While exploring the Catacombs of wrath, the pcs left the zombies in area B9 alive. I expected them to since they posed no threat to them. Before heading to Thistletop to deal with Nualia, one of the pcs went to Father Zantus and told him about the zombies and suggested he (Zantus) and some other priests go and deal with them. I need some ideas as to what the adventurers may find regarding this when they return from Thistletop.
Thanks!
|
A dead Acolyte. Father Zantus absconding with some of the praise and adulation that the townspeople would've otherwise had for the PCs. Perhaps he finds some item or piece of critical inforamtion that the PCs need.
Or, all the above, except It's Zantus that was killed fighting off the zombies and the good people of Sandpoint feel a bit of resentment towards the adventurers that left him to deal with the probelsm they felt were beneath them.
Or nothing, because Father Zantus ain't no fool. He knows better than to wander down into that catacomb looking for trouble. He's a minister to flock and the caretaker of a holy place, not an adventurer.
-Skeld
EDIT: When choosing between those three options (or any others I came up with), I'd ask myself, "which option would annoy my players them most," then pick that one.
I am definitely looking to annoy the players with the next session. When they leave Thistletop (where they've been for 3 days) they will find their mounts missing, because that's what happens when you leave 3 horses and a dog outside a goblin stringhold. (They are the mounts Foxglove bought them, so they won't be out anything they spent money on)
|
Another idea: the acolytes and Father Zantus clear out the zombies in the Catacombs of Wrath. However, one of the acolytes is bitten during the excursion, possibly Father Zantus if you're feeling especially cruel. They keep the bite secret, and naturally, that zombie is carrying the zombie plague. At some point he turns, and they have to find out what happened and put the zombie acolyte down, along with the other townsfolk infected by the zombie.
Obviously, the best time to do this is concurrently with the beginning of the Skinsaw Murders, just to add another level of complexity on the whodunit.
I'll proceed assuming that everything else is dead, no Sinspawn, no Ely, nothing else but the zombies.
There are a couple of questions you need to answer for yourself about how you are going to present this campaign.
Are the townsfolk of Sandpoint incompetent boobs?
Are the people of Sandpoint good, competent people caught in an (increasingly) bad situation?
At what point do you want to flip the tables on the players and have to townsfolk no longer be the mentors and turn into people who need great heroes to save them.?
For ME, I NEED to present the townsfolk as competent, capable people.
If that was the case in my game, the players would get a "thank you for the warning".
Father Zantus absconding with some of the praise and adulation that the townspeople would've otherwise had for the PCs. Perhaps he finds some item or piece of critical inforamtion that the PCs need.
Heh, fell asleep during writing my post, slipped from 1st response to 4th...
I do like Skeld's idea of the town heaping some praise upon Father Zantus.
A couple of guards and three priests go into the Catacombs, they find the pits filled with ancient animated corpses. Father Zantus channels them out of existence. The town guard return with tales of Father Zantus cleansing the town of foul creatures. Father Zantus isn't trying to steal their thunder, it just works out that way when the drunk and horrified town guard tell tales of how he obliterated a squadron of walking dead.
Having Zantus talk to the party and supply them with some added information about the Catacombs would be good too.
So far I have been playing the townsfolk as fully competent and capable, and will probably continue to do so. And yes everything else in the catacombs was killed by the pcs.
I like the idea of Zantus becoming a "hero," so that will happen. I also really like the thought of having one of the acolyte's being bitten to throw a red herring in to the Skinsaw mystery. Not sure how to get this done with the 20' pits though. May end up just hand-waving it, since the pcs obviously won't be there when it happens.
We'll be finishing up the "housekeeping" of chapter 1 on Sunday, and then my wife and I trading off GM duties and she will be running the first two chapters of Mummy's Mask, then back to RotR, so please keep the ideas coming! (We switch out GMing because we both enjoy both sides of the screen, and this way neither of us gets burnt out. The other players in the group enjoy it too, b/c we have *vastly* different GM styles.)
Thanks again!
|
|
If you're interested in having the acolyte turn into a zombie lord or something, then I'd say Father Zantus and the acolytes didn't have enough channels to kill all of the zombies, so they had to go down into the pit to kill it. The acolyte was bitten, and that sets up the tragedy.
So...which one of you is the Killer GM? >:)
So far she hasn't killed any pcs, but this will only be her second campaign. Her first fizzled out due to flake players.
I have several pc deaths under my belt, but I've been taking it easy (so far) on this group because 2 of the 4 players are completely new to tabletop gaming.