Rival adventurers

[Troodos]

I've been trying to figure out what ways I want to modify my Curse of the Crimson Throne game, and I had an idea. On page 35 of the hardcover, it talks about how Ileosa has declared that any trustworthy-seeming adventurers should be allowed to introduce themselves to the queen and be sent to Citadel Volshynek to assist the guard.

This made me think, it seems pretty unlikely that the PCs are the only group of adventurers who took this offer up. Which made me think: wouldn't it be fun to introduce a party of rival adventurers, perhaps with less noble intentions, working for the crown. I haven't quite figured out the specifics, but I definitely want to give the PCs a reason to hate these guys. Maybe they're greedy mercenaries, or fiercely loyal the the queen. Not necessarily evil, maybe even well-intentioned, but with a real enmity towards the PCs and vice versa, possibly leading to full-on battle later in the campaign.

What do you think? Any suggestions? Critiques? Assorted musings?

[Yakman]

Might make things interesting in books 4 and 5.

[Brandon Hodge]

You should definitely check out the Rival Guide, which has a chapter just for you!

[Skeld]

Back in the Dungeon Magazine days, they did this in the Savage Tide AP. There was a rival adventuring group that would show up periodically. You might check out how it was handled there.

-Skeld

[Inspectre]

I did something a little different, deciding that Kaer Maga needed a bit more fleshing out than the passing mention it gets in the AP. So during Book 3 I had an adventuring party from Kaer Maga in the city as the bodyguards of a delegate from Kaer Maga there to try to negotiate with Korvosa's new ruler. Since my party was a bunch of kinda shady folks (still are!), I set it up as a foil for them by making this "rival" adventuring party a bunch of do-gooders (including a paladin). If you know anything about Kaer Maga, this party was probably the only good folks living in that city, but that just made Kaer Maga's *actual* alignment that much more shocking when the party finally visited in Book 4!

Ultimately they made friends with the group, and when negotiations with Ileosa ultimately broke down and the Kaer Maga delegation had to flee the city, the party helped them out rather than taking up Ileosa's offer of a bounty for their heads. They've continued to hang out with this NPC party now that they're in Kaer Maga, and have gotten tangled up in various side quests alongside these NPCs. One PC is even romantically involved with the paladin now - it's a coin toss who will end up dying (again!) first of the two of them.