First and foremost! If you are playing this adventure path and named Kethne, Bloodtusk, Aden, Alden, Hinata, or Locke turn back now for the sake of your crunchy crunchy soul!
For those interested, I have been running the Savage Tide, converted to the Pathfinder rule set from 3.5 for a group of fellow Critical Role Critters. Most haven't ever played Pathfinder before and are working off of knowledge from 5e so it has been fun teaching the much crunchier system to those interested in trying it out!
On to the good stuff!
After fighting their way to freedom from the depths of the tunnels beneath Parrot Isle, they rest and recuperate as much as possible while setting to finding out what they can about this Lady of the Lotus, mentioned in Penkus' note. -Important Note: I changed the mention of the Taxidermist's Guildhall written in Penkus' last words to what he knew it by, the Stuffer's Hall. (I felt that the previous was kinda ham handed and obvious while calling it the Stuffer's Hall still is a good hint while allowing the players to explore the city and feel like I'm not just pushing them down the path.)
Soon afterwards, the cleric of Sarenrae finds in her pack the warning message from the Lotus, having not noticed it being placed in her pack as she was searching the various docks for ships named "Lady of the Lotus". She quickly found it disturbing and set out to gather her other allies, running across the city gathering everyone to inform them they may be in danger.
At this point it was late evening, and a few of the more 'enterprising' members of the guild decided to attempt to attack them on their way back to the Vanderboren estate, seeing the night to be their best chance. (Cue the attack by the rogues on the roof in the alley).
They found themselves facing 3 rogues and a 3rd level rogue/cleric of Norgerber, adding a bit more deity flavor and depth to the Lotus Dragon guild members.
After surviving the fight, many going unconscious or to very low digits, they tied up the last survivor, and started to interrogate him.
As they interrogated him, and based on what they said and their rolls, I found out that this particular brute was more afraid of the Lady of the Lotus than of what a few adventurers could do, so after answering a few vague questions he shut up.
The best part though, was when one of the PCs asked the best question I could have ever heard a player ask as they went through this portion of the adventure path....
"Is the Lady of the Lotus Lavinia Vanderboren?"
Absolute silence before everyone freaked the hell out, the level of minds being blown was out the roof, including my own! It was an amazing question that they realized that regardless of if she is or isn't will have really big complications depending on how they handle this level of doubt they just placed on themselves!
And as any good DM does, as they planned to confront Lavinia in as careful and sneaky manner as possible, I ended the session for the week there!
I just had to share this, it was the most awesome single question that turned everyone's viewpoint on a campaign I have ever run!
Nice. How did this turn out?