It is easy for a lot of parties to overlook the evidence trail that leads to V+Gs, and if they miss a step with the timeline the adventure is on, going there is kind of superfluous after the trial. That being said, what you could do:
How much are you planning on using Adivion Adrissant? You could have him "helpfully" steer the PCs in the right direction. Perhaps they are old associates of his and he needs to tie up loose ends. Perhaps Auren Vrood leaves a note to Vorstag and Grine telling them to take care of anyone investigating the beast. Then you can just have V+G send something after the group and have them trail either it or its tracks back to their factory.
Hope that helps!
Hee hee!
When I ran my party through this
Totally clueless, he walked right up to Grine (?--the little one) and was like, "Yeah, so we found all of this stuff leading us to your factory--what's up with that?" So, Grine and the mongrelmen jumped him.
He actually put up a real good fight--it took an hour irl, and we didn't even finish it because his wife came in and yelled at us for being rude to the other players. She's not a player, so it was hard to explain that, no, we weren't just smoking pot in the garage, we were doing serious stuff, man!
Anyway, she guilt-tripped us into going back to the rest of the table where the other players immediately said "We're going to Vorkstag and Grine's!"
That probably doesn't help you any, sorry.
Have you thought about just not letting them get the evidence?
It's possible to get the Beast off without it, and nothing much really changes if he doesn't anyway.
Have the little psychopaths get all paranoid and bushwhack 'em in the dead of night with a few pets in tow (chymickal zombies, the puppy)...
Or have them be the ringleaders of mob justice during a certain day of the trial.
My players made the connection from a couple of sources:
The mostly-burned documents they found in a similar spot.
The mark on the surgical tools
The surgical tools were an incidental - they were going to check out V&Gs anyway.
This was, incidentally, how I introduced Adivion Adrissant (well, his simulacrum, anyway). He was a visiting friend of Dr Crowl (and an old friend of Prof. Lorrimor who had only just discovered the Prof's death...he claims) and I painted him as something of a polymath scholar who was able to decipher the V&G references. In my campaign - ideas in which I openly admit I've plagiarised from Ice Titan (thanks, IT :) *waves*), Adivion *hates* Auren Vrood. He sees him as an upstart who threatens to expose the Whispering Way's plans due to his lack of subtlety. He also hates him because he killed Lorrimor, whom Adivion genuinely liked. So Adivion is happy to give the PCs some help that will eventually get them to bring down Vrood, but not so much that they can spoil his plans altogether.
Anyway...when they arrived at V&G exactly what CEG said occurred: Grine told them to get lost, and it looked for a moment like they were going to leave.
I pushed things along by having one of the mongrelmen start to exit the door into the vat room, spot the PCs, and hurriedly duck back inside. My players had a description of the mongrelman "beast" from Karl *more on that later) and so they immediately thought they'd found the real culprit, broke down the gate, and proceeded to turn V&G's upside down.
Karl, in my campaign, turned out to be their biggest coup. They arranged and paid for a "Regenerate" spell for him, restoring his eyesight, and he was able to draw them a rough representation of the creature he saw, plus positively state, on seeing The Beast, that it was NOT the creature he saw the night of the attack.
Anyway, I had great fun portraying Grine as a fanatical follower of Norgorber who didn't actually see himself as evil, and Vorkstag as something of a Hannibal Lecter, who played the characters against one another, against the lawyers and judges.
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I was heading in a similar direction with my party.
V and G decided to take a different approach once back in town. I had V and G kidnap Kaple(sp?). When the PCs went looking for him they decided to follow up on the vial they found. At V an Gs factory they saw a golem hound sitting out front tied up. Set off some bells. PCs decided to investigate the building after that.
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My player came up with an interesting solution.
The ghoul's deposition was the last clue my player needed to go check out the chymic works. And then they entered the ghoul's deposition as evidence in the court. Almost caused a second riot.
Note: as I ran this as a solo campaign I did allow for more creative solutions than the book assumed.
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I'll throw this in: a lot of players seem to get hung up on evidentiary procedures with V&G: "but we don't have a warrant!"
It's helpful to remind your players that Ustalav is not the United States and does not have the same kind of laws about warrants, searches, and evidence.
Moreover, Daramid basically hired them for a black op. They're supposed to be skirting along the edges of legality.
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I'll throw this in: a lot of players seem to get hung up on evidentiary procedures with V&G: "but we don't have a warrant!"
It's helpful to remind your players that Ustalav is not the United States and does not have the same kind of laws about warrants, searches, and evidence.
Moreover, Daramid basically hired them for a black op. They're supposed to be skirting along the edges of legality.
I think the issue is more a lack of cause then fear of legality. The PCs are supposed to break into the place simply because they found a vial at a burnt out asylum?
I'll throw this in: a lot of players seem to get hung up on evidentiary procedures with V&G: "but we don't have a warrant!"
It's helpful to remind your players that Ustalav is not the United States and does not have the same kind of laws about warrants, searches, and evidence.
Moreover, Daramid basically hired them for a black op. They're supposed to be skirting along the edges of legality.
Mine said pretty much the exact same thing.
I reminded them that in a medieval/fantasy-renaissance society, the concept of "warrant" was unheard of.
Even so, I said that there is a big difference from today:
TODAY -
1) The cops break in without a warrant and find nothing. The cops get their knuckles rapped.
2) The cops break in without a warrant and find something. The "something" is inadmissable.
USTALAV -
1) The "cops" (read: PCs working for a judge) break in and find nothing. They'll probably get their knuckles rapped.
2) The "cops" break in an find something. That something proves the Beast's innocence and the authorities pat the "cops" on the back.
Vigilantism is alive and well in Ustalav...:)