Artrosa npc dynamics (MMC spoilers)

[Lanathar]

Hey everyone

I am really struggling with some of the character dynamics and motivations in artrosa. Most notably jadrenka and vsevolod.

What is vsevolod actually trying to do. What does summoning the giant demon centaur do to help this? I can only he assume he wants to capture / destroy artrosa and/or the artrosa ring. But it is not clear why.

It is also not clear why jadrenka isn't stopping him and why she can't directly aid the PCs.
Unless we assume that she has been leading various invaders into places where they can be defeated (such as to the ratter).

Again I assume she hasn't directly acted against the invaders due to their large initial numbers. So I don't understand why she hasn't already failed and lost her wardenship to her mother?

The whole dynamics are rather confusing and unclear

What are others interpretations / how have people played it...?
Thanks

[Alexander Riggs]

My group is wrapping up book 5 pretty soon, so it's been a long time since I looked at Artrosa. I remember having some issues with these kinds of questions as well. I don't remember how much of this was coming from the adventure and how much I made up to fill in the gaps, but here's how I ran it:

Vsevolod is trying to conquer Artrosa and claim it for Kostchtchie. In order to do this, he must travel to the heart of the dungeon (the eon pit) and perform a special ritual which will perform a special ritual to transform the dungeon's essence. There are several places in the adventure where mention is made of how Artrosa is suffused with the essence of womanhood in its various forms (the one I remember off the top of my head is that this is part of why the warden's lover decided to swap genders), and since Kostchtchie is so violently anti-woman, the place would need to be "cleansed" of that essence before he could take over. In order for the ritual to be effective, it needs to be performed in the eon pit. The exact effect the ritual would have doesn't matter unless the PCs fail, but it would probably change Artrosa quite a bit.

The Warden, if I remember correctly, is very explicitly stated to be holding back on fighting Vsevolod because she is worried that the coven of hags will attack her while she's weakened and take over. She wants to work together with the PCs to deal with both threats, but her position as warden prevents her from asking for help, or something to that effect.

[Lanathar]

Thanks. That is helpful

The main driver for my questioning was trying tk work out what would happen if the pcs got to vsevolod lost the fight and retreated.

I am struggling to work out what he would do in the meantime because ot obviously wouldn't be standing waiting for them to come back.

I would have thought summon more allies but he has no more sacrifices...

[Voadam]

From the module it is a bit vague and a bit of a plot hole for the DM to fill.

The three big players are Jadrenka, Vsevolod, and Caigreal.

Caigreal Manhater allied with Vsevolod Womancurser with the plan to trip up Jadrenka and eventually betray Vsevolod. How her plan will aid her goals is not clear from the text.

Jadrenka is the defender but Vsevolod has rampaged through desecrating as he goes. She put Marislova in time out (for her own good or to punish for the nymph hair). What she is doing is vague and her motivations are not spelled out well.

Vsevolod hates them all and wants to do stuff down in the Eon Pit . . .? He allied with Caigreal but plans to kill her.

In mine I had decided Vsevolod had captured Jadrenka but Caigreal wants to betray Vsev and be open to an alliance with the party only to abandon them in the fight to ritually turn Jadrenka from a women to a hag.

Jadrenka then had stuffed Marislova into a box for safe keeping, not the assumed punishment.

Vsevelod is preparing a big ritual to sacrifice Jadrenka to consecrate the area in the deathless frost's name so he can take over the stones and scry for Kostchie's torc.

[Alexander Riggs]

Lanathar wrote:

The main driver for my questioning was trying tk work out what would happen if the pcs got to vsevolod lost the fight and retreated.

I am struggling to work out what he would do in the meantime because ot obviously wouldn't be standing waiting for them to come back.

I would have thought summon more allies but he has no more sacrifices...

My group ran into him headfirst and lost badly. I don't remember how much of it was their idea, and how much of it was the various NPC hangers-on that this adventure path throws at the group, but somehow they decided to go through and round up all the residents of Artrosa (that hadn't already been killed) to help them fight Vsevolod.

Some of these attempts failed, and ended in fights, but for the most part, they were successful. Since the party and their new allies together were far too strong for the encounter, I wound up deciding that the first thing that happened when Vsevolod succeeded on his ritual was to open up a gate to the Abyss through which he could bring in reinforcements, to even up the fight.

The resulting combat was pretty GM-intensive, as I had a lot of NPCs to keep track of, but overall I think it worked out pretty well.

The important thing to remember is that round two should be easier, if they failed the first time, not harder (generally speaking). Perhaps Vsevolod starts hunting down other Artrosa denizens (possibly allowing the PCs to ambush him mid-fight if they're clever, or maybe just expending some of his resources). Perhaps he decides to party with his minions to celebrate their victory. Perhaps, in the tradition of Russian folklore, he sleeps for several days after achieving his heroic victory over the witches (naturally his warrior instincts allow him to wake up when the PCs return, but this would explain inactivity while they lick their wounds).

Hope that helps!