Ok gang, here's a long story with a concern at the end, submitted for your opinions. It details my groups travails through Thistletop, and the possibilities awaiting them when they get back. It starts off dry (because I think I'm going to do something short), but I eventually realize I need some more detail.
The party invades the mainland portion of Thistletop, they tangle with Gogmurt first and after coming to a stalemate with him, they parlay and gain unmolested passage over the bridge. Gogmurt does alert Ripnugget, though, and the party finds the island on alert. They wait for the patrol of commandos to head out of sight and assault the main door. This fight finishes quickly, and the tower reinforcements are intimidated into telling the party where to find Ripnugget. Large battle ensues with the end result that all gobs on the top level minus 1 warrior and the four commandos on patrol escape back across the bridge to Gogmurt and the refugees, slashing the bridge behind them. The party, unaware that they've effectively cleared the first level in one battle, decide they need to heal and rest in Ripnugget's chambers, taking great precautions to protect themselves.
Meanwhile, the group on level 2 are curious why gobs aren't underfoot all of a sudden, and send an invisible Lyrie up to investigate. She sees the carnage, and doesn't bother looking for the party due to her cowardly nature- she heads straight back down and she, Bruthasmus, Orin and Tsuto give Nualia the bad news. Not knowing about Tsuto's journal, Nualia is unconcerned by a threat, figuring that the party came to kill goblins, did, and left. Lyrie et al are a little more cautious and retreat behind the secret door to the third level, expecting there to be looting of the 2nd before the party leaves, and thinking they'll miss the now closed secret door.
Thus the party gets a completely safe night in a hostile dungeon. Amazing. They start out the second day by immediately finding the well-used secret door and _completely skipping the second level_ (which still had the tentamort and two yeth hounds waiting for them). The party hears furious whispering behind the first door on the third level where Lyrie et al are arguing about how to defend themselves now that they're trapped. Epic battle ensues, Nualia joins the fight after two of the anti-party have fallen, but she tries to trick them into springing the hall trap and so doesn't join the fight fully. In this way the party mows down a formidable group of villains.
They take another night in Nualia's observation room before exploring further, and two nights to recover from the shadows on the 3rd level, but they don't figure out the secret door on the 3rd level yet. So they head back to the 2nd level and clear it out. So they are on their 6th day in Thistletop and just opened the secret door on the 3rd level thanks to a detection spell. that's where we left off.
Here's where I am curious what the board thinks: because the party has taken so long on Thistletop without sending word back to town, the mayor sent to Shalelu to track them down and see if the threat is still there. Now our group consists of 8 players total- HOWEVER- only 5 show up. It's a long story, but the short version is that the 3 that don't show are, ironically, the 3 that convinced me I had to run a game, and they assure me they intend to play if they can only 'get their work schedules to align with the game'. So I keep them in the email loop and their characters are npcs heroes that also fought in the first raid, but the current group didn't see them, yadda yadda. There's a one-sided rivalry going on and a running joke about this situation with "The Others". But it's fun to work this side relationship of another party in the town in to the larger story. So I completed them with a paladin (who happens to be one player's back-up character) and have this phantom party that does stuff behind the scenes.
In this instance, prudent Shalalu decides that she'd rather not go by herself to a place that may have wiped out a group that she respects, and takes The Others with her to investigate the party's potential demise at Thistletop. When she gets there, she steals in to the mainland thicket only to discover it completely empty and the bridge to the island gone. Fearful that she's too late and troops are on the move, she looks for tracks and this removes her fear- she sees that the party made it onto the island, but see no large troop movement coming off, only the 6 remaining Thistletop gobs and the refugees leaving. So she and the Others track the gobs to the Licktoad tribe, and see that there really is no longer a threat to Sandpoint.
She decides to head back to Thistletop and find out the party's fate, but thinking the danger is gone, dispatches the Others back to Sandpoint to tell mayor Deverin the good news. She will meet the party on the road back, but that's not important. What's important is that the Others _may_ have framed the news in such a way as to imply that the party died, and their bodies weren't recovered, and that the Others were the ones to thwart the impending goblin attack. The mayor, the sheriff, and Ameiko have seen Tsuto's journal, so they have reason to believe that Nualia's still alive, but they don't know anything about what she's doing on Thistletop, so a mundane larger attack is a logical conclusion to the Others' story.
So when the party makes it back to town, everyone will be pleasantly surprised to see them still alive, but confused over who it was that really stopped the goblin invasion. They're willing to believe the party, even though a demon and dead Nualia and some magical minions from below the town itself are all hard to swallow over 'a big goblin attack'. The only person who really thinks they are full of it and trying to steal glory back from the Others will be Titus Scarnetti. Everyone else will celebrate their favorite celebrities' return.
I worry that this turn of events might distance the party from the town. What do ye o' the boards think?
Well, from the townies point of view, it's all one big fish story after the other. Shelalu is the key here - her version will will make the difference to the mayor and sherrif, and EVENTUALLY that's the version that will become accepted. Until then, it's likely something like:
<drunken bar patron>"OK, got it, so you all faced down the demon mother of monsters, and you Others wiped out an army of hundreds of goblins...got it *cough*BS*cough*"
The Others will come out looking not so good - it could be fun to paint the Others as a potential red herring for the murderers at the start of Skinsaw.
While the events may blunt the common peoples connection and adulation to the parties, the core group should continue to have the support of the power structure of the town (the sherrif, mayor, non-Scarnetti nobles).
Haha- I'm very tempted to use that bar patron. I had plans to tie the Others to the Black Arrows eventually- maybe tarnishing their name in town (and using the false story about Thistletop will go a long way to making them a good red herring in Skinsaw) will lead there.
Thanks for the input! I see the value in making sure they know town leadership believes them completely and supports them, even if there's bar patron fun. I'll make sure to play that up!