Starting with HMM after Xanesha-TPK

[Daniel Kre]

Hey guys, the next thread of me.^^

My group TPK'd fighting Xanesha. Everyone wants to continue so I have to find a way to start with Hook Mountain Massacre with a brand new group.

Spoiler:

The party captured Ironbriar, killed 10 of the cultists in the mill and burnt it down. The held the justice in the mansion of one of the now dead PCs.
So Ironbriar is missing in the city and there will be a search for him.

Then the party tries to finish Xanesha after taking down every cultist in the city except the two or three that escaped from the windmill. Xanesha kills them though.

Noone noticed that fight so Xanesha could still hide in the clocktower. 2 days later, she killed the Lordmayor in his own house (the gardenthing).

Even more days later, the citywatch finds the party dead somewhere (in the place where Xanesha put the corpses). The watch gets suspicious and searches the mansion of the now dead PC. In the mansion they find Ironbriar almost starved.

Then, Ironbriar succeeds in putting the blame of the murders on the PCs. The party, although they are dead already, are now guilty for the starmurders (that's what I call them) and the sawmill massacre. They go down in history as one of the biggest and most successful murderers in Magnimar.

Xanesha then leaves Magnimar because with the murder of the Lordmayor she is done in Magnimar. I think she will go to her sister in TurtlebackFerry and join her or something like this.

Meanwhile, Aldern Fingerhut, who survived, chills and is still licking his wounds in the surroundings of Sandpoint. I plan his comeback in another adventure. Maybe FotSS.

So that's what I plan to happen after the PCs die.

Now to the new PC's:

Two of them are close friends. One is a satyr bard, the other one is a dwarven cleric of Cayden Cailean. Both come from a small village in Varisia (not named yet, basically I can decide what village this is), and now they are travelling around, singing and drinking and fulfilling their sexual needs.
The third PC is an Aasimar Paladin who comes from Magnimar (or a similar city), he is son of a smithy.
One player has not decided yet.

So these are not very detailled backstorys yet. But that's actually better because I have more freedom in planning how to start the next adventure or maybe even contuining in the Skinsaw Murders although I do not exactly know how to do that.

So maybe you have some ideas how to start the next session? Im just looking for some ideas or for some inspiration. Thank you.

[HellFire442]

The Mayor of Magnimar has a problem. He hasn't heard from the Black Arrows recently and he needs someone to look into it. Of course, he doesn't want to send any of his own men because the journey is long and the Black Arrows are not completely trusted. Sending his own men would decrease his power base in Magnimar.

Instead, he reaches out to the lesser noble families and offers them an opporunity to gain some renown (assuming something is wrong. It could just be a messenger mission.)

The Deverin's, Valdemars, Kaijitsus, and Scarnetti's all have family memebers in Magnimar. Pick your favorite and have the family hire on the PCs to complete the task for the mayor. When the PCs return triumphant have the family introduce them to the Sandpoint part of the family and be offered a feast in Sandpoint. Ideally they build some connections and get some small jobs/appointments as part of their reward to help tie them to Sandpoint. (these PCs have no ties to Belor, maybe make one of them Sheriff while Belor attends to some other duties?)

[WormysQueue]

With this backstory, I can imagine that Ironbriar gains a lot of popularity as the only survivor of the starmurders, and as the office of Lord-mayor is vacant, this popularity may make him just the prime candidate for the job. From this thought I see two possibilities:

1. Ironbriar, now released from Xanesha's charm monster spell, now seeks revenge against the lamia, and hires a new group of heroes to go after her. He may know about her sister and hides his plan behind the mission to look after the Black Arrow problem.

2.the Norgorber cult isn't too fond about Ironbriar being charmed by Xanesha and may set a group of adventurers on a path to redeem the first group falsely accused as being the starmurders. Let them investigate, find out about Ironbriars involvement and confront him.That may give the PCs all the information to go after Xanesha and probably may earn them enough renown with the Powers that be in Magnimar to send them to Fort Rannick.

[Bellona]

Xanesha does not get along with Lucrecia. If Xanesha has "finished her mission" in Magnimar, then I think that she will either join M. in Book 4 or K. in Book 6. (Suitably levelled-up, of course.)

Maybe the new characters are actually hired by the Sandpoint nobles, or even come from Sandpoint originally (but were not present for Books 1 and 2 because they were off doing something elsewhere in Varisia). Sandpoint's authorities want to redeem their own reputation - after all, they apparently put their trust in a gang of murderers - so either the new party is asked to investigate the doings of the previous one, or simply to support Sandpoint/Magnimar relations by helping the new Lord-Mayor with the Black Arrow problem.

[WormysQueue]

Bellona wrote:

Xanesha does not get along with Lucrecia.

Is this in the books (it's quite some time since I've read them, so' I can't remember)?

Doesn't matter though because as long as you set them on the Way to Fort Rannick (and they follow the plot), they'll eventually meet her again, no matter where you put her.

[Latrecis]

A handful of thoughts, all of which should probably be in a spoiler.

Spoiler:

Xanesha is a rival of her sister. So she is unwilling to rejoin Lucretia from a position of failure. If Xanesha's mission in Magnimar is a success, she'd more than happily rejoin her sister to brag about it. Warning: the two of them together is likely another TPK in the making.

Also Xanesha's mission in Magnimar is not complete. She wasn't there to get the mayor - she's there to harvest greed; greed, which Karzoug still needs. He won't have enough until the end of Book 4. (The AP is ambiguous on this point but more souls are needed even if the mayor goes down.) I would think given that Ironbriar (who's still charmed unless I missed it) has miraculously been spared, the two of them would continue their greed harvesting, while Ironbriar tries to rebuild his cult.

I suggest you consider getting them attached to Sandpoint (as suggested by Bellona.) In the AP as written, the pc's can leave Magnimar after Book 2 and never return. But they need to go back to Sandpoint at the beginning of Books 4 and 5. (An argument could be made for Book 6 as well.) So if their origins are Magnimar-centric and they are hired by someone in Magnimar for Book 3, it may be a challenge to get them to the future plot hooks.

You could have the next group hired by the Mayor of Sandpoint. Her last group of heroes came to a bad end and in a way that does not make sense to her.

Based on the background above, Aldern is still on the loose. No reason he hasn't continued to make sacrifices and create more ghouls. He could be the new pc's first mission for Sandpoint - find him and stop the ghouls running amok in the Sandpoint hinterlands. Perhaps the group finds more instructions from Xanesha on him, leading them to her. Given the mayor is dead, Magnimar's government is reeling - it'll be some time before anyone has mindshare for the problems of Turtleback Ferry or the Black Arrows. Time for another group of pc's to earn the trust needed to be given the mission.

Oh, and if they spend time in Sandpoint, you have a chance to introduce Shalelu, who is not a critical path item for Book 3 but makes it more interesting given her ties to one of the Black Arrows.

[Daniel Kre]

Oh, I love this guys. Thanks a lot. I'll let you know what I'm exactly going to do.