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So I need some ideas from the Daemon goto guy Todd Stewart. And my players please stay out of this thread!
So I have a player that ended up with the Enmity with an Outsider card from a Deck of Many Things. I decided the Outsider in question would be a Daemon Horseman, and rolled a d4. I got Szuriel, Horseman of War.
The party is in the middle of Jorgenfist and just made contact with Conna. The requisite time passed of the first enmity encounter per the Deck's description. So I grabbed your Book of the Damned 3 and picked a daemon to zone into a battle with 4 Stone Giants. I rolled a d6 for quantity and threw 3 CR 9 Sangudaemons at her. The party of course stepped in to help out. I definitely put the fear of God in her, but it was a great way to end the session. So where to go from here?
It's a party of 5 characters that just hit 12th level. The character with the Enmity is a straight class Rogue.
I figured you might get a kick out of a suggestion or two, though I totally understand if you don't have the time to engage my musings as well.
What would you advise for the frequency of the daemon attacks? How quickly would you start to escalate the CRs of the daemons?
I certainly don't want to wipe the group and it will be a long while before they can deal with going to Szuriel's plane to deal with her directly. So I have been pondering how often to break up the AP with daemon shenanigans.
Any ideas Todd (or anyone other GMs) might have is appreciated.
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Well, not an expert on daemons, but Szuriel governs war. Runelords 3 and 4 are at least roughly tied to war, so the enmity might not come as a surprise. Given the personal enmity of Szuriel, the natural thing is not necessarily to send daemons for the PCs, but to spark wars all over Varisia by various daemon actions. It is up to you how nihilistic you want to be (and how much defeat you think the PCs can handle), but just off the top of my head, Korvosa could lead a crusade to punish Magnimar for leaving, Ilsurian is always ready for a scrap with anyone who seems threatening to them as is Janderhoff, the shoanti carry long-lived grudges indeed, primarily against Korvosa. Of course, there are the orcs of Balkzen, and other giant tribes in Varisia that could start fighting anyone nearby, and so on. Sandpoint could become a casualty in that warfare. A word of caution: It would be easy for the heroes to ignore the AP if you overdo it. Hit places they've been, people they have known, and make sure they KNOW it's about them...
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Posting just to take note of this at the moment. I'll read and reply later tonight. :)
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First: if you have access to Pathfinder Adventure Path #71: Rasputin Must Die!, there's an entire article on Szuriel. I highly recommend it.
At CR 18, the purrodaemon Deacons of War are a little... vigorous. A different idea, given the AP, might be to have clerics of Szuriel appear alongside the rogue's foes, buffing and aiding them. These clerics need not be class-leveled; try the cleric template. I just used it for a meladaemon in Carrion Crown, and it went very well.
In Book 5, the daemons could start oozing in via the Festering Maze. You could even drop hints that they started the conflict between Runeforge's factions to make things harder for the group. And it shouldn't be too hard for the daemons to get to Xin-Shalast - with Karzoug's plans for Varisia, Szuriel has every reason to support his rise.
Do you intend to go all-out? At a certain point, high-CR daemon encounters will be lethal - an astradaemon's true seeing and finger of death are pretty much a death sentence for a straight rogue.
If the PC dies (but is raised), will the Horseman's wrath be satisfied? Or will only the taking of her soul satisfy the daemons? Even if they raise her, how many deaths will it take before it starts to harm the player's enjoyment? (I don't know the player or their tolerance level.)
Just some things to think about. :)
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Chiming in alongside what others have already suggested, as the Horseman of War, consider exactly what Szuriel is and isn't concerned with. Unlike various gods of War, she isn't a profane patron of strategy, tactics, glory, victory, etc. She's concerned with War only insomuch as it leads to greater and greater death, and specifically -mortal- death.
She's unlikely to just send in assassination squads. That's not really her style and it's frankly going to be just flat out lethal to your PCs if you used her resources in that direct of a capacity.
I would suggest (as others have already) using clerics of Szuriel and some select daemons in her thrall to bolster the PCs enemies, pushing them to battle and into situations where the collective slaughter is going to be increased. Collateral damage is best damage, civilians and soldiers have zero demarcation between them, and there are no rules of fair play, no battlefield mercy, etc.
Have mercenary groups hired by Szuriel's followers wreck havoc along a path that the PCs have already followed, suggesting that it's specifically about hurting them. If Sandpoint for instance is swallowed up by these events, there won't be survivors, and very likely any injured mercenaries would be killed rather than healed. The place would be burned to cinders and the earth salted, with summary executions of the population and a flock of cacodaemons hovering about, making sure that each fallen mortal's soul was taken as payment.
The whole thing could go very very grimdark, very very quickly. If that doesn't fit your playstyle, or might go in directions that your players won't be comfortable with, keep that in mind and tone it down as needed. Even in that worst case scenario above, allow the players the option to eventually turn the tables and kill the person or persons tasked by Szuriel to handle this as her proxies on Golarion (and letting the PCs gain any captured souls to allow for the victims of the carnage to either be raised or pass on their proper afterlife rather than a daemon's larder).
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Finally getting back to this thread. I wanted to thank Todd Stewart (an extremely busy guy I imagine) for taking time to answer my question.
I just had a ton of fun showing my wife Todd's answer on this thread and then showing her the cover of Horsemen of the Apocalypse 3 and letting her see the Todd Stewart name on both! She was extremely impressed until I joked that Szuriel might lay waste to Turtleback Ferry where she just built a Temple to Sarenrae. She was NOT amused about that....