The Traitor Escapes (Book 3 spoilers)

[Meangarr]

Spoilers for Book 3: The Hook Mountain Massacre

While under suspicion of betraying the Black Arrows a poorly guarded Kaven escaped from the party's custody in Turtleback Ferry. Per page 145 of the Anniversary Edition of RotR Kaven will flee to Fort Rannick to try to reunite with Lucrecia. While the party is in hot pursuit his lead on them is such that, barring some magical intervention that I can't foresee, he'll make it to Lucrecia in time to warn her and she'll flee with him to Hook Mountain.

All of this makes sense to me logically, and I've already come up with an encounter to replace Lucrecia, but I'm worried about unforeseen consequences that might arise from Lucrecia's absence. I figured that she would have left the scroll listing the Paradise customers behind in her haste, but is there any other information the party will miss if she isn't there in person? Am I better off running the encounter as written, maybe just with Kaven on hand to help Lucrecia in battle? Should I fudge things to give the party a chance to catch Kaven?

Any advice or input is greatly appreciated.

[Latrecis]

The following is how I interpret Lucretia's motivations which may or may not be supported by explicit quotable text. FYI: The Anniversary Edition is the only version of Book 3 I've read so if there are differences...

I am assuming based on your description that the pc's have not yet visited Rannick and returned to Turtleback Ferry after rescuing the Black Arrows from the Grauls.

Lucretia doesn't really enjoy the company of the ogres or Barl for that matter, she puts up with them - she stays at the Fort - to keep them focused on her mission: destroying the dam and harvesting greed for Karzoug. So she isn't going to leave unless the peril is high and a handful of fools who managed to rescue a few Black Arrows from some hillbilly ogrekin and couldn't even keep Kevan in custody are not intimidating enough to chase her off. Unless they come to Rannick and make clear they are a real threat.

In my view, she would keep Kevan handy (she doesn't value him either - he's just another mouse she's toying with) and stay to rally the ogres and deal with the pc's who might be a threat to her plans. She'll happily sacrifice all the ogres to take out the pc's - she wants that dam down and doesn't care who has to die to make it happen. Including Kevan.

[mousmous]

Another use for Kaven that gives the party a shot at getting him) is to have him act as messenger between Skull's Crossing and Lucretia. Building off of what Latrecis posted, the only missing piece of the puzzle for Lucretia that keeps her at Rannick is waiting for the dam to break. She hasn't heard of any progress and could probably use a report. Who better to send- a brute of an ogre, or her little besotted pet?

[Meangarr]

Thanks for the ideas, my players will probably scout the Fort for a few days so that should give them a few chances to catch him and interrogating him will let me foreshadow Lucretia more than I've been able to so far.

I guess my one concern is that they will learn about the plan and bypass the fort to deal with the dam. The flood scene sounds like something my players will enjoy. I could just have the flood start as soon as they head toward the dam but that seems like some pretty severe railroading.

[Kalshane]

I had Lucretia stay put and she had Kevan at her side when they encountered her at Fort Rannick. As others have said, Lucretia isn't likely to abandon her plans until the PCs have directly proven to be a threat.

I completely re-did the flood sequence and had the PCs encounter Black Magga fighting Lucretia's ogre crew at the dam, with the dam obviously straining under Magga's weight. It then became a race to drive her back into the lake before she broke the dam rather than her fighting them in Turtleback Ferry for an arbitrary number of rounds before getting bored and leaving.