Foreshadowing an assassination

[Mr. Grogg]

I'll be starting a KM campaign soon, and have so far only read Stolen Lands. (I'll read the rest before beginning.)

SPOILERS AHEAD, sort of

Once the PCs start building their kingdom, probably after it's well-established, I was thinking there needs to be an assassination attempt made on whichever PC claims the title of King. (There may already be one or more assassination attempts written into later books, but this one is my addition.) What's a throne without some attempted regicide from time to time, right?

I was thinking about motivations while reading about the Stag Lord's keep, and I noticed that the keep seems to have a bolt hole that doesn't get used at all in the text. There's a hidden entrance from outside the palisade, but nobody ever uses it.

So now I'm thinking that the Stag Lord has a son. Maybe the mother is present as a bandit, or maybe she's long gone. Regardless, he's in the keep when the PCs attack. They never see him, though.

Instead, they find the bolthole from inside the keep, after they've been there for a while. Once they enter, they see walls of the bolthole covered with cobwebs, but none stretching across the hall. At the end they find the trapdoor outside the palisade with freshly disturbed earth around it. It becomes clear somebody escaped. If they try to track the escapee, they find that the person headed south but quickly the path grows cold. On a good perception roll, maybe they'll notice a smallish shoe size. Maybe they even learn the Stag Lord had a son living at the fort with him who seems to be missing now.

The son escaped, and then heard about the PCs slaughtering his father, his grandfather, and his friends. So he took off south.

While the PCs spend time doing the stuff in book two, he's off doing his own thing and gaining levels. His mind is bent on avenging the only family he ever knew (as as dysfunctional as it was), and he becomes a successful assassin, eventually to return and find the newly self-proclaimed "King" and do him in. He figures that if he can find somebody to hire him for the job so that it comes with money, all the better, but he knows he'll do the job eventually regardless of pay.

Is there anything in the later books that precludes all this happening? Any suggestions on improving it?

The thought occurs to me that he might try to create an alliance with Nyrissa eventually, and if she sends him then that will lend her some additional foreshadowing.

Any other ideas out there?

[Philip Knowsley]

Ok, thought I'd toss in some comments here.

1. Nothing to stop you doing it as it relates to later books;
2. It's good to have an ongoing villain to tie into the story;
3. Don't forget about the undead at the exit of the bolt-hole...;
4. Once you get to Kingdom building, 'assassination' is one of the possible
kingdom events that can happen (You'll see this when you read book 2.);
5. If you're going with a 'smallish' shoe size, how old will the kid be &
how many years before he's able to show his head as an adult?
6. How does he finance himself? - maybe the SL's treasure hoard has been
ransacked, & there's a few spilled coins when the PCs find it?
7. I think it'd kinda break belief if the kid escapes 'before' the fort is
breached... Think about an alternate sequence. Perhaps the PCs see the kid,
& write him off as not a threat, but he's nowhere to be found when they've
mopped up... Or, maybe they see a 'small' person slink throught the shadows,
but again - nowhere to be found...;
8. The 'south' is the Tuskwater...the path will definitely be cold. It's also
possibly the only way to stymie a really high tracking roll if they follow
on quickly afterwards. Perhaps have signs of a small boat having been drawn
up on shore...?

Anyway - hope some of that ramble helps...

[Rickmeister]

Boat and water is very good idea.. Have fun tracking that, when you don't know if the Staglord will receive reinforcements/bandits returning home from looting/...

He'll escape, train, study, and bide his time...
...
*evil laugh*

[Icyshadow]

Try looking up some omens related to death. Those would do well as a subtle yet mystical foreshadowing.

Considering the ties to the fey realm the area has and the Stag Lord's relation to Nyrissa, they make sense in context.

Also, would the assassin call himself "The Son of the Stag" or something of that sort? He'd probably want to reclaim his father's helm, too.

[Gargs454]

If you are concerned about the possibility of tracking and/or the undead at the end of the bolt hole, a perhaps more sinister method would be to simply have the kid stay in the keep, cowering as the PCs mop up. He then "thanks" them profusely, giving them this sob story of how the bandits killed his parents and kidnapped him, etc., etc. Odds are your players won't even question it.

If they do, simply have the kid tell them that apparently killing a kid was a little too evil even for the bandits so they "spared" him. Odds are the PCs will scoop the kid up, take him back to Oleg's or even Restov, maybe give him some coin, etc. All the while, the kid is secretly planning his revenge.

I think making the kid an ally or underling of either N or Irovetti works out well too. It could even be both. First N befriends him, maybe trains him some, infuses him with some magic, and then sends him to Pitax, knowing that he'll be eagerly accepted there.

[pennywit]

What if the kid escapes with his grandpa?

[Orthos]

Gargs454 wrote:

I think making the kid an ally or underling of either N or Irovetti works out well too. It could even be both. First N befriends him, maybe trains him some, infuses him with some magic, and then sends him to Pitax, knowing that he'll be eagerly accepted there.

Heck, make him a changeling (in the original sense, not Paizo's hag-based girls) - make N the mother. Then while he's out training, she shows up (in a dream, or lures him to Thousand Voices and appears in person) and reveals his true heritage, and takes him under her wing.

In my game N has a small unit of changeling children, one from each of her male minions - Staggy, Hargulka, the patsy from Varnhold whose name escapes me, Armag, and my Irovetti stand-in. They'll show up in Thousandbreaths as a Psycho Rangers encounter either right before or right after Ilthuliak.

[Mr. Grogg]

Thanks for all the excellent input!