Taking down Gaedren - modifying the opener to CotCT

[Olondir]

So I wanted to elaborate on the taking down of Gaedren Lamm in my rebooted CotCT campaign. This is an incomplete collection of my half-baked ideas and schemes for running the intro to this marvelous AP in a bigger way. I think this deserves its own thread.

This is pasted from my phone so. I apologize for the formatting.

The flow of this adventure will proceed roughly as follows:

1.) Zellara’s
2.) Shakedown of one of his dealers
3.) Rob Gaedren’s Stash in the Old Fishery
4.) Take down a dream spider shipment
5.) Fight Gaedren in his warehouse

Additionally here are some other non-linear events/things to splice into this adventure about the city.

a.) The Loss of the Muses ( See Adventure Background of CotCT AP-3)

b.) Opening of Mad Gods Key (Dungeon Magazine – 114) (Irontusk selling the key to a sick gang in old korvosa who sold the key to a disguised Lady Andaisin.)

c.) More beggares/folks looking for work

d.) For Whom the Bell Tolls (See my post here)

e.) Zenobia Zenderholm volunteering at an orphanage your players might be dropping off former Lambs to.

f.) Foundation Day Festival – The annual king’s announcement has been cancelled for his illness but the festivities, food, and drink still go on!

g.) Trips to Eels End – Drinking, Gambling, and more! Perhaps they run into a drugged out Salvatore Scream?

h.) Long lines at food banks

i.) Talk of the dwarves of the Ironworks wanting to Unionize

At War

Consider having The King of Spiders in Eel’s End and Lamm be in a drug war/rivals. With Devargo’s work in Old Korvosa with Lamm growing his business out on the mainland.

Mounting Tensions

The tensions of the city are tied to the health of their king. Talk amongst the townfolk whisper that of rebellion should the king’s health go south. “She’s not OUR queen, you know” is commonly muttered. Having small things like this around while the PCs are hunting down Lamb’s gang should be enough of a blinder to the point when the King dies.

Bringing in the Law

If your players tip law enforcement regarding any particularly structure, there’s a good chance that the players will meet the same bureaucratic slowness everyone else has. It’s up to you about how the Guard feels about vigilante justice too.

But consider having their efforts be partially rewarded. Consider having them approached by Grau Soldado and his friend Neffi who are two Watch Seargeants who cut through the crap and express concern with how slow the guard is on such matters. They arrange a meeting with their lieutenant Cressida Kroft who, like them, is a doer. She assures she’ll follow up on this.

What’s that Smell?

Consider giving Shiver a smell of something. For me and my game? I like the idea that Shiver has this dreamy quality. Like incense or potent vanilla. I’m considering having some burning when we play this game for that immersion.

The Story

The game begins as normal. The players all have a reason to hate Gaedren and got their notes to meet at 3 Lancet Street at sunset.

1.) Zellara’s Home (Curse of the Crimson Throne AP – 1)

Zellara wants the players to do the leg work.

“….Eran tracked them down and in return for this Gaedren murdered him. My only son. In cold blood. He has torn down my life and now I will stop at nothing to tear down his.

He has robbed me of my only child and now I will rob him of his one true love: himself. I cannot go to the Guard. They move so slow and this man has evaded the law for decades! What guarantee would I have that he would be duly punished?

I sought my harrow deck for advice and was rewarded. But the cards work in mysterious ways. They can’t always tell you what you wish to know, only what you need to know. It told me to find you and how to begin this man’s permanent unraveling.
The cards have blessed me with our first target in Ridgefield. But Gaedren is a weed and it is unclear to where his roots truly lie. His gang’s has sprouted from some old poor house called St. Casperian’s Salvation. I doubt Gaedren is there personally, but his henchmen must be. Find this place and uncover our next clue. Should things become unclear, bring me a focus of one of his henchmen and I may be able to divine our next target. “

2.) St. Casperian’s Salvation (From the end of Second Darkness AP – 1)

Run pretty much run as written. The only modification involves making this place a shiver den. Perhaps describe this place with a bit more broken needles and stuff. (see my advice about giving shiver a smell.)

Optionally, add a few of Gaedren’s Little Lambs as lookouts. (Think about the kids and what they do in HBOs the Wire.)

Really though, nothing really changes here except in the treasure, I’d include some doses of shiver, a few fishballs, and perhaps a note about fishery location in Westpier 17 for a reup.”

What the Splithog Pauper knows:

-Gaedren moves around a lot

-splithog reups in the Midland docks on the Westpier.

-Splithog gets his drugs from an alchemist named Yargin.

3.) The Old Fishery (Curse of the Crimson Throne AP – 1)

So this place will have the most changes to it. (Even then—not a lot.) The old fishery’s current purpose is the stash. This is where Yargin hides the Shiver and could be well guarded if the PCs weren’t careful. Thanks to the acrid smell of fish slurry, it masks the otherwise pungent odor of the Shiver.

I’d put more guards/thugs/whatever on duty here. As appropriate as you think. More so if the PCs weren’t careful if they know something is up. Lamm’s crew thinks the party is a drug robber (Think Omar from HBO’s The Wire), a new gang moving in on their turf, or sent by the King of Spiders (See “At War”)

Lastly, remove all instances of Gaedren himself and his room from this encounter. Instead have Yargin as the big cheese here and his room is now Gaedren’s old room. Also, Zellara’s head and harrow deck shall remain in a box with a note to Rolth that this might be useful for one his “experiments”

The treasure here should still be the same with one extra addition: A golden key and a piece of paper. On the paper is a name “Vancaskerkin” and the passage,
“Chimera looks to sunrise,

Cyclops looks to Sunset,

Medusa look to sunrise,

Umber Hulk looks to sunset,

Basilisk looks to Sunrise”

This is a key to a safety deposit box in the Bank of Abadar. Verik Vancaskerkin is a fellow sergeant on the Korvosan Guard. He watches the harbor. His interactions with his Vuldran lover have had him look the other way regarding a few inbound shipments before.

The Bank

The players will be granted access by providing identification and their key that they are of the Vancaskerkin. Run the portion of the Vanderboren Vaults in “There is No Honor” adventure of Dungeon Magazine-139. Inside the Vancaskerkin vault, though, is no gold or riches. There’s a single, sealed envelope sealed with Vuldran Wax. Inside the envelope is a message written to a lover about a “dreamy” shipment from Vuldra to arrive in a week on “The Blue Nixie.” The message is unsigned, but clearly written with a certain female elegance.

(What’s going on here is that Vimanda secured for Gaedren a bunch of Dream Spiders and they’re en route to Korvosa! Using Verik as a pawn, she’s using his family’s vault as a secure drop point. This sultry note is for Verik to know to let the Blue Nixie go unmolested. I leave the connection between Vimanda and Gaedren’s drug ring open to you guys to think of a why. It comes into play in part 5 though)

Time at the University Library

If your PCs ever need to research anything, at one point go ahead and drop this:

Two guards are stationed outside Jeggare Library. There was a robbery earlier this morning. Someone ran off with a magical book. The book was rumored to be magically shut and no one alive knew how to open it. This is a follow-up to the Mad Gods Key adventure. Add-in if you wanted.

These guards could be the Watch Seargeants described in Bringing in the Law.

4.) The Blue Nixie (“There is No Honor” Savage Tide Adventure Path – 1 part 2 – Dungeon Magazine – 139?)

Modifying this part, have Gaedren’s thugs in the process of collecting their dream spiders off the Blue Nixie when the PCs show up. Use the Rhagodessa stats, but describe as a dream spider queen. The fire below deck not only panics the dream spiders into attacking, but any sort of webbing it may have had that catches fire may cause sailors, thugs, guards, or PCs into a crazy, hallucinatory fight! I leave this to your discretion what happens. Soller Vark has the name of a warehouse written on a slip of paper on his person. This is the destination he’s to bring this dream spider queen.

5.) The Final Showdown – Gaedren’s Warehouse

Technically owned by House Arkona. This is the warehouse that will become the Hospice of Seven Days to the Grave! (The one that had to be sold by House Arkona.) So use those maps! Just modify them to fit the theme of a drug manufacturing plant.

There’s boxes and boxes of spices and various plants, textiles, furniture, and other miscellaneous foreign bric-a-bracs. F3 for example Stays the same. All the work is done in the basement. F7. And F8. Are official offices and meeting areas and everything looks like a regular office. Paperwork regarding shipments between Korvosa and Vuldra are shown.

Feel free to have spaces here full of dream spiders, tubes, webbings, run by zombies/skeletons animated by Rolth which go in there and extract the venom. Rolth, of course, has better things to do, like cause a pandemic.

Additionally, the secret basement of House Arkona is currently a Shiver manufacturing plant. The blood vats are full of various stages of shiver. (G13/Temple Center is not yet constructed at this time!) This is where I’ll have my party fight Gaedren.

In conclusion, Arkona denies knowing this foul man has taken over his warehouse and denies ownership. In fact, he issues a statement in the Korvosan Herald (whatever paper circulates in your game) about applauding the PCs for their efforts to rid this crime. He donates the Warehouse to the city so it can become an public space for like a soup kitchen, poor house, etc.

[Knick]

I like it a lot.

I'm not entirely sure how much I would stress the At War bit or Eel's End in general, but everything else looks fantastic to me.

If you've read these forums at all you probably know how much I love the Arkonas. I like using the warehouse for Gaedren's operation, and I especially like how you have Glorio handling the fallout. I suppose my only concern would be Gaedren's lack of affiliation with the Cerulean Society, but that is easily explained if this is Vimanda's game.

The reason I suggest against incorporating too much of Eel's End is that it connects too many dots. Korvosa is a big place. There is plenty of room for lots of criminal scum. It also let's the written Eel's End encounter have some novelty when it comes up. Lastly, I think it behooves you to come up with your own, similar meeting place for the party that they won't possibly end up trashing so you can develop some basic NPC relationships to supply exposition on the state of Korvosa at any given time.

The only other tweak I might mention is to not introduce Kroft too early. Let the players be little fish for just a little bit. Grau and Niffe should be plenty. Besides, Kroft sort of IS the bureaucracy. In my mind, the only reason she starts financing vigilante justice is because she is undermanned and undersupplied during the biggest crisis Korvosa has known in the century since thousands left to found Magnimar.

Anyway, I think it is pretty neat, and foreshadowing Verik's desertion is a good play. I like it a lot.

[Olondir]

Hey thanks for the kind words!

I see your point about not having it all connected and avoiding including Eel's End. You know, the more I think about it, the more I am inclined to agree with you. When I run this, they'll be isolated. No drug wars. Good call.

I did read your Arkona's ideas and I love them! I was thinking Glorio actually IS (or maybe) innocent in this endeavor. This was entirely Vimanda's doing. He was unaware she was using his warehouse for this (or feigning it for the longer game). As a recluse, he makes no appearance and issues a full-page apology in the Korvosan Herald Paper, cooperates with authorities (heh) and sells his warehouse planning to donate the proceeds.

As far as the PCs to have a "meeting place", I'm taking the page out of Mr. Vergee's playbook and see them earning the Chelaxian ambassador's manor after they expose his attempts at using the riots to lower property values.

I take your warnings about Kroft and I echo my same concerns and have the same opinions and views you have that she has. But I have a reason for introducing her early. At this point in the game, she's a lieutenant and not Field Marshall. I'll go into much, much further detail in another post, but I'm planning my CotCT campaign to have Dark Knight/Gotham City analogs. Kroft is almost certainly my "Commissioner Gordon". Only at this point in the game, she's just "Detective Jim Gordon" :) (You might see how I'm slowly having the Arkonas symbolize Ra's Al Ghul)

So events following this opener, I intend to run Dungeon 8's - Going Once... Going Twice! Auction adventure, as Glorio sells off his warehouse supplies before selling the warehouse, some nefarious event happening afterwards TBD (Glorio robs his own proceeds, maybe? It'll be tied into Korvosan Guard Corruption though.), Verik is reprimanded and goes AWOL, and Kroft is promoted to Field Marshall.That'd be about the time that the city will plunge into chaos.

My plans for the riots, their aftershocks, and adding more Batman analogs into my game will be the subject of my next thread.

[Olondir]

Besides my real life sandbox campaign taking up a vast majority of my time, I have not forgotten my love for this campaign.

I've been diligently converting it into DnD 5th edition and using it's awesome rules for this campaign. The Background and Downtime rules will be used for a lot.

I'm afraid I can't post my notes online because they tow the line of what's copyright/piracy, but here's my Google Sheets for XP/Gold.

I'm planning on making this into a PbP campaign once I get my friends to playtest my changes in person.

[Askren]

I'm re-approaching this thread in hopes that there's people around for input. I have always loved CoCT, but much like this thread, I too made an attempt to re-write the intro into something much more expansive and engrossing so that by the time players actually kill Gaedren, he means something to them.

Now, my new campaign is one I'm running in E6, so I'm planning on leveling MUCH slower than normal being that 6 is the highest level any player will reach. What this means is that I want to give the city plenty of time to develop before it descends into anarchy. A player who is interested in focusing on combating the drug trade and a Cleric of Abadar should make some great ties in to a lot of the ideas this thread suggests.

However, I do have some concerns that I would like some input on here. The first is, do you think that maybe there's too much runaround here? I mean, I like a big, winding plot, but I think a lot of the things suggested may end up a little convoluted in a lot of ways, so I'm specifically interested in how things flow one to the other. I also think that it's a big combat-heavy, where a few specific events I might have chosen to implement as more roleplay encounters, if encounters at all, rather than combat. This may not be true for every group, but I know mine tend to prefer more non-combat events that let them stretch their roleplaying legs rather than just solving a problem by killing the enemy in front of them. The Vault is a pretty big one here, I certainly wouldn't have combat under the Church of Abadar, especially with a Cleric in the party. More, I'd just make it an opportunity for the Cleric to try and talk his way into a Vault that maybe the Bank has specific instructions to not let someone into.

Kudos for the heads up on Mad God's Key, though, I love how the first part is a docks scene (and a chase at that) that could easily fit right at home in Korvosa.

Here's basically what I'm thinking as far as structuring the introduction:
-First, we run Zellara's intro as normal. I do this because it's an opportunity to do a Harrow reading for my players, which I make a point of doing once at the beginning of each book. The first reading foreshadows bad things, tyrants and chaos and all that.

-Next, the players can either hit up one of Gaedren's known street-level dealers, who they might have to find by poking their head around some unfriendly places. I like the dock-chase thing so much I may use it here (Players asking questions around the bad part of town, the dealer recognizes them when he sees them and runs).

-I really like St. Casperian’s Salvation, having not known about it before. I think it makes a good place for the dealer to supply from. It is a big place, but I don't know if I'd run the place loaded with combat, probably not more than one or two simple encounters. This would fit more as an investigation/roleplay piece, I think. Perhaps it's the place where the lowlifes crash and laze in a drug-induced stupor until someone comes to get them to unload drugs and move them to the Fishery.

-Not sure here, I'd have to really think about whether I want to run anything at the boat. This is potentially something I feel may end up bloating the plot a bit.

-I like the Fishery a lot, but I don't know about changing it's function into a drug-lab, only because I spent like, 2 months making the map for it already and I don't have the time to rebuild it. I think I'd leave it as-is, and really just make the lower floor the place where the drugs are distributed from. I like the idea of the fish-making floors still being a cover. In my last game, I ran it as a money-making scheme for Gaedren, but I think I'd just have it remain in-tact to cover Yargin supplying street pushers from under the Fishery. It makes sense that only the dealers would know to come from the side walkway and take the secret door in the boat.

-The idea of re-using the Warehouse from Seven Days is actually a really cool one. I don't know if I would really push the connections to the Arkonas, they may just end up being background information that ties tings together and the players never learn, but I really like the idea of it being re-purposed later in the game, and am totally stealing that. HOWEVER, I don't like the idea of using the Temple of Urgathoa here, simply because I think it ruins any surprise in Seven Days.

The way I think this makes most sense is that likely the Warehouse floor would be pretty much just an abandoned warehouse, probably loaded up with crates of imported goods just molding long-forgotten by the Arkonas who don't care much about the cheap goods here. I'd have Gaedren using this warehouse floor as a safehouse, because by this point the players have pretty much trashed his entire drug opperation, so his goal is to find a place to hide and consolidate what strength he can while planning his escape. I'd probably have the Hospice/Warehouse be located on the river, it's back doors facing the pier for easy loading/unloading onto ships. Maybe Gaedren is here waiting for a boat that's going to smuggle him out of the city, and the players can be in a race to get to him before he's lost for good.

I'd rather have the elevator here be locked and unused, because while the Temple IS there, it's certainly not something Gaedren would have access to, and the upper floor is likely unused too, or just an office for Gaedren where the players can uncover records and ledgers of his activities once he's gone/dead.

These are some of the things I'm thinking of, I'd love to hear some input on this as I attempt to set it up.

[Olondir]

Hi Askren,

Thank you so much for taking interest in my attempt at redesigning this introduction! The opportunities for improvements you have noted were very much the ones I personally identified in my revisions. I regrettably never updated the thread with my changes, but your interest has reinvigorated me.

Since my original posting, I have revised a lot of my ideas. You may be interested in how I am running this revised introduction here on the PbP boards. I'm using 5e D&D rules and not E6, but you might wish to lurk and follow along!(Link)

Your point about runaround is entirely on point. I have boiled down my adventure into: Zellara's, St. Caspieran's, Fishery, then Warehouse.

This means the entire vault and boat section are optional encounters. I have ample evidence leading from St. Caspieran's to the Fishery (5 possible major clues) as well as now Yargin's Quarters connecting to Gaedren's manufacturing warehouse directly via clues. Additionally, Zellara is always around to harrow a new clue should the players need guidance. (Gauge your players, Zellara will point them to Irontusk and cue Mad Gods Key chase scene or give them the next place directly based on interest.)

This Mad God's Key chase scene can also be tooled to use if Belphias, the Splithog Pauper from St. Caspierian's, books it and the PCs follow him to the water.

I recommend to actually remove the vault scene entirely. There's value in an "impersonate your way through a bank" for any adventure. I'd rather use sometime down the road.

Adjust the warehouse how you wish. The "last holdout" is a really great idea! I have left the smuggler's basement in tact. Arkonas definitely have a basement section. but, come 7DttG, the players will find it "renovated" and much larger per the section of the Hospice. Here's my current notes I have written about the Arkona Warehouse Scene.

Thinking about it now though, the idea of having dream spiders and everything simply be in the mainfloor of the warehouse would simplify a lot of things and overall make it easier... Hmm. You may find me re-writing this section to incorporate your thoughts and ideas.

Overall, your thoughts on the introduction are right on. Adjusting the encounters to be more roleplay affiliated than combat is a great way to handle these encounters.

I wish you the best in your upcoming campaign!

BTW, I think you'd be interested to hear about my tentative ideas for the time between Edge of Anarchy and Seven Days to the Grave.

Spoiler:

-The true story of who's killing pretty, young nobles
-Foiling the assassination of a Chelish Opera Diva
-Solving riddles to find hidden fireball bombs across the city before they blow!
-A sidetrek to a haunted Foxglove House Porphyria Manor

[MrVergee]

Olondir wrote:

I have revised a lot of my ideas. You may be interested in how I am running this revised introduction here on the PbP boards. I'm using 5e D&D rules and not E6, but you might wish to lurk and follow along!(Link)

I'll make sure to give that a read soon.

[MrVergee]

I'm happy to see you found a forum to tell your version of CotCT, Olondir, and even happier that you found it somewhere where I can be a lurker and read along. It is a very nice read so far.

[Askren]

So I'd like to share how I started my game in following with this method:

First, I have every player show up to the game with a brief description of what a normal day in their character's life is, as when the campaign starts it is just another day for them. My players all spent time with me working over details of the city and their character's place in it, having them all be well-familiar with the Guide to Korvosa so this is much more of an informed thing rather than them just making things up. The only difference is how their players find their Harrow card at some point during the day and get the message. I chose the cards for them, those being the ones they will keep for the boons during the module.

They all arrive at Zellara's, and once she talks for a bit about why she brought the player's together, she performs a Harrow reading for the group. I've seen some DMs (Olondir included) use the Harrow cards as a method for delivering direct information to the players, like where exactly to go next, but I don't agree with this as I think it turns the cards into an important tool the players will demand to consult down the road because of how exact they have proven to be. I'd rather keep them as a way to forecast what MAY happen, and the tone of things to come rather than specific details. As such, you can find my notes for running the Harrow reading HERE. Most of the cards in the placement were drawn using an actual deck, but one or two I changed to be a bit more thematically appropriate. All that and the writeup done before the session, mind you, not randomly during. The text is mostly read word-for-word with some slight embellishment.

Next, the players need a direction, so they decide the best way is to head out and find out what they can. After asking some contacts of theirs (I have my players write up to 3 NPCs that have a connection with in their backstory that their characters can use as minor resources during the campaign), they are told that while no one can tell them where Gaedren or his operation is, finding the drug users is the first step to finding the drug makers, and that St. Caspieran's is basically nothing more than a flop-house for addicts and criminals, so they should start there.

The players went, and after meeting some people (the little girl and the raving madman preacher), Belphias came down to greet them. I played him as confident, not wanting to fight because it was obvious that he saw value in the players as tools rather than just an enemy. He told the players that if they wanted information on how to find Gaedren, they had to do something for him, that since their mission was to bring down Gaedren, he wanted an item in Lamm's possession (a ledger of criminal contacts) because when Lamm's place in the crime world is vacated, Belphias wants to be the one positioned to fill it. The goal was to make the players uncomfortable, knowing this was the only way to get what they needed for their quest, but not sitting well knowing that they were just putting one crime lord in power in place of the old one. It seemed to work, and I'm thinking of what I can do with it later.

The players took the little girl from St. Caspieran's and left her at the place of employment for one of the players to be safe, and that's where we ended. The information the player's got was about the Fishery and how that's where most of the drug dealers seem to acquire their supply. Belphias knew Gaedren wasn't there, but his lieutenant is, and if they want to find Lamm, that's the best way he can think of.

What happens next, I'm not quite sure. I want this session to have a bit of padding, so I'm thinking of going straight to the Fishery and running that, and then having Yargin tell them that the only person who really knows where Gaedren is, is a thug he has tasked with bringing people to his secret location, which is where I'll insert the Barge End chase scene from Mad God's Key, because I just love that setpiece.

That's what I've got so far. I'll report how it goes tonight.

[Sammy Porras]

I used some of your suggestions, however, when I ran it, the first part all the way up until they killed gaedren was a dream within a dream.one pc dreams about the city going into chaos and zellara then wakes up, for shadowing future events. TheY meet zellara find gaedren eventually and defeat him. When they found the Queens trinket, the pc woke up from this dream for real. and found it in his lap with the note from zellara. They headed back to town only to find it up in flames and in chaos

[Puna'chong]

Sixth time running Curse, this time so I can practice on Roll20, since I'm moving away from my normal group and want to try out the program (with a different group) before I start on Council of Thieves for my normal guys. I figured since I've taken it to completion a few times I should chip in. Spoilers ahead:

Spoiler:

Four times I've run with more opener for CotCT, though I didn't run more than an extra two encounters. I've been starting the campaigns--to great effect, I might add--with a description of a city basically gridlocked in traffic, with the people of Korvosa's daily lives completely thrown off by an inexplicable trip to Egorian by Neolandus Kalepopolis. Seeing as he's one of the few officials that the people trust, or at the very least don't think is incompetent, this is concerning.

I describe how the seneschal rarely, if ever, leaves the city, and citizens are pissed that

• the royal procession basically has the road from the castle out over High Bridge and out to Dwarfwalk closed down by Sable Company Marines and Korvosan Guards

• There's also talk of potential war with the Shoanti, and seeing so many armed Marines out lined up in their regalia isn't helping.

• people are pissed because it's been said that Neolandus is being sent by Ileosa all the way to Egorian to pick up some halfling and goblin slaves, just to satisfy her vanity. The procession is ruining business, is seen as another display of frivolous spending by a spoiled, narcissistic queen, and all of this with whispers of war in the background

• Finally, Eodred has been ill for more than two weeks now, an illness that hasn't been cured by the best clerics in the city, and no alchemist or other physician has been able to figure out what's going on. The seneschal leaving at this time is not only leaving the city in a precarious position, should something happen to the king, but some believe that Neolandus himself could be behind the king's illness. Why else leave at such an odd time, for an unknown purpose?

The real reason is that I run Ileosa much more intelligently than the module suggests. She's a ruthless, cunning woman, and since her assassins couldn't find Neolandus, she decided to at least give a reason for him to be out of the city. There can be a convenient "accident" later, on those dangerous roads, when Neolandus is finally found and killed.

I do this to set up a whole lot of stuff, just shotgun information at players, in order to throw them off the scent a bit and also give more of a reason for the city to suddenly erupt into chaos when Eodred dies. There's also a little foreshadowing, and along with a hundred little pieces of gossip, descriptions of tense people, and other stuff, it helps set the mood.

Instead of having characters start with Zellara, I have them meeting up as a sort of "neighborhood watch" of people wronged by Gaedren and willing to do something about it. They get to sandbox in the city a bit tracking down information, then get led to a warehouse or a small hideout that's just got a few thugs running illegal but mundane goods. When they hit the dead end, go their separate ways, and try to figure out a next move, that's when they get Zellara's note; she doesn't know they've met already, just that they're after Gaedren, and when they find themselves all together in the same room, it's like fate pulled them back. [This also lets people retcon characters really easily if the first few encounters aren't meshing, or if they realize they didn't actually want to play a rogue].

Long story short, doing a bit of stuff at the beginning can go a long, long way towards making the campaign overall much more enjoyable, especially in the city. Gaedren is just the impetus to get the characters together, then they realize they're heroes.