I have been running a group through the Shackled City since January of 2014 (so almost a year and half now). We have made pretty quick progress (relative to the majority of stories I’ve read), and the party is now fighting the dracolich known as Vitriss Bale in Karran Kural, which is near the end of Secrets of the Soul Pillars.
I am writing this post (as the title suggests) to ask for advice, feedback, suggestions, and anything else constructive that you might be willing to give me to help me improve the quality of my campaign as we head into high levels and the endgame of the story.
Chief among my concerns is the fact that I have not done a great job of introducing the Cagewrights early on in this campaign. When I first started running the table, I was pretty bogged down with real life work, so I struggled to just provide the material of a given chapter. As I’ve gotten a better handle on everything though (and I owe a lot of that to the great materials at provided at this site), I have realized that I really should have dropped more hints and introduced more seemingly innocent appearances of the Cagewrights. However, I don’t think it’s too late, so I am open to any advice about how to start moving them on to the scene (and I’ve done a bit of it already).
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I’m happy to provide detailed info on any of these folks. For now though, here’s a list of the party members in The Best (which is the name of the party, silly, I know):
PCs
Kha-Chi Du - Male Thri-Kreen Archivist
Kitiara Trisana Cataegis - Female Windsoul Genasi Beguiler/Mindbender/Unseen Seer
Ragnar "Earthbreaker" Galfyrmedvåpena - Male Goliath Warblade
Untver Smadcrak Skellerang - Male “Human” Binder/Knight of the Sacred Seal
Aedron (Previously a player, now a DMPC) - Male Dragonborn Human Sorcerer/Fiendblooded/Escalation Mage
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For the most part, our plot has stayed on the tracks of the adventure path. I own the hardback book, so I’ve been running the game from that, for the most part. Things have started to veer away from it a bit ever since the party got back from Occipitus, but I’ll try to briefly highlight any major deviations from the ‘expected’ plot:
-Dhorlot escaped death in Bhal-Hamatugn.
-Dugobras survived his encounter with the party in Vaprak’s Voice (because the party chose to talk their way past him).
-They arrived back in Cauldron after Occipitus to find Jenya and several acolytes murdered in their own church. Kha-Chi resurrected Jenya. I personally haven’t decided which Cagewright made this power play, but the party correctly observed that she was killed with a save or die spell.
-They also learned that a small army draconic heritage has been sieging the city in their absence. They discovered that these minions were sent by Dhorlot, seemingly out of revenge, though Dhorlot was convinced to do this by the Cagewrights. The Cagewrights convinced Dhorlot that they shared the common goal of the party’s destruction, but their real intent is to further distract the PCs from the events transpiring beneath Cauldron.
-After storming the temple of Wee Jas and killing Ike Iverson, Kha-Chi was asked to temporarily take over the day to day operations of the church, for the sake of the city. He accepted this request.
-The party later met with Dugobras, who explained how he had been contracted to build the Soulcage. He initially met with a minotaur (Gau) and a human woman (Freija) for the request, but an “elf with a bow” (Kyan) checked in on him periodically afterwards, which he interpreted as a threat. Almost on cue after saying this to the party, he is hit with a poisoned arrow (Kyan’s doing). Kha-Chi healed him and the party shadow walked away. For his safety, Dugobras was then taken to Occipitus to serve as Ragnar’s personal blacksmith on the plane, but not before he revealed the general location of Karran Kural.
Here’s a rundown of the presence of the other Cagewrights (or plans to reveal them):
-Prior to the Demonskar Legacy, I ran the ambush in which the Necrocants attacked the Striders. After that was resolved, the party glimpsed Alurad Sorizon through Meerthan’s scrying pool and heard a bit about him.
-Thearynn is acting as headmaster of Bluecrater Academy, and they have have met him there.
-When they first met Thearynn, they almost walked in on him having a discussion with his “good friend from a nearby temple” Shebeleth.
-Considering having Ssythar be the Cagewright that spoke with Dhorlot (tenuous connection of yuan-ti and draconic sorts).
-This one is a little out there, so feedback is welcome. Ragnar has a bad history with wolves and stone giants. Namely, a stone giant raid with trained dire wolves destroyed his home village as a child and caused the apparent death of his father right before his eyes. Plot twist time. Viirdran, being an alchemist, captured the injured and near-dead giants and goliaths from this attack. He then created a modified strain of lycanthropy, and kept the captured survivors alive by turning them into vicious, less sane werewolves (no hybrid form though, only enormous wolf or regular form). He attacks the party as they emerge from Karran Kural with a horde of these creations. One of the wolves lunges at Ragnar, only to hold back at the last moment, and revert into its base form: Ragnar’s father. Viirdan gleefully sees this tragic situation, and teleports (or something) Ragnar’s father away before they can save him, intending to strengthen the dose of the modified disease in order to use the father against the party later. I may allow Viirdan to die in this encounter, only to reveal that he was a simulacrum of some kind (again, alchemist). The real one is elsewhere.
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So that’s where I’m at. Do these foreshadowing events seem reasonable, or are they shallow and poorly conceived? Should I be attempting to reveal most of the Cagewrights one way or another, or should I consolidate the ones that hit the scene early on (Dhorlot could be contacted by a Cagewright the party has already seen instead of a new one, for example)? I know a lot of folks strongly urge the removal of a lot of the Cagewrights altogether, for the sake of sanity, but I kind of like a lot of them, so I’m digging my feet in and using the characters the adventure path gave me. I’d be happy to hear ideas for bringing in Cagewrights I haven’t mentioned yet (particularly if I can tie it to another PC, since giving each PC someone to despise could be fun).
Thank you in advance for any advice or help! I will reply to people as often as I can.
I think you have a good handle on foreshadowing the one's you want already. You don't want to reveal/foreshadow all of them anyway. You want the PCs to peel away this canker upon Cauldron like an onion.
Go with what you have and the PCs may be like, "Okay, four bosses [Alurad, Thearynn, Ssythar, Viirdran], we can handle them one at a time. We got this, The Best!"
Then, in Lords of Oblivion, when you run the dinner party at Rhiavadi's, they'll be in for a surprise. If you foreshadow all of them, they may be like, "Yawn, another boss."
General advice for the remainder of the campaign:
I STRONGLY suggest that you run Foundations of Flame and 13 Cages as, basically, one super-module with, and this is critical: NO RESTING ! ! !
By this point, the PCs will be high level and should enjoy high levels. If you allow them the 15 minute work day, it'll be the same 3 or 4 high level spells each combat. But if you don't let up and don't let them rest, they'll have to dig deep into their resources.
Specifically, for
13 Cages:
If the group misses the secret door where Gau lives (very likely), don't have her go to Area 5 to stage an ambush. Have her alert the entire complex. The Cagewrights have been working for years to subvert Cauldron to bring about a plan set in motion by the demodands some 500 years ago. They are arrogant, yes, but not stupid. They know this group has been undermining their plans for months, raided the cathedral of Wee Jas, took out Rhiavadi and her guests at her party, and stormed Oblivion. The Cagewrights know this group isn't to be trifled with. That said, they're not going to just wait, room by room trying to take them out one at a time.
Remember that Gau has a move of 40', which is probably faster than the average group speed. The group will get slowed for a few rounds by the farastus in rooms 4 & 5, so Gau will have plenty of time to alert the complex. ALL of the Cagewrights should be at the Tree of Shackled Souls, except for the paranoid one, he's paranoid after all. Ti'irok should gather all of his Flamewarders (16 iirc) and await the party in room 10. If the party doesn't arrive in 5-10 minutes, then he should fall back to the Tree. A kelubar in 7 should get the vrocks in 6 and head to 16 to spring upon the group from behind the stone curtain (also falling back to the Tree if it seems the group has gone the other way). There should be plenty of evidence of recent occupation (i.e. a knocked over cup that's still dripping) so the party knows that they've been detected and the complex is on alert.
I know this makes 13 Cages MUCH harder. A total meat-grinder, but it's a lot more tense. Players should recognize that its time to call in Nidrama, the hound archon from Test of the Smoking Eye, Saureya (if feasible), and any other big guns they can.
COMPENSATIONS:
* I allowed them to level immediately.
* All healing spells, wands, potions, etc. were blessed by St. Cuthbert and were empowered and maximized. I would ask for random things at first to cover this; "What's your CHA score?" "Make a Heal check." "I need a WIL save." That sort of thing. After about the fifth time, the cleric stopped to cast divination. St. Cuthbert said something like, "You tread the righteous path; the dangerous path. So, yea, I pad the soles of your shoes as you walk it." Players thought it was cool. It made combats liveable, but by no means a cake-walk.
Thanks for the reply! I definitely like the idea of the super-module and the lack of resting. I will probably try to make that section one long marathon until the Cauldron is either saved or extinguished. I am going to post some other ideas or questions that I was hoping to get feedback on, if you feel so inclined:
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The AP says that Vitriss Bale has not gotten around to acquiring a dragon corpse as a backup for the potential demise of his current form. What if he had though? Better yet, what if he had acquired a fairly young dragon, and was keeping it alive to let it get bigger and stronger, with a failsafe designed to kill the new body if his current form expires?
So my plan is to have a young copper dragon, unconscious but alive, hidden somewhere at the bottom of the soul pillars. When the party defeats Vitriss Bale’s current form, a trap triggers that floods the pit, and the unconscious dragon begins to drown. The party will most likely be tipped off about the dragon’s presence through the Mindsight ability of their Beguiler, and they will have to decide if it’s worth investigating. Even a young copper dragon could survive for a relatively long time underwater, in terms of combat, but it will be chained to its enclosure and unconscious. So getting it out of the water before it dies should be manageable, but at least somewhat nerve-wracking, which seems ideal to me. I don’t believe they have the simplest solution at hand, which would be granting the dragon waterbreathing. If I discover that they do have this option, I may need to make the water do constant cold damage too (which is an easy thing to imagine in Karran Kural), so that there is still a time pressure.
If or when they wake it up, I plan to have its mind be somewhat shattered, courtesy of psychic torture that Vitriss inflicted upon it during his leisure time through the use of a magic item or something. This mental damage is not fixable with a simple Heal spell, and they will have to decide if they want to take the time to mend the mind and body of this copper dragon. If they do, they may acquire a useful ally (or perhaps an even better ally if they take this copper dragon back to where he came from…). If they ignore this whole thing, then they obviously have an angry Vitriss Bale in a new body to worry about someday (in a new body that I would rule to no longer be bound to Karran Kural, no less).
Thoughts on this subplot?
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I’m not quite sure how to resolve the Dhorlot subplot. Since the party returned from Occipitus, he has stopped sending his minions to attack Cauldron and he has moved his base of operations. He did this both because he knew that losing his trail would infuriate the party, and because he is being cautious because he realizes that they are probably scarier to face directly than before.
So how do I resolve this? Realistically, the party is actually way stronger than him now, so unless I artificially increase his power, he’s going to get trounced in a straight up fight with the party. Should he attack again during a chaotic time to force the party to choose what to deal with (maybe during Foundation of Flame)? Should the Cagewrights give up his location to the party somehow? Door number three? Happy to hear any suggestions!
I really like what you've got planned with the copper dragon! Keep that just as you have it.
Dhorlot is going to live for centuries and dragons are very intelligent. He knows he's outclassed . . . now. Perhaps, after Adimarchus is defeated, Dhorlot sends a note to the party, "I will visit myself upon your descendants. Your children, perhaps your grandchildren. But know this, your seed will die. None will be left to carry on your line. Despair! For you are powerless to stop it!"
There has to be some way that all of the heroes' loot gets scattered back onto the random treasure table.
Glad you like the copper dragon rescue! I'm pretty happy with that concept.
While I agree with you that Dhorlot would probably be smart enough to back off and plan revenge against their descendants, it's just not a very satisfying conclusion for the party. They're pretty angry that he got away in the first place (one final arrow that they fired at him across the lake in Bhal-Hamatugn would have done it, but it missed and he was gone), and I feel like getting a note like that would only further convince them to hunt him down. Moreover, I think access to 9th level spells and 20th level class features at the end of the campaign will mean that they definitely can find him (Discern Location being the first option that springs to mind), so I'm more interested in bringing him in at a dramatic moment. If it doesn't make enough sense that he would strike on his own, I feel like I could justify it behind the scenes as the Cagewrights goading him into doing it. Perhaps they could even threaten him to force his hand, er, claw? Either way, they could also maybe buff him with items and spells to level the challenge rating a bit.
Nabthatoron also survived his earlier encounter with the party, so I was playing around with the idea of him laying siege to the city of Redgorge, probably during the volcanic events that start in Foundation of Flame. Maybe Dhorlot can have his minions raid Cauldron and/or Redgorge during this crisis? It would certainly create an intriguing dilemma for the party, as far as deciding how to allocate their resources in order to save the maximum number of people. I do want to be careful not to overshadow Hookface with Dhorlot though. Hm.
As written, Dhorlot is an adult black (large sized).
Let's say he was 200 years and 10 months when he first faced the party.
Now he's 201, so he's a mature adult and now huge sized.
He and Nabthataron, having both survived a beating by the party, join forces.
So, when Nabthataron lays siege to Redgorge, he (a large sized glabrezu) is riding in on a huge sized Dhorlot.
I like it! My only reservation is that I don't know if Dhorlot would be ok with someone riding on him, but it seems gratuitous enough that I should try it anyway. Can you say army of demons AND half-dragons?
I'll throw out a few of the tweaks I've made to the NPCs and their relationships:
Triel and Kyron were romantically involved. Kyron is the estranged nephew of Severem Navalant, whose father was murdered (by Vhalantru) so that Severem could inherit (Severem is much more tractable.) Kyron graduated from Bluecrater and left the city, returning a few years later to the region with a new name (Bonesworn,) a new girlfriend (Triel,) at the head of the Necrocants to reclaim his birthright in the name of Nerull. Drakthar was Kyron's creation, and that success is what inspired Tarkilar to try to achieve the same thing upon himself, with disastrous results. After Triel's execution, Kyron will recover her body and she will next appear as a wight at the head of an army of zombies when the PCs go to Liduton.
Alurad is one of the three missing priests of Pelor. Two of them were put into the spellweaver stasis tubes to keep them undetectable and un-rezzable, but Alurad the paladin was broken by torture and now thinks he's Adimarchus, and wears a magical neck shackle that blocks all divination.
I added an entire chapter for Liduton, a Yuan-Ti ruin centuries older than Redgorge. Access requires a golden disk (the Scale) and a key that will be on Kyron's corpse. Inside, the story of how the Yuan-Ti and the demons contested for dominance of region unfolds in hieroglyphs, and the party will make it past traps to find a mummy lord Yuan-Ti guarding an artifact stolen from the demons. The snakes thought it was destined for their use because it is a great stone egg, but were never able to bend it to their will. The party will be able to destroy it, releasing a boss made by applying the shadow dragon template to a high CR fire elemental and changing its type to fiend. Destroying the mummy guardian, the artifact, and the demon shadow fire thing will lift the curse on Liduton. The curse resulted from Kozamogon trying to harness the power of the demon shadow egg, much as the Yuan-Ti had tried centuries before, but with her greater power came more devastating effects when she failed.
Meerthan was using the identity of Elethor Ashstaff before chapter 1, survived the assassination attempt and switched identities to Tyro. Owen Marsh, innkeeper of the Lucky Monkey, is a cleric of Ffarlagn (sp?) and the real leader of the Striders, and is rez'd after Flood Season. Fario and Fellian begin recruiting NPC rangers to deal with the threats that the PCs leave behind, like gnolls near the demonscar and goblins that fled the slaughter carried out by my merry band of murder-hobos. They are highly effective and earn the respect of the party.
Maavu becomes the leader of the Chisel when Foreman steps down. After the Test of the Smoking Eye, the party goes to Redgorge to lift the siege, and is not having much success with diplomacy. Nidrama appears with much showmanship and announces that the demons, under their new ambitious general, are coming to destroy Redgorge. That brings almost everyone together and ends the bickering. For the demons' attack on Redgorge I "borrowed" heavily from "The Temple Between" in Dungeon #161, including using the maps for the challenges. Basically, the battle serves as backdrop for a number of encounters and challenges for the party to overcome, which ultimately determine the outcome of the larger conflict.
Jil grew up as a street urchin in Sasserine, she's never known her real name or her exact age. Her only friend was a half-orc youth who died at the hands of Nulin ("Fish") to save Jil from a fate worse than death. Jil, intrigued by the party, takes on a new identity as Jaklyn, wins an annual footrace sponsored by the Church of Kord, and gets a job as a tavern wench at the Drunken Morkoth, the PCs base of operations. She becomes romantically involved with a PC (cleric of Pelor.) The information broker NPC was folded into her character. The kidnap and torture of the Strider did not become murder both because of the unknowing influence of the good party member and because she discovered that the Last Laugh took the job from Fish. At that point, her goal in life becomes to kill Fish, and she will work with the party (if they let her) to achieve that goal in any way she can. She maintains a network of informants in the city, mostly beggars and the impoverished children, whom she helps in memory of her slain half-orc friend.
Nidrama and Adimarchus are siblings. Nidrama is limited to helping the PCs against the demons of the scar as an angel, which is why she casts off her immortality and "falls," becoming an Aasimar paladin and a cohort for the party. Her goal is to save Adimarchus, which requires killing him in Skullrot, then using the connection between him and a PC with the madness background feat to siphon off his immortality (possible with the cooperation of the smoking eye template person) while Admiarchus is lying in state on Occipitus. As a mortal, a greater restoration or a wish can get his head together, curing the madness that afflicted him. I determined that madness came from his exposure to the Far Realm when he was tasked with closing a portal (see "The Gates of Firestorm Peak") as an angel. This connects the "dream haunted" background feat to the Great Old One pact for the party's warlock, by the way. Afterwards, Adimarchus will "walk the Oerth" in a quest for redemption as an Aasimar favored soul, to be met in future campaigns.
"Hooknose" is female, and under the identity of Lady Taliraxia is a great patron of the arts in Cauldron. She is an unabashed hedonist. She woke up from her recent "nap" (of several decades) to find "her city" controlled by the beholder, and she's just started to work at regaining control of its criminal underground and nobility from Vhalantru. When demodands begin to rain from the sky, she takes wing and incinerates many of them, and commands the PCs to stop the cagewrights from destroying what's rightfully hers, or else she will kill them all and lay waste to the region before moving on to somewhere she can resume her decadent lifestyle. Afterwards, not content to rule behind the scenes, she declares herself monarch and demands tribute from the survivors. The party encounters her at the Demonscar Ball, the Cusp of Sunrise, at a "patronage dinner" at Vhalantru's estate after Ch. 2, and wherever else they might encounter art aficionados, hedonists, and nobility. Of course, she has items to block divination.
I have many more, but that's what was off the top of my head.
Also, I thought there were too many dragons--they lost their "OMG" factor because there were a half-dozen of them. I replaced the one near the Tree with a boosted fire elemental, the one in the Abyss with a death knight. That leaves Gottrod, Dhorlot, Ventriss, and Hookface; still a lot of dragons, but they've all got personality, so they get to stay.
I just feel like there should never be a "random dragon," anywhere, ever.
Cable, did Gottrod survive? If so (or if you can BS it somehow with an offscreen rez) you can tie back to that encounter by having the PCs and Redgorge get hammered by the demons + Dhorlot, and have it look like the end is nigh, when suddenly "THERE YOU ARE!" Gottrod slams into Dhorlot, who has to leave the demons alone to handle the new threat, giving the PCs and the army of Redgorge a chance to prevail.
Then, the cagewrights (not happy with this turn of events) could capture Gottrod (injured or dying after the fight with Dhorlot) and turn him over to Ventriss, instead of the copper dragon. The PCs can either end him once and for all, or show a little gratitude for the help at Redgorge and spare him. Either way, it will make the subsequent encounter with Hookface personal, either tempered by gratitude or fueled by revenge.
If you really want to play it up, have an agent of Hookface (who does not identify himself as such) encounter the party before they enter Karran-Kurral and offer a reward for the rescue of a dragon held within the bowels of the ruin. Provide little other information besides how to claim the reward if they succeed. Let the party wonder if the dragon is the dracolich before they discover Gottrod's peril. This should make them at least consider the possibility of rescuing an evil dragon, especially if Gottrod (badly wounded by previous events) pleads for his life and makes promises (I won't eat anyone that wears clothes or walks on two legs for 100 years, I swear it!) which all checks to sense motives show to be sincere (he can always change his mind later, if you want him to.)
Gottrod did not survive, unfortunately. Not sure if I'd want to revive him either, my players would probably be a little salty about that. They're also already engaged with Vitriss Bale, so I can't have some agent contact them beforehand, but oh well. I could maybe hybrid some of these ideas though. If Dhorlot later attacks Redgorge with Nabthatoron, the copper dragon could take on the role of "removing Dhorlot from the playing field via body slam", etc.
I'd love to hear more of your NPC tweaks if you can find your notes on others! I particularly like the Hookface one, though I haven't foreshadowed an NPC for that purpose, so I don't know if I can swipe that idea or not. But still, pretty cool idea.
I may use some of the Adimarchus+Far Realm stuff too, since our party's Binder spends a lot of time bound to the summoning vestige from the Far Realm. He even picked up a weird talisman with some kind of consciousness trapped inside of it that jumps inside of his summons sometimes, and its connection to the Far Realm could be expanded to include a connection to Adimarchus' insanity.
I have been running a group through the Shackled City since January of 2014 (so almost a year and half now). We have made pretty quick progress (relative to the majority of stories I’ve read), and the party is now fighting the dracolich known as Vitriss Bale in Karran Kural, which is near the end of Secrets of the Soul Pillars.
I am writing this post (as the title suggests) to ask for advice, feedback, suggestions, and anything else constructive that you might be willing to give me to help me improve the quality of my campaign as we head into high levels and the endgame of the story.
Chief among my concerns is the fact that I have not done a great job of introducing the Cagewrights early on in this campaign. When I first started running the table, I was pretty bogged down with real life work, so I struggled to just provide the material of a given chapter. As I’ve gotten a better handle on everything though (and I owe a lot of that to the great materials at provided at this site), I have realized that I really should have dropped more hints and introduced more seemingly innocent appearances of the Cagewrights. However, I don’t think it’s too late, so I am open to any advice about how to start moving them on to the scene (and I’ve done a bit of it already).
Hi!
Funny enough my party is at the exact same point! They are literally waiting to kick the door in on Vitriss Bale. They're a little underlevelled and I think they're going to have a tough time with this fight.
I would highly, highly recommend using the "alternate villains" here: http://therpgenius.pbworks.com/w/page/22143306/Alternate%20Villains. If its too late for you to do that think of every NPC that the party has met thus far. How many of them could be Cagewrights. I would also limit the total number of cagewrights to 13 rather than the huge number they currently have. If it were me, I would say Dhorlot is one of the six cagewright masters. You can increase his power by giving him that weird demodand template that Vhalantru gets.
What NPC's have the party actually met?
I would be likely to suggest:
Cagewright Leader: Dyr'Ryd
Cagewright Masters (6):
Thearynn
Alurad
Viirdran
Ssythar
Freija
Vhalantru
Cagewright Apprentice's (6):
Kyan (Maybe de-level him a little bit, and let the party get sniped by him throughout chapter 9)
Gau (Delevel a little bit, apprenticed to Freija)
Shebeleth (Delevel, apprenticed to Thearynn)
Dhorlot (Apprenticed to Ssythar, give the same template as vhalantru, can be encountered in ch. 8)
Rhiavadi (Apprenticed to Vhalantru)
Finally pick another NPC that the character's see a bunch and make him the cagewright apprentice of Viirdran.
Replace Embril's role in Chapter 11 (if you decide to run it, I'm skipping it in favor of a plane-hopping diplomacy adventure a'la Savage Tides' ch 11: "Enemy of my Enemy".
Other useful question's might include who's running Occipitus? Any other major villains survive? Was drakthar killed in battle or Staked? DId the party destroy the phylactery of that lich in ch. 6?
