was prepared for them when the PCs attacked her in the BBEG battle at the end of Skinsaw Murders. The PCs found another copy of each of the dossiers in Xanesha's lair.
Feel free to steal/modify/ignore these ideas as you see fit!
All very good suggestions. I particularly like Tsuto being Ironbriars son, genius! I'm surprised that's not cannon.
The party wiped out Tsuto in thistletop but seeing as our last session finished just as they defeated Malfeshnekor, I may make him grown and indicate he's still alive as they leave while I remind them that Amikio asked them if they could keep her brother alive for fair trial if possible. Fingers crossed they don't just stab him in the face to finish him off.
Fantastic ideas Halandir, I am going to steal many if those ideas for use in my own game.
Damned iPad with its automatic words. It's meant to say absolute. I would have thought that it would have seemed like an obvious mistake, rather than representing an inane lack of proficency with the English language.
Perhaps manners are obsolete.