The bard from Blood for Blood

[pendothrax]

My players really go angry at the bard that is a throwaway npc who is living with the baron when the pcs clean out the baron's castle. I am wondering if any other dms have had a gooe experience with working her back into the adventure path and how it has been done by others.

[Thrund]

Lady Maray? She's a massive opportunist, so if there's no possibility of her seducing one of the PCs then she'll try to join up with one of the other powerful people in the area - maybe Irovetti or even Armag. If you're keeping the PCs up to date on the civil war in Restov, she might even go there and cause trouble for them.

[BigCoffee]

I think someone had her be the last member of the group that was settling near Pitax and whom Irovetti crushed. Seducing a PC, whatever works for her now. She could be an opportunist, or someone with an agenda of revenge. Alternatively, she could make for a top spy-mistress.

[pendothrax]

I am thinking of having her move through the various power groups in the later AP, and actually working for Nyrissa. I plan on using various magical Fey boons to move up her power as the pcs level up.

[Rickmeister]

I had her save the Baron (via teleport) and then later on 'surrender' to the powers that be. She is now working with our government, and could potentially lead to a nice cohort or back-up character in case anyone dies.
You don't HAVE to let her be killed, she can be a source of information (as with me: I had her come back to explain that she was hired, the contract had ended when she saved him, and was looking for people that were interested in her services) or fun, or maybe even intrigue if you can pull that off. :)

[Lee Hanna]

I've also plotted for her to be a spymistress for Nyrissa. I made her into a noblewoman, cousin to a mid-size lord who's just off the map. She's running several agents and informants around the region, including Kavken (informant), Willas Gunderson and Grigori (provocateurs, might even be the same guy, I haven't decided). She's trying to stir up lots of adventurers to go looking for lost elven artifacts (*Cough*Briar!*cough*), that are just waiting to be dug up. When Lily Teskertin asked wistfully for an elven artifact? Was that all her idea? We'll see.

So far, my group is early in book 2, so it won't matter, but they are meeting her now, undercover, as she visits their new hall.

[Orthos]

As I mentioned over in Solspiral's thread, my Maray is going to be a double-spy. On the one hand she's a plant by Nyrissa who's already done her job of getting the place under her control and handed over to her superior (Engelidis, Irovetti's lover, in my game is a half-fey Yuan-Ti and Nyrissa's daughter instead of a naga) by the time BFB rolls around. Likewise, she's also working for the Black Sisters as part of their cult, and provided them with a lot of the information that led to Armag's victory over the city.

[Vendle]

My PC's domain is advancing very quickly, such that they'll soon have a kingdom (80+ hexes) halfway into Blood for Blood. Lady Maray, being the informed opportunist, is not going to try and fight the PCs, especially if she's outnumbered. She'll flatter and lie, probably telling them that she was forced to stay and "entertain" Lord Drelev, with the goal of having the PCs bring her into -their- lands so she can spy from there in better comfort.

I also like the idea of her also being an informant for the Black Sisters.

[Icyshadow]

Since she's a spy from Daggermark, I imagined that the role she'd play depends on how the Outlaw Council will go for the player characters.

If they make a good impression on Martro Livondar, she might help them out with Irovetti, who's been telling the other River Kingdoms that his only enemy is Brevoy.

Since the player characters have made it clear that they'd want an independent region that isn't beholden to Brevoy, they might earn the approval of the other River Kingdoms.