[RRR] What are the Cultists actually doing?

[Seerow]

So I am finally after two years getting back in the DM seat, and getting to run Part 2 of Kingmaker (we finished Part 1 a couple years ago but schedules forced us to put off continuing until now).

So I'm now in the middle of prepping and going through the changes I want to make, and this particular event at home is bugging me. The adventure path doesn't actually give any details on the cultists really doing anything. Sure Malgorzata is recruiting for her cult, but does ignoring this cause any trouble for the PCs? Not per the adventure. It says that it will cause the town to tear itself apart, but unlike with Grigori causing unrest, there's no notes on what happens if the PCs just ignore the cult.

So I am looking for suggestions. What is the cult actually doing that may attract the PCs attention? What sort of consequences come from failing to deal with this in a timely manner?

[vagabond_666]

I went with stereotypical witch type stuff. Milk souring, increased disease, barren livestock, birth defects. I don't know where I would have gone from there since the PC playing an Inquisitor went "Hmmm, smells like witches" and then went inquisiting.

[Spatula]

I had them stealing babies - maybe just male babies? It's been awhile. And sacrificing them.

Gyronna is the goddess of revenge for women spurned by polite society. So I would say that the cultists want to tear that society down, or at least its authority figures. Especially male authority figures. That could be straight up destruction/murder, or more insidious methods of revenge like ruining reputations or kidnapping family members. Maybe some negative kingdom events originated with the cult, especially ones like Public Scandal or Assassination.

[Amanuensis]

In my game, the cultists were in league with a hag that I plan to introduce at a later point. The cultists stole human babies and replaced them with little changelings.
They also gave the kingdom's capital the cursed trait:

GMG wrote:

Cursed: Some form of curse afflicts the city. Its citizens might be prone to violence or suffer ill luck, or they could be plagued by an infestation of pests. (Choose one modifier and reduce its value by 4)

That way, I have a potential recurring villain, lasting repercussions for the kingdom that can serve as a plot hook (how do we lift the curse), and an interesting moral/social challenge for the PCs (how to deal with those innocent changeling children?).

[Reverse]

Mechanically, I suggest modelling it off Grigori's incident - the town gains X unrest every month until the issue is dealt with.

In terms of what they're actually doing, remember that spreading hate and discord is it's own reward for them (and the fact that this will ultimately destroy the town is a nice bonus).

We also used demon-possessed children, but primarily they recruited and used their recruits to spread discord. Specifics will depend on what sort of female NPCs are running in your campaign.

Do Oleg and Svetlana have an unhappy marriage? She's a prime candidate. High Priest Jhod Khavken could be seen as a misogynist in a certain light - perhaps it's time for women in town to protest until he's replaced on the council (with a cultist woman). A spate of requests for divorces and marital annulments are petitioned to the king. A long-running dispute between two farmers over a fenceline suddenly turns lethal when the cult adds rumours of infidelity from Farmer A's wife into the mix. A new woman romancing a male PC councillor in an effort to gain influence over him...

We did a lot with the cult, but it helped that two (!) members of the Council were Gyronna cultists, and they had plenty more influence spread out.

[Seerow]

Thanks everyone for the ideas! Finally got to get our starting session in last night (previous planned session got disrupted by Hurricane Irma stopping in for a visit), and it went better than I had really hoped for.

I am adopting/modifying Hargulka's monster kingdom into the group, but started the session about 3 months prior to the players meeting Hargulka, so we have some kingdom building time.

In Month 1, they start hearing lots of rumors, primarily running around about the Ruler, Oleg, and a character who got turned into a Monkey by way of curse following the end of Part 1. They see a sudden uptick of divorce and annulment requests, it feels as though anything relating to a relationship in the kingdom has started going sour quickly. The players try doing some investigation, but had positioned their skill focus a bit too much on outdoorsy stuff, nobody has any real gather information to turn up more clues.

The monkey character decides to go out and beat up on the first person he hears spreading rumors. After hearing them from an unarmed woman, he decides to wait for somebody else. Eventually he finds some unsavory types in a bar laughing about it, and eventually ends up having to knock out a whole bar worth of patrons to stop the laughter. Some unrest is incurred, and Grigori is going to have a field day when he shows up.

In Month 2, they fail another set of checks to try to figure out what is causing these rumors or how to stop them, but things mostly continue on as they have been. A few other events unfold this month, but mostly unrelated.

In Month 3, things start escalating. While the rumors are still an underlying persistent irritant, crops are now starting to fail, and the players are made aware consumption will start increasing in the following turns. Finally the Cleric remembers he has spells that make the party's skill shortcomings less relevant, and they at least become aware of the relatively small group of women (coincidentally one being the one the monkey ignored at the start) spreading the rumors.

Players start surveillance, and also finally make the connection between this and the uptick in annulments/divorces. One player decides the best way to counteract the effort is to hire a bard to start spreading stories throughout the Kingdom to remind people that loyalty and faithfulness. He finds a Bard named Grigori who is happy to take his gold and spread these tales.

During the surveilance, one player manages to spot an unholy symbol on one of the cultists, and identifies it with the help of Jhod. So we finally now know it is a cult of Gyronna, and have also managed to identify the leader of the cult.

Upon finding out she's a midwife, they suddenly decide moving against her overtly would turn the population against them, as they are well respected among women. I just smile and nod as they try to figure out what to do. One player tries sneaking into her house to look for evidence, but failed the DC20 search check to turn up anything, so comes away empty handed. Eventually one player remembers a friendly NPC they had met during the first part of the adventure, a ranger by the name of "Gwendolyn, Hunter of Men", who they decide would be a perfect recruit for the cultists, and they decide to try to get her recruited to infiltrate and gather evidence for them.

In the mean time, shortly after getting this little bit of espionage started, the players receive an invitation from Chief Sootscale, who recently got word of a diplomatic Envoy coming, would prefer for the PCs to be there. Meeting with Hargulka goes about as well as could be hoped, successfully swaying the Kobolds away from being interested in what Hargulka is selling, and sending Hargulka off in a huff.

They come back just 3 days later, and find Grigori at the center of town, gathering a big crowd around him as he is wont to do, and as instructed is telling wonderful tales of Loyalty and Faithfulness, and taking every opportunity to point out the ways that the leaders of this burgeoning Kingdom are failing to live up to the ideals of these stories. Right now the players just shrug this off as a bit of lost gold, saying he's the lesser problem given the cultists still out there.... oh how little they know.

Either way, by this point the session had run long (as I mentioned there was a few other events that took up some time as well), so we cut off there. Now I have two weeks to try to pivot and see where we want this infiltration by Gwendolyn to go. I am half tempted to have her join legitimately, just because my players would be furious at having to kill her.

(As an aside, I have decided for my campaign, the cultist leader, Grigori, a Rogue Werewolf, and an as of yet unmet Soldier are all part of a team sent from Drelev to disrupt the PCs Kingdom, coordinating to sow discord and cause it to collapse in on itself so Drelev can start expanding his own holdings into the more profitable Greenbelt. I've decided at this point the PCs are too small to be worth Irovetti's notice, by the end of the AP will be when they start attracting his attention).