In my campaign, the PCs are being intentionally hardheaded in regards to our resident pirate ghost captain. They suspect showing him the locket will allow him to finally rest but have steadfastly refused to do so. They've given two reasons for this behavior: 1)they think he's of evil alignment and don't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing the locket and 2)they're worried he will make off with the jewelry, and they'll lose a 500 gp chunk of treasure in a pretty sparse campaign so far.
Even though I use the slow experience track in my campaign, the PCs just reached 3rd level due to some precursor adventures and a lot of additional encounters I've written on the Shiv. They've fought the captain twice now, and he didn't pose much of a challenge either time. The party is pretty well optimized with a paladin, urban ranger, cleric, and sorcerer in the group. I want to give Avret Kinkarian justice with the rich back story James Jacobs wrote, but I'm at a loss at what to do next. I hate to just have him disappear without reaching story resolution, but running encounters is becoming a waste of time now.
Any suggestions or experiences from you own campaigns would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
The right to decide if he receives satisfaction or not should rest with the gods, and if he IS evil, removing the taint of his undeath from the world serves a higher cause. Have the paladin and/or cleric receive visions from their deity indicating that the Captain's soul needs to be put to rest so that he can face his true judgment in the afterlife.
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Laithornon's suggestion above is a great one.
Another one might be using the castaways. Have Jask say he's getting visions the ghostly Captain needs to be put to rest.
And even though the PCs can stomp the Captain in a fight, what about the other castaways? If their camp is near the coast, he could attack some evening and focus on the castaways instead of the PCs. Then they might demand the party take care of the ghost for good.
Just some suggestions. Shrug.
All the undead associated with the Shiv dissipate when the altar in the Zura temple is destroyed. You could give whoever is carrying the locket some indication that destroying the altar frees the captain to travel on to the afterlife - a vision or something that they can feel is coming from the locket.
Alternatively, the PC might feel the locket "pulling" them to the altar.
Kinkarian should be relentless. If he doesn't pose too much of a challenge to them anymore, you could increase the difficulty a lot. Perhaps the Captain comes back with a few ghostly crew members, let's say 4 extra ghosts.
This gives them a moral dilemma, one option being to die on the Shiv because of a 500gp locket.