So, what did your party do with Greta?

[QuietBrowser]

I apologise if this topic has already been started, but I didn't think it was a bad one to open.

I have something of a personal interest in Greta, from the 2nd adventure module of this path, due to my previous interest in Undrella the Harpy, and I was curious what various actual players did when presented with the possibility of a flirtatious (and even, optionally, "redeemable by love" type) winter she-wolf taking an interest in them.

Mostly I'm interested in seeing if anyone actually "took it up" with her after she invited them out for coffee, and how far it went.

[DalmarWolf]

One of my PC's (the one she asked, who was wearing the rimepelt) agreed to her offer and quickly went to have some wine with her as soon as they made it to the location they needed to go to, before the effect wore off.

And they did have a nice time, with some light flirting and talk about what was going on in the city, but he's not returned to her again, and I doubt he will, he'd be a little afraid that he'd get caught. He did ask though since his face is mostly covered by his outfit if she would notice the difference if he went back.

[Voadam]

The calistria follower elven transmuter in my group used alter self repeatedly to appear a white-haired humanoid winter wolf and dated and seduced her. He got info on city politics involving the winter wolves, how they consider themselves top dogs and work with and not for the white witches and how they are split on whether to follow the Queen or not really care, mostly on individual bases.

He wanted to get her to lead the wolves against the Queen during the riots but didn't really follow up on it or her after their fling so not much came of it and he left at the end of the module without saying goodbye.

Elven jerk.

[StrangePackage]

My cleric of Sarenrae took her with him. She's now a permanent party NPC.

[Andrea1]

Voadam wrote:

The calistria follower elven transmuter in my group used alter self repeatedly to appear a white-haired humanoid winter wolf and dated and seduced her. He got info on city politics involving the winter wolves, how they consider themselves top dogs and work with and not for the white witches and how they are split on whether to follow the Queen or not really care, mostly on individual bases.

He wanted to get her to lead the wolves against the Queen during the riots but didn't really follow up on it or her after their fling so not much came of it and he left at the end of the module without saying goodbye.

Elven jerk.

Have her hunt him down via a wizard and present him with a litter of puppies.

[Tangent101]

My group hasn't reached there yet. However, I'm in the process of trimming down NPCs so while one player wants to create a Harem of all the female PCs and NPCs... not going to happen.

[Translucent Wolf]

My group invited her to join with them in their quest. She felt that performing a service for Baba Yaga would worthwhile, both for a chance to meet new beings, and the potential for reward.

My group also brought along Ratibor from the next book. The two of them generally relax in the Hut when a full party is available for game night. They're called upon as guide / bodyguard when the group is missing a player or two.

[Tikael]

My party tried to intimidate her, failed, knocked her out, but not without nearly dying themselves. After reinforcements arrived they retreated because they finally realized that frontal assault wasn't a well thought out plan to enter a city under martial law.

So she left the story without them even learning her name.

[Serum]

My party found her again in the Endless Forest, and convinced her to join them to restore the "good old days" before Elvanna declared martial law.

She's now a PC after the player's first character died to Nazhena.

[CorvusMask]

My bard married them :p

[The1Ryu]

I ran the adventure with just one player, making heavy use of the NPCs to fill the other party roles. This also allows us to spend a lot of time on interpersonal RPing, so Greta's contribution to the game has been considerable. The TL;DR is that she hooked up with the PC, and they have been slowly forming a deep connection. We haven't finished the campaign, but a lot has happened.

If interested, please read the more detailed by spoiler-filled section below: (Unfortunately, I don't know how to hide the text as I have seen others do.)

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He had struck out with Lady Argentea, Nadya, and Finngarth (Too good to kill the husband to get her. So when Greta showed interest, he was very pleased.

I didn't tell him the Winter Wolves could transform into humans in the Howlings, and they became very attracted to one another. I even rolled randomly to see how Greta reacted to his heavy use of fire magic, and she found it attractive rather than repulsive, kinda like 'oh he's a bad boy' reaction. When they left the Howlings, and they discovered what the other was Greta was furious, but by that time, she was taken with him and the idea that their cubs would be very intelligent. My player was still interested in her thinking he could just get her an item to stay in human form. (Ya a 24,000gp item, he wasn't getting that any time soon, especially since Whilethrone is the largest city to which the adventure takes the characters.)

At this point, I had to figure out her backstory and her personality beyond what was in the adventure. To indirectly show she wasn't a part of the Winter Guard I had her complain about the arrogance of the Whitethrone noble-born winter wolves calling them 'City Wolves' and that along with romance she was interested in starting a family; as she was interested in the high intelligence my Player's character would pass on to their pups. So I decided she was a country wolf from far north where there were virtually no people, as such she had never eaten an intelligent being (Something that would put off my player) and that she came to Whitethrone curious about humans and the magic that would let her take such a form. Considered a country bumpkin by the 'City wolves, ' she took a liking to the humans and her human form. She still considered herself to be a wolf and when initially told about the quest to rescue Baba Yaga thought only about the respect it would get her from the 'City Wolves.'

At the clocktower, I made the door to the upper floors too narrow for Greta to squeeze through as a large creature forcing her to remain downstairs with the children. While this freaked out the children and annoyed Greta at first, her liking of humans and asperations of motherhood helped her deal with and calm the children down. The others came back down to find her tending to them gently; this helped her move away from her inherently selfish personality.

In the battle against the last Dawn Piper, Greta was affected by reckless infatuation while my player's character was affected by unadulterated loathing towards each other, with no way to dispel the effects they spent the next day reenacting a Pepé Le Pew cartoon. Greta knew they were under a spell, but the whole event left her insecure about the PC's feelings for her. They talked about it, and while he said he still had feelings for her, he let slip that her wolf form wasn't very attractive to him. This upset her a little, but Greta decided that the PC would like her wolf form better if she asked Baba Yaga to make him a wolf as well.

Greta created some problems in dealing with the Dvezda Marches centaurs as they didn't trust people traveling with a winter wolf, which are frequently allies of their enemies, the frost giants, but nothing that derailed the adventure. Flying 2600ft up Atrosa was not something she enjoyed, but the Will-o-Wisps enjoyed her fear of flying. Her scent ability helped a lot against the Lurkers in Light. When Kyrisjana tried to offer the PC "a variety of depraved pleasures" to let her live, Greta literally bit off her head. But a big change came for her when they met Nostafa, and the PC failed the diplomacy roll to convince her they were there to help Baba Yaga and she attacked. Despite willing to fight to the death, Nostafa was quickly reduced to just a few HP and rather than fight just lashed out by cursing them. The PC stopped the others from killing her and tried diplomacy again this time succeeding. This act of mercy had a big impact on Greta, pushing her towards the Good alignment. Finally, during the final battle, Vsevolod, about to be defeated, tried to take Greta with him by Bullrushing her into the Eon Pit, but she proved too tough and determined for the pit's curse and escaped unaffected, nipping up the scale as she climbed out.

After the adventure, the players were hanging out in Vurnirn, selling their treasure, and getting some items crafted. Yuln Oerstag, who I'd made able to join up at the beginning, hooked up with Erdija, who's life he had saved during the fight with the Svathurims. The sounds of those two 'getting to know one another' made Greta frisky, and she convinced the PC to use the magic of the Rimepelt so they could enjoy each other's company at least for a little while. When I described how different it was to be a winter wolf, not feel the cold and how sharp his senses were, the PC decided it might not be so bad to have Baba Yaga turn him into one as well, so long as he could transform whenever he wanted.

On Triaxus, they joined up with the Spurhorn defenders, and after rescuing him, Shatha took quite a liking to Greta. Greta quite liked this, even more so when she discovered it made the PC jealous. Greta played this up a bit, letting Shatha fly her to the battle with General Malesinder. After the battle, I followed the module's advice and swapped out some of the treasures they got as a reward and included a minor Ring of Fire Resistance, which the PC gave to Greta in front of Shatha as a formal proposal. (Note: I can't believe quadrupeds like wolves can wear rings, most resize to fit, I changed this for Greta)

And that is a far as we have gotten, I may make an update once the campaign is over.

[raintoad]

The flirty bard took her up on the offer, which everyone agreed was weird in retrospect because he had that fur that disguised him. Nothing more erotic than wearing the skin of her dead kin!

We had a death just prior to them getting into the city, and luckily, the dead character had canon parents who were a wizard and druid. So they came back, and were teleported into the city, but had to deal with negative levels after a reincarnate so there was a bit of waiting around in which the bard met up with her a few more times. His backstory had him coming from Irrisen, and living relatively nearby, so his knowledge combined with his social skills made it relatively simple to get around to see her. I threatened him with a random encounter at one point, but he was able to avoid it pretty easily. More due to me being a softie rather than anything else.

I had seen an idea on this board to put her in the cabin in the woods in town later, and so was planning to do that and had her talking about a potential promotion and a few other work related things before they "spent a nice night together", although she was quick to kick him out of bed and he didn't get to stay the night.

So, once they found her later on, I think I successfully incepted the idea of having her join as a companion and he asked her to come along. We had one player who kept missing sessions so it was convenient.

However, she could only come as a wolf. This made for some amusing RP at first, but she wasn't happy with it and only agreed to keep going because the bard was sure he could turn her human again. I think I stole this from the boards again, but I had them discover that a ritual did exist that would give her the option to turn human, but it was in the book in Artrosa they already needed to get.

I did a bad job roleplaying her and the party got tired of her. She was too whiny and focused on being able to change forms, and the bard wanted to be able to flirt with cute centaurs without having to feel bad about it. So, at the end of that book, I had her decide to stay in Artrosa with the other two and work on repopulating it with Baba Yaga loyalists. I had emphasized her loyalty to Baba Yaga early on to justify her abandoning her post to travel with a bunch of weirdos, so this worked out pretty well.

The bard continued on and had a fun time being a stereotypical bard. The player who had a character named Gretta no longer needed to be confused. I didn't have to adjust encounters because there was a big wolf tagging around, or rewrite things because I hadn't considered the long term repercussions of adding a companion.

I also didn't learn my lesson because boy, my party ended up with a LOT of companions by the end of the adventure. Greta was memorable, just because it's not often you get to date a big fluffy wolf, even if it doesn't work out.

[Tangent101]

Amusingly enough, my second gaming group going through RoW (the first group fell apart when half of the group kept refusing to coordinate with the others on when they could get together for a game) blew off Greta without much interest. That said, the first group? The player running the Rimepelt PC decided to have his PC freak out at Greta hitting on him. My latest group? Well... the girl playing a kitsune Oracle chose discretion as the better part of valor, no doubt partly due to the jealous half-orc barbarian who has latched onto her (played by her RL boyfriend who is actually fairly chill).

The encounter played out a little differently as well as I'm co-GMing this time around and primarily handle combat. Part of the group already had passes to Whitethrone (a mercenary and my rogue due to her backstory) so we walked in. The others had to talk their way in with help from the kitsune pretending to be a winter wolf. ^^;;