Nualia Victorious Advice [SPOILERS]

[Jhaeman]

After their encounter with Nualia, half the PCs are dead and the other half have fled back to Sandpoint for reinforcements. I could use a little advice on what to have Nualia do while they're away. I can think of a few options.

1) She goes for reinforcements herself. She is, quite literally, the only living thing left in Thistletop (except for Malfeshnikor and a hermit crab). I could have her try to recruit another goblin tribe to move into Thistletop and/or hire some more mercenaries from Magnimar.

2) She flees Thistletop and rejoins the Skinsaw Cult, and will be encountered sometime in Chapter 2 (a.k.a., what is supposed to happen if she gets knocked below 15 hit points). Nualia was barely scratched during the fight with the PCs, but given her total lack of allies and success in finding Malfeshnikor, and knowing that the adventurers will likely return, perhaps she decides not to risk staying on the island?

3) She stays on Thistletop by herself and keeps looking for Malfeshnikor. This is her ultimate goal. Should I give her some sort of Perception check each day to see if she ever finds the secret door? If she does find Malfeshnikor, she won't have any way to get him out, so it's a bit of a (unknowingly) futile gesture.

Anyway, advice would be appreciated. It's always tough to see the PCs fail, but I also don't want the bad guys to be cliched and just wait around for the good guys to try time and time again until they win.

[RuyanVe]

I opted for 2) in my game.

Nualia lost all her allies, most of her resources will be gone, too.
She's not stupid. Though she knows there's more to find underneath Thisteltop, she relied on her allies to help her and she certainly does anticipate the PCs return.

I think it's in her opportunistic nature to gather as many valuables and leave. Magnimar should give her plenty of possibilities to find new henchmen and information to return to Thistletop in strength--after the PCs returned, find it bereft of valuables and antagonists and have left again.

Spoiler:

In my game, she joined Mokmurian and will return during the attack in #4 having gained the half-fiend template and riding a red dragon.

Ruyan.

[Nathan Monson]

She probably wouldn't just say by herself; I would think she would gather reinforcements and return. Remember, her ultimate goal is to raze Sandpoint out of revenge, and as a burnt offering to fuel her transformation into a demon.

[the Lorax]

I went a bit different route - taking choice 3. for a couple of reasons.

Because...reasons:

1. Naulia is a bit touched and focused - and at this point she's willing to sacrifice quite a bit to get what she wants.
2. Naulia really has enough time to figger this one out, and she has been given visions to complete this mission by Lamashtu - in fact it would be great to have worked it out to have the PCs be the ones who found the secret door - did any of the PCs potentially survive, not killed outright?
3. My PCs failed to get her twice and took a week in between each attempt.

However I thought "why send Naulia to take this on if it is futile?"

Why Naulia?:

Looking at the Binding spell, I came up with an answer...

Regardless of the version of binding you cast, you can specify triggering conditions that end the spell and release the creature whenever they occur. These triggers can be as simple or elaborate as you desire, but the condition must be reasonable and have a likelihood of coming to pass. The conditions can be based on a creature's name, identity, or alignment, but otherwise must be based on observable actions or qualities.

So the answer had to be that Naulia, somehow fit the release trigger conditions.

So if Naulia gets out with Malfeshnekor, there's a few challenges

Now what for Naulia?:

Having Naulia beside Xanesha is probably signing up for a TPK, and Naulia is more a servant of Wrath than she is of Greed.

I considered what would Mal want to do once free and have kept Mal and Naulia a couple of steps ahead of the PCs.
-The two go to Xanesha, where Mal learns that Karzoug may be on the move in some way.
- They head to TBF where they are ultimately responsible for sinking the Paradise ahead of schedule, and throwing Lucy back up to Rannick with gross ogres.
- The move on to Jorgenfist where, well, I haven't decided yet, my thought is to either
a) use them in the Halls of Wrath, or
b) use them as an ersatz ally against Special K, or
c) use them as part of their own special side quest..

[RuyanVe]

While I agree to your ...reasons I think that (logically) there is not enough time for Nualia (curious: why do you keep writing Naulia?) to figure out all out

Spoiler:

plus going by the book she cannot beat the Perception check to notice the trigger for the pillars--no problem, I know, for a GM to fudge it.

She just lost all of her underlings and her sanctuary was breached. I can't imagine her going back to her task within the blink of an eye and not care for the PCs to return--which will be two-three days (hey [replacement character], you look trustworthy, let's go out adventuring...) if we're talking about the average player/group.
Having the PCs encounter Mal at their lvl in #1 is a TPK.

I agree that having her team up with X spells DOOOM(tm) for the PCs as well. Thus I opted for her return in #4. This provides her enough time and lets her gain new information/insight in a more organic way to release Mal after all, adding to the chaos.
She could use team Greed as a vehicle for her own goals and gives her the opportunity to stay true to her original goal (raze Sandpoint), IMO.

Ruyan.

[Yakman]

I think she would abandon Thistletop.

If she's the only one standing, it's a) a charnel house; b) indefensible. The PCs, or the angry townspeople, can come back and she won't have the goblin meatshields to keep them back. She's insane, but she's not stupid.

I dunno if she'd join up with the Skinsaw, but I can definitely see her showing up in Hook Mountain. Lucretia seems like a natural ally.

[the Lorax]

RuyanVe wrote:

While I agree to your ...reasons I think that (logically) there is not enough time for Nualia to figure out all out (curious: why do you keep writing Naulia?)

Ah, that's probably just part of my pervasive name changes - any name that I find does not come naturally to my mouth, I change to something, usually close. (Jakardros became Jakardos as well - things like that). "Naulia" felt more comfortable for me to speak, so "Naulia" it became.

And..:

...yeah, I guess looking at the version from the original printing, she can't make the perception check - I used a Inquisitor based version I saw somewhere as all the stat blocks printed in the original edition are a little off from Pathfinder rules. Everything from Skinsaw on I've been copying the text out of the PDFs and making new ones, eh, that's part of a different topic I suppose.

So I think it could be good if...

...there was some help:

Like a dying, but not yet dead PC (and one with a decent perception check) who could be questioned, "escape" be cornered in the secret door room and find the secret door, it would be the type of serendipity that fills her story.

RuyanVe wrote:

She just lost all of her underlings and her sanctuary was breached.

Fair, but I see her as someone who had kind of lost touch with reality and is obsessed with getting Mal out. I also assume that some of the "dead" arn't really dead unless the party was particularly thorough, and there is probably some goblins out hunting/scouting/spying, I gave some arbitrary number of reinforcements,I could look through my notes, but something like 1d4 a day or something - to say that "a few" more goblins were around should suffice.

RuyanVe wrote:

I agree that having her team up with X spells DOOOM(tm) for the PCs as well. Thus I opted for her return in #4. This provides her enough time and lets her gain new information/insight in a more organic way to release Mal after all, adding to the chaos.

She could use team Greed as a vehicle for her own goals and gives her the opportunity to stay true to her original goal (raze Sandpoint), IMO.

If it were just her, I would agree, and having her show up later is fine - she's the catalyst for the beginning of the campaign, seeing her end will be a nice bit of closure to that part of the campaign,

but Mal is in the picture:

and he's probably not too big on Karzoug after spending 10000 years in a tiny room as a prisoner. Regardless of weather or not he's her servant, his 18 Int/21 Cha put him in a good position to guide Nualia to do what he wants. And he very well may want much the same as what the PCs want - a dead Karzoug.

That's my take on it anyway after my PCs took over two weeks of attacking Thistletop. I can easily see alternatives.

One of my earlier thoughts right after Thistletop was this

alternate interpretation:

Xanesha is not a big Karzoug supporter, shes mainly giving lip service to the idea of it, and thus has appropriated proxies to do the actual "work" of marking and killing greedy souls. Xanesha is more of a Lamashtu follower, and Nualia is Xanesha's special project. If Xanesha got away, having Xanesha, Mal and Naulia link up could lead to a hell of a fight or competition throughout the Runeforge to spice up that part campaign. Xanesha almost got away in a very tense near TPK Skinsaw finale so that was out the window.