RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Ok, just finished reading Snows of Summer. Normally the <redacted> constructs I don't think much about, but this got my blood boiling.
Good job getting me at least, emotionally invested in the AP.
Soulbound dolls are just creepy on principle, once you read how they're created. I can't ever see any of the characters I've played or GMed for (except for the small handful of evil ones) doing anything but either destroying the doll to free its soul to the afterlife or doing everything they can to try to give it some manner of semi-normal life, treating it as best they can like a normal person, after killing its creator. Mostly hinging on how the doll itself behaves now - whether it's got a semblance of a stable personality or if it's psychotic.
My Kingmaker group is going to eventually run into a couple. I'm not yet sure how they'll react.
Soulbound dolls make excellent cohorts. ;)
Good job getting me at least, emotionally invested in the AP.
Best compliment I've been paid yet on this project. That's exactly what I was going for in that background description and encounter setup. Thanks, Matthew.
My players will go all scorched earth...salted ground...no two bricks atop each other...when they figure out the soul bound dolls.
And that prediction is going to be the understatement of the year!
Their wizard alone is extremely protective towards any/all children...she will go all Godzilla on Whitehaven...
Well played Neil...very well played indeed!!!
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Their wizard alone is extremely protective towards any/all children...she will go all Godzilla on Whitehaven...
Good. The Pale Tower and Whitethrone (and the White Witches, in general) all deserve to be taken down. I know it's a dangerous subject to touch on in a writing assignment (i.e., violence towards children), whether for Paizo or any publisher in the industry. It certainly verges on a line that you simply cannot cross very far. But, I felt like it had to be considered and confronted in this scenario, because it lends credibility to every underlying element of the adventure, the campaign setting, and the whole background of the NPCs in Irrisen with the cruelty of the White Witches.
A Few Spoilered Thoughts:
To understand the villain behind what happened to Thora, you have to understand that Nazhena is truly evil to the core. Not just for what she did to the little girl, but for what she did in playing with Nadya's emotions--i.e., holding out false hope, only to crush it once she further manipulates the distraught mother. Also, for what she's done to Radosek in raising and corrupting him within such a terrible environment...as well as what she did to her own mother. Nazhena is steeped in a self-serving culture where everyone has a heart as cold as ice...and an immorality to match. She's the ultimate wicked witch. And I wanted to show everyone that fact even though she doesn't make an appearance in this adventure. Instead, you only see her handiwork. And that still tells you all you need to know about her.
The truly fearsome thing is that as much as this tells you about Nazhena, you also have to consider that her wickedness and ambition can't even hold a candle to that of Elvanna...or even Baba Yaga, though the latter is far more variable in her alternating wickedness and benevolence. You never know what you're going to get with Baba Yaga. But with her daughters in Irrisen, there should be no doubt. That's how I interpreted things, at least. And it's also why I think the heroes who go through the adventure can find it easier to rescue and side with Baba Yaga against Elvanna. At least the Old Crone comes and goes every 100 years and confines her activities to the lands she took from the Linnorm Kings. The same cannot be said for the White Witches who remain behind. And especially not Elvanna, given her mad plan for supplanting her mother. In fact, the way Nazhena replaced her mother is a microcosm of what Elvanna is attempting with hers.
My two cents,
--Neil
Actually, you can create soulbound dolls in a good way. Taking a tiny fragment of a soul to create a soulbound doll doesn't imprison the soul. It's stated in the soulbound doll construction text that: "Stripping a soul fragment from the dead does not prevent the rest of the soul from continuing on to the afterlife, nor does it prevent the body from later being resurrected or raised from the dead."
So you could go to a hospital, visit the terminal patients and offer them gold for their families if they consent to donating a bit of their soul when they die, thus remaining good and having your soulbound doll.
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Yeah, the soulbound doll's debut in Pathfinder was actually entirely benign(with that one exception that went wrong...).
Here though? Rage. Even if playing a monk or paladin.
The Guardian doll also does a great job of bringing to mind the inherent hubris of a lot of game Villains, which can be either a good or a bad thing.
Their wizard alone is extremely protective towards any/all children...she will go all Godzilla on Whitehaven...Good. The Pale Tower and Whitethrone (and the White Witches, in general) all deserve to be taken down. I know it's a dangerous subject to touch on in a writing assignment (i.e., violence towards children), whether for Paizo or any publisher in the industry. It certainly verges on a line that you simply cannot cross very far. But, I felt like it had to be considered and confronted in this scenario, because it lends credibility to every underlying element of the adventure, the campaign setting, and the whole background of the NPCs in Irrisen with the cruelty of the White Witches.
A Few Spoilered Thoughts:
** spoiler omitted **...
Hey Neil, thanks for this, I really like a lot is being talked about in the adventure about motivations and the thoughts behind the villians and it's really special to get near realtime input from the author on things before my PCs have reached certain points in this adventure.
Several of my PCs this go around are brand new players. One of them is a Menhir Savant with the Arctic Domain. Holy COW I didn't realize how powerful this is about to be in some of these combats!
Two of my other PCs are a winter witch and a witch hating barbarian (half siblings) so much of this is good insight for their story development.