Interesting Predicament during Thrushmoor Terror

[David Kirkhart]

So first let me give you all (especially the DM's out there) the basic layout:

PCs get captured spoilers:

During the groups exploration of the town they decided to go check out the "witch" hiding in her grotto; long story short of that is that the druid barely gets away from the group. So I decide that she reports in and joins the ambush scene later on. So now after the group helps out with the artist by the new church it is getting dark. On their way back to the agency I have them get ambushed by the cultists and the druid. All that the druid really has to do is lay down obscuring mist, an insect swarm, and call lightning a few times. Thanks to the mist, their fighter gets separated and taken down by the saps/lightning. I choose to have him be dragged off to be locked up in the fort; almost got another one but they managed to stop that cultist.

Then they decide to go save their friend by forcing an encounter at the fort (basically started attacking at the door); main problem at this point is that they don't try to come up with a plan and then start attacking. So just 2 ju ju zombies (plus 2 others occasionally firing arrows from nearby towers, kept missing due to the parties own obscuring mist) held off the party and chased them off due to their complete lack of a plan.

The next day they actually scout out the area; and 2 ju ju watch them move around but don't attack. Then they actually come up with a plan but...forgot to heal up before storming the castle. So after some hectic combat rounds two more get captured. Only the witch and sorcerer manage to run away.

So in the jail...the fighter did try to escape but got beaten down fairly quickly. When the cleric tried the same thing after getting captured he was more successful and managed to take down two of the skum and hurt the third.

Here comes the issue: I can see the skum not killing the fighter and keeping him for possible sacrifice. But the cleric really angered the skum by killing two and hurting a third.

So wouldn't the remaining last skum kill the cleric out of spite and anger? I am having a hard time thinking that that lone skum would show restraint. What do you all think?

[Davor Firetusk]

I had a similar situation crop up. Ultimately when I had to step in because my entire party was captured, I went with what I felt was the best story building option. Because of the later part of the AP I would hesitate to let a character perma-die. However if part of the escape hatch in the town is a raise dead for the cleric, but at a cost then killing him off could make sense.

For example in my case, no characters were' completely killed. They had snuck in the mansion and were obliterated because of bad positioning. We picked up the next session with all of them getting tied-up. Meanwhile Meg from the Sleepless Agency had been following them largely because she still didn't trust them. Winter was also along curious, but trying to convince Meg they were trustworthy. As a result they were able to see them getting captured. So they drank some invisibility potions got in the room, distracted the guards and provided a channel and escaped. Except Meg who covered their retreat, but was slain in the process. The dice cooperated nicely with my plan. Story-wise it played out great because in the first encounter with Meg the player who had the bad past experience absolutely belittled her as they started to argue. So her coming back for a heroic rescue provided a nice bit of consequence emotionally without just killing a player.

[David Kirkhart]

So do you think that it would work (or others that have read ahead in the series) if that Cleric was indeed finished off by replacing him with Winter since she would have an invested interest in continuing onward? Or should the cleric just be imprisoned/stabilized further?

[The Black Bard]

The Skum still work for Melissen, and she needs sacrifices for the Star Stelae. Considering she rules through power and fear, even angry and vengeful Skum might still think better of hasty revenge and instead offer the Cleric up as a sacrifice.

That said, eating a few fingers or a hand or foot is perfectly acceptable.

Let the Cleric wake up a few pounds lighter in one of the holding cells under Iris Hill. The Skum can access it via the underground aqueduct. As for the player, let them commandeer Winter until the original character is rescued/makes a daring escape. The escape opportunity should be second to last chance, if it fails, they are moved to be sacrificed, which should occur right as the players reach the Star Stelae under Iris Hill.

Remember, such sacrifices are part of the lengthy rituals to reawaken the Star Stelae, so not only is it not a "stab the guy and lets go to lunch" affair, its a good opportunity to let the cleric PC learn uncomfortably first hand some of whats going on that perhaps they haven't yet discovered/put together.

Captured PCs should always be A a chance for a daring escape or rescue and B an inside look at the bad guys operation.

[Davor Firetusk]

If the player was up for playing Winter (maybe with some latitude to rebuild her) it is certainly a viable option. There are some interesting plot twists that would get challenging to handle without most of the original party intact in my opinion. I highly recommend getting at least 1 full read through of the rest of the AP as soon as you can.

[Shadowfane]

Having a real blast in this book.

The PCs retreated from the druid’s cave before encountering Daridella, rather than wait for them to come back, she took the fight to them and ambushed them the next day in Thrushmoor using call lightning from a nearby rooftop and fungal wolves in the street. They put her wolves down and captured her, imprisoning her in the basement of the Sleepless Building.

After their first foray into the fort they were forced to retreat after taking a beating from the undead mercenaries. I figured Tilistari wouldn’t just sit and wait for them to come back so I had her, the deep one ranger and a few of his crew take the attack to the PCs. Tilistari entered using mirrors inside the Sleepless Agency and the deep ones assaulted through multiple windows. They almost managed to rescue Daridela, but the PCs and the Sleepless agents eventually put the deep ones down. Tilistari escaped through a mirror.

Thinking the fort now abandoned, except for Tilistari and perhaps a few undead, the PCs sauntered in and got ambushed by deep ones. Two of them were caught and the third plus Lucky Jocyln just managed to get out.

What followed was an awesome escape attempt by the monk and inquisitor while the oracle, Jocyln and Hagley mounted a rescue mission from outside. The PCs were ultimately victorious but it was touch and go.

[Korbem]

I had a similar situation, I had the Skum chew and experiment on the PC giving him the Promethean Template from the Horror Manual, just seemed fitting for the campaign and it gave them an incentive to go to the fort.

[Michael MacComb]

In book 6, the party goes back in time to save themselves from the asylum.

In my game, without knowing it, each of the party received a contingent breath of life to help them through the first 2 weeks of the campaign.

Without it, all 5 members of the party would have died at different points in book 2, and they are still trying to figure how what happened. If they don't figure it out when they do actually go back, then I'm going to ramp up the inevitable fight for causing additional time paradoxes

[Davor Firetusk]

That is a fantastic bit of customizing the plot line.