Enjoying CotCT so far, + a couple of questions

[Hylozoist]

I'm getting close to the end of Edge of Anarchy, the rooftop chase will start of next session and I've got a pile of custom cards ready to go. I've got a group of 5 (though schedules clash and only different configurations of 4 or less have shown up so far.. the nice thing about city games is that its easy for pc's to drop in or out so far), with 3 people who have never roleplayed before enjoying themselves. They even managed to broker a truce between the city and some worker's rights groups (who will be betrayed once Ileosa reveals her evil side). I just had a couple of issues that others might weigh in on.

- How can I craft some character hooks for a gnome druid? I warned the player that this would be a city campaign and druids aren't very well liked in town, but she is one of the new players and I didn't want to tell her she couldn't play as the class she had her heart set on. She's an orphan that escaped Lamm and spent years on the streets before freeing and bonding w/ her leopard. Any ideas on side quests that could interest her? The bard is into social justice stuff (future blackjack maybe?), the elf archer researches the ruins the towns built on, the wizard has an apothecary shop, the ranger trades furs and skins he hunts in his spare time... but the druid is at a loss when I ask what she wants to do in a week of downtime.

-Looking ahead to the next adventure; correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like the party is meant to rest in between fighting the doctors in the Hospice and heading into the Temple below. I feel like my group, who now has ties to the guard, if they were to rest would head right to the guard or even the castle and say "Hey, we uncovered who's spreading the plague.. go get em." They're not unheroic, but it seems a reasonable thing to do. How do I handle this potential problem w/out skipping the last bit of the adventure or giving a lame out of character reason (guys, the boss of the adventure is there, please go fight her). Worse, what if they don't rest when they need to and go down and get slaughtered? Haven't DMed in awhile, so these kind of questions trouble me.

Thanks for reading this wall of text.. if there's any other advice or things you wish you ran different please let me know.

[Laric]

Hey Hylozoist,

I'm also currently GMing Edge of Anarchy and my group just finished All The World's Meat.

With regards to your second question, you might find the following posts/threads useful:

James Jacobs giving advice about options if you feel that 7DttG is too lethal.

Wes Schneider on the Temple's tactics if the PCs leave and come back later.

[Seadin]

We had a gnome druid in our party. The dm introduced the PC after we had killed a giant hippo that emerged from the river and started eating people. After we dispatched it for Croft, an angry druid approached us and informed us that the men the hippo killed were poachers and that she was going to have one of her druids "keep an eye on us", and it ended up being the PC. If I remember correctly the Guide to Korvosa mentioned druid activists over near the docks protesting all the fishing, so you could play up the environmentalist idea and have the druid swept up in the affairs of the other players.

[r-Kelleg]

1) Your druid can find interrest in the sewers (full of wild life) the seacost (quite obvious) or even the gray district (not everything is an undead over here). In the first she can meet the wererat, and in the last she can help fighting the undead.

2) in my campaign, they also tried to ask the guard to act. Cressida told her she needed more proof to act and send them to investigate (as it is suggested in the book in fact) and they reached the temple directely by the sewers (thanks to the wererats)

[amethal]

In my campaign , the Guard agreed to surround the warehouse, and arrest anybody who came out, but Cressida told the PCs that "standing orders from On High" were that the warehouse was off limits to the Guard. In addition, they needed Royal permission to raid any of the temples of Korvosa's recognised deities (i.e. those in the Pantheon of the Many, which actually includes Urgathoa).

She was trying to get permission to proceed, in the light of what the PCs had found so far, but things were moving very slowly. In the meantime, perhaps they would be kind enough to rest up, and then venture into the temple tomorrow on an "unofficial information gathering" basis.

My players are pretty understanding about that sort of thing, so agreed to her proposal. They would have been perfectly within their rights to refuse. If so, the guard would have finally raided the temple a few days later (possibly with the PCs in tow), and found that it had been (very) recently abandoned.

[vikingson]

as for the druid
- with sickness rampaging through Korvosa, have both rat packs multiply (more food to gnaw on..e.g. yet undiscovered corpses in houses), which might give her incentive to either counteract them or trying to tame/ them into herpersonal "hamelin" pack of rats. Nevermind them being all about, and possibly easy access to some information (say additional information about the temple)

- Stage a riot around guard headquarters ("have the city pay for antidotes") making it harder to access, and of course, the guards are affected by plague too, so are pretty likely to be pressed to the limits..... "best I can offer you is a squad of four guys who just survived it". nevermind them protecting houses etc of those who have fled the city now ripe for plundering, keeping the city gates shut or quarantining ships in the harbour.

[Hylozoist]

Thanks for the ideas all, I ended up having some of the druids preaching at the docks (previously played as somewhat of an ineffective joke) contact the party's druid about a rising unnatural presence arising beneath the city. This ties into a chain of sidequests involving Thassilonian ruins reawakening old guardians (in response to the rising power of Kazavon (sp?) that they detect). Since she is a city raised druid, she can succeed where they cannot.

As for the plague temple, I think I'm worried about nothing.. after all, if some guards do go check it out when they rest they'll just get killed and the party will have to check it out the next day. At the rate we're playing (a good amount of roleplaying, but some folks w/ shorter attention spans so games don't last for the 5+ hour sessions I'm used to), it'll be a long time til we get there.

I also wanted to say that the chase scene was pretty great and got a good response; I spent awhile time writing up a bunch of chase cards so I'm glad the time didn't go to waste [ok, I fudged one will save vs. sleep in the 1st round, but played the rest straight] and eventually Trinia failing a check did her in and she was surrounded.

The group believed her and tried to hide her in the party necromancer's apothecary. When Sable Co. w/ wizard's in tow grabbed her they uncovered his stash of bodies (one of which was Lamm's) and skeletal guards- Kroft sending them to the dead warrens is her price for not revealing the deed proving the house is his; it takes a necromancer to catch a necromancer after all.

[Redring]

An interesting turn of events came after my party ventured in to the temple below. They ran out of resources, and so barricaded the doors to the inner temple in order to fetch the guards and rest up. They got back upstairs to the hospice where they found a number of grey maidens arguing with a Sable Company lieutenant about the site being not of the marines business after the initial kerfufal(the sick who weren't completely infirm being the cause of the two military groups arrival here) Thankfully, they managed to sneak out the loading bay doors where they bumped in to some marines.

They convinced them they needed to talk to their leader. Eventually this led to a discussion with the lieutenant in private. They told him about the great evils being created here and in the Urgathoan temple below, and came to the conclusion that the queen would never stand for them going back down there. The lieutenant then did something very brave here.

He ordered his sergeants to engage the maidens within, and hold the hospice until the last man in order for the party to finish what they started in the temple below. The party went back down the elevator, and is not expecting the marines to be alive when they leave.

I feel like this is going to give even more reason for the queen to put an end to the Sable Company in chapter 3.