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I will admit some curiosity as to some other campaigns and their dealings with Nualia.
In my first Runelords campaign, Nualia kind of ended up unredeemed, her efforts to become a Half-Fiend succeeding just before her death (in a confrontation that ultimately resulted in the group becoming Mythic as the Runewell under Sandpoint unleashed a surge of power while the party was present).
But I know some other campaigns have included her redemption (including her marrying one of the PCs in at least one other campaign whose writeup I've seen).
What process did various groups go about in redeeming Nualia?
Has anyone tried integrating the Redemption rules that were introduced in WotR? And if so, how did they work?
I mean, my interpretation of Nualia is that she went mad. Giving birth to a deformed monstrous child (which was a stillbirth), her treatment by her adoptive father, the poor treatment she received from the townsfolk... these ate away at her sanity until finally she flipped. And that madness continues to drive her.
Look at what she's done. She murdered her first lover, the youth who got her pregnant and then blamed her when she became pregnant and ran away. That didn't make things any better. She murdered her adoptive father after waking from a coma in which she'd been tormented by Lamashtu... and then burns his corpse in an attempt to sever her ties. And yet it wasn't enough.
Now she wants to destroy Sandpoint. But I don't get the feeling she wants it to burn. Instead, she seeks an ancient monster to lead her goblins to conquer it... and undoubtedly take further revenge on each person who persecuted her or made her feel like a freak... torment them in turn.
She's not a well girl. Even Tsuto is realizing this, and he's a broken bird as well.
So. How do you go about healing and redeeming someone like that? Especially as I'm not sure she WANTS redemption.
What spark could the players encourage to lead Nualia down that path... until finally she made peace with herself and with others?
How did your groups travel this path?
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Didn't use the redemption rules, but here goes...
As you know, I'm merging some of the Shattered Star books in with my Rise Campaign - this is basically how I handled Nualia:
During the climactic battle, I ruled that if a PC confirmed a critical hit, he would sever her demonic arm, leaving her without that attack and shaken. The Paladin did crit and it was enough to knock Nualia unconscious - certain NPC's had expressed a desire to see Nualia redeemed if possible (Father Zantus and Ameiko) and sense the Paladin was a follower of Sarenrae, they took her back with them to Sandpoint.
After losing her arm, I had Nualia fall into a coma from which Zantus could not awaken her. Instead he looked after her in the Sandpoint jail, visiting her daily. The mayor wanted Magnimar to have her tried for her crimes, but Magnimar would not try her until she was conscious once again and took the attitude that if the issue could be 'resolved locally' in the meantime...
At any rate, Nualia remained comatose all through the Skinsaw Murders with the players wondering what would happen with her. When they returned to Sandpoint after defeating Ironbriar and seeing Xaneasha escape, they were greeted with the news that Nualia had awoken. They spoke with her then, getting much of her backstory between the burning of the church and her arrival at Thistletop. At this pint I ran her as a nihilist who knew she would be executed and figured it was what she deserved - almost looked forward to it after the life she had led. Too, she wanted nothing to do with the Gods, feeling that she had been their pawn for good or ill all her life.
The PC's weren't sure what to do until I had the Paladin receive a vision from his goddess of his hand and Nualia's clasping one another in alliance - Nualia's missing hand, in fact. So, following that vision they concocted a plan to 'rescue her' on the road between Sandpoint and Magnimar as she was being taken back for her trial - they managed to do so in a way that left none of the guards dead and had them thinking it was remainders of Nualia's cohorts whom were responsible. Instead, they snuck her into Magnimar and brought her back to Foxglove's Townhouse before contacting Sheila Heidmarch to tell her what they had done. Needless to say she was not pleased.
Sheila kept them in hiding for a few days until she was able to arrange passage aboard ship out of Magnimar - passage to the Curse of the Lady's Light where her research suggested another Shard might be found. Nualia joined them, but remained fatalistic and resistant to the idea of redemption. While under the Light, during a furious battle against Ghouls coming out of the water, trying to upend their boats, Nualia had a chance to sacrifice herself for one of the PC's, saving them, and as a result was drug down into the depths and torn apart. The PC's grieved but continued on, going so far as to recover what remains of her they could - the Paladin keeping her silver braid in the hope of one day seeing her resurrected.
After the final confrontation in the Lady's Light, the group retreated back to Maroux's hut to recover... and in the middle of the night the door was thrown open, a beautiful dark-haired woman wrapped only in a cloak stumbled inside, whispering 'help me' before collapsing - Nualia had been reborn into Sorshen's clone as a result of the trap they had encountered in the Light. The group was suspicious at first, especially the Grey Maiden Oriana whom had been kept prisoner by a succubus wearing that same form for weeks. Eventually all but Oriana came to trust her and Nualia seemed truly reborn, reveling in her new body and her second chance - she still wanted nothing to do with the Gods but learned to be a Magus, finding a strong (but not surprising) aptitude for arcane magic.
From there the group would go on to Korvosa for a modified version of Seven Days to the Grave from CotCT, following clues left behind by Ironbriar's journal and tracking Xaneasha. In our campaign they just arrived, but my plan is for Oriana's mistrust of her to gradually wane, and by the time the chapter ends for she and Nualia to be a couple (in my campaign Nualia was involved with Lyrie while Tsuto lusted after his half-sister Ameiko instead). The group will leave them in Korvosa, with them working together against the Queen whom they believe has become influenced by a waking Sorshen, while the PC's head north for The Hook Mountain Massacre. The next time they see her will be when they go to defend Sandpoint from the Giant's raid in a very cool scenario I've written called 'A Gathering of Eagles'.
Sorry, I know that was long-winded, but Nualia has really become a great NPC in my campaign.
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I wrote up some diaries of hers and had tried to drop some pretty strong hints to what was her main issue with the world. That is, her celestial "taint" and how she has been treated because of it. While it never seemed likely to me that would be redeemed, I figured it was possible. For that to happen, she would in the least have to find a way to let go of her self-loathing.
Pretty early in the campaign, when PCs talked with experienced NPCs (like Shalelu) about life and death and such, I pitched the fact that Reincarnate might be the only raise spell available in Sandpoint. It's an interesting spell, so it became a regular talk around the table. Eventually, I figured a reincarnation for Nualia might be a good first step if she would ever be redeemed.
My group, however, did not come to the same conclusion. Which is perfectly understandable. She was b*$*~!@ crazy and murderous, a chosen of the Demon Queen, allying with goblins and demons and plotting to release a horde of evil outsiders (and another evil outsider) upon Sandpoint, after harassing the place with goblins and murders in the glassworks. Her plans were wicked and unredeemable in their eyes.
They executed her and burned her on a pile at Thistletop. They also decided to not let the common people of Sandpoint know that Nualia was the one behind the festival raid, because they figured the town was better off not knowing, after reading Nualia's diaries. I think their choices made sense.
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In my group, one of the players was a Cleric of Shelyn, tutored by Nualia's real mother. She had to give up the babe to protect her from certain demonic influences with connections to Karzoug (she was a guardian against the Runelords herself, long story).
After defeating her, the cleric convinced Nualia, that her real mother had still loved her, and that she was serving the very enemy her mother sought to keep at bay (though he thought that it was some ancient demon, his master died before she could reveal the secrets of the Runelords to him).
Nualia herself formed a small group of her own, trying to sabotage Karzoug however possible, and even defended Sandpoint during the raid. The group included several other villains redeemed by the PCs, among them Orik, a stone giant, a lamia and a skinsaw cultist.
After the defeat of Karzoug, Nualia lived as a hermit, before joining the caravan in Jade Regent, trying to make amends with Ameiko for luring her brother down a dark path. She was partly responsible for
In the end she joined a samurai order, at the command of the new empress of Minkai.
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I ran my most recent run through with one of the members playing Nualia's slightly older half brother from Magnimar. He was raised by his father, but neither of them knew about Nualia until she was abandoned to be raised by the local Sandpoint Church. They checked on her once, and she seemed happy and well cared for, so he left her there knowing that his adventuring lifestyle would be bad for a young girl like her. Not long after, their father passed away, and the PC was left to care for himself, eventually becoming an investigator in the Magnimar watch.
So, needless to say, after finding out about her journals, he was dead set on saving her.
When they got to Nualia, she was holed up in her room with her Yeth Hound, and Bruthazmus was outside, using a statue as cover while firing his bow at the party. What followed was an all out cluster flop that had the whole group spread out over her room and the hall way with the trap in it. Three players went down out of five, two were brought back up, and then two more went down. Everyone was at deaths door, and Nualia was barely wounded because her half brother was attempting every social skill he had trying to convince, cajole, or intimidate her into giving up her evil ways. Finally, he tells her that he loves her and trusts her and he turns his back to her to save his last remaining friend from her yeth hound. I roll a secret final diplomacy check for him. Then I describe how she lets out a rage filled roar, raises her bastard sword and stands there for a moment, her shadow played out on the wall where he can see... then she brings it down on the yeth hounds skull killing it. He rolled like a modified 35. She then backed away from him as he tried to hug her, waving her sword around, foaming at the mouth, and glancing around with wild eyes like a trapped animal. Then she swings her sword in a wide one handed arc... and CHOPS OFF HER OWN DEMON ARM. Then she passed out, leaving him with the party healer surrounded by the unconscious bodies of their 3 friends and his sister and three of them are bleeding out with a combined 5 hit points between them and perma death. That's how close that fight ended up.
The rest of the redemption has not happened yet. We took a break on the game so that I could play for a while, but we will be picking it up again soon in a month or two. Still not sure how I want to play it, but I think it might involve Habbe's :)
Awesome stuff!
That one sounds terrific! Do you have a campaign journal?
No, sadly, I don't. I am not very good at keeping up with writing journals. :(
One thing that is going to differ for this time around is that one of my players is running an aasimar bard who grew up in Sandpoint but whose dad had been protective toward her. My plans are that Nualia will be the unknown half-sister of the bard (the father never knew though after his two daughters showed signs of being aasimar, he suspected) and knows this (thus during the confrontation, she will do the whole Darth Vader routine only with "I am your Sister!").
This will provide a hook from which redemption (or a fall!) could happen. But I'm not exactly sure yet how it will play out... or how to go about and have a redemption story for Nualia. It hopefully will play out differently than with my first group though! :)
Well, things will be even more fun. =^-^=
The aasimar player decided with the Background building to have a secret regret... of neglect toward Nualia. She didn't step forward and tell people to stop mistreating the older girl because she was able to hide her aasimar trait (she has emerald eyes, rather than silvery hair like Nualia). And she did it partly because of her family - she didn't want to draw her family into any conflict concerning Nualia or how people treated her.
So we already have a sense of guilt developed concerning Nualia's fate. The revelation of what happened? Well, I could easily see the players choose to try and save Nualia even before the revelation in Thistletop as to Nualia's relation to the aasimar bard. :)
This should be fun! =^-^=
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It took a while to figure out but I imagine that there are two conclusions that Nualia must come to realize IN HER OWN TIME, that could lead to her redemption.
1) Lamashtu doesn't truly care for or love her. (Driven further home by the realization that Lamashtu particularly delights in corrupting aasimars and other good aligned outsiders and outsider-kin, meaning JUST LIKE EVERYONE IN SANDPOINT, Lamashtu cared more about WHAT she was than WHO she was).
2) There are people that care for her and don't want her dead and don't want to use her as a pawn. (at the moment there's really only one she could see, the party's oracle)
I'm planning on having her realize #1 at the end of her second fight with the party. When she hits about 10 HP or less, Lamashtu will decide to focus on her more competent servants (the lamia priestesses and the Scribbler) and abandon Nualia, leaving her without her clerical abilities.
The cinematics of this event I'm planing on using involve her scar burning brightly (red or black idk which) and her holy symbol shattering. I'm debating having her Mark of Lamashtu heal over (which I'm iffy about because it smacks of the beauty equals goodness trope) and something happening to her demon arm (either it is struck from her in a spear of magical light from Lamashtu herself or simply shrivels and dies reducing her str and doing some con dmg).
I keep hearing that Lamashtu enjoys corrupting aasimar... but I've not seen anything that shows that. Where is it listed that Lamashtu gets her kicks out of corrupting aasimar?
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Lamashtu in general gets kicks out of corrupting things :P
Anyhoo, I see Nualia as someone who has pretty much gone no point of return and is mad with wrath. For her to be redeemed, something shocking would have to happen to change the situation.
BTW, Reincarnation can be refused just like how Raise Dead can .-. So Nualia in that version accepted party's attempt to bring her back to life? Why?