So I've been haunting this sub-forum for a while, marveling at, and absorbing, all of the amazing ideas to make the AP better. However, one thing that has really stuck out is how people have chosen to use Kendra Lorrimor in their campaigns.
Originally intended as a one-shot NPC who gets put on a bus, I've noticed that some people have included her in the investigation of Harrowstone.
However, more worrisome are the instances of her being turned into a damsel to be rescued at the end, or worse, married off to the BBEG. Both times, she's relegated to basketball between the PCs and the enemy, and both are tired and increasingly insulting tropes.
Personally, I'm planning on making her a rogue with the amateur gunslinger feat, and arm her with a dagger, a hand ax, and two single-shot flintlock pistols. Her adjusted background is that she and her father were hunters of the undead before the opening of Carrion Crown. I intend to use her off and on throughout the campaign as a supporting NPC, and helping the PCs out in a few CR adjusted dungeon crawls.
So I ask, what have you done with Kendra? Did you give her an active role in the campaign, put her on a bus, or did she become a prize for the pc's to earn?
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Kendra was with the party through the whole campaign. No-one romanced her and probably her closest friend in the group was Mrs Camelot's Inquisitor of Milani.
As a GM she was useful for her contacts. She knew people and inherited her father's curiosity and pluck. I played her as a Victorian lady, very proper and correct but with an eagerness to avenge her father and stop the evil that her friends had uncovered.
In many ways she was the glue that held the campaign together, her presence in the party bought it home to the players that they were not just avenging their friend's death, they were avenging the death of Kendra's father.
As such the campaign never felt episodic, it was the player's story but Kendra's presence bought significance to their quest.
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Kendra was with the party through the whole campaign. No-one romanced her and probably her closest friend in the group was Mrs Camelot's Inquisitor of Milani.
As a GM she was useful for her contacts. She knew people and inherited her father's curiosity and pluck. I played her as a Victorian lady, very proper and correct but with an eagerness to avenge her father and stop the evil that her friends had uncovered.
In many ways she was the glue that held the campaign together, her presence in the party bought it home to the players that they were not just avenging their friend's death, they were avenging the death of Kendra's father.
As such the campaign never felt episodic, it was the player's story but Kendra's presence bought significance to their quest.
Did you keep her as a diviner, as she was stated up as in HoH?
I kept Kendra as a diviner, and she spent most the campaign two levels behind the party.
During books 1 and 2 she was non-combat support. Starting in book 3 she began actively participating in combats.
At the end of Book 5 Adivion and Lucimar successfully abducted her (as in, they actually fought the PCs and the battle went exactly as I was hoping it would) to use for the Carrion Crown elixir host.
When the party successfully rescued her, she rejoined them, fought at Gallowspire, and now stays at-level to the PCs. The party is currently L17 and about to fight to save Thrushmoor from a massive, and dangerous, skum army driven to combat by a Star-Spawn of Cthulhu.
In the game i'm running off and on (Its the campaign for when my Dad visits) she has become a regular supporting character offering emotional support and acts as a knowledge contact for the group. They helped her buy a house in Lepidstadt and she has also become the Beast's teacher.
As for character interaction. They value her and consider a true friend. My group for that game is a two person group so I have another NPC adventuring with them. I have him and Kendra interacting in such a way as to make the others wander what kind of hold she has over him. This played to enjoyable comedic effect. The PCs know they're not related so they wonders to what they're relationship is. He is also the group's means of keeping in contact with her when they're out adventuring.
Yay the celestial hawk postal service!
I left her in Ravengro.
Yeah, boring. But it came in handy come book 6 and they had a friendly couch to drop a guy on.
I (as a player) never felt as if it would have been an option to include her into our party or otherwise take her with us.
Carrion Crown feels a lot like a Call of Cthulhu campaign. Kendra seemed like a natural fit for that.
I'd love if that was the case but up to now, for me comparing CC to CoC is like comparing the dungeons and dragons movie to the lord of the rings movies.
In CoC, as I know it you try to solve mysteries and save someone or something (sometimes the world)while evading every possible encounter because each one has a high chance of killing you or making you insane. In CC you got dungeon crawl with undead and monsters and slaughter everything that looks suspicious. Sometimes just because you can.
Kendra went with the party to stay with her friend Judge Daramid. I gave her some crafting ability to assist the party's wizard, but she stayed in town. At the start of book 4, her and Daramid are moving to Caliphas. I plan to have her start running with a bad crowd in 5 and be taken by AA by book 6. Should be fun!
Unfortunately, my players lack the emotional capability to become invested in any character beyond "what gear can this NPC give me", so I don't hope for much in the way of interesting role playing. But, hey, it will make me feel like I'm trying to get them involved and one or two may try to respond to the kidnapping (or maybe she went willingly!?)
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We just started CC a couple months back and I as a player have really enjoyed the Kendra character thus far.
As it stands we currently have 2 characters with past relationships to Kendra tying us to the events at harrowstone with our thief and my witch both having lived with her and her father for long periods of life. Kendra thinks of the rogue as a younger sibling/friend and is the witch's ex from his time living under Lorrimor's roof. On top of that she currently has to deal with our lovely Mad Dog barbarian and her Giant weasel who showed up to collect a debt from her buried father and while she waits have the weasel dig up the yard and hide dead animals in her house. Suffice it to say it's been a blast watching our GM build relationships with all of our player characters.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, Contributor
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She's been in and out of our campaign, a sympathetic shoulder at times, sometimes she's been the bait, but not in a damsel in distress sort of way I hope. Right now she's enjoying the social life in Caliphas with "Edvian", an old friend of her father's.
I'm seriously thinking about making her the bad-guy/ final boss. Lots of problems with that, but if I can make it work, it would be neat and have a huge impact on the group.
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I had her go off with AA...but the twist is that she's actually the one using *him* to gain access to the Carrion Crown potion. AA's a triple-agent for the Esoteric Order (the Order infiltrated him into the Whispering Way, then the Way infiltrated him back into the Order). He's planning on creating a faulty version of the Crown to lure the leaders of the Way out into the open so the PCs can kill them. Kendra plans to take the Crown, fix it, and use it herself -- since she's discovered that she's actually the last remaining descendant of the Tyrant.
And I figure that if the PCs can go from level 1 to 16 by the end of the AP, so can she. :)
The PCs during HoH have been worried that she was the next target of the Whispering Way, and spent many a sleepless night keeping watch just in case they came after her or any of the PCs. Once the dust settled and the prison collapsed, she provided a eulogy for the fallen PC. Now that she's sold off most of her father's possessions to collectors and other various shops in Lepistat, she's most likely pop up here and there in Ustalav.
I may have her show up in Ashes at Dawn, but my plans for the post campaign levels are a little uncertain. There's trouble suppose to be happening at or near her new manor in Karcau, but I haven't scripted it out yet. I was thinking she (and the Lich causing trouble in the city) fell under the lure of a Dullahan's Coach of the Silent (see beast 2 page 111) and driven off to Bastard Hall.
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Unfortunately, I moved away and only ran CC as far as the ToB but my plan was to have Kendra be the
I had her move to Lepidstadt to continue her studies at the University. When the party caught up to her, she got into a relationship with Lodi Carene, halfling summoner and stud. Later on, Shel Lupescu, from the module Feast of Ravenmoor also showed up, looking for revenge against the party who had killed her parents. Being an evil minx, she snuck into the party's midst by striking up a threeway relationship with Lodi and Kendra, which might be a tired and insulting trope but is also hawwwwwt!!!!
Unfortunately, the game ended before I could have Shel show her true colors.
In my campaign, the group returned from the Harrowstone Prison exhausted from their ordeal. They entered the house cautiously and found Kendra making tea in the kitchen. She greeted them warmly and told them that a silver haired, violet eyed man stopped by to offer condolences on the death of her father.
Upon hearing about the heroes, he simply had to contact these fine individuals that decided to carry on the professors good work. He left them a letter and a box which Kendra presented to them
They opened the letter from one Adivion Adrissant who spoke fondly of the professor and sincere admiration that he had for them as they ventured forth to carry the "good fight" to those who would create fear in the Ustalavian night. He issued them caution, that the followers of the Whispering Way would surely be displeased and suggested that they retire with the funds provided by the Professor in his will. He urged them to take the gift that he had left him to heart and return to the countries from whence they came, giving the affairs of the dreaded Whispering Way no further thought.
The party opened the box to find Kendra's head inside.
The "Kendra" drinking tea innocently asked "What's in the box?" as the snow creating the simulacrum began to fall upon the kitchen table.
They've been on a quest for revenge ever since :)
There is no motivation more entertaining in a campaign than blood-splattered revenge that gets the players to latch onto like an attack dog on a chew person. Especially one that has the BBEG adding insult to injury leading up to that final moment of vengeance! ;)
My experience is when the GM invests a lot in an NPC and has the NPC fight monsters with the PCs, the effect is completely lost on the players. It slows combat down, it takes the stoplight off of the PCs, and generally is a rookie GM mistake.
Occastionally having an NPC involved in a combat in a role other than antagonist to the PCs is okay. But having constant tag along does not a good game make.
Naw, she won't really tag along...I'm going to use her and her dad as quest givers of sorts before/after the events of Harrowstone. She will be used as a guest NPC once in a while, but she won't be dragging along with them - the PCs are the stars of the show, not the NPCs.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer pretty much troupe-ed out what the OP is going for, if the OP cares about such things.
Not Buffy, think more Bram Stoker's Van Helsing. Petros is a LG researcher of the occult, undead, etc, but is also being inspired by Hercule Poirot. They're advising detectives, aiding the Lepidstadt police investigate the less than "normal" cases. Kendra is carrying his legacy from a Quincy Morris-like angle - her personality is being written completely dissimilar Buffy.
Just because she's a woman and fights vampires sometimes, doesn't automatically make her Buffy :)
Men are allowed to have different kinds of undead-hunting tropes...why are women restricted to just one?
In my campaign, the group returned from the Harrowstone Prison exhausted from their ordeal. They entered the house cautiously and found Kendra making tea in the kitchen. She greeted them warmly and told them that a silver haired, violet eyed man stopped by to offer condolences on the death of her father.
Upon hearing about the heroes, he simply had to contact these fine individuals that decided to carry on the professors good work. He left them a letter and a box which Kendra presented to them
They opened the letter from one Adivion Adrissant who spoke fondly of the professor and sincere admiration that he had for them as they ventured forth to carry the "good fight" to those who would create fear in the Ustalavian night. He issued them caution, that the followers of the Whispering Way would surely be displeased and suggested that they retire with the funds provided by the Professor in his will. He urged them to take the gift that he had left him to heart and return to the countries from whence they came, giving the affairs of the dreaded Whispering Way no further thought.
The party opened the box to find Kendra's head inside.
The "Kendra" drinking tea innocently asked "What's in the box?" as the snow creating the simulacrum began to fall upon the kitchen table.
They've been on a quest for revenge ever since :)
That is bloody marvelous :))))
Not Buffy, think more Bram Stoker's Van Helsing. Petros is a LG researcher of the occult, undead, etc, but is also being inspired by Hercule Poirot. They're advising detectives, aiding the Lepidstadt police investigate the less than "normal" cases. Kendra is carrying his legacy from a Quincy Morris-like angle - her personality is being written completely dissimilar Buffy.
That... that's actually really awesome. I love Quincy Morris in the novel. May have to crib this idea.
Not Buffy, think more Bram Stoker's Van Helsing. Petros is a LG researcher of the occult, undead, etc, but is also being inspired by Hercule Poirot. They're advising detectives, aiding the Lepidstadt police investigate the less than "normal" cases. Kendra is carrying his legacy from a Quincy Morris-like angle - her personality is being written completely dissimilar Buffy.That... that's actually really awesome. I love Quincy Morris in the novel. May have to crib this idea.
Go for it! I've made a lot of adjustments for Carrion Crown - some of them were inspired by ideas here, and others were my own. I'm planning to start a campaign journal as soon as I get things rolling, and people will be welcome to borrow ideas from it.
I too don't seem to be able to get my campaign off the ground though I've been planning it for nearly a year now. Got website set up, 'handouts' ready etc but can't seem to line up the players.
I've been planning this for about a year now too because I want it to be perfect. The other games I've GM'd over the last year have been mostly pre-written - this one is mostly self-written, with heavy inspiration from Carrion Crown, as well as gothic-horror literature.
If you need a sounding board, or need any help with it, feel free to shoot me a PM :)
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I played her in the final book. We started the game with me co-DMing (we had 8 players, I mostly set-up and ran encounters). By the Trial of the Beast though, we lost 2 players outright to babysitting issues and another player couldn't commit and only showed up half the time. So I made a cleric to travel with the party and I stopped reading ahead in the AP's. Well, the big bad monster at the end of Trial killed my cleric in a single round and after that I played a new character for each book. Their story started and ended within those pages. For Kendra though, I wrote up a back story about what happened to her after the party left and arrived with a couple of new companions (each replacing a dead or retired character). It was a lot of fun and I highly recommend high level diviners (+17 to initiative and always act in the surprise round, my Gawd!).
We won the day and in the end Kendra became a watcher over the world. Kind of like Oracle in Batman. Our last image of her is a room full of crystal balls and scrying circles showing endangered parts of the world and her, ever watchful for evil's return.
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In my campaign, Kendra came to Lepidstadt, where she stayed at the university in order to research methods of contacting the dead. She became obsessed with speaking to her father, to find out the identity of his killer. She convinced the witch PC to help her perform a dangerous ritual (adapted from Zombie Press's "Incantations From the Other Side"). When the PCs got into the trial, they sort of forgot about Kendra, which had been my plan.
During Chapter 2, the PCs also met Avidion Adrissant. He was a jerk to them, and Kendra implied that he'd had a falling-out with Petros shortly before his death.
After returning from Schloss Caromac, the PCs checked in, but Kendra had disappeared after trashing her dormitory room. Some witnesses saw her leaving town with the Crooked Kin (with whom my PCs were not on good terms...a long story). The need to assure Kendra's safety became a B-plot motivation for the PCs, and they inquired after her at each stop in Chapters 3 and 4.
Written on the wall in blood was "Vrood" -- the first time my PCs had seen the name.
Enroute to Caliphas from Illmarsh, the PCs met the Kin again. Caleb told them they'd dropped Kendra off at the Haraday Theatre, where she said friends of her father hung out. When the PCs entered the theatre, they encountered two figures fencing on the stage. They remove their masks and greet the PCs: Kendra and her fiance, Avidion.
That's as far as the campaign has gone, and I'm of two minds about where to go next. The easiest route would be to substitute Kendra for Count Galdana, but I loathe the damsel in distress trope. Plus the PCs are suspicious of Avidion, so I'd rather go with the unexpected.
Thus Kendra could be the mastermind, having deceived the PCs by feigning madness in order to stay close enough to observe them. And Avidion could be her pawn, and/or even the last heir of Tar-Baphon.
Or perhaps Petros Lorrimor is the BBEG -- Avidion's former master in the Whispering Way, he was betrayed by AA and murdered by Vrood. Now, he has corrupted Kendra's mind and steered her close to AA in order to get revenge...and somehow find a way to bring himself back to the material plane, to make a final claim upon the Carrion Crown.
This second option still makes Kendra something of a victim, but it affords more chances for autonomy (or, failing that, at least some juicy psychodrama).
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Has anyone besides me used her as the BBE?
Using simulacrums to keep the party on the trail to
1) kill off her rivals in the Way (Vrood, the Grey Friar, the Witches of Barstoi, and Lucimar as well as just generally doing a bit of "house cleaning").
2) retrieve the Raven's Head (which she knew thru divinations would be recovered by Heros - so she get's them to hand it to her "for safe keeping").
3) Distract/Placate the Order of the Pal. Eye - getting them to assist in getting Her to the right place at the right time, with everything she needs...
4) Thus using the strengths of those against her to assist in her ultimate victory... (insert BBE speech here)! (Evil Laugh!)
In other words - leading to the big reveal at the end where they find out they have been played all time, and they assisted in bringing back the Tyrant, and creating his new Queen... unless they can stop her...
Has anyone besides me used her as the BBE?
** spoiler omitted **
Planning something similar, actually reutilizing Kendra as the PC's Cousin. While the PCs in my Carrion Crown are Pitros Lorimor's kids.
About to start book 2 in two weeks. I may have her accompany the group to Lepidstadt (since there's nothing left for her in Ravengro), but I'm running a Clover's Crossing scenario to start a player's Paladin on the road to becoming an Anti-Paladin, so I have to try and keep her alive without being too overt about it.
Beyond that, no plans in the near future for her.
In my campaign, my party didn't really feel all that familiar or invested in Count Galdana from book 5-6, and I kind of saw that coming. From the beginning I'd been seeding stuff for the possibility of Kendra taking Galdana's place - in the beginning Adivion wanted Professor Lorrimor for his plans (they had the bloodline instead) but Lorrimor caught on too early and confronted Adivion at Harrowstone; in pride and anger, Adivion went too far and murdered his old rival.
Short of other options, he set his sights on Kendra instead - the original plan was to sort of indoctrinate her into the cult, but with the PCs interfering he had to speed things up. Took until book 4-5 for an opportunity (the PCs left Kendra behind in Lepidstadt to care for a PCs sister (long story)), but he breezes in, there's a fight the Kendra and Sister inevitably lose, and Kendra is kidnapped for the final ritual. A little bit damsel in distress for the last part, but she'd been pretty girlboss up to that point (highlights include fireballing just a whole horde of undead minions to ashes in Feldgrau).
There was also some love-triangle...square? Love polyhedron stuff going on - she and the tiefling Magus both crushed on the lovable farmboy Barbarian, who instead ended up with the PC Wizard. Kendra and the Magus sort of had this bickering thing between them for a few books that suddenly grew into a beautiful gothic romance all of its own (they were much better suited for each other tbh, but the Barbarian had such golden retriever energy that they were blinded by his golden himbo light.)
Perhaps the most important change though is that I swapped her bonded item for a raven familiar called Poe who was very good and a little guy (the Way killed him when they kidnapped her, probably their greatest crime).