Hi. My group is about to finish Thistletop on Friday and I plan to run Lore Seeker (from Wayfinder #7) as a little sidequest on their way back to Sandpoint before we start The Skinsaw Murders.
So far, so good.
But, my group has made lot of friends in Sandpoint so far and I really want to pad out the beginning of book 2 with a couple of small adventures that gives those NPCs that they interact quite a lot whith (but have not a big role in RotRL) something to do, either as a quest giver or person in distress or, you know, something that rewards my players for their roleplaying in the first place.
And I'm out of ideas.
I really am. I thought about five hours today while preparing for Friday's session (which usually contains preparations for the sessions afterwards too) what to do with NPCs like Mdm Mvashti and Sabyl Sorn and came up with nothing except the vague idea that maybe Mdm. Mvashti has visions about the Skinsaw Man. My group loved the Chopper's Island adventure, that I ran between the Cathedral of Wrath and Thistletop so something like that is what I want to put in the next session somewhere between their return to Sandpoint ad the first few murders.
If you have any ideas or already ran sidequests like that, I'd really appreciate the help. Thank you.
Could just be time to punt.
You're gonna do the equivalent of throwing the spaghetti at the wall an see what sticks.
Get Lore Seeker going, and just throw some NPCs at the party - give them bits of their story and then see what the players are drawn to.
But you need to have Lore Seeker already rolling so that they have a quest to do, and so that when all their talking is done, that you at least have SOMETHING to work with.
Its a lot easier to give you a nudge if you provide a seed, such as...
Like Mdm Mvashti. Do you plan on or have you run Crimson Throne?
- Feel free to kill her off and use intelligent Harrow Deck idea.
- My big plan with her WAS going to be to have her give out a potion to the party that will prove useful in the future, and not a cure, but something specifically useful against the upcoming threats.
Sabyl Sorn.
- Some guys show up in town looking for Enderak - perhaps he brought something to Sandpoint with him... watch some kung-fu movies for inspiration.
I've added lots of side treks so far, but they are ones that my players wanted to explore - so you gotta find out what they want, what motivates their characters.
Thank you for your input, I appreciate it.
Yes, our group plans to run Crimson Throne and Jade Regent also, so when the group learns about Mvashtis death in JR, I want it to mean something to them. Thinking about it, I might do something with her daughter Koya, who, if I'm not mistaken plays a bigger part in JR. Something that involves her and the Vhiski brothers...
Sorn is essential, I have a Monk of Irori in the group and of course the two characters hooked up, a little bit. I just don't know what to do with her. The Monk character is perhaps the one who is so far the least tied to the main story. Sorn could be a good way to have the character more emotional invested to what's going on around him. I just don't know exactly how.
My group consists of 6 players, 3 of them play characters that are deeply involved in the main plot so far (and will have strong motivations at least for Skinsaw Murders without adding additional stuff), with the other three we struggled a little more to get the characters invested in Sandpoint (not the players, though) and I just want to make sure that the NPCs they made contact with are a little more central to the plot. Since at least two of them are scholars of Thessalonian history, they still have Quink (and that's the reason I chose to include Lore Seeker), but he's role in the AP is limited to 'Information Drop Point' and while I tried to make the character as fleshed out and interesting as possible, the very succesful Knowledge History rolls they made in the Cathedral of Wrath and in Thistletop made Quink a little reduntant, so I'm looking for other NPCs they interacted with and bring them more to the center stage. The last character, the Wizard of the group, is a special case and I already have vague ideas where in Skinsaw Murders his backstory will come in handy.
OK, So you want a plot for Sabyl Sorn, that fits in post Thistletop, that potentially links into Skinsaw.
OK, we know Sabyl runs the House of Blue Stones and has a book collection that aids in Know.(history) and Know.(planes) skill checks.
We know her dad is dead. We really don't have much else to go on for her, so a few ideas that come to mind:
Does Naulia Escape and Mal is still trapped?
- Perhaps she tries to break in here to find a solution to free Mal.
- Or perhaps she already SENT someone to break in and steal stuff (que the goblin ninjas...)
Maybe a wealthy (and greedy) relative of Sabyl's shows up in town to try to get her to sign over some land rights that fell to her father in their homeland? Maybe the relative is traveling from Magnimar and got attacked by Boggards near the Brinestump (and you run the Boggards in the Brinestump adventure).
Maybe Quink tries to get access to Sabyl's library to research something about what the PCs found. They end up needing/wanting to go back down to the Catacombs of Wrath to do something (maybe you add a new section to the Catacombs SOMEWHERE that they find together because of their knowledge and skills.
Have you made it clear that Sabyl's father IS dead?
- Maybe he's not DEAD, but suffered some malady and has been in the care of Erin Habe at the Sanitorium. Maybe that "illness" has something to do with the revival of the minor runewell in the Catacombs of Wrath.
Enderak has been being quietly kept at the Sanitorium. He checked himself in before going completely fruit loops, and asked his daughter to keep his sickness to herself.
hmmm...
Nualia is dead, Mal will be encountered tomorrow.
But I like the Habe's Sanitorium connection. The group discovered the runewell and emptied it. That MIGHT influence Sabyl. I guess I will have her transported to the Sanitorium while the group was in Thistletop.
Brilliant idea, thank you.
One tricky note: So, Nualia dies. But did the PCs take the trouble to dispose of her body? Might some pesky Lamashtu cultists have managed to reach her in time for a timely raise dead spell? Works on players.
I left hints with my group that they had naging doubts, a few days after the climactic encounter, that they never went the extra mile to dispose of the bodies. Prophetic nightmares are wonderful things, don't you agree?
I have VERY experienced players in my group. And a paranoid cleric character. Nualia doesn't come back. But they were a bit sloppy at the Cathedral of Wrath and I will make sure that this will haunt them.
But my plans changed a little bit, since they surprisingly reacted very positivly to Orik who tried to help them against Malfeshnekor and I think I can use that both short term as well as long term.