The Trial of Tsuto and Lyrie

[HellFire442]

This is my first post on the Paizo forums! I think I may need some help here and I was hoping y'all could help. This may get rather long.

So Tsuto and Lyrie were captured by the party. Sheriff Belor was in Magnimaar attempting to convince people that Sandpoint needed help. The way it worked out was that the party finished the dungeon before Belor secured help. After learning about the prisoners he appealed to Justice Ironbriar for help with the sentencing.

Sheriff Belor knew that his only recourse would be to either sentence the prisoners to death or escort them to Magnimaar. Why not see if Magnimar would come to them? Surprisingly enough Justice Ironbriar rapidly agreed. Its a bit odd, but its an incredibly high profile case so it makes sense.

My issue is that reading about Justice Ironbriar he has been charmed by Xanessa. DC25 to notice the charm in the final fight. Would this be noticeable at this time? I would have to assume so. Its within his character either way, but it makes more sense to send ironbriar to Sandpoint to do Xenessa's bidding (scout out the party etc)

My concern is that the party bard has a +13 to sense motive. I am not concerned about the detect Evil as Ironbriar can cast undectable alignment.

IMO Justice Ironbriar is known as being a galvanzing force of justice in Magnimaar. He is liked by most people, particularly those in power. He is a smooth talker and quick to sentence people. Unlike most Justice's he will see cases beyond just the nobility or large business's and he is considered to be one of the less corrupt justices. He has a large following of supporters and some say that the supporters are perhaps more loyal to him than the Mayor.

What I think I plan to do is that when he comes to town he spends most of his time with the Nobles of Sandpoint "interviewing" them and accepting their hospitality. He lets his investigators do most of the digging and after they give him the report he announces the sentencing. Tsuto and Lyrie are to be condemned to the "Black Cells" (I could use a better name, essentially named such because there is no light and those who enter are never seen from again.)

[Karolina Dean]

Sounds like you have everything under control! Looks like a good turn of events to me.

I would assume that the group could use a sense motive check to determine he is charmed at any time they encounter him. I don't think I would prompt them to, though. If the bard thinks to use their sense motive, which they seem to have invested ranks into so they probably will, then they find out, otherwise the secret continues. Either way, all the group would find out is that there is someone else pulling Ironbriar's strings from the shadows, and will probably wildly speculate about what is going on. Sounds like fun gaming to me!

The group shouldn't be in a position of power at this point to really condemn him publicly in any way, at least without damning evidence.

The worst thing that could happen is the group gets derailed in order to investigate Ironbriar...which isn't really that far away from what they should be doing at the point in the game anyway. I would respond to this by initiating the Skinsaw murders to distract them. Either way, you seem more than capable of keeping the group rolling in the correct direction.

[Phntm888]

I actually did a very similar thing in my game. Belor petitioned Magnimar for a justice to judge the trials, and it just so happens (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) that Ironbriar was selected. I had Ironbriar come up from Magnimar to handle the trial, with Belor as the prosecutor and my party as the witnesses. The church of Abadar sent a low-level cleric as a public defender for Tsuto and Lyrie. Since Tsuto and Lyrie had no connections to either Xanesha or Ironbriar (Nualia was the only one who had spoken with Xanesha), he had no reason to be concerned about them. The evidence was pretty airtight against Tsuto, but Lyrie was able to get away with simply saying she'd been hired to study Thassilonian artifacts and had nothing to do with the attack on Sandpoint or anything else. As the party didn't actually have evidence of her involvement, Ironbriar sentenced her to five years in the Hells. Tsuto was hung at dawn the next day (with the Fighter and Cleric of Torag drinking applejack and celebrating during the execution). I figure Ironbriar can offer Lyrie a job instead of prison, and she can plague the party to get revenge for Tsuto's execution. I just have to decide when.

[Cintra Bristol]

I had my PCs go to Magnimar to testify at the trial or Orik and Lyrie, with Ironbriar as judge. I didn't allow my PCs to figure out Ironbriar was charmed, per se - if they do, and they figure out some way to get him un-charmed (won't Protection from Evil do this), then he can give away way too much info, way too early. Let them sense motive to figure out he has ulterior motives and probably some patrons he's beholden to - it's pretty natural to assume that's political rather than something like Xanesha.

Anyway, Ironbriar found the convicts guilty and gave them a choice - death, or a life sentence as members of the Black Arrows of Fort Rannick. When the convicts chose the latter, he asked the PCs, as the people who had brought the convicts to justice, if they would consent to accompany the guards that would escort the convicts to Fort Rannick and see their oaths taken.

I borrowed heavily from Denek's Rise of the Runelords Campaign Journal at this point. In my campaign, the PCs and a handful of guards traveled by river barge for several days up the Mushfen (?) during which they fought off a minor (level-appropriate) boggard attack, and then up to Turtleback Ferry, with the prisoners shackled and a chain from the shackles bolted to the barge planks. Plenty of roleplay interaction here. They stayed overnight in Turtleback Ferry, with the prisoners in the town's jail and the PCs on guard. I may have had an overnight attack on the PCs at this point, I think, but they fought it off. (I don't recall who the attackers were...) The next day they and the guards took the prisoners to the Fort, where the Black Arrows had a special ritual that functioned like a Geas - the prisoners swear to obey the orders of the Captain of the Black Arrows for the rest of their lives, with it clearly stated in the ceremony (prior to accepting and making the oath) that willful disobedience, escaping, or otherwise violating the oath at any point would result in lingering death.

The PCs were then free to leave and return with the guards to Magnimar.

This entire interlude let the PCs see Turtleback Ferry and the Fort ahead of schedule, so it meant more to them when they go there in Chapter 3. I also had to decide where to place Orik and Lyrie during that chapter's events - at least one of them ended up at the Graul's homestead, as I recall.

[HellFire442]

Thanks for the tips. I need to figure out the messageboards here. I figured I would get a notification that people had responded, I guess that is for PMs only.

So I just went ahead and ran the trial. It was done between sessions due to several characters having some 20+ day jouneys they needed to undertake. I would have loved to do this during the session, but I wanted to avoid having to spend hours working with people individually while everyone else entertained themselves doing something else.

The biggest point that was made to me is that the party may be the darlings of Sandpoint, but they can't touch a Justice of Magnimar unless they can take him in a fight... and then they better have some good reasons or the retaliation of the other justices probably ends your campaign at lvl 4.

I had Ironbriar bring two investigators with him. They are members of his cult and may or may not make an appearance later. They are totally loyal to Ironbriar and can act with his full athority. So while the investigators did the leg work and talked with Tstuto, Lyrie, the party and everyone else... Ironbriar hung out with the Scarnetti's, Valdemars, and Deverins enjoying some nice Sandpoint hospitality. Perfect for a corrupt city official.

The trial was quick, but I spent a lot of time on the investigation. Each player pretty much coughed up everything and about half the party decided to travel back to Magnimar (different reasons) and rode with the Justice.... no one elected to involve roleplay during travel so it was mostly a formality. No sense motive checks rolled and minimum party interaction with the Justice himself.

Basically, there was tons of rollplay... but it all centered around the past history of the Party and was conducted by the investigators. Ironbriar spoke with a couple PCs, but in the context of being surrounded by Nobles. He will know and remember them. His men gathered lots of information for him, but he also knows that the party has no idea about his cult and has not connected any dots. He is content to leave it that way and not give a reason for them to start looking. (Obviously that is about to change)