What to do with Escaped / Freed NPC's - Nualia, Tsuto, Orik & Lyrie (Spoilers)

[JDragon_ITTS]

Evening all,

Wanted to see what thoughts the hive mind had on my current situation.

The group is almost done with Burnt Offerings and should finish next session with one final exploration of Thistletop.

As my subject suggest a large number of the named NPC's have escaped or been captured so far.

Here is the current status...

Tsuto - captured under the Glassworks, currently in the Sandpoint jail waiting for a trip to Magnimar under escort from the PC's.
Lyrie - captured in Thistletop, currently in the Sandpoint jail waiting for a trip to Magnimar under escort from the PC's.
Orik - escaped Thistletop alive, but with only his coins and a potion of healing. Currently heading for Magnimar, see more below.
Nualia - escaped Thistletop after party had sealed the lowest level of the dungeon and having to leave for 3-4 days to reincarnate a fallen party member. On her way to Magnimar, see more below.

I've looked through a number of threads on this general subject and have a few ideas but could use some more.

Here is what I have so far...

The party has been asked by Hemlock to escort Tsuto & Lyrie to Magnimar for trial and will be instructed to hand them off to Justice Ironbriar. Hemolock is on the up & up, but knows Ironbriar and is unaware of his true allegiances. Once handed over and the party is convinced they will be handled appropriately Ironbriar will release Tsuto and tell him Nualia is dead. This will result in Tsuto asking Ironbriar to release Lyrie as well since Tsuto is aware of how she feels about him and is not above using that to his advantage.

Orik has made it to Magnimar on his own and is looking for work when he will come across the party. If they don't spot him he will follow them and attempt to steal his armor & shield back from the room of the PC that claimed them. If spotted he will apologize and explain he was just doing what he was paid to do.

I see Nualia returning to Magnimar as well but going to see Xanesha for direction and help to continue her vendetta against Sandpoint.

So what I'm struggling with is how will the cult use Tsuto & Lyrie and how will Xanesha use Nualia? I want to make things challenging for the party with out making any of the fights impossible and have it make sense for and expand the story.

Thanks for reading all of this and your ideas.

JD

[Askren]

The good thing is that having NPCs make it out alive gives you a great opportunity to tie it into later adventures. I always find people dying in combat to be so anti-climactic and one-note. So with Tsuto, Lyrie and Nualia all gone, you have plenty of opportunity to expand things in interesting ways.

First, you got the Ironbriar connection, which is good. Honestly, though, I would have HIM come to Sandpoint to get Tsuto. Much more imposing and official that way, and you don't have to have the players putz around Magnimar trying to find him. So Ironbriar coming to Sandpoint to claim Tsuto personally could be seen as a big deal to Hemlock, while Ironbriar actually plans to press him into service. Also, fun fact, a lot of people on these boards have thought it a cool twist to make Ironbriar, an elf, Tsuto's biological father. How you work this in is up to you, it's just an interesting detail.

Lyrie would probably be taken with Tsuto, and likely bargain for her life once in Ironbriar's custody. She would logically do anything she thought necessary to stay close to Tsuto. How they would be used is kind of tricky, as not much of the book actually happens in Magnimar. Maybe have them be used as guards for Ironbriar in the Sawmill? Together the combo of a Wizard and a Monk can be an interesting challenge.

Orik, I generally just ignore. He's not the kind to pop up later, more of just a plain mercenary type, and I personally prefer to just let him peace out and make his own way. Hell, in my game he basically just gave up without a fight and dropped his weapon and left, the party letting him go. But if you really need him to be seen again, try not to make it crazy important, he's not really the kind to get mixed up in those things twice, I don't think.

Nualia obviously goes straight to Xanesha as the book suggests, and can appear later in the city at a higher level, possibly with more demonic transformations.

The reason I go back to my original suggestion of not having the party hit Magnimar on business before the story takes them there, is while I can't speak for your group, my group was insisting on visiting Aldern's house like, right after Thistletop, and it was really going to throw off the whole track of the murders taking precedant. This is due to the fact that, as I read it, Aldern's house is deserted at present, and won't be fixed up and populated with fake staff until the Cult knows the PCs are in town, so having them notice inconsistencies with Aldern's story would totally distract them and bypass the whole murder thing. You may have a group that doesn't intend to do this, but it's something to consider.

[Kalshane]

Personally, I'm not a fan of the Ironbriar is Tsuto's father angle. It just feels a little too soap opera-esque to me, though I know other people have used it to great effect. I kind of dig the tragedy of his official parentage per James Jacobs.

I do like the idea of Ironbriar coming to Sandpoint, with all appropriate pomp and circumstance. Though it might be interesting to have someone comment on the oddity of a Magnimar Justice coming to oversee a prisoner transfer personally to hint that there is more to the story. Even if the PCs have already been told by Hemlock that he's going to have them escort Tsuto to Magnimar for trial, he could receive a new message stating the Justice will coming to pick up the prisoner(s) instead.

Hemlock: "I know I asked you to escort the prisoners to Magnimar, but I just received word from Justice Ironbriar that he wants to oversee the transfer personally. Seems we finally got somebody's attention down that way about the threat we're dealing with up here. I've worked with Ironbriar before. He's harsh, but fair. If he says he wants to do something his way, a smart man lets him do it."

Easiest thing would be as Askren says and have Ironbriar use them as guards at the Sawmill. I can't think of any specific tasks he would set them to, offhand. Although I suppose he could have them hang out at Aldern's Townhouse and wait in ambush of the PCs there. The Faceless Stalkers weren't much of a threat for my group, so the backup would probably make for a more interesting fight.

Personally, I had a lot of fun with Orik in my own game. He was the only member of Nualia's gang to survive Thistletop and I had a lot of fun playing up the sad sack mercenary whose life is a string of bad choices, generally involving women.

[Tybid]

I'm actually dealing with a similar situation in my Roll 20 Rise game.

The ridiculous thing? They captured ALL the major players except Nualia and Malf.

That's right, they are even taking Ripnugget and Brathazmus in for trial.

Secret Stuff:

So the group is going to lead the caravan of prisoners down to Magnimar and attend the trial. All of those responsible are going to be found guilty by presiding Justice Ironbriar. The sentencing is to follow later in the week.

Given that they will likely go back to Sandpoint (the bard eager to return to her role in the Harpy's Queen) they will miss the sentencing where all of the villains save Brath and Ripnugget (executed) and Orik (work release) were released on a "technicality".

As is suggested in other parts of the boards I will have Orik sent up to the Fort and be part of the team that survives at the Graul farmstead.

Lyrie and Tsuto are more difficult. I can easily see myself going full soap opera on this one. They realize their love for each other and one of them is killed by the PC's making the other swear vengeance against the party? Ah the cheese.

Then they keep escaping encounters to return higher and higher level and so on.

As for Nualia I would eventually have her (had she survived) retrain to anti-paladin under the strict tutelage of Xanesha or ultimately Lucretia and as someone else suggested have her demonic elements spread eventually gaining a advanced half-fiend template and then move on to full fledged demon.

Is a Vrock Anti-Paladin of Lamashtu too much? Nah.

[Tangent101]

My group captured everyone except Brathazmus and Ripnugget (who they knocked to negative HPs but allowed the goblin bard to negotiate for his life) and let Orik go free when he surrendered (with all his equipment in fact). They then went to Sandpoint with their prisoners, returned to find Thistletop abandoned, and proceeded to kill Mal and bring the dead crab home for a huge crab dinner for the town... only to find smoke rising from the town as Ripnugget took his remaining goblins and freed Nualia and crew.

Nualia returned to reactivate the Runewell and become a half-demon but was squashed flat soon after. I had the "awakened" Runewell act as a mythic Ascension and everyone is at Tier 1 right now. They might reach Tier 3 eventually.

Orik ended up joining the Black Arrows. They kept the traitor in Part 3 alive and are shipping him back to Sandpoint to be a guard under Hemlock's gaze, going for the whole "redemption" aspect. It should make the start of Part 4 interesting. :)

[Kennesty]

Tsuto killed himself when he was being interrogated in his jail cell in the hopes that Nualia would resurrect him when she conquered Sandpoint, which never occured.

Lyrie was the subject of a most brutal attack that dropped her immediately to dead.

Orik was actually paid by the PCs when encountered to join their side and fought the dungeon with them. He went his own way at the end and was caught in a smuggling ring and sentenced to serve time with the Black Arrows before the Kreegs struck, so my players are set to encounter him again with the other survivals with the Grauls (They actually really liked Orik).

Nualia was captured and brought to Magnimar to undergo trial, she decided to have a trial by combat against a Hellknight rather then be sentenced to the Hells, but Ironbriar poisoned whom she was set to fight against and she managed to win and escape Magnimar. I'm thinking of having her meet the Scribbler and show up quite late as a much more devastating enemy.

[Mudfoot]

Xanesha is going to want souls for Karzoug, ie deaths with Sihedrons on them. Nualia wants to destroy Sandpoint. So Xanesha might try to get her to attack Sandpoint with a new Sihedron-marked goblin army from another tribe. One advantage of this is that it ties Burnt Offerings to the rest of the AP quite nicely.

You'll probably want to soup the goblins up, as otherwise the PCs will walk over them. Maybe some variant combination of Runewell Juice and Waters of Lamashtu can be brewed up in the Brinestump Marshes, stirring the whole tribe into a frenzied freakshow.

[JDragon_ITTS]

Thanks for the replies and info all, please keep them coming.

@Askren - your point about the party trying to look up Foxglove in Magnimar is a good one that I'll have to keep in mind.

@Kalshane - Thanks for the link to the official background on Tsuto. I think I will use that, though I suspect it will never come up in my game. When I initially read the idea of having Ironbriar come to Sandpoint I didn't care for it, but its been growing on me and may be what I do. Hemlock had mentioned to one of the PC's the need of them to escort Tsuto to Magnimar, but things can always change.

@Kennesty - I like the idea of having Orik end up as a Black Arrow, if I do end up skipping the party making a trip to Magnimar it will be easy to have that happen in the background and be waiting for them.

@Mudfoot - I agree with you on Xanesha's goals and while Nualia will want to serve to some level she still really wants to destroy Sandpoint. It seems like the best bet would be to have her and her goblins (or other marked creatures) join the attack on Sandpoint by the giants, with destruction being her only goal.

I'm still not sure what to do with Tsuto & Lyrie once they are freed by Ironbriar. As I understand it, as written the encounters in Magnimar are: Foxglove Townhouse, Sawmill & Shadowclock tower. What would be a good additional encounter that makes sense with the story?

JD

[JDragon_ITTS]

Update - more help needed.

Based on Askren & Kalshanes suggestions I plan to have Ironbriar visit Sandpoint to collect the prisoners and meet the "Hero's of Sandpoint".

I plan on having the mayor host a formal dinner at her family home. The party and all the important people of Sandpoint will be invited. Now the trick is, who are the important people of Sandpoint?

Sheriff Hemlock
Father Zantus
Ameiko Kaijitsu
Belvin Valdemar
Ethram Valdemar
Sir Jasper Korvaski
Titus Scarnetti
Lucia Scarnetti

Am I missing anyone?

JD

[SoylentG]

JDragon_ITTS wrote:

Update - more help needed.

Based on Askren & Kalshanes suggestions I plan to have Ironbriar visit Sandpoint to collect the prisoners and meet the "Hero's of Sandpoint".

I plan on having the mayor host a formal dinner at her family home. The party and all the important people of Sandpoint will be invited. Now the trick is, who are the important people of Sandpoint?

Sheriff Hemlock
Father Zantus
Ameiko Kaijitsu
Belvin Valdemar
Ethram Valdemar
Sir Jasper Korvaski
Titus Scarnetti
Lucia Scarnetti

Am I missing anyone?

JD

Madame Niska Mvashti might also be invited, as a sign of respect to the Varisian people.

Also, I would think about having Ironbriar being escorted by his lovely valet Xanesha (in her human form).

[JDragon_ITTS]

SoylentG - I had been thinking about having Xanesha accompany him last night after posting my question.

Good thought on Madame Niska Mvashti as well.

JD

[Misroi]

I'd be careful with Xanesha - as much as I love the idea of having Ironbriar come to Sandpoint with his handler masquerading as his valet, there are documents that the PCs find that will give out her name. She needs to be traveling under an assumed name, and because I'd want to give astute players an edge, I'd make it an anagram of her actual name. Ahsa Nex, maybe?

Part of me wants her to introduce herself as "Miss Nesha, but my friends call me Christa."

[JDragon_ITTS]

Misroi - good points about being careful with Xanesha, wouldn't want to party to pick a fight they aren't ready for.

JD

[Latrecis]

Not to be Mr. Negative Nelly but I've always been perplexed at some of the themes suggested here.

From a story narrative perspective, what is the value of having Ironbriar (and Xanesha!!!) come to Sandpoint? Will the pc's be given an opportunity or even have the ability to determine their true motivations? What if some enterprising pc gets suspicious and does some mundane spying on them or heaven forfend uses divination magic such as detect evil? What are their motivations for coming to Sandpoint? Ironbriar's lifestyle is an elaborate ruse that only endures because he doesn't do stupid stuff. Sticking his neck out for two losers like Lyrie and Tsuto seems needlessly risky. If anything, both Xanesha and Ironbriar are going to want Tsuto and Lyrie to be silenced as quickly as possible. Who knows what they know about Nualia and the Brothers, etc.? Are we to suppose Ironbriar knows he is Tsuto's father? If so he seems to have done nothing with this knowledge previously, but now that Tsuto has failed so spectacularly, he's going to risk everything to get Tsuto out of the noose? And even if Ironbriar was motivated to intervene, why is Xanesha permitting her prize tool to risk himself?

Why are Lyrie and Tsuto being allowed to leave Sandpoint alive? Are we to suppose the people of Magnimar and Varisia do not believe in capital punishment? Lyrie is likely unknown to the people and leaders of Sandpoint and her role in the raids and violence may be circumstantial at best (though actively encouraging goblins to war and assisting a cleric of Lamashtu to free an evil creature from the outer planes seems crime enough) but Tsuto has no such claim on ambiguity. He organized a raid on Sandpoint, defiled the tomb of a beloved religious leader, and murdered his father and several local craftsmen in a particularly awful way. Hard to imagine the leaders of Sandpoint not summarily executing him upon arrival in Sandpoint. At a minimum, they should insist on Ironbriar conducting the trial locally and supervising the sentence. Tsuto is the worst criminal Sandpoint has seen since the Chopper - the whole town should be verging on lynch mob status.

There's some meta-game risk here as well. Perhaps I'm jumping to conclusions but I can only suppose the OP's pc's have "done the right thing." Rather than kill criminals outright, they've been brought back to the proper authorities for "justice." And now, they're going to get stabbed in the back. The authorities are either incompetent or corrupt. Hard to imagine the players trusting authority again. Every so often, a DM will arrive in this forum - "Help! My players are running amok in Magnimar!" Well, let me guess, at every point so far the authorities have proven incapable of dealing with any problem and in some cases were actively making it worse. It's just so surprising that the players have assumed if something is to be done, they have to do it themselves.

I suggest the Mayor send a note to Lord-Mayor Grobaras: "My Uncle Hobart let me know you had been longing for some of our Two Knight Beer, please accept this case as a gift of gratitude for the support you provided Sandpoint and our Sheriff when he was most recently in Magnimar. PS - We found the people making trouble with the goblins. They will no longer be a problem." The only open question should be: do we nail Tsuto and Lyrie's corpses to the bridge as a lesson to others, yes or no?

[Kalshane]

I think the issue is Ironbriar doesn't really get much setup in the AP as-written. The PCs investigate the Sihedron murders, raid the mill and find out the guy in the freaky mask and robes leading them is some elf. Whoo. It's only once they find and decipher his journal (which is a long and arduous task) that they get any idea who Ironbriar is or what he's done. So there's a strong temptation for GMs to come up with some way to flesh Ironbriar out prior to the big reveal. Dealing with the criminals the party has captured seems the easiest way to do that.

I do agree that it is very easy, with the way the AP is written, for the authorities in Sandpoint and Magnimar to come across as completely incompetent and useless, and increasing Ironbriar's role magnifies that.

I can also see where, from a player standpoint, having the guys they already defeated and didn't summarily kill coming back to haunt them would be irritating and inspire them to just kill anyone else they come across rather than bothering to capture them.

What would be your suggestion, Latrecis, to increase Ironbriar's role so as to make the revelations of him as the man behind the Brothers of the Seven more meaningful, without causing the problems you noted?

[Askren]

I agree with Kaslhane's point that by the time the module actually gives up Ironbriar, he's just a dude with a name. There's never any indication of his authority or role in the game, other than that he's an NPC who's leading the evil guys. Sending him to Sandpoint accomplishes the goal of introducing him as an established authority to the PCs and lets you show what kind of weight he has, so that when he does turn out to be an evil plant, it hits a little harder. If you're reticent to have him visit Sandpont, that's understandable, but you need to find a way to have him assert himself in front of the PCs somehow, or he's just another named mook.

This is part of storytelling, you have to foreshadow the villain somehow. With Nualia, she gets foreshadowed when the PCs discover Tobyn's empty tomb and inevitably ask "Who died in the fire?" or some such question, and learn he had a daughter who died too. It puts the name in the PCs minds, so later when they hear it again, they say "Oh, wasn't that the person we heard about?"

I guess you could just have Hemlock say "Yeah, we're sending these guys to Justice Ironbriar for trial", but I think that lacks punch because there's no reason for them to ask about who he is.

As to your question about 'why protect Tsuto?' the answer (in my opinion) is...plot, I guess? I mean, maybe he doesn't protect him, maybe he just kills him. That's fine, I guess, I have no problem with it. It just matters how he does it and how the players know it happened. If you just say "Tsuto was shipped to Magnimar. He was killed off-screen", I think you're missing the chance to have players SEE the results of their work.

There are some other questions in there, like "Why not kill the prisoners", and well, I know it says somewhere that people are sent to Magnimar for trial. Sandpoint is a small town and not likely to be bloodthirsty for revenge. I think that's fairly out-of-character for the town.

My big thing is, you NEED a way to make sure that players don't get to Magnimar early, ESPECIALLY if they're interested in seeing Aldern Foxglove again.

[Latrecis]

This dialogue may be a hijack of the thread but Kalshane made the mistake of asking me a question :) I'm going to reply to both his and Askren's post. Warning: it gets a little cerebral or high-brow, maybe even pedantic.

Ironbriar is a mook. The character the AP foreshadows in Magnimar is Xanesha. She spun out both Nualia and Aldern; Ironbriar is just her local Magnamarian tool. (Here comes the high-brow stuff) In the AP story archtecture, Ironbriar isn't intended to be a compelling character onto himself, he is instead an expression of Magnimar's "character" as a place bound up in political maneuvering, runaway ambition and, wait for it... greed. Xanesha sits on top of this quagmire spreading ruin and feasting on her prey and is intended to foreshadow the remorseless power hungry rule of the Runelords - she is but a taste of what Varisia will be like if Karzoug gets free. Further Magnimar's nature is intended to contrast sharply with Sandpoint - in Sandpoint, the pc's have direct access to power - they can talk and partner with the Sheriff and Mayor easily and the motivations of Sandpoint's leaders are simple and clean. The power structure in Magnimar in contrast is opaque, complicated and difficult to access. When the players finally do engage with it (as scripted in the AP) it's first and only response is to send them as far away from Magnimar as possible (which is entirely plausible given how embarrassing the pc's and their information is to the powers that be.) This is all part of binding the players to Sandpoint because it is to Sandpoint they will return again and again throughout the AP.

If a GM wants to expand or elaborate on the role of Ironbriar I would recommend making that decision before the campaign starts and moving to the medium xp track, this will give room for greater expansion of adventuring in Magnimar. Of course this forces similar expansion of adventures in the other books of the AP to stay on course with the recommended level progression (or forego xp altogether.) To answer Kalshane's question as to how to do that: I suggest removing the faceless stalkers from the Foxglove Townhouse and replacing them with Sczarni thieves (choose a group from the Magnimar source book.) Also remove the ledger and other info from the lion's head secret compartment and instead force the pc's to investigate the larger Sczarni group to find that info. One of the Sczarni leaders has the Foxglove materials - the players find the secret compartment violated by the very thorough thieves. The pc's can encounter corrupt guards along the way and learn a corrupt Justice is behind the Sczarni. As the players investigate, they can be targeted by Night Scale assassins, framed for crimes they didn't commit and otherwise run afoul of the legal system, etc. This of course requires a good amount of effort on the GM's part.

I do not recommend making Ironbriar into Tsuto's father. Frankly, this seems overly clever or more bluntly, hackneyed. A npc half-elf with unknown parentage just so happens to be the child of the elvish leader of an evil death cult the players have to confront? What an amazing coincidence! "Luke, I am your father!" I'll repeat my questions from above: do either of them know? None of their motivations or historical behavior suggests they know. How did they find out? Even more pointedly, how will the pc's ever find out? The only people likely to know (if any) are Ironbriar and Tsuto - hard to imagine them chatting with the pc's in any monologuing way about their relationship. If the player's have little or no way of knowing, it's a connection made purely for the GM's amusement.