I am currently in the middle of running The Empty Throne, and I kinda TPK'd my party in the Well of Demons. The players are really invested in the campaign and want to finish it, but I'm backed into a corner from a storytelling perspective. Here's my situation:
- 4 PCs are dead on level 1 of the Well of Demons. They have a number of really important items on them including the Amatatsu Seal, warding box, and three ancestral weapons
- Level 1 of the well is cleared out except for the two advanced erinyes and three injured erinyes.
- Sandru, Ameiko, Shalelu, Koya, Spivey, and the dead cavalier's mount and currently camping with Amatatsu Onoko at the latter's grave. That group also contains one player's backup PC (he died in Forest of Spirits during the seal's two week recharge period and rolled a new character to play for the remainder of the time), the PC and animal companion of a player who was absent for the TPK, and another hired body guard (former backup character of a different player).
- The backup PC and the absent PC just learned in character that the others are dead from Koya's divination. They have no further details.
- None of the dead PCs will be able to come back (Players want new characters and I have plans for the bodies if they are not recovered)
- None of the original PCs from Sandpoint are alive.
The people playing the dead sorcerer, alchemist, and cavalier are rolling up new characters as I type (oracle of winter, gunslinger, and debuff necromancer respectively). Integrating these new characters is my biggest problem at the moment. From my understanding of the module, no one can enter or leave the island without an Imperial Seal. This means the camping group is stuck unless they go into the well. Thus far, the characters they are hesitant to venture down there with no knowledge of the inhabitants and reduced forces. Having all of the new PCs be inhabitants of the island already doesn't make much sense to me either.
I've had some (contradictory) random thoughts to try and get out of this jam, but I'm having trouble putting them together into a coherent picture. I will list what I have below:
- Only three of the seals are in the control of the Jade Regent. One is lost somewhere and they have to undertake a dungeon crawl to recover it. When they retrieve it, they are marked as scions of another family. The new PCs can choose to pursue the throne themselves as rivals to Ameiko and her faction, or help Ameiko.
- Shizuru, increasingly worried about the fate of her chosen country, intercedes directly. She could directly summon new "destined" PCs directly to the island or mark them with a divine mark (and corresponding Geas/Quest effect) to get them on track.
- The Amatatsu Seal becomes tainted by prolonged exposure to the well and its spirits, requiring the PCs undertake a short quest to a specific location (Amatatsu estate, sacred site) to cleanse it or
find a new guardian kami.
- The remaining denizens of the well bring reinforcements to battle for control of level 1 and further their plans.
- Emperor Shigure's ghost gives in and descends into the well.
- The PCs have to infiltrate the Imperial Palace and steal one of the Imperial Seals from the treasury to access the island.
Help me Paizo messageboard members, you're my only hope!
Sandru, Ameiko, Shalelu, Koya, Spivey, Horse, the absent PC and backup PC are there. Let's say that the Major Artifact does the Plot Device thing and MacGuffins something to make these survivors into the new PCs.
Absent PC, back-up PC, Horse [awaken it and add class levels, maybe some magical flight ability? rebuild it as an unfettered eidolon?] and whomever among the rest take up the campaign.
If this is being particularly nasty, depending on how many players and your tolerances, maybe have the players stat them all up (or all but Ameiko) as PCs and "make or break" the campaign? If the PCs had been having relationships with the NPCs remaining behind, those NPCs are going to want to retrieve the remains of their former lovers/spouses/boy toys.
Horse simply wants apples and carrots of course. ;)
Have them all wake up, prisoners. They were at negative hit points when SOMEONE squirreled their bodies away. That person could even demand that they do something for them in order to repay his or her "kindness" and then send them on an alternative adventure to repay that debt.
Two solutions come to mine and are relatively easy without grasping at some obvious deus ex machina
1. It states clearly the Maemi's ambition is to retake the Jade Throne for herself. Obviously, if it were possible to do prior to the party's arrival, she most likely would have attempted it already, so make it so that to realize her ambitions she needs the Seal and Ameiko. Which means that she needs the party. Alive.
The Seal is a artifact but it is also a major plot device. It is easy enough to impose a condition that makes it impossible for Maemi to handle the Seal herself, perhaps due to her corrupted condition. She can't use the Seal without the party and/or Ameiko.
Therefore, she needs the party alive to realize her ambitions, as a means to get to Ameiko and as bearers of the Seal.
So, she raises the party through whatever means you can contrive and the party must make the proverbial 'deal with the devil' either through geas or other means.
2. This solution is a little more cheesy but still believable. The Seal is a artifact and a major plot device. Artifacts tend to be inscrutable and who can truly know every power they are capable off. Therefore you can have the Seal activate an unknown power which raises the party to full hit points.
Give it some condition like 1/year it can do this or have the artifact go dormant for a period of time to recharge as a result. The key thing is to make it clear that this is a one-time thing that the artifact will do and the party can't expect it to do this again for the rest of the adventure (and most likely, the rest of the campaign).
Ok, damn my eyes. I didn't register the part that you want to party to remain dead so my previous solutions don't work for your purposes.
Maemi opens the warding box and removes the Seal. Soto is now aware of the location of the seal. Having been previously been invested by the Higashiyama Seal, he sends some 'chosen' like Giras Notori and/or Sudoshi Sento to retrieve the Seal and deal with the troublesome Ameiko.
From page 8 ' ...a magical island in Kasai Harbor where only those of imperial blood or their chosen guardians can set foot'. That allows which ever NPCs you send to get to the island.
Soto's 'chosen' deal with Maemi and retrieve the Seal and now look for Ameiko.
The spare PCs, Ameiko and the other NPCs square off with the weakened Soto chosen (weakened because they had to use consumable and spells in battling Maemi and the eryines).
The party kills or drives off the Soto chosen but not without retrieving the Seal for themselves. Now they have the means off the island and to invest the new PCs.
Two solutions come to mine and are relatively easy without grasping at some obvious deus ex machina
1. It states clearly the Maemi's ambition is to retake the Jade Throne for herself. Obviously, if it were possible to do prior to the party's arrival, she most likely would have attempted it already, so make it so that to realize her ambitions she needs the Seal and Ameiko. Which means that she needs the party. Alive.
The Seal is a artifact but it is also a major plot device. It is easy enough to impose a condition that makes it impossible for Maemi to handle the Seal herself, perhaps due to her corrupted condition. She can't use the Seal without the party and/or Ameiko.
Therefore, she needs the party alive to realize her ambitions, as a means to get to Ameiko and as bearers of the Seal.
So, she raises the party through whatever means you can contrive and the party must make the proverbial 'deal with the devil' either through geas or other means.
From my (very) limited understanding of lore from previous editions of D&D, the only way for an outsider to really die was to kill them on their home plane. If you killed them on the material plane, they returned to their home plane after some period of time. Does something similar to this happen in Pathfinder with Golarion? Is this undefined enough in current cannon that I can just say it happened anyways?
I think this could be a cool way to integrate the new characters into the story, but the PCs did manage to kill Maemi. I guess the daemon faction or the dread ghost (currently at work, don't have the module on me) could use their abilities/contacts to attract new party members for similar reasons.
Tully, my understanding is that extraplanar outsiders can be slain upon the Material Plane if they are called. If they are summoned, they *pouf* back whence they came. A common part of calling spells is to include a clause about the calling ending upon reaching a certain hit point threshold (20% is what I use), returning them promptly whence they came. (This has the added advantage of making that creature one that can be called upon again at a later time.)
I've only skimmed through this chapter of the AP so I can't help you much about the specific details of accessing the Well of Demons, but if I were GM'ing with this situation, I'd either get the PCs to impersonate the caravan NPCs, or I'd get the players to create rebel Minkaian who want to topple the Jade Regent and help Ameiko reclaim the throne. I'd actually favor the first option since it remove the worry of getting the PCs to help an NPC win the day.
It's a bit late in the campaign to be insisting on new characters, isn't it? :s
This entire AP is glutted with spirits, can the spirits of the dead PC's not take over bodies of the other NPC's in order to see their quest through? That way they keep their experiences/personalities. Or have their spirits animate statues or something, Ameiko could storm the palace with an army of terracotta soldiers at her back with the PC's as their generals.
In regard to the missing items, I would have some helpful spirit deliver them back to the surface. Just handwave it and get on with the important work overthrowing the Jade Regent. :D
Give them the ghost template?
Keep the new characters on shore. Their Heir Marks 'resurrect' the PC's long enough to complete the task of returning the Seal to the awaiting party at the top of the well. However, they cannot pass beyond the well, and fall back to their state of death. (Peacefully... For now.)
Now Ameiko & Crew can pass back through, recruit new Allies, and come back to fight whatever horrendousness you have planned.
This should fit fairly well based on my (albeit not extensive) knowledge of Asian-style haunts and spirits. And the worst/best part (depending on your GM style), you could describe their bodies' coming fate you have planned as it's happening to them!