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(My copy arrives tonight, so apologies if this is covered in the material or elsewhere, but...)
Does anyone have any good advice for plot hooks that I can sew into my current module that would lead in to Burnt Offerings?
Right now my party is in the Caves of Chaos (B2 - Keep on the Borderlands) and probably will be for at least the next few weeks. This gives me (us) plenty of time to think up some good hooks that I can use to segue gently into the events of RotRL.
The party is an elf wizard, an elf fighter, and a human cleric.
One that comes to mind already is a fraternal offering from the cleric's order to the temple.
But I'd rather stay away from 'backstory' or 'you have no choice' leads. I prefer found clues, NPCs that were hostages, or perhaps adventurers from Sandpoint who fell in the Caves. 'The orcs have us trapped in this room. They're breaking down the door! If you find this journal, please deliver it to my love Amiko', or something.
Like I said, I haven't read it, but I plan to remedy that shortly!
Depends on the geography - where are your PCs? And have they ever been there before? Canon B2 is near the Worldwound, so it's a long way from Sandpoint.
1) Sandpoint is the nearest significant town. The PCs have a bunch of treasure, so they want to go and spend it. Or a Thassilonian relic, which Brodert Quink might be able to ID. Or an heirloom of the Scarnetti or Foxglove families, for which they would pay well.
2) The goblins in B2 are connected to those likely to attack Sandpoint, and have some inkling thereof.
3) The Miscellaneous Evil Cultists in B2 are connected to Nualia somehow.
4) The PCs find a caged magic butterfly. Aligned LG, identifiable (KR DC 15) as sacred to Desna. If released, it flutters all the way to Sandpoint just in time for the festival. Being a butterfly, it doesn't go fast and the PCs can easily keep up.
I'd imagine that the PCs would be at least 3rd level by the time they'd done B2, so you'll need to beef up the first chapter (especially the first episode) a bit.
Burnt Offerings assumes 1st-level PCs with 0XP. There is a built-in plot hook that explains why they're all in Sandpoint: the annual Swallowtail Festival. You can run one solo non-combat vignette for each individual PC, then the first encounter will organically pull them together into a party of adventurers.
As for Keep on the Borderlands: Assuming you're talking about a conversion of the original module that shipped with the Red Box Basic D&D Set in 1982... I haven't looked at that one in over 20 years! That said, you can stick it somewhere in the mountains near Ember Lake in Varisia if you want, and it wouldn't be out of place.
You will have to beef up a lot of Burnt Offerings if the PCs start it at 3rd level, though.
Double the number of goblins and make them all fighters. And have them fight effectively. It will be a decent fight without being overpowering... but will also not give them a huge amount of XPs.
Don't forget, however, Runelords works from the fast XP track. If you're on the medium XP track, they'll start running into more difficult encounters later on, and you might want to use random encounters to boost their XPs.
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Some nice hooks there, thanks!
Yeah, this is the original B2, and the campaign has no other shape at this point. I can feasibly place it anywhere, so that's a solid idea.
As for difficulty vs level, thank you for the advice, but I'm not using the same system, so I'll be on top of that for other reasons anyway.
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I rather like the goblin and cultist angle, because that's a close match. I could draw some parallels with the medusa at the end of B2 and 'Mal'. But how would the party know to go to Sandpoint based on that? That might be better stuff for foreshadowing than hooks. What about the seven-pointed symbol? Any reason not to use that with the misc cultists?
I like the artifact idea, too, but the Foxglove connection might be a bit better because that ties them into the second chapter. So maybe a combination of:
1) Link the cultists and goblins thematically.
2) Send them to Sandpoint on a Foxglove angle.
3) Burnt Offerings stuff starts to happen...
4) Close up that Foxglove angle in the second chapter.
My risk here being that I might wind up intermixing chapters 1 and 2 based on the party's interests.
It's a start...
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If I recall, the cultists in B2 are a generic necromantic cult of some sort or another. You could probably reskin them as a Lamashtu cult working on some horrible ritual. The PCs stop it, but interrogating the high priest only elicits insane laughter. Apparently, everything happening in the Caves of Chaos was little more than a rehearsal. They were seeking a greater power somewhere in Varisia, and when they had fully prepared themselves, they would be heading there to seek out the power source, make several sacrifices to the Mother of Monsters, and...um, I dunno, profit, I guess. But trust me, it's really powerful, and you wouldn't want it to happen to you. It's bad. Whoo, boy.
They have a vague area (the Sandpoint environs), but no real leads. They head to Sandpoint and, wouldn't you know it, they're just in time for the Swallowtail Festival! RotRL starts here.
The big problem you may run into would be that the PCs think they've got a far bigger problem on their hands than being the darlings of Sandpoint. "Um, thanks for the loaf of bread, miss, but I really do need to get going. People to see, cults of Lamashtu to slay. That sort of thing." Your best bet would be to send them off on wild goose chases for the week. Have them investigate the background of what happened on Chopper's Isle, and the reasons behind the Late Unpleasantness. Have them discover rumors of a site nearby that's rumored to have mystic properties - it does, just not the ones that the cultists were seeking (someone else was though!).
Basically, intersperse the written Local Heroes stuff with stuff that keeps them near Sandpoint, and not rushing off to start poking around in weird places. Then, when they get to the runewell beneath Sandpoint, they'll hopefully be shocked to learn the place they were seeking was right underneath their feet the whole time!
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Okay, that's some good stuff right there.
So let's see, why practice the ritual first? What if they're not connected directly, but rivals? Maybe the Caves of Chaos sect is trying to beat Nualia to the punch? I could make the leader of that sect someone disgraced by Nualia when she was in Magnimar, with an axe to grind. So she stole Nualia's plan and tried to beat her to the punch ensuring that the Sandpoint sacrifice would be too little, too late. "We'll see who gets the last laugh" sort of a thing.
So the main vehicle for relaying this information would be correspondance found in the loot, I'd think. That and some vague dialogue. Any suggestions on who in Magnimar would be a good choice? Or anyone better to tie the correspondance to? I briefly thought Tsuto - maybe they grew up together. But it seems like he wouldn't want anything to threaten Nualia's success. Unless maybe he doesn't see it as a threat, as much as a motivation to speed things along. "Let her try. She's an idiot anyway."
A risk here is that I'm dangerously close to tipping the party off to the metaplot, and as you said they wouldn't feel as attached to Sandpoint.
One thing I could do is not refer to Nualia by name. Something like "that Sandpoint cow" - though that needs a better female pejorative (preferably PG rated).
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Not a bad idea - it's not like Lamashtu worshippers are organized or anything. The Caves of Chaos sect are probably interested in the runewell, while Nualia's sect is clearly motivated by destroying Sandpoint, her demonic apotheosis, and freeing Malfeshnekor. Both plots revolve around Sandpoint, but for completely different reasons - Nualia wants to see it burn, while the Cave Cultists want to seize control of the runewell and probably use several of the townsfolk as sacrifices. It's a race between these two groups to see who takes control of Sandpoint first!
I definitely wouldn't mention Nualia by name. That's not just tipping your hand, that's showing your opponent your cards! It might be worthwhile placing an additional Lamashtu cultist in Sandpoint, someone that was acting as their face while the Cult prepared in secret. Some of the investigation could be to find out what they were doing. It might be interesting to make the half-orc refuse sweeper the wolf in sheep's clothing - he does get to go everywhere, and see everything. He probably hasn't found the runewell just yet, which is why the Cultists were still in the Caves of Chaos, but he's marked places where he knows it isn't.
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Just you wait until you reach book three, there are LOADS of hooks there, a whole mountain of them.
Just you wait until you reach book three, there are LOADS of hooks there, a whole mountain of them.
Now THAT... was funny!