...There's such a thing as "in control" pirates?
Anyway, pirate hunters are always a safe bet.
So are rival pirates.
Anything "eviler than they" would likely have to be of the "Kill it all, I want to watch them BURN!!!! AHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!" type of evil. You can't enslave and extort from corpses after all.
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Personally, I would attack their island with a force assembled from the fleets of the other pirate lords.
Asassinating Pirate Lords sent to evaluate them for coucil positions should (NO DOUBT!) turn the entire council (Including Bonefist!) against them, resulting in a near endless invasion and certain death.
It sounds to me as if your campaign has devolved into "How NOT to become a Pirate Lord."
The council will not get behind an obviously evil party. If that was the case Harrigan would be on the Council.
Seriously, endless invasion with Harrigan and his fleet in the lead resulting in death and end of campaign. Then explain to them how Harrigan betrayed everyone after their deaths resulting in Chelish domination of the Shackles and the end of the age of both high piracy and later Sargava too. Then change all further campaigns to reflect the rebalancing of power in the region. Give them the repurcussions of their actions and a lesson in the law of unintended consequences at the same time. Anything less is almost certainly coddling the PC's, who obviously do not want to be coddled.
Live by the sword...
Very importantly, if you have any good aligned NPCs, don't write them as stupid. If your players characters are as evil as you say, they probably have made a reputation for that by now. Any smart good-aligned NPC who still wants to deal with them (i.e. Tessa Fairwind, IIRC) will probably have taken many precautions so as not to be their next victim.
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<shrug> Without knowing skulls and shackles, what's your objective here?
You already have a method of control on the captain.... Have the demon lord (metaphorically) pull the captain aside and deliver a message to the effect of "I like your work, really I do, and I can really get behind where your heart is at and your enthusiastic take on everything. But these people are better off as your allies than corpses. Dominate them. Have them become your minions. If I want a chump that'll blow things up.... I got balors for that, and lets be honest, they're better at that than you. I want captains for when we burn this world, Captain. Now, are you going to build me an navy worthy of my name, or do I have to show you how hopelessly outmatched as a simple engine of destruction you are compared to a Balor? Your call..."
It stays relatively in the evil theme, but also gives the captain an ongoing objective. That
Give it to him in the form of a vision / omen of him getting butchered on the deck of his own ship by a bunch of <whatever> that board his ship and have it painfully obvious that this is what will happen if it's ONLY his ship. But also do the contrast of an ocean aflame with fire and smoke, him (now with both his ship and him with obvious demonic investments) leading his armada away from a massacre of the opposing fleet and on towards the capital to ransack it. How good are you with cinematic / cutscene narration?
Orr.... to evil?
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Try to remember that your job as GM is to run the story without preference or bias.
This campaign is very much "for" neutral aligned PC's and "against" evil aligned ones. (At least any evil that is recognizable as such, and it sounds like your PC's have already tipped their hand.)
The Council knows that most evil people can never be trusted.
The Council only rarely accept evil members, and only then if they are convinced that the individuals have the Shackles best interests at heart.
Worshippers of Demons and the unnameable forces of the dark between definitely do not fall into that little range of "wiggle-room" that the council allows.
Their feud with Harrigan already makes them suspect. Their alleigances should only make it worse. Their actions...well, you alraedy gave them all the rope they needed.
Kerdak Bonefist is not worried about a Chelish invasion. That means he thinks that the pirate lords have enough ships to both police their own and repel any invasion. That means he thinks he can spare a fleet to squash any threat to his rule and considering his failing grip on the Council he would probably see this as an opportunity to rid himself of both Harrigan and the PC's while simultaneously solidifying his power base.
That all spells disaster for the PC's. If Bonefist thinks he scents a win-win-win opportunity. The opportunistic, charismatic, chaotic neutral ,Hurricane King will certainly use any slight made by the PC's against the council (most definitely including asassinations) as an excuse to end their irksome feud with Harrigan and rid himself of both sets of troublemakers at once.
Of couse, all this in-fighting unavoidably results in total Chelish domination of the Shackles, the burning of Port Peril, the eventual repatriation of Sargava, a massive empowerment of the Chelish economy and your demon-worshipping Magus PC just handed the whole kit-&-kaboodle over to the followers of Asmodeus by accident due to carelessness and base impulsiveness. That should make him real popular in the Abyss.
Of course, this is just my take on the situation. I am really big on the "consequences of action or inaction" and making sure the players feel the impact of their decisions. In this case, they did not just down a government (or two!), but they also empowered an evil nation that opposes their masters and brought about the destruction of at least two cultures (Shackles and budding Sargavan) and probably destroyed an entire way of life, or at least ushered in the "end of the golden age of piracy" personally.
Not bad for demon worshippers and allies of the Dark between, but pretty horrible for a party of pirates.
To the OP: you might get some more advice if this thread was moved to the Skull and Shackles forum.
Also, parts of the S+S AP are being spoiled here, which is another reason to move the thread.
an opposing character worshiping the same demon lord, who wants the credit for giving the demon lord all the souls.
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Skull and Shackles exists in a grey area alignment wise; it was always going to be tricky to keep the party going in the required direction.
As far as all the AP’s go apart from I think Kingmaker this one is the one with the greatest freedom for the players which can cause its own problems.
Several ways to bring this back online.
Forces of good raise against the party: While this would usually be a good option I am unsure if there is anything close to the Shackles which could be considered “good”. The base is pretty close to the Red Mantis Assassin’s though which opens up a whole heap of opportunities if they disrupt their trade.
The best thing you can do which has already been advised is to make the goodly portion of the Shackles distance themselves from the party; maybe they will get the hint.
Possible a Good/Neutral aligned Pirate party could rise up against their oppressors; possibly led by the NPC’s they steped on to get to where they are. Possibly led by Sandara Quinn or Ambrose if they have not been executed yet …
Anyway food for thought.
Sic
I think the Quipoleth(sp) are more like that Demons no doubt want to burn stuff, but handing over The Shackles to DEVIL controled Cheliax? NOPE.AVI! The demon lord should be more far-sighted and have the chat with the magus about being more covert.
Vendor - Fantasiapelit Tampere
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<shrug> Without knowing skulls and shackles, what's your objective here?
You already have a method of control on the captain.... Have the demon lord (metaphorically) pull the captain aside and deliver a message to the effect of "I like your work, really I do, and I can really get behind where your heart is at and your enthusiastic take on everything. But these people are better off as your allies than corpses. Dominate them. Have them become your minions. If I want a chump that'll blow things up.... I got balors for that, and lets be honest, they're better at that than you. I want captains for when we burn this world, Captain. Now, are you going to build me an navy worthy of my name, or do I have to show you how hopelessly outmatched as a simple engine of destruction you are compared to a Balor? Your call..."
Give it to him in the form of a vision / omen of him getting butchered on the deck of his own ship by a bunch of <whatever> that board his ship and have it painfully obvious that this is what will happen if it's ONLY his ship. But also do the contrast of an ocean aflame with fire and smoke, him (now with both his ship and him with obvious demonic investments) leading his armada away from a massacre of the opposing fleet and on towards the capital to ransack it. How good are you with cinematic / cutscene narration
Dude, that's evil. And cool. I would probalby handle the situation like this with solution like to this! Kudos to you!
I go with the last post too. Cheliax are inleague with the devils and Asmodious so that would mean that the demon worshiper should be oppossed to them anyway so story wise it should be easy enough to steer in the right direction.
Yep go with the whole be my servent thing, get the demon worshipper to gather alleys within the pirate council not kill them and use them to conquer the devil worshippers when thye invade.
So instead at the end you may have another demon central area in the Innersea, maybe the Eye then becomes something like the worldwound maybe?
Interesting development I think.
These are'nt bad ideas. Just one point that needs to be made. There are like 40+ council members, right?
The council members at the party are under the protection of parley. (Check your copy of Pirates of the Inner Sea)
Parley is all but sacred. Without it negotiations between Pirate Lords break down. 40+ predominantly CN pirate lords are not going to sit idly by and do nothing when they murder Council members under their protection. They are going to sieze the opportunity to try and make points with other council members by challenging Kerdak to do something. If he does not he then looks weak. If he does, well he is'nt stupid enough to go after them himself so he will probably send the very council members who got in his face about it to deal with it. By all rights Fairwinds ship would probably be at the front of the armada, probably side-by-side with Harrigans, after all he is the lesser of the two evils as he has not tipped his hand yet.
Which Is kind of why they need to make ally's. Not sure why you think harrigan would be at the front of the attack though. At the start of part 5 he's lost it, sending his fleet out to the pc's and is in his fortress with devils and cultists well and truly in with thrune and cheliax