RSS Facebook Twitter Email
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Adventure Path / Kingmaker

Kingmaker Clue

Kingmaker

Search Thread

Search this Thread:

OK .... I've got something coming up for my next session. In Courts of the Shadow Fey, my players doublecrossed the Black Prince, a powerful vilderavn who sword vengeance against their kingdom. He's doing a number of things to screw with them, Brevoy, Pitax, Mivon, and possibly Numeria.

Among other things, one of my players (the treasurer) is collaborating with me, and he's playing a Skin Stealer who took his character's skin and is now impersonating him. The player did an excellent job last session. The rest of the team doesn't suspect him yet (I think), but he used shenanigans to create unrest. My players went to investigate (they employed Dovan to do an Espionage Edict on themselves), and uncovered the culprit .... THE QUEEN'S BUTLER!! They went to investigate, and found the butler dead, his heart torn out, with a note from the Black Prince entreating them to try harder next time. (The Black Prince was impersonating the butler). Questioning the butler's body and reincarnating him didn't work, as the Prince's Rest Eternal ability interfered.

My players don't know it, but the Black Prince is also impersonating another of their advisors -- the NPC they most trust, actually, who (as heir) holds the kingdom's throne when they are away.

Now, my players know the Black Prince is out there. How do I truly mess with them next time? I want to make them really, really paranoid, AND I want them to want to find the Black Prince and/or the traitor among them. Any ideas for making this work?

I'm not really looking for in-world magic spells and illusions here. I'm looking for GM tricks and narrative bits I can use on them. Thoughts?

Use the Beldame witch to tell them that the best way to capture a traitor in your midst is to have another "traitor" seeking to undermine their authority, acting a lure/incentive for the real traitor to seek the "traitor" out to join forces in defeating/shaming the PCs.

Alternatively, the fey queen could send dreams to the kingdom leaders and give them clues as she wants to give them a sporting chance because it amuses her to see them try harder and fail.

Hm, I might have some other ideas later. Right now it's too cold and my fingers are freezing as I type this.

Cheers,

CB out.

For further messing with their minds, perhaps the Black Prince can charm one or more of their cohorts?

I remember from the novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, that the fey noble captured a few npcs by imprisoning them every night in his castle in the fey realm while they were asleep - their actions were real in the fey realm during that time so while it looked like they were sleeping/resting in the mortal world, they were fatigued when they woke up each day. The consequences of that was the slow draining of their lives, making them age faster and their health deteriorating the longer they were captives of the fey noble. This might be a tactic the Black Prince could use to inconvenience the PCs as he takes key NPC kingdom leaders away for nights of debauchery to amuse him and the other fey nobles in the court.

In my campaign, the Black Prince has finally manipulated House Lebeda and House Surtova in Brevoy to get the Regent King to become the actual King of Brevoy and will push the Regent King to start the civil war in earnest. Once Brevoy is under his control, via the charmed/dominated Regent King, the Black Prince will then have Brevoy attempt to annex the PC's kingdom (that should happen closer towards War of the River Kings so that my players will have the opportunities by then to have made as many allies as possible, including the chance to recruit King Irovetti, thus creating an Alliance capable of resisting the hostile takeover of Brevoy).

There are some more ways to mess with your players via the Black Prince, but it kind of helps to know what are the limits of their sensibilities. Can they handle the gory/mature themes? One of the ideas that I have is introducing the Laughing Man (a npc from the Scarred Lands setting) and his circus in the Hooktongue Slough area as a "gift" from the Black Prince to keep the PCs entertained. ;)

What else can we think of here?

Cheers!

CB out

First, the important stuff:

Lair:

He needs a place to hang his hat. I think that the old silver dragon lair in the east is good. It's not too far from Restov as the raven flies, and my players never did anything with the lair. In the alternative, I never used the Tiger Lord Barbarians. Maybe the Prince hooks up with them.

Minions:

So, I'm thinking that he should have a couple minions. Skin Stealers or doppelgangers who can help with the impersonations. Flocks of ravens to be spies.

And given that the Black Prince (at least IMC) also has a hunting motif, I'm thinking of a pack of lesser bandersnatches, maybe a full bandersnatch. Also considering nuckalavees and various flavors of wolf.

And now ...

The prince's dastardly plot:
Here's where I'm going so far: One of the PCs' most trusted advisors is Dame Yeana, a paladin of Erastil married to Akiros Ismort. She's also the heir to the kingdom. I'm thinking the Black Prince has replaced her and he's replaced a previously introduced NPC in Surtova's court, a delightful gnome named Telobere. I also figure he's got Akiros under a geaes not to say anything to anybody about his wife's sudden behavioral changes.

As I read your post, I realized I really like the idea of him ginning up war in Brevoy. But I think I'd like to put a twist on it. What if instead of Noleski Surtova coming after the players, he instead offers to ally with them?

More specifically, prodded or ensorceled by a disguised Black Prince, Noleski sends the players a missive asking for their help in the Brevic civil war. In exchange, he promises Restov to the players. But ... heh, heh, heh, the letter doesn't make it to the PCs. It ends up in Restov!!!!

This will make things really, really, really interesting.

Meanwhile, back at home:

My players' spymaster is one Dovan of Nisroch. He's been loyal to the players ever since they took down Staggy, but he's also shifty as hell.
Interestingly, I don't want Dovan to be ensorceled.

He's just naturally suspicious. AND he's a little suspicious of his queen, too. IMC, Auchs died sometime ago, and Dovan's become very attached to a group of orphans who help him with spying. Several of them died recently in a botched spying mission in Mivon ... and Auchs died years ago in a botched spying mission against Hargulka's trolls. So Dovan's ripe to betray the PCs or make their lives uncomfortable without needing much prodding.

So, given the outcome of the butler fiasco, what if Dovan pushes for the authority to arrest and detain anybody who might be a faerie or a faerie collaborator, in cooperation with Marshal and Enforcer, of course.

My goal here is to run my players ragged putting out diplomatic fires until I spring the real plot. They may figure out where the Black Prince is laired. They may not. I'll prep for them either way.

Where does this lead?:

I think this is going to lead into the War of the River Kings, although I'm not sure what the war is going to be -- I've got possibilities for war with Mivon, Pitax, Brevoy (or houses within it), the Tiger Lord barbarians, and a fey faction I haven't introduced yet. Another possibility is that Irovetti might ally with the players (for reals!) if they retrieve a McGuffin for him from Numeria. I'll probably snaffle an Iron Gods module if this happens.

In any case, I figure that this is going to come to a boil at the Rushlight Tournament, reskinned as a meeting of the Outlaw Council in Pitax, with a number of factions invited -- including emissaries from Brevoy, Razmir, the Technic League, and a group of devils known as the Scarlet Consortium. There will also be a mystery knight, known as Sir Red Herring, who will have a raven motif.

Spoiler Alert!:
I was reading First World: Realm of the Fey and it's something I highly recommend for the juicy morsels of fey fluff. In particular, one section talks about a clan of vilderavn (sp?) who attempt take over their ancestral castle from whichever family member currently holds it. They use armies to lay sieges and often uses mortals they have manipulated to an early death in the Mortal Realm to fill the ranks of their armies in the fey Realm. That's some additional flavour you could use.

Did you not run Blood for Blood? If not, instead of the hag witches, you could replace them with other fey nobles who wish to cause trouble.

Anyways, back to what you said.

The Black Prince could use the Lonely Keep, if it is abandoned. I like the idea of the Old Sycamore Tree as a lair too in raven form, heh. The dragon lair works, or maybe the Talon Roc's lair? In any case, you are right, he needs to be close-ish to enact all of his machinations.

The minions idea is good. Maybe he also try to manipulate the release of one of the Tane as another problem for the pcs to deal with?

I am curious as to how the paladin is the heir. Was she nominated. As the successor by the PC Ruler? Hm, the Black Prince kills her, impersonates her, reveals it to Akiros, telling him that if the pcs had never betrayed the Black Prince, his wife would still be alive. Thus begins the road to anti-paladin for Akiros?

I like how Donovan turned out in your campaign. Maybe he pushes for an Inquisition to drive out the fey from the nation when evidence heavily implicates the fey in undermining the kingdom from behind the scenes and controlling kingdom leaders? Ooh, it's like Salem all over again, except this time the witchcraft is real! Heh, Donovan could accuse the Heir of practicing fell witchcraft and treason!

Interestingly enough, there is a city of constructs and intelligent machines in the First World. Perhaps that is where the McGuffin that Irovetti wants the PC to obtain for him is located?

Heh, if the Black Prince wanted to shame a paladin of Erastil, a smear campaign claiming she cheated on her husband and had an abortion is definitely the right evil thing to do.

Too bad you can't bring back Auchs as a form of undead though. Same for the children. They cry for justice as they were used as mere pawns by the pcs. Who remembers and Honours their sacrifice, they ask?! ;)

This will keep me thinking all day at work today! :)

Cheers!

CB out.

I didn't run Blood for Blood. Courts of the Shadow Fey mostly replaced it. I am starting to grok the idea of making the Tiger Lords camp the Black Prince's home base, where he keeps valuable things like mostly dead bodies and other things. IMO, they're something of a dispirited group at the moment -- Irovetti used them to drive Fort Drelev into his hands, and now he's abandoned them. Armag the Twice-Born has never led them, but I still want to throw Ovinrbaane in there somewhere. It's a great, flavorful weapon.

Makin' plans:

Quote:
I was reading First World: Realm of the Fey and it's something I highly recommend for the juicy morsels of fey fluff. In particular, one section talks about a clan of vilderavn (sp?) who attempt take over their ancestral castle from whichever family member currently holds it. They use armies to lay sieges and often uses mortals they have manipulated to an early death in the Mortal Realm to fill the ranks of their armies in the fey Realm. That's some additional flavour you could use.

Quite flavorful. I don't know if I want to get into a whole family of vilderavns, though. I've already laid the groundwork for Nyrissa as the Lady of Dreams to make trouble. I'm also thinking of adding an erlking as her general in the Stolen Lands. He'd be under her thumb because she's holding his hamadryad wife hostage.

I'll have to take a look at First World. It might make sense for my players to try to make contact with faeries as they prepare to face Nyrissa.

Quote:
I am curious as to how the paladin is the heir. Was she nominated. As the successor by the PC Ruler? Hm, the Black Prince kills her, impersonates her, reveals it to Akiros, telling him that if the pcs had never betrayed the Black Prince, his wife would still be alive. Thus begins the road to anti-paladin for Akiros?

That is how she became heir. But I have a more twisted plot in mind. The Black Prince slays the paladin and impersonates her. He sends her corpse -- and the paladin's four-year-old child with Akiros! -- to hags. Akiros has to cooperate with the Black Prince, or else, the Prince will never release her immortal soul, and he will kill the child.

Quote:
I like how Donovan turned out in your campaign. Maybe he pushes for an Inquisition to drive out the fey from the nation when evidence heavily implicates the fey in undermining the kingdom from behind the scenes and controlling kingdom leaders? Ooh, it's like Salem all over again, except this time the witchcraft is real! Heh, Donovan could accuse the Heir of practicing fell witchcraft and treason!

For bonus points, the Vilderavn can easily save against Zone of Truth. And because Dovan's accusations are his opinions, he won't ping the Zone of Truth.

Quote:
Interestingly enough, there is a city of constructs and intelligent machines in the First World. Perhaps that is where the McGuffin that Irovetti wants the PC to obtain for him is located?

Perhaps in exchange for briar?

Love the Brevoy plots you have going. Getting Surtova involved (either with or against the PCs) is great. I really love the idea of opening up the possibility of an alliance with Irovetti. I get why APs tend to be somewhat of a railroad, but this campaign screams options.

In my campaign I somewhat mistakenly set up Drelev as a jerk early on, but there's plenty of time to fix that mistake (only 3 sessions in).

As for the OP, I think the ideas thrown in here are great. I really like the idea of the minions/ravens though the use of ravens will largely depend on how much they have been used for messaging up to this point. I could see a scenario where as war starts to break out, the PCs are shooting at just about anything that flies -- which would be a great way to mess with them as well.

As for the Black Prince, I have yet to read the module in question (though its likely to make it into my campaign from everything I have heard) but I have always looked at fey as sort of playing both ends against the middle. They always have an out so to speak. So even if he runs off with Akiros' kid, the PCs have to be careful because there's always the threat that he just kills the kid if he's backed into a corner. I mean sure, that probably signs his death warrant if he does it, but if the PCs are at all good aligned, it may well lead them to negotiate. I also like the idea of him slowly acquiring leverage against the actual PCs. Maybe as he starts to manipulate the NPCs on the Council (or the potential allies of the PCs) he gets those NPCs to acquire bits and pieces from the PCs, maybe a stray hair from a cloak, or wineskin that the PC always takes with him (to be replaced of course and used as a focus for scrying). etc. etc.

The Black Prince

Courts of the Shadow Fey:
is a member of the royal family in the Courts of the Shadow Fey. I thought he was an interesting player, so I changed him from a shadow fey into a vilderavn. I had twigged either him or the Queen of the Shadow Fey court to be Nyrissa's warmup act. Once my players doublecrossed him ....

I thought of a few things while at work.

1. The Treasurer can "funnel" some BP towards buying the services of mercenaries to do raiding attacks against the PCs and/or their allies while flying the colours of the PCs' kingdom.

2. The mercenaries could instead be hired to serve as the Black Prince's minions to test the PCs further so he knows what they are capable of.

3. Use the Witchmarket to sell things to the PCs that they will need in the fey Realm but the prices are things like a future critical hit or saving throw. Then when the PCs eventually fight against the Black Prince, they find that the critical hit or saving throw exchanged was "given" or "bought" out by the Black Prince and he collect his dues at the final showdown between him and the PCs.

4. Make Ovnirbane the weapon they need to slay the Black Prince! :)

5. After the PCs rescue the baby, it turns out that the Black Prince switched him out for a changeling!

Cheers!

CB out.

Ok, a bit off topic so I apologize, but the talk of ravens got me thinking. I think, particularly early on, the idea of the settlements using ravens to communicate is a great idea (since the party won't have access to higher level magic). I plan on having Varn deliver some ravens to Oleg's for communication purposes, and maybe have Drelev do it too. Knowing my players though, they'll want to get some of their own in order to communicate with Restov or wherever. So that raises the question of just how much would a messenger raven cost??

Edit To Add: Oh, and Canadian Bakka: You are deliciously malicious with the idea of the changeling baby! I love it!
2 people marked this as a favorite.

Gargs: I am not 100% certain where it is listed (either Ultimate Campaign or Legendary Games' Ultimate Rulership) but there is an aviary (or something like that) building for the kingdom building rules - you can use that to cover the costs of using ravens (or any other normal birds) as a form of long distance communication.

Thanks for the praise; I just thought that they did not do enough with the church of Gyronna or the hags (heck, in the 4th book, the hags are not really doing much), but the baby-switching is something they should/would do. It's a common theme in European tales about the fey. :)

Cheers!

CB out.
Canadian Bakka wrote:

Gargs: I am not 100% certain where it is listed (either Ultimate Campaign or Legendary Games' Ultimate Rulership) but there is an aviary (or something like that) building for the kingdom building rules - you can use that to cover the costs of using ravens (or any other normal birds) as a form of long distance communication.

Thanks for the praise; I just thought that they did not do enough with the church of Gyronna or the hags (heck, in the 4th book, the hags are not really doing much), but the baby-switching is something they should/would do. It's a common theme in European tales about the fey. :)

Cheers!

CB out.

Awesome, will check it out!

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Ultimate Rulership has an Aerie that is for small messenger birds and flying mounts/creatures. 18 BP

JBE, Book of the River Nations has an Aviary for small birds, messengers and others. 6 or 8 BP.

We use both, starting with an Aviary and the upgrading to Aeries whenever needed, since we have some giant eagle riders.

Silver Raven figurines with visible Arcane Marks get used alot too.
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Canadian Bakka wrote:

I thought of a few things while at work.

1. The Treasurer can "funnel" some BP towards buying the services of mercenaries to do raiding attacks against the PCs and/or their allies while flying the colours of the PCs' kingdom.

The player is doing marvelously on his own. (Also an alchemist). In the last session, he poisoned the ambassador from Restov, planted moles in other players' offices, and sent a sly note to Pitax offering information if Irovetti ever decides to move against the kingdom. I also noticed him throwing fewer bombs than usual during combats.

Quote:
3. Use the Witchmarket to sell things to the PCs that they will need in the fey Realm but the prices are things like a future critical hit or saving throw. Then when the PCs eventually fight against the Black Prince, they find that the critical hit or saving throw exchanged was "given" or "bought" out by the Black Prince and he collect his dues at the final showdown between him and the PCs.

This is evil.

As part of the final leg of the AP, I'm also thinking about introducing a cult dedicated to Nyrissa. Since we're a mythic campaign, it's entirely appropriate for her to be a minor goddess (in this case, a 10th tier archmage). That ought to get my players worried ...

Moragan is correct. I was going off by memory; interestingly enough I did not put the Aerie as an upgrade from the Aviary. I guess I forgot about the Aviary (which I included several weeks prior) once I found the Aerie. Heh, it reminds me of the video game X-Com, where you can choose to either build a regular satellite relay or a nexus relay which allows you to add more satellites to the overal satellite network than a normal satellite relay. Maybe I will do that for the Aviary and Aerie: the Aviary can connect to 2 settlements with an Aviary while the Aerie can connect to 4 settlements with an Aviary/Aerie and also allow for the construction/housing of one aerial army unit (the size of the army depends on the size of the settlement).

Anyways, back on topic.

The cult of Nyrissa is a great idea. I was actually thinking about this a few weeks ago but wasn't sure about it. Then the other day, I read more stuff from The First World, Realm of the Fey - it is strongly hinted in it that the Queen of the Fellnight Realm had amassed a lot of people (not quite an Eldest but up there) and Nyrissa was a fairly powerful fey too. The notion of either of them being worshiped is not far-fetched at all.

Oh, perhaps one or more of Nyrissa's mortal followers are Feysworn! :D

According to the book, the leader of the Witchmarket is an unique Norn. Perfect tie-in to the vilderavn-version of the Black Prince!

Your pcs will need the help of good-aligned fey nobles soon if this keeps up, heh.

Cheers!

CB out.

Things between sessions are going interestingly.

Between Games:

I was planning to have Dovan go McCarthy on the ruling council ... but the queen's player already stepped up to have it done. The player emailed me to say she doesn't necessarily suspect her fellow players, but her character would suspect them. Little does she know ...

Meanwhile, the barbarian's player sent me a between-tame note with a nice character bit where he visited one of their towns and an army he commands. On his way back, I gave him an encounter with the Black Prince taunting him. Unfortunately, the barbarian made all his Will saves.

And the treasurer's moving into long-term planning to debase the currency. And he decided to stalk Dame Yeana!! Which means I revealed one of my cards a little early ... but only to him.

Plans within plans:

Still not sure what to do entirely next session, but my players are hungering for some adventuring (as opposed to intrigue), so I think I'm going to prep the Hunt for the Great Hydra (with Castruccio Irovetti asking to come along so my players get a look at him), an altered version of Armag's Tomb, and maybe an adventure in far off Iobaria. As I recall there's some background material about a white dragon and some centaurs in there that might make for an interesting side adventure. But I think I'm going to really kick the intrigue into high gear, soon, with the note from Noleski Surtova to my players.

An adventure is both good for them (satisfy their wants) and good for the Black Prince (ho, ho, ho - opportunity knocking for some more underhanded tricks).

Ideas:
As for what to use, lately I have been looking through my 3.0/3.5 gaming books, particularly the Forgotten Realms ones, and there actually a fair bit of stuff I can use. The ones I will be borrowing more from include the Silver Marches book, a little bit from Waterdeep (mainly ideas for noble houses, merchants, shops, etc.) and just about every other Forgotten Realms book for adventure ideas to be used for locations in areas the PC leaders won't be personally exploring but using the Exploration Edict instead. Such adventures are really low-level stuff but they will still inject a bit of history and flavour into the homebrewed setting.

However, you might want to use a few shot Pathfinder Society scenarios instead: quick and easy to set up, and they tend to have more player-friendly maps. Most of them only take a single gaming session of 4-6 hours.

One of the high-level dungeons/locations that I want to inject into my homebrewed setting is the Tomb of the Mud Sorcerer. It's fairly high-level but you don't really need a high level spellcaster to succeed in it, which is useful for me since I restricted the available spellcasting classes to only those with 6th level spells maximum.

Strange though that there is a white dragon, according to the background information that you mentioned, in the Iobaria region. I thought they were more into colder climate areas. Oh well, if it works, it works! :)

Horns of the Hunted from Legendary Games is a good adventure to use with Kingmaker but I have to upgrade it a bit since my PCs are mythic and higher level right now.

I would be interested to see what you came up with for the Hunt for the Great Hydra, it sounds cool!

Cheers!

CB out
3 people marked this as a favorite.

Hail, Hydra:
My players didn't pick up the Great Hydra plot thread. So ... I've got other plans for that hydra. Evil, evil, evil plans.

The Black Prince:
Well, my players closed in on the Black Prince. I've been running completely negative kingdom events during kingdom-building, and they realized the Black Prince is screwing with them -- especially after vandals tried to strike Tatzylford. The PC mole arranged for the assassination of Svetlana Kavken and tried to frame Mivon. Jhod showed up at court with a sword from Mivon and an accusation. The players pacified Jhod, but they considered assassination really beyond the pale. They used scrying to hunt up the Black Prince using tokens he gave them during Court of the Shadow Fey!!! (Smart players). They sussed out his guise as Dame Yeana, then they flushed him out after they removed a gaes on Akiros (Yeana's husband). They found out Yeana was slain, and that the Black Prince was holding their daughter. The players hatted up ... and found themselves at the beginning of Armag's tomb. We went through a somewhat abbreviated, somewhat suped up version of it. The fight with Armag was going against the players until the wizard stuffed him in a Resilient Sphere. The party collected Yeana and Akiros's daughter, collected some treasure, and teleported out, but they still haven't caught the Black Prince (who is now behind Armag seeking to obtain vengeance for the Tiger Lord Barbarians' humiliation.

I think the Black Prince plot may come to a head next session.
pennywit wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

I think the Black Prince plot may come to a head next session.

Sounds awesome!

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Darn. My players flushed out the Black Prince from two of his disguises in Brevoy, and now he's on the run. Also, nothing harms your big villain quite like a raging barbarian who rolls a natural 20.

Now would be the time to spring the Witchmarket on them so that the Black Prince can collect a future critical hit from the barbarian, ;)

That's a possibility. But I think I'm going to prepare the grand finale. Our next big event is Irovetti's tournament. See, the tournament is going to go off, but there's this tiny problem with faerie gatecrashers ...

Oh,

those silly fey:
use the Status rules from Courts of the Shadow Fey so that only the PCs can see the fey but everyone else at the tournament cannot see the fey and are completely flummoxed!

That might be too weird or complicated though.

Hmm ... My players do still have status among the Shadow Fey

However, I'm leaning toward something a little more showy involving the addition of an Erlking who is technically the monarch of the Stolen Lands and comes with his own backstory if my players try to learn it.

I'm thinking about leading off with the Wriggling Man triggering the first bloom around Candlemere ... and I'm also planning to house rule no teleportation effects into a bloomified hex (although I'm undecided on allowing teleporting out).

Afterward, I have this picture of the tournament ending, and an army of quicklings zipping into the battlefield, while an erlking's "honor guard" descends on the tournament field to engage my players. The priority, of course, is to get people out of the tournament safely.

Interesting, that is a good way to introduce some additional tactical options for a combat.
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Adventure Path / Kingmaker / Kingmaker Clue All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Kingmaker