The most hilarious / dumbest / ridiculous theories your PCs came up with


Rise of the Runelords


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So, I wasn't going to create this thread, but what the heck, let's all have fun and later I'll deal with the guilt trips.

I've run only the first session so far, and my players already came up with this:

1- Cyrdak is an evil villain, who must be watched closely.

2- They'll be facing the Sandpoint Evil really soon.

3- They'll have an undead guide (seriously, I have NO idea where this came from. One of my players told this to a friend in common who is also running the campaign, it was so hilarious that he sent it forward to me).

4- Ameiko is a major plot character (I believed they will be very dissapointed about this).

5- And my favourite: Norah is a mystic fish that will adivinate things for them.

I used the games for the Swallowtail festival and the speeches from this forum, and apparently anything that takes 15 seconds of my time to describe is a major plot point.

They seriously need to stop... I don't know, allucinating??

On the other hand, they have already realised that someone is behind the goblins attacks, and that the fire may be related.

So, do you have any fun theories?


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After the first session my players currently think Sheriff Hemlock is behind the goblin attack, and that either he or Naffer Vosk (in league with Hemlock) stole Father Tobyn's bones.

One of them has this whole conspiracy theory that the Chopper, the death of the old Sheriff and the Sandpoint Fire were all orchestrated by Hemlock to increase his power and influence.


I would have been SOOOOOO tempted to make Belor the evil mastermind.


Not exactly a conspiracy theory, but because I'd forgotten Hemlock was with the group, when they faced the initial Skeletons he never did a thing. So one of the characters started calling him "Sheriff Useless" which has continued to this day.

Mind you, after the group let Ripnugget live but captured Nualia, Tsuto and Lyrie, I had Ripnugget use the remaining goblins to raid Sandpoint while the heroes were at Thistletop killing Mal and bringing giant crab back to town for a huge dinner and free Nualia and crew (Nualia being unconscious at the time). The end result was the heroes returned to see smoke rising from Sandpoint, rushed into town, and saw Hemlock in combat with Ripnugget, culminating in his decapitating the goblin, only to be shot by an enraged goblin warchanter. The heroes managed to save him and several guards with Selective Channel Energy.

Despite this, and despite Hemlock having "evidence" linking the character who calls him Useless to the Skinsaw Murders (guess who became attached (hatred) to that PC? ^^) and then stating "I'm not so useless so to see someone is setting you up; clear your name and I'll keep these notes quiet" that PC STILL calls him Sheriff Useless.

(Then again, he also calls the half-orc Barbarian "Pigmonster" so he's an equal opportunity snarker. I talked to the other player, and she said "Lucian figures it's a term of endearment of sorts and honestly doesn't care." Go figure...)


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My brother hadn't done any roleplaying before this, and was basically playing himself. He is also a big believer in the Law of Conservation of Detail (anything a narrator takes the time to describe must be important), and didn't always get when I was just establishing the town for a months-long game.

This led to him climbing up on the Rusty Dragon to make sure that the big rusty dragon on the roof wasn't actually alive.

Grand Lodge

Poor Hemlock. My group was under the impression that he too was somehow involved in a lot of what was going on in Sandpoint.


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One of my players actually said "Come on, his name is 'Hemlock', how can he not be evil?"


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One of my other players decided to switch characters after the first session because he felt his creepy, Sczarni-friend, dual-cursed (Wasting and Haunted) halfling Oracle of The Dark Tapestry didn't really fit with the rest of the group and the idea of being a "Hero of Sandpoint" so he'd opted to go with a dwarven Cleric of Cayden Cailean instead.

He then took that campaign trait from the APG that makes him Hemlock's friend with the idea it would give him insight into "The Sheriff's dirty dealings". So now he knows Hemlock has an estranged brother who runs The White Deer Inn and is secretly dating Kaye Tesarani, but then again, so does just about any townsfolk the party chooses to talk to, as well as the half-orc fighter who grew up in Sandpoint.


Wow, Hemlock was dissed by my players as well (it got better though). One reason was because the shoanti druid didn't like that he gave up the "old ways". Also they blamed him for allowing the goblin raid to happen to begin with, as if he didn't do enough for town security(they were thinking he did have something to do with it for a bit). And to make it worse for Hemlock he has to keep asking the PCs for help, which doesn't improve his image.

The Exchange

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Backfromthedeadguy wrote:
Wow, Hemlock was dissed by my players as well (it got better though). One reason was because the shoanti druid didn't like that he gave up the "old ways". Also they blamed him for allowing the goblin raid to happen to begin with, as if he didn't do enough for town security(they were thinking he did have something to do with it for a bit). And to make it worse for Hemlock he has to keep asking the PCs for help, which doesn't improve his image.

This is pretty much how my players treated him. He ended up being pretty useless in our campaign.

Spoiler:
They are starting to get pretty convinced that guards in general are pretty useless after the bit in Magnimar and Turtleback Ferry.


Okay, so Belor Hemlock. He plans the goblin raid on Sandpoint, then tries to send them off to Thistletop to get them killed against the main force of the villains, even sending Shalelu along with them to keep an eye on things and make sure it all works out properly. The point of the raid was to consolidate more power to the sheriff, AND to take down the villains, who did not cooperate eagerly enough with his plan. So, after the raid, he pushes the Sandpoint Protection Act through the mayor, which contains dozens of vaguely worded discretionary powers for the sheriff, which he then starts abusing through things like deputizing anyone he likes to deal with serious crimes like murder investigations, sending people that know too much into "sanatoriums", and so on... Even without these powers, he still sends the PCs to clean up after Tsuto was sent by Hemlock to kill Lonjiku. He must have had some truly despicable blackmail material there... Wow. I never thought of Rise of the Runelords that way before...


Actually, my group doesn't think all guards are dumb. See, I'm running the Scarlet Sun free module where the PCs got approached by a guard to investigate some murders. She groused that Judge Ironbriar must be overworked because he's starting to grasp at straws now but that the guards would pay them 3,000 gold to stop the murders.

End result? They like this guard! They also got introduced to the judge (in passing) earlier than expected. And she even knew them from an earlier situation in Magnimar when they accompanied Ameiko to Magnimar to get a glasssmith to replace the crew slaughtered at the Glassworks... only to learn he was being hunted by a member of the Skinsaw Men who they ended up killing (the guards were called in because of a brawl on the streets as the killer hired a bunch of thugs to "rough up" the party; he failed in his assignment). So they had prior contact with her, she's grousing about idiot bureaucrats, and they get money! What's NOT to like about her? ;)


My group became convinced that Bruthazmus was the main villain and boss of thistletop (I don't know why, they got Tsuto's journal at the glassworks). And actually used this information to attempt to goad Lyrie into giving up and opening the door. "We just killed your boss!" Oh, really? that's my boss?" I got a chuckle out of that one.


Nynphaiel wrote:
So, do you have any fun theories?

Well, let's see, as I wrack my memory of the months of gameplay thus far...

1) They're still convinced (or convincingly joking) that there's an uber-powerful vampire in The Old Light because they were warned away from trying to explore its crumbling remains early on in the campaign. To this day, they continue making comments about when they'll have to face the vampire.

2) They believed there's someone high in the Magnimar government working with the cult (and not you know who).

3) Oh yeah, and they're pretty sure they're going to buy/take over Sandpoint...


lol, an Uber Vampire coming from beneath, as in Buffy?

Well, so far Hemlock has remained victorious keeping his name clean (yes, even with *that* name, lol).

But, again I don't know why, one of my players is convinced that the sheriff is romantically involved with the Mayor. I'm thinking he tried to cheat the rumors and got the names wrong, so no, I'm not clarifying this for him. So the bard keeps staring at him amused every time this theory cames up, since he knows Kaye is the one (he's been living with the pixies a while now).


Balor Hemlock?


My players thought it was the sheriff too. THey also decided that it was one of the tavern owners. They decided that Gorvi is obviously evil, and our party barbarian calls the owner of the gneral store the General, thinks he is one, and thinks he is a badass because he put the barbarian down because I rolled make damage.

Barbarian later presented him with the skinsaw man's head as a tribute to "The General"


At the beginning of The Skinsaw Murders, when they had just figured out the the killings in Sandpoint were done by some kind of undead, the first thing out of any of my players' mouths was, "What did we do with Nualia's body?" I just smiled and shrugged. (Not that I consider this dumb/ridiculous etc., I just like the conclusion they jumped to.)

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Ooooooh, excellent poker face there, mln. I'm going to have to remember that, though I suspect the paladin in my group will have her taken back to Sandpoint for a proper consecration. Still, don't discourage them from this red herring!


1. Our ranger managed to convince the dwarf in the party that if he drank from one of the monster birthing pools he would get "awesome monster powers." The dwarf was about to do it too, but then the cleric came over to see what we were talking about and ruined our fun :(

2. This same ranger and dwarf decided that the best way to deal with Foxglove manor was to hook a bunch of horses up to and and pull it down. The horses all ran off the cliff and died :(


after many wonderful gestures from father zanthus, the party still doesn't trust him. they spy on him constantly and ask everybody in town "hey, what's the deal with zanthus?" he has healed them multiple times for free yet they think that's because he is hiding something.


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Let them focus on Zanthus, so that the Sheriff can further his plans in peace...


Well my PC's are an interesting bunch, they managed to get the story of Gervais Stoot and the Chopper murders shortly before Hemlock pulled them aside for the trouble at the crypt where they somehow came to the conclusion that the Chopper's evil spirit had come back and had a diabolical plan for Sandpoint and all it's residents who held power at the time of recent troubles, but were fairly quickly dissuaded by Hemlock (who they actually kind of like, despite the fact that he hates having to ask anything of them and only does so with a show of annoyance and grudging respect for their talents) when he asked them to see Shalelu when she was introduced. They also spent the majority of one session in the Curious Goblin talking to all the town's intellectuals and the fighter walked out with a book of sword techniques written in a poetic cipher that he will slowly unravel as he levels up and gains his feats to reflect his study of the tome, the cleric walked off with a cookbook, the gunslinger strode away with a copy of Zoltar: King of the Jungle under her arm, and the barbarian got offered a job as a P.E. coach for the Turandurok Academy. They just finished the ruins of wrath and they're convinced that the small opening at the top of the staircase leads directly into the middle of the goblin encampment, which they plan to raid tomorrow. We'll see how that one goes.


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OMG I just realised my players put a picture of a DUDE on the description of Sabyl Sorn on the wiki *facepalm*

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