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Hello My Fellow Gaming Friends.
Normally, I don't lack for scenarios or plot ideas, but I have a bit of a writer's block going on here and could really use your assistance. Maybe its due to all the stuff going on at work right now. But I know I can count on you readers to help a brother out.
Here is the situation so far...
Player Characters:
- Fighter, a wanna be paladin with a bit of a gambling problem
- Cleric of Knowledge who desires to be a famous author
- Wizard, fire mage who really likes to watch things burn
- Fighter, bounty hunter running from his own past
- Ranger, big game hunter always looking for the next big hunt
The PCs investigated a series of murders in a small town and uncovered clues leading to Percival Rothmire, an 80 years dead classical music composer (bard), turned vampire. As they put the clues together and narrowed in on the Percival's secret underground lair, he figures it is time for a change of scenery. When they found the lair, it was recently abandoned with almost everything either taken or burned. However, there were a few clues left in the burn pile and behind a shelf indicating that Percival has fled to a large city 4 days away. The PCs, hot on Percy's trail, follow him to the city. They know he is in the city, but have no clue where to start looking.
The PCs are not anywhere strong enough to take on a Vampire so I want to avoid a direct confrontation. I am wanting Percival Rothmire to become an arch nemesis of the PCs - much like Prof. Moriarty to Sherlock Holmes.
Even though I know the flavor I to achieve, I'm at a creative loss of ideas. What fiendish plots could Percival be up to that the PCs have to foil?
Any suggestions you have will be much appreciated.
Thank You,
Off the top of my head, he's siring various of the city's important figures in politics and military into vampire- or vampire-spawndom to take control of the place and turn it against the PCs. His minions will publicly hunt down the PCs using accusations against them based on their various problems you have listed: one's a gambler, one's a pyro, one's got another mysterious dark secret.
the Ranger could easily be accused of poaching and the Cleric of dabbling in forbidden lore; you would just need to bait them into wrong place at the right time
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He will need to set up a secure base of operations. The vampire will likely invest his time and resources into the city to make sure he stays hidden, while also maintaining ties to influential figures in order to procure anything he needs.
The PCs could find some of the vampire's minions traveling with the last of the vampire's belongings on a cart. The minions are rather dumb, completely lost, and don't actually know where Rothmire's new layer is, but they do know some of the things he is up to.
A few ideas:
- He has threatened the city's Cemetery Groundskeeper into letting a few things go unnoticed. The groundskeeper has also been secretly burying some of Rothmire's victims in mass graves. Some of these victims have started to rise up as undead, and the PCs need to investigate. Make the undead of an appropriate CR.
- Rothmire has bribed the local dockmaster, who is accepting deliveries and secretly passing them on to Rothmire's minions. The dockmaster has a gang of thugs to back him up. The PCs may wish to cut off one of Rothmire's supply channels. They will have to defeat the gang of thugs and deal with the dockmaster.
- Rothmire is controlling, threatening, and bribing the city guard into arresting "undesirables" (homeless people, prostitutes, etc.) and bringing them to his minions. Rothmire has been feeding on these innocents. The PCs must discover which guards are abducting the citizens, and put an end to it.
- Rothmire has invested some of his personal wealth into a local merchant who is buying and selling evil (or cursed) items. The merchant has become very wealthy very quickly, and is gaining political influence which he will use to assist Rothmire. The PCs must bring down the merchant without making enemies with the merchant's powerful allies and trade partners.
- A well-known vampire slayer was murdered, just hours ago. His body is missing, and there are many who fear he was killed by a vampire. The PCs have 1d4 days to find the body and prevent the former-vampire-slayer from turning into a vampire himself.
These ideas are pretty basic because I don't know what level your PCs are. But, if the PCs pursue any of these, they are likely to make enemies with Rothmire, and he will be sure to turn his attention to them soon enough.
Best of luck!
The PCs are level 4 & 5 and the players are very experienced (20-30 years of RPG experience each). This is a home brew Pathfinder game with very low magic. Spell slots in this game are recovered every 10 days instead of daily and Wealth by Level is 10% of normal.
There are only three magic items in the group (+1 Spear, Glove of Cure Light Wounds (1 use per day), and an Amulet of Natural Armor +1) and five low level single use items (potions & scrolls). They just spent almost all their money getting one light weapon each alchemically silvered. They couldn't afford having heavier weapons silvered.
Percival Rothmire is a level 9 Bard/Vampire. He has one true love, Classical Music - namely composing symphonies. Following his death 80 years ago, the Rothmire family built a concert hall and music school in his memory, The Percival Rothmire Music Conservatory. The school has about 80 students from some of the wealthiest families in the city. Think Hogwarts for Bards.
He hates being cursed as a vampire and only through his music has he managed to hold on to part of his humanity. He has never spawned another vampire and doesn't intend to. He only kills when the hunger takes control of him.
Living on the outskirts of the small town, he was able to fight the hunger to the point where he only have to feed twice a month or so. Even then, he killed animals over people whenever he could. However, since he has moved to the large city, all the people around him is making it very hard to maintain control.
Adapt some of the more intriguey PFS scenarios, but alter them to fit your plot. It will give them a look at the machinations of the BBEG while leveling them up. You could also adapt other prewritten adventures, but PFS has the advantage of volume.
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One idea if he is not intentionally evil and is only causing harm by accident (or against his will):
The Percival Rothmire Music Conservatory has a number of instruments that are family heirlooms of the Rothmire family. Rumor has it that these instruments could play themselves during Percival's time, although they stopped long ago. Within the last few days they have started playing again late at night when the conservatory is closed. Everybody who has investigated so far has been killed. As the PCs look into this, they learn that the instruments are actually animated objects, and the instruments have begun playing again now that Percival has returned. Only, with Percival an abomination, the instruments have started acting strangely, and now they attack anyone who observes them playing. Animated objects have a CR based on their size. A violin might be a CR2, a cello a CR3, and a grand piano a CR5. A set of pipe organs could be CR7 to CR9 if you really want to challenge the PCs.
Destroying the Rothmire family heirlooms might cause Percival to lose another piece of his humanity.
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Hmm. If I were a vampire bard living in the city, I would start a band, call it children of the night, with all the live performances going throughout the city at night, where the pyrotechnics are at their best. Buy myself a farmstead with someone to look after the animals - if you have enough cows, daily blood drain shouldn't kill any cows.
Alternatively, he could teach in the music conservatory and pull strings with the wealthy, tell a fancy tale on how some murderhobos have a serious grudge against him, and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the city. Presumably, the wealthy will take their own steps, I.e stopping the players from going anywhere near the city, unless they have someone to vouch for them, which lets the captain of the guard send them on more quests. Also, the wealthy may send assasins after the PCs (rival party time!), you can use this opportunity to give PCs gear you think they may need, else you need to watch WBL.
I think option 2 is better. If you want to do more Professor Moriaty things I think you need to add some evil bones to Percival.
Drawing from Jasque, maybe Percival has visited the sites of his childhood in the city, and because of his vampireness, things are going wrong in weird ways. Maybe a dog in an abandoned barn has turned into a warg. The cemetry where is gravestone is is sprouting undead etc.
I personally think he's a character I can sympathise with, if I knew his entire backstory.
Must get for vampires trying to walk around in the day. Sun screen
You seem to want to incorporate Rothmire's Conservatory into the plot, but I forsee a problem: if it's a school named in his honor, won't that be the first place the players look?
Here's my proposal: one of the student's of this conservatory has a servant with family from the small town. The servant visit's the town, and Rothmire learns of their presence when he recognizes some emblem/crest that the servant has with them. Out of interest or foresight, he learns their master's address.
Many weeks/months later, when the PCs begin to figure him out, he transforms into a dire bat, and moves his coffin and favored belongings under the cover of night to a nearby cave. He then destroys his old lair, and frog hops night after night to the city. Once within an hour's flight from city walls, he goes and spys on the wealthy family. Either through charm or domination, he gains permission to enter the house, and later returns and sets himself up in a dark corner of the family's catacombs.
From there:
- The PCs will undoubtedly check the Conservatory first. Their presence will create a bit of a splash unless they are very careful, and Rothmire will learn of their presence through his spying on wealthy family for news. He may start taking action to counteract them, either hiring from the shady elements of the city, or summoning creatures to attack them, or even implicating them as unlucky/cursed/etc.
- Some how, Rothmire will need to feed. He can either gain sustenance from the family,or else feed on beggars from the street. My recommendation would be the latter: this would eventually allow him to butt heads with the criminal underworld of your city, which in turn give him more direct access to various thugs and assasains to deal with the PCs once he drives off/kills the local crimelords.
- If Rothmire doesn't yet know why he's a vampire, he may investigate his living relatives. If there is anyone to blame for his current affliction in his own family, he may cause them grief or even turn them into vampires out of spite and rage.
- Of course Rothmire would want to experience music again. So he will likely visit the conservatory for their evening performances. Perhaps he watches in the rafters. He may even begin to favor some of the artists, and become their ruthless patron, bringing about death and destruction for their rivals without their knowledge.
Also, I think you are going to be hard pressed to have a valid way of him operating in the open, even at night, as the general lack of magic would make it hard to hide that he's missing a shadow.
Yes of course I have a shadow. It just happens to stop following me if you distract me badly enough. Even at a really high Charisma score, maintaining concentration for the literal hours necessary would, while possible, would not be reliable enough. After all, spells are only recharging once every 10 days, and even a Cha of 26 would only allow 5 3rd level slots at 9th level. Now, maybe you could give him a magic item that creates an illusory shadow, but that's a bit pricey for a game with only 1/10 the usual wealth (even at 11th level, when it might be reasonable to confront him, the players will only have around 8,200 gold each.) After all, we've not even considered the price of sunscreen yet!
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Hmm. What if you commanded an actual shadow to be your shadow(just steal a command undead from wizard spell list, and find and catch a shadow). There's an archtype Dirge Bard that seems pretty appropriate for Percival.
Also, remember undetectable alignment for both Percival and his shadow, or the pally's detect evil will sniff them out.
I thought it was amusing for the players to go to the Music Conservatory first. Maybe they're having a Halloween party where everyone dresses as monsters, it'd be quite interesting to see what the adventurers do at the party, do they stab the first guy they see in a vampire costume?
Percival could be at the party as well - but maybe dressed as a hag or something else. Let the showdown take place at the Conservatory, but only after they have found fragments of his past.
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Thanks for all the ideas folks. It has helped get my creative juices flowing again. How's this...
For the next several weeks, Percival will lay low, feeding off beggars and outcasts - but fighting the hunger enough not to kill them (hopefully). Using his Dominate power, he will start setting up a network of a dozen or so "Associates" who can run errands and do his bidding. He will be able to do this without drawing attention to himself and remain hidden from the suspecting PCs.
However, there is his love of music and in a thriving city, there are attractions such as concerts and symphonies that he simply must attend. The PCs catch a glimpse of him at the coming symphony "The Crown of Wintermist"? When spotted, a chase ensues behind the scenes and up in the catwalks while the orchestra is playing below. Fighting with some of his associates & their hired friends.
In the end, Percy and his associates escape leaving the PCs possibly having to explain what they were doing back stage fighting with the stage crew. The authorities will not believe their story about things of myth and legend, like vampires. Kind of a Phantom of the Opera feel.
The PCs earn extra XPs for not interrupting the symphony or killing any of the charmed back stage crew.
A couple of days later, the Conservatory contacts the PCs inquiring about their activities at the symphony (they were spotted). If the PCs come clean, the Rothmire family hires them to investigate the theft of a magical violin, which can create illusions once per day (Minor Image: Bard-2).
Secretly, the Rothmire family knows that Percival was cursed as a vampire and that he is back in the city (he was seen too). If such knowledge gets out, the damage to the family name would be devastating. Therefore, the family has hired Father Joseph, a priest of Pharasma & skilled Undead Hunter, to find Percival and lay him to rest. Father Joseph allows the PCs to bungle along, using them as bait to lure Percival out.
I'm thinking Father Joseph ends up getting killed by Percival and all the priest's "Tools of the Trade" fall to the PCs to continue their search. The PCs may or may not learn that they were being used as bait by the Rothmire family.
Comments?
... Also, remember undetectable alignment for both Percival and his shadow, or the pally's detect evil will sniff them out.
The Fighter isn't a Paladin - He just wants to be but he doesn't think he is worthy due to his gambling addiction. So, no Detect Evil.
I thought it was amusing for the players to go to the Music Conservatory first. Maybe they're having a Halloween party where everyone dresses as monsters, it'd be quite interesting to see what the adventurers do at the party, do they stab the first guy they see in a vampire costume?
Percival could be at the party as well - but maybe dressed as a hag or something else. Let the showdown take place at the Conservatory, but only after they have found fragments of his past.
I love the Costume Party Idea - I think I will combine that with the Crown of Wintermist symphony. Excellent Idea - Thank you!
Sorry, but it seems silly that he would show up (probably with no shadow and no reliable way of avoiding an inevitable mirror/reflective surface) to a place with his name plastered on the wall when he knows he's being chased. Not only that, but he's going to stand in a group of people most likely to recognize his face (should it be revealed). What's more, he's struggling to keep from going all murdery, and it's questionable if he can remain in control and not do something foolish. He stands to lose a lot, and gains nothing: hardly the qualities of Moriarty. Your players are still at least four levels removed from even considering confronting this guy directly: please don't needlessly rush the plot with such a great villain.
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Mirrors don't pop up everywhere. Nor reflective surfaces. Just don't go to a restroom. Besides, if there's a really WILD party going on, there will all those blinking coloured lights and music that you'd be hard pressed to notice things like a lack of a shadow. The crowds should prevent people from getting too close to him.Should he get found out, need to do a disappearing act, the world is going to think its part of a special effect stunt. The "Oh man, did you see that guy vanish in a puff of smoke? That was so cool.", "We really need to find which apocathery he got the vanishing powder from", "Lets hire him for so-and-so's party as a conjurer" sort of thing.
I see anonymous warrior's point, but letting the players have a glimpse of him early is fine. Then there can be more side quests before the players confront him again.
The thing I'd like to point out is the good Father. Players should be the star of the show, so keeping NPC involvement minimal is best. Perhaps the good Father should be a ranger instead(favored enemy undead), lower lv then the party, but helpful to the party in some undead hunting expedition. Inquisitor is more fitting, but the detect alignment spells they get may spoil the game early.
When Percival comes for the Father, there can be a battle off screen in the rangers dwelling, and the party can find his body drained of blood/drained of life(depending on which ability of the vampire you wish to use).
Channel positive energy/searing light/cure spells doesn't leave good forensic material, but blood splashed on the wall and floors do. Maybe Percival was interrupted towards the end and failed to clear the site. Then in the house you can find the "tools of the trade". And a journal, of course.
Morairity has an E in his alignment. I personally think he's NE. Percival does not, from what has done, yet. It'd be ironic if in the name of self preservation, he became the monster that the party thought he was, at the start.
Sorry, but it seems silly that he would show up (probably with no shadow and no reliable way of avoiding an inevitable mirror/reflective surface) to a place with his name plastered on the wall when he knows he's being chased.
Disguise self and a huge bluff score makes him safe. And those 2 things are easy for a bard vampire