The fall of Cheliax (help me end my campaign)

[Mathius]

So we have been playing Skull and Shackles and are now about to engage in book 6. Having looked in book 6 and discussed it with my players we have come to the conclusion that we do not want to play it. That leaves me needing to write the end of the game.

All of my PCs really really hate Cheliax and would love to see the country burn. I modified the end of book 5 to include a an artifact of significant power. The PCs had the idea to auction it off for a shot at House Thrune.

So my outline for the conclusion is
Auction of a major artifact to the high power folks of the world in exchange for 1 day of vulnerability to the most important NPCs of house Thrune. Following that will a 24 hour period where the PCs must travel to the lair 5 NPCs and slay them and their guards.

My PCs are a level 13 party of 5 that is well optimized to work as a team.
I was thing of having the scion be a level 15 devil cleric in demiplane of hell. Each of the other 4 will have a way to get to that plane and back him up and a way to bring him back to life should he fall. This will ensure the PCs take his heirs and advisers first and end with the ruler of Cheliax itself.

I need help designing the auction and the encounters that will be the end of my game. My target for the ruler is a CR 17 (for 5 PCs) and for the other four to be between 14 and 15 each.

My PCs are evil to the point where the forces of good would need to be highly motivated to work with them. The fall of Cheliax may be enough be they would not want my PCs to replace house Thrun.

[rorek55]

Sounds like a good excuse for a pirate fleet... Tell me, how much sway does your party pull on the lawless seas? Also, only chaotic good, and maybe neutral good folk would likely aid them. Evil as cheliax is, lawful good folks would see potential pirate takeover as too risky.

[Guru-Meditation]

I personally do not think that Cheliax would "fall" simply be removing House Thrune.

House thrune rose to power by ending a terrible, devastating and very bloody civil war. For the common people this was a thing that massively bettered their ordinary live, compared to the constant destruction and bloodshet from before. This is not yet forgotten. They have some support from the population. Also their devil-dealing ways are not exclusive to House Thrune any more.

Before removing evil Dictators from power, you have to think one step ahead. Ask yourself the question: "What will happen in this country once Evil Dude is gone?"

For Cheliax i do not think that once House Thrune is gone, that suddenly all will jump with joy and all will switch over to worshipping Abbadar from today to tomorrow. Which power groups are left? - Secondary Noblehouses (all left still with some amount of relevant power are also devil-dealers) and the Curch of Asmodeus.

Best case? You replace House Thrune with ... "House Bruhne" after possibly a new civil war in which they devil-dealt and massacred themself onto the Throne of Cheliax.

Worst case? The Church of Asmodeus as a unified powercenter takes over in the chaos after the removal of House Thrune. You replaced an evil Monarchy which used devils as a source of power with an Evil Theocracy that literally worships the devil itself. Now they really mean it, instead of just paying lip-service. Congrats, you just started a "Remove Saddam - get ISIS"-Type of situation 5 years down the road.

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This is all completly independed of the fact that even with great help it might be very difficult to impossible to remove House thrune. If pressed to the edge, who can say what deals they might cut with Hell itself, just not to be killed by the super-powered attacking group of mid-level "Heroes". Or what tricks they still have up their sleeve to deal with things like a group of escaped rampaging Pit Fiends.

Even if succesfully implemeted a removal of House Thrune will cause massive collateral damage. They have no reason not to go all-out with pulling out all their biggest, most dangerous weapons & artifacts. Weapons of Mass Enchantment, opening Portals to Hell itself to gate in reinforcements, sacrificing thousands of citizens to pay with their souls for defense-contracts, etc...

[gamer-printer]

Mathius wrote:

All of my PCs really really hate Cheliax and would love to see the country burn.

Yeah, I don't see a situation where PC intervention would/could bring a nation like Cheliax to fall. If I were GMing your table, Cheliax wouldn't fall no matter what they did.

[rorek55]

I see many possible ways to bring this about. All include ALOT of legwork, deal making, bribing, and bluffing/diplomacizing. But I NEVER tell my PCs that "no you can't do that". It takes half the fun away. Likely? No, possible? Yes.

[gamer-printer]

Well I don't play in Golarian, so Cheliax isn't an issue with my table. That said, I did develop the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG), whose sole existence is based on an ancient curse - Kaidan can best be described as a tyrannical police state (empire/shogunate) ruled by the undead. I am sure many players there would seek its fall, however, since its existence is based on a curse, if the curse were broken, Kaidan and its cosmos wouldn't fall so much as disappear from existence along with all its inhabitants, probably including the PCs. So doubtful that it would actually happen.

[Mathius]

My PCs realize that they have no chance of claiming the Cheliaxian throne. Instead they simply want to topple the powers that be and start a new civil war, preferable a long bloody one. One of the PCs worships the NE horsemen of war.
At this point the PCs are number 2 power in the shackles and they have worked hard to gain Tessa's and the Hurricane King's support.

I realize that if I stick to canon the PCs really could not make topple the country but this is the desired end of the game and we do not wish the game to go that much longer so we are going to do it anyway. They have acquired a major artifact and this a plausible enough reason other power players in Galorian would create the 24 hour period of vulnerability to the leadership of House Thrune.

House Bruhne and Hell itself are good choices for those interested in doing just that with the above outcomes coming to pass. Maybe Geb could take an interest. I do not know who else might have the power do what the PCs want. Any interest god could send a herald.

I do need to find a reason for House Thrune to not know about the loss of the artifact. Maybe hell does not tell them so that they can create a theocracy or maybe the NE horsemen covers for it to help incite a major civil war. The party gnome claims to be a god of charlatans and liars, maybe a really one helps him to cover up the theft.

[Guru-Meditation]

Mathius wrote:

My PCs realize that they have no chance of claiming the Cheliaxian throne. Instead they simply want to topple the powers that be and start a new civil war, preferable a long bloody one. One of the PCs worships the NE horsemen of war.

At this point the PCs are number 2 power in the shackles and they have worked hard to gain Tessa's and the Hurricane King's support.

This looks much easier to accomplish. With their kind of powerstructure even just removing the top handfull House Thrune movers&shakers, those with a Strong Claim to the throne, and dealing a lot of collateral damage utill beaten back again might get a Eastern Thrunes vs. Western Thrunes + some lesser noble houses scheming for power civil war highly likely.

[TaigaKirdApe]

It sounds like you're not interested in realism and just want to end things. So that's not a game, that's a story. So just tell it cinematically.

Have them negotiate with, oh say Nocticula, a CE Demon Lord who wants to be a goddess off assassins. Or ally with Aboleths to take over the country. Or just script the final battle, it doesn't sound like game mechanics are going to matter.

Or if you want to let the PCs feel like they earned a win instead of just had one handed to them, have your artifact thing inflict 4-6 negative levels on the Pit Fiend allies or whatever.

[Gevaudan]

Mechanically, decide how many 4 hour blocks your players still want to play and then fill them with a build up of events.

Pick a certain number of greater powers to influence, between 3-6. Give the players the chance to win some over through various means, making their final battles easier, the better they do.

After they win their first one, the throne should notice. After their third, the throne should directly attack them. By the end, they should be competing with agents of the throne.

[Mathius]

Sadly we play in 2 hour blocks once week. We can get in about 1 encounter per session and the auction will take one as well. Based on my original plan that would be 6 sessions. That works for our end as we have more then a year into the game.

I like the idea of having many powers to influence and that giving them some sort of benefit in the final encounters.

I was thinking the throne and 4 others since 5 encounters in 1 day can be tough. I was thinking APL+1, APL+1, APL+2, APL+2, and APL+4. They can take them in any order but I want and incentive to take the APL+4 last or near the end. I also want it to be that if even 1 makes it through the day they disturbance will be minor.

For each encounter I want at least 3 bad guys since 1 vs many is seldom satisfying. Since my PCs will want to buff up and run through all 5 in as few rounds as possible I was think having every other NPC know when one is attacked and start casting their own buffs. This means that later encounters will be harder since the bad (well non PC bad) guys will have longer to prepare.

I just wish it was not quite so much work to plan 5 encounters with a CR in the mid teens. If any one wants to take stab at it feel free.

[Aldrius]

Cheliax is not something that should be swayed so easily. The Shackles is a single archipelago of islands. The fleet the characters fought was powerful but hardly the full brunt of their naval forces. Remember that the empire is, well, an empire, and one backed by one of the most powerful collective of entities in the multiverse.

I would suggest that instead of 'toppling' Cheliax, you ruffle its feathers. Starting a civil war is a good idea, as is using the entirety of the pirates to do a coast-wide raid. With so many places being attacked simultaneously, Cheliax will reel and be unable to mobilize in time, but once they do, you have to pull everything back. One pit fiend is enough to deal with a group of ships easily and I've little doubt there's more than a handful of diabolists capable of summoning them.

If you really want to go full-blown on it, make it your own custom post-campaign campaign that reaches to level 20 and has you fight against the absolute highest of the empire's powers. You could even get mythic levels involved, especially if your characters are religious.

Kudos to your player's NE character. I too had a NE character, an alchemist that worshipped Urgathoa out of spite toward Pharasma.

[Mathius]

That campaign sounds like a great time for those who love the highest levels of play. Personally we as group do not, that is why a 13th level party will get to topple house Thrune and start a civil war. I realize that the cannon Cheliax would not be this easy to topple but who cares.

What I really need to do is build the last 5 encounters in a way that will be memorable and fun. The issue I have is creating mid to high level NPCs is difficult and making a sting on encounter that will be fun. I need to avoid going so whole hog that the PCs can not win while still making it take 3 or 4 rounds to finis the encounter.