I prefer a hearty bellow…
I'd say I'm over-thinking this, but these are EXACTLY the kind of questions my players will ask.I've found that I can often answer these sorts of questions with
"Paizo" said in a dispirited kind of voice :-) :-)
I fleshed out the whole council with various needs and wants, and had the Bravos with their own agents in competing Persona meetings. Pretty fun. The Council had several Earl supporters. They would not just accept the evidence because that is how people are.
A look at real politics shows how denial operates.
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A look at real politics shows how denial operates.
Yeah, NOT looking at reality for at least a couple hours a week is why I play RPGs... :)
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My players want to try to restore all of the petrified Taldan Horse to flesh and recruit them to attack Tallgrasses.
Anyone else run into this? Any suggestions?
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My party in the campaign I am running has pretty much gotten to the end of Book 3, with the final task being to investigate the Cult and figure out just what's going on in the Bower. I followed some advice on this thread and made the reveal of Carrius when they went to services for the first time, so that was a fun move.
Anyway, in talking about planning how to investigate and infiltrate the cult, one of the party made an offhand comment of "Maybe we should just buy the theatre and then evict them. What started off as a joke turned into getting in contact with the city administration, searching through public records and deeds to find out who held the deed (I said that it was under custodianship of the Mercantile Council due to a ownership vacuum), worked a deal to set up a shell corporation, secretly funded by the Bank of Abadar (who were more than happy to help oust the cult) to get their hands on the deed. One of the party (with the Noble Scion background) has kept on putting pips in Profession (barrister) as a joke, but it's paying off handsomely now. Now they can legally go in and evict the ne'er-do-wells without any violence (hopefully).
What started off as a joke of "let's buy the building" ended up taking up half a session of legal wrangling, appearances before local planning boards, and tax assessments, loan conditions, and a bevy of other municipal administrivia.
It's things like this that remind me why I love this game so damn much.
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That sounds awesome! I love it when players come up with unexpected solutions like that.
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My players want to try to restore all of the petrified Taldan Horse to flesh and recruit them to attack Tallgrasses.
Anyone else run into this? Any suggestions?
My group did just this. They let them neutralize the elephant and as they took captives, sent them out to them.
They stopped anyone from running while the PCs mostly murdered traitors in their sleep. I had all parties present so they got everyone.
At the end of the book, the Baron greanted Tallgrasses to our Scion to manage. She left agents behind.
That sounds awesome! I love it when players come up with unexpected solutions like that.
Yeah!!
My party in the campaign I am running has pretty much gotten to the end of Book 3, with the final task being to investigate the Cult and figure out just what's going on in the Bower. I followed some advice on this thread and made the reveal of Carrius when they went to services for the first time, so that was a fun move.
Anyway, in talking about planning how to investigate and infiltrate the cult, one of the party made an offhand comment of "Maybe we should just buy the theatre and then evict them. What started off as a joke turned into getting in contact with the city administration, searching through public records and deeds to find out who held the deed (I said that it was under custodianship of the Mercantile Council due to a ownership vacuum), worked a deal to set up a shell corporation, secretly funded by the Bank of Abadar (who were more than happy to help oust the cult) to get their hands on the deed. One of the party (with the Noble Scion background) has kept on putting pips in Profession (barrister) as a joke, but it's paying off handsomely now. Now they can legally go in and evict the ne'er-do-wells without any violence (hopefully).
What started off as a joke of "let's buy the building" ended up taking up half a session of legal wrangling, appearances before local planning boards, and tax assessments, loan conditions, and a bevy of other municipal administrivia.
So after a bunch of legal wrangling, an exploration of the sewers (and an aborted encounter with the pudding at the bottom of the elevator), the party really wants to lean on the fact that they have the legal right to have the Cult evicted, and they've done a good enough job working the Mercantile Council and the bureaucracy to make it happen. I also know my party and I want to keep the story moving along - we're at the end of Book 3 and we've been playing this campaign for coming up on 3 years now (we only play for like 2 hours a week, so it's slow going.)
Here's what I want to do (and I recognize it'll require a bit of reworking some later books): they get the Cult evicted, and on the date of the eviction, Xan comes down and attacks the Cult, quite literally swooping in and snatching Carrius, returning him to Pharasma's gentle embrace. Do you think this would be possible? Is Xan powerful enough to take on the Cult by himself? My plan is to then have Panivar work on getting Carrius back while the party is in Zimar, then pick back up the Immaculate Circle story in Book 5.
Ideas? Thoughts? Concerns?
Here's what I want to do (and I recognize it'll require a bit of reworking some later books): they get the Cult evicted, and on the date of the eviction, Xan comes down and attacks the Cult, quite literally swooping in and snatching Carrius, returning him to Pharasma's gentle embrace. Do you think this would be possible? Is Xan powerful enough to take on the Cult by himself? My plan is to then have Panivar work on getting Carrius back while the party is in Zimar, then pick back up the Immaculate Circle story in Book 5.
Ideas? Thoughts? Concerns?
1) it alters Xan wanting to just slay Carrius.
2) Taking on the entire cult might be a bit much for Xan, with extra issues if done in public.3) Holy Plot Derailment Batman!
1) it alters Xan wanting to just slay Carrius.
2) Taking on the entire cult might be a bit much for Xan, with extra issues if done in public.
3) Holy Plot Derailment Batman!
1) Oh, that's still going to happen. I like the idea of then having Panivar try again.
2) All Xan had to do was fly in and do a smash-and-grab. He wasn't necessarily there to take down the entire cult, in my estimation. We played it more as a cutscene than an actual battle, and my group's characters were very happy to let the mayhem unfold from a distance after the eviction occurred.
3) Sure, but honestly, not by much. Carrius doesn't play much of a role in the next volume, so there'll be plenty of time to get things back on track. It also sets up a return of Vaddirgan later on, and gives me more time to figure out how his powers work so I can run him more effectively.
Sure, but honestly, not by much. Carrius doesn't play much of a role in the next volume, so there'll be plenty of time to get things back on track. It also sets up a return of Vaddirgan later on, and gives me more time to figure out how his powers work so I can run him more effectively.
Carrius is pretty much the trigger for Pythareus' actions/reactions.
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Carrius is pretty much the trigger for Pythareus' actions/reactions.
I didn't read it quite that way. Appreciate the good word and the help.
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I didn't read it quite that way. Appreciate the good word and the help.
Carrius is pretty much the trigger for Pythareus' actions/reactions.
Carrius being around kinda make attempts at reversing the decision about Primogeniture pointless, and later makes spilling a certain dirty secret of the Stavian more useful... granted, that not the trigger for all of Pythareus' actions and reactions.
*Dukes of Hazzard narrator voice*
Well, my PCs done got themselves more stuck than a June bug in January molasses...
*regular quibblevoice*
We ended the last session mid-combat because one of the players had a commitment to get to. Here's the scenario:
Two PCs, a halfling medium and a human swashbuckler/magus. They got through everything in Twilight Child before finally going into the Encircling Bower. Their plan was pretty good for the Bower. They were going to use a combination of gaseous form, invisibility, and telepathic bond to scout out the theatre. The exit strategy if they needed to quickly get out was to have the medium drop gaseous form and use a scroll of dimension door to get back to the streets safely.
They didn't really believe Carrius was there, but they knew enough after the attempted assassination of the Enumerator to tread cautiously.
At first things went very well...
*lengthy description of poor choices redacted*
So the halfling medium is blind and stuck in the cell with a hysterical Carrius while the swashmagus is fighting Pol AND two high cultists on his own. The medium can't use the scroll, being blind. The swashmagus has taken a couple lightning bolts to the face and Pol is getting tired of his shenanigans. That's where the next session is going to start.
MY PROBLEM
Unless they get very lucky and play very smart, they're pwned.
I'm going to do everything to have Pol & company take them alive. He's already pretty much got the halfling (who has another 3 minutes of power word (blind). The swashmagus is likely going to fail one of the Will saves against something at some point and then they'll have him.
So I take all their stuff and lock them up while the cultists go through evening services (they infiltrated 1.5 hours before dusk). During that, I can have one of the many NPCs they've won over during the campaign show up and spring them. After which, Pol will realize the jig is up and the most sensible thing for him to do is to flee with Carrius.
MY QUESTION (AT LONG LAST)
Does anyone have any suggestions for altering the future of the AP if they fail to liberate Carrius here? If they go into the City in the Lion's Eye with Carrius somewhere on the loose?
*Dukes of Hazzard narrator voice*
Well things go from bad to worse for the PCs, like finding out there's no paper in the porto-john and then someone tips it over...
*regular quibblevoice*
They managed to survive. However, Xan killed Carrius.
I had the medium get an impression of six angry legendary souls howling as the Prince died. So at least I got some foreshadowing in.
Here's my current plan:
Panivar Lotheed is too smart to go to all that trouble to fish souls out of the River of Souls just to leave Carrius in the hands of an underling without a back-up plan. All it would take was one mistake and his whole plan would be ruined. So the Immortal Duke created a specialized conjuration circle where the Six Souls would be drawn in if they should be "liberated" from Carrius's body. Then, over time a new body would grow around them, in a manner similar to a lich's phylactery.
Lotheed is going to front this Carrius as the true prince once he reforms. The War for the Crown will turn into a three-sided affair, where Pythareus, Eutropia, and Carrius will each have a claim. While the PCs are in Zimar in the next chapter, Lotheed and the Immaculate Circle will be putting that into play. Then the efforts to find Taldaris's mantle will be a race between Carrius and Eutropia.
I think that will let me get the plot back on track.
Thoughts?
Here's what I want to do (and I recognize it'll require a bit of reworking some later books): they get the Cult evicted, and on the date of the eviction, Xan comes down and attacks the Cult, quite literally swooping in and snatching Carrius, returning him to Pharasma's gentle embrace. Do you think this would be possible? Is Xan powerful enough to take on the Cult by himself? My plan is to then have Panivar work on getting Carrius back while the party is in Zimar, then pick back up the Immaculate Circle story in Book 5.
Ideas? Thoughts? Concerns?
See my post above for a similar situation.
I didn't have Xan take on the whole cult himself one at a time. Once the PCs kicked the hornets' nest, it became clear to Pol it was time to run for it (the guards were likely on the way and one PC had escaped his domination, sure to blow the whole scheme wide open). Once he left the safety afforded by those circle diagrams, it was a simple matter for Xan to find him and the Prince. Using the princess stats from the NPC Codex (as recommended by the book), Carrius has fewer HP than Xan's power attacking bonus damage, let alone the weapon dice. Pol tried to get in the way, but one vital strike from that scythe and he bolted.
I think I'm going to add Carrius as a contender, with the Yanmass Cult of the Twilight Child being just the first iteration of a broader movement. Then in Book 5, the race is to get the mantle of Taldaris before Carrius (and, really, Lotheed) can grab it and solidify their claim to the throne.
It's less of a big deal than I initially thought. The PCs don't really interact with Carrius in any meaningful way other than to dump him off with his sister. Sure, Eutropia's grateful and the prince gets to go to rehab, but that doesn't enter into the PCs' story. Carrius could serve the same story function being a direct puppet of Lotheed and the Immaculate Circle as he could waifing around at Meratt's Betty Ford Clinic.
Additionally, having him play a more active role in trying to claim the throne (active in a story sense, not in him actually DOING anything) makes it far more compelling when he's suddenly Emperor and the PCs are hunted. Much more plausible than "Hey, you come back from Axis and guess what? That nice strung out kid is now Alexander the Great and his sister's dead and you're all wanted men and it's only been what, a week and a half?")
I'm also ditching the "turns out the whole Stavian line is illegitimate" evidence subplot in the next book because that makes zero sense to me. I mean, the PCs spend four books fighting and risking life and fortune on the presumption of Eutropia's legitimacy and it turns out nope, none of them have a right? That'd suck the winds out of the sail for no story benefit I can see. YMMV.
Working ahead as my group is coming to the end of Book 2, and I have to confess that I'm leaning toward relocating the events of Book 3. There are a couple of reasons for this.
(I know spoiler tagging this here is kind of putting a hat on a hat, as it were, but I'm going to anyway just to add a warning to any of my players who happen across this: seriously, very campaign-specific spoilers for OUR group ahead, my dudes.)
2. A crucial link in events is a false-flag gambit involving bribed members of the Taldan Horse, a "regiment"(?) of a couple of dozen people. Trouble is, apart from the numbers seeming way off, they're masquerading as "Qadiran bandits." And not only is Yanmass not on the Qadiran border -- that's on the other side of Taldor -- but I find it hard to think of any reason why Kelesh would allow Qadiran or any other kind of bandit to disrupt the caravan trade. So I'm baffled as to why anyone would buy this for a moment.
3. I would like to have an opportunity at this point to at least foreshadow a certain reveal in Book Five, which is actually tied in to an older PF module called The Tomb of the Iron Medusa (although the AP doesn't mention this), and which otherwise seems to come completely out of the blue.
It occurs to me that Whitemarch is on the Qadiran border. Its capital city of Pol is near enough to it for Qadiran bandits (real or fake) to be a threat. There is direct conflict already happening between Imperialists and Loyalists there (we're told earlier that Pythareus is directly using the Phalanx to crush opponents in the South), which is a scenario in which stirring up trouble as a pretext for intervention would seem ideal. (Plus, Qadiran false-flag attacks here provide some nice foreshadowing of larger-scale use of the gambit in Zimar in Book 4.) And lo and behold, the Tomb of the Iron Medusa is right there if I want to set up a little side-quest to it.
More than all of that, I'm finding that as we progress, the AP's habit of setting up cool and dramatic scenery and then whisking the PCs as far away from drama as possible is beginning to grate. I'd like to get the players into the real thick of things earlier, and to give them a much more direct sense of why they're opposing Pythareus and what Taldor will look like if he and his allies succeed.
Does this mean rewriting a bunch of Book 3? Yes, most likely. But given how much rewriting and inventing-from-scratch the AP has required from me for playability, and that I'm already adapting it for 2E anyway, it seems like it's probably worth doing.
I'm also ditching the "turns out the whole Stavian line is illegitimate" evidence subplot in the next book because that makes zero sense to me. I mean, the PCs spend four books fighting and risking life and fortune on the presumption of Eutropia's legitimacy and it turns out nope, none of them have a right?
I actually don't mind the whole "illegitimacy" plot point as much as I thought I would at first. (Again: added spoiler tagging as a precautionary measure for the same reasons as above.)
However, where the logic breaks down is that Pythareus and his agents simply make no sense as candidates for hoarding and using that information, which would have torpedoed his own claim in the process. And the Immaculate Circle don't make sense for it either: their whole plan is about seating their own puppet "Stavian" on the throne, and they cannot rely on the Mantle, which they have to realize will reject their monstrous patchwork creation out of hand.
Fortunately, in my case, I had already planned to have a secondary BBEG in the wings behind the Immaculate Circle in order to have a final adventure after the campaign's canonical end and take the party to level 20. That faction's motivation is to play everyone against everyone else and to see that nobody ultimately claims the throne, in order that Taldor descends into permanent chaos, so they're perfect for it. It later occurred to me that Qadira would also make sense as a source for such a plot... but I like my own pet faction better.
YMMV of course.
Well we have made it to this book (I am Seenar BTW, but decided to just use my own name)>
I added the full council and gave each of them a persona based mission as something that they want out of the players. This gives them more to do, and as my group has 7 in it right now, man, I have to give them more to stop them charging straight though.
I made the whole council into Persona Phases so we can use the system. I have modified the possible missions as well.
What is funny, is that my group immediately charged off on the main encounters, having, of course, split up first. I dropped a player when the assassins came for Abrun. Good thing Abrun is a cleric. It was interesting to say the least.
Here is a link to the Council in Persona Phase Stat Blocks, the Player's Guide to Yanmass (selectively edited), and my house rules for extra Persona Missions.
I have updated this folder:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VukHb36JRwfTvdXJhW8TCPeubjl2iDFw?us p=sharing
2. A crucial link in events is a false-flag gambit involving bribed members of the Taldan Horse, a "regiment"(?) of a couple of dozen people. Trouble is, apart from the numbers seeming way off, they're masquerading as "Qadiran bandits." And not only is Yanmass not on the Qadiran border -- that's on the other side of Taldor -- but I find it hard to think of any reason why Kelesh would allow Qadiran or any other kind of bandit to disrupt the caravan trade. So I'm baffled as to why anyone would buy this for a moment.
Not correct.
From the Yanmass Gazeteer:
Yanmass is the center of trade coming west from the Padishah Empire of Kelesh...
And Qadira is the westernmost province of the Padishah Empire. Qadirans are Keleshite though all Kelesh are not Qadirans.
The Qadiran border runs the entire west and south of modern Taldor. And the Yanmass gazeteer does mention bandits as a constant problem for the region. So it makes sense to disguise bandits as Qadirans and pretend that the Padishah Empire is once again making moves into Taldan territory.
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3. I would like to have an opportunity at this point to at least foreshadow a certain reveal in Book Five, which is actually tied in to an older PF module called The Tomb of the Iron Medusa (although the AP doesn't mention this), and which otherwise seems to come completely out of the blue.
Yeah, may I just take a moment to
I agree, a lot of foreshadowing would be needed to sell this as an exciting plot development instead of a handwaved GM fiat railroad track jump.
I definitely feel you about there being no context or build-up for That Certain Reveal in the actual AP. It really should be there. I happened across the connection to an old module purely by accident.
From the Yanmass Gazeteer:
Yanmass is the center of trade coming west from the Padishah Empire of Kelesh...And Qadira is the westernmost province of the Padishah Empire. Qadirans are Keleshite though all Kelesh are not Qadirans.
Qadira is by this point an offshoot of Kelesh. It is nominally a Keleshite "province" but pursues its own agenda and has its own culture. It certainly has distinct interests from Kelesh, which for instance can't always be relied upon to be interested in Qadira's traditional feud with Taldor (Kelesh alternately backed Qadira and reined them in during various parts of the Grand Campaign, for instance).
In meta-terms, Qadirans are basically (very roughly) the setting's not-Arabs and Keleshites are its not-Persians.
The Qadiran border runs the entire west and south of modern Taldor.
Only the south unless I'm very much misreading the maps. Taldor's western border is either Andoran or the Inner Sea, the latter of which (at least canonically) the Taldan Navy still largely dominates.
And the Yanmass gazeteer does mention bandits as a constant problem for the region.
I guess renegade Keleshites could be a contender, and Taldans might be expected not to differentiate too much between Keleshites and Qadirans regardless of the actual facts of the matter. I think that's a fair point. OTOH I can't help but feel like Qadirans would be a much more deeply-felt existential threat in the actual borderlands.
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Sorry, I meant east, not west. But yeah, you're right looking at it again it's the Padishah Empire not Qadira proper. My bad--luckily my players didn't notice that. And the artwork for Merkondus made him so smug and punchable that they didn't care about any geopolitical incongruity, they just wanted to mess up literally anything he did, just for that smirk...
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Oh, by the by: Book 4 does in fact contain an explanation for That Certain Reveal, but it's basically lore attached to an item and/or stash that the players may or may not find and may or may not correctly interpret. I don't think it meets the mark as regards actually integrating the Reveal into the story, though.
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Yeah, I saw that (pg. 51).
I just can't figure out what the net gain to the story is. "Oh, I know you guys are really into Eutropia's right to the throne but YOINK! turns out no one actually has a right and it's only by force of arms and a magic artifact that anyone is Grand Prince."
Kind of makes me want to do a terrible peasant accent and say "We don't 'ave a king. We're an autonomous collective! Supreme power derives from the masses, not some farcical ceremony involving an old man's magic sweater!"
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Yeah, I saw that (pg. 51).
I just can't figure out what the net gain to the story is. "Oh, I know you guys are really into Eutropia's right to the throne but YOINK! turns out no one actually has a right and it's only by force of arms and a magic artifact that anyone is Grand Prince."
Kind of makes me want to do a terrible peasant accent and say "We don't 'ave a king. We're an autonomous collective! Supreme power derives from the masses, not some farcical ceremony involving an old man's magic sweater!"
Heh. That made me smile.
"Aha! Now we see the violence inherent in the system!"
I honestly don't know who can be expected to still remember House Adella, since the last of them died before the current dynasty as far as anyone knows. Maybe that's part of the confusion that greets the reveal: having Adella blood really can't disqualify you outright, but it complicates the calculus for at least some of the nobles who do know who they were and what they did. Hence the Mantle's decisive role.
I can go with it, as I said, because there's an angle where with sufficient setup it can actually be about forcing Taldor to confront certain things about itself and I think that's actually a cool concept. But of course, I'm literally rewriting a whole book of the AP to make that a point of impact, and I can fully understand why one might just skip it.
Honestly, though:
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Technically,
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Technically the AP mandates that Pythareus does truly know and has evidence.
In due fairness, they make a believable case for why Pythareus initially chases down those leads and collects that information:
But he should expunge the lot of it once Stavian III is "out" of the picture. It would be insane not to and he's not portrayed as being insane, so that's where the existing AP's scenario loses me.
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He might have tried. But Taldor's notoriously bureaucratic. There was probably a trusted Pythareus agent with that information somewhere who hadn't checked his email in a while or the message got routed to spam or he was out of town during the critical Zoom meeting and so he still thinks he's supposed to hold onto that stuff. Then Pythareus gets killed by the PCs and the guy things "Well dammit, I'm out of a job. Might as well ruin this for everyone else too."
Also, while we're on things that nobody knows about, how is it that the Mantle of Taldaris is going to convince the nobles to fall in line behind Eutropia when it's been missing for thousands of years and no one except a few Pathfinders remembers it even exists? It's a little convenient. Picture the scenario:
PRESS: You seem to have lost the election and the confidence of both the elite and the people.
POLITICIAN (eyes get real shifty): Er, ah, but you forgot about the Wig of Washington. Yeah, that's the ticket. It's this wig... that George Washington wore... that everyone forgot about but totally used to be how we picked presidents. And, by coincidence, my staff has found this wig and put it on me and it totally said I get to be president... like a Sorting Hat but... patriotic? Yeah... that... now make with Hailing the Chief...
The thing is, She is imperial blood from and adopted bastard. Her claim is not really that bad. It would not matter if there were not a succession crisis.
I like it because the damn Circle gets caught with it's pants down.
As far as the other, well, the PCs are the heroes. Bad things happen when they are away.
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He might have tried. But Taldor's notoriously bureaucratic.
Possibly. And the scenario you present is amusing. :) But I have the distinct impression that Taldor's secret societies -- who are the real contenders in the succession crisis -- are a lot more efficient and disciplined than its official bureaucracy.
(Doesn't mean they're flawless by any stretch, of course, and a rogue Pytharean agent or cell might work. I think that's canonically supposed to be what winds up happening. I just don't think it feels right, overall, for overall motives lining up.)
Also, while we're on things that nobody knows about, how is it that the Mantle of Taldaris is going to convince the nobles to fall in line behind Eutropia when it's been missing for thousands of years and no one except a few Pathfinders remembers it even exists? It's a little convenient.
The Mantle is a legendary artifact identified with Taldor's golden age. I don't think remembering its existence is the problem: it would be comparable to Excalibur, only with powers that were objectively real. And the loss of the Mantle basically signals the twilight of Taldor as an imperial power (its last great undertaking thereafter will be the Shining Crusade). The Pathfinders are unusual in having found its location, not in knowing it existed.
I don't think its turning up would be enough to derail a succession claim in happier times. But as a way of verifying a candidate amid the snarl of competing claims and weird rumors that the succession struggle eventually becomes, it certainly would present a useful "out" and a way of stabilizing the realm.
Another point in support of this is that the Exaltation Massacre should be a big thorn in the side of anyone's legitimacy who is suspected of involvement -- which must unavoidably mean most of the Imperialists, and is the major reason that Taldor is never going to be able to really coalesce behind any of them. This was, canonically, the wanton murder of two hundred people from the apex of Taldan society and hierarchy, an act kicked off by the Grand Prince publicly slaying the Exaltation Day candidate after giving an insane speech about loyalty. Feelings should run extremely hot about it everywhere, but most especially among the nobility.
What do I do if my players agree with Xan that the return of Carrius is an abomination and he should be killed?
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This exact situation happened to me as GM. I mean, it's pretty predictable. When a powerful outsider says something is an abomination and it needs to die and he's willing to do the work, why disagree?
Here's how I played it out:
IN-GAME
Xan 'kills' Carrius. Except there is a flash of light when the scythe descends. No body remains. Xan teleports away without explanation. My party had a medium, so I had him get an impression of six powerful souls screaming in frustration and disappearing.
In the next book, during information gathering sessions, the PCs learn that a 'Prince Carrius' has appeared as one of the parties vieing for the crown. His power base seems to be around the Lotheed homelands (from book 5), however, that is only a rumor and they were pre-occupied with the infiltration of Zimar so they haven't hunted it down.
BEHIND THE SCENES
I figured Panivar Lotheed would be smart enough to have a contingency should something happen to his resurrected Carrius. After all, that is literally the centerpiece of the Immaculate Circle's plan and they leave him in the hands of a subordinate in a city they do not control? Hardly seems like a good idea.
So Panivar's plan is to use similar magic that he used to acquire the Six Souls used to patch up Carrius to draw those same souls back to a summoning circle in his homelands should anything happen to the mortal form of Carrius. The new Carrius's body grows around those souls and the net impact on the Immaculate Circle's plan is nill.
THE CHANGES REQUIRED
Now the War for the Crown is a three-sided contest. There's Eutropia (the PCs), Pythareus (will be dealt with in book 4) and Carrius Reborn.
I'll have to get rid of the cameo appearances by Carrius, of course, in Books Three, Four, and Five. However, those don't serve a huge plot purpose and an information can be relayed via Martella or Gloriana Morrilo or even Eutropia herself.
In Book Five, once Pythareus has been dealt with, Eutropia still has to address the matter of her reborn brother. Easy enough to point the PCs at the Mantle of Taldaris as a way to get legitimacy established between them--she may still even think he's an impostor, no matter how many people believe in him.
Then in Book Six, her assassination happens. This clears the path for Carrius +6 to take the throne, which plot-wise is exactly happens. Just have to cut the parts where he talks to the PCs directly.
They still have to infiltrate the palace, deal with the mindscapes and former emperors, and raise Eutropia from the dead. So that gets the campaign back on track. Then the reunion between Eutropia and Carrius Reborn can play out in a few ways, depending on your preference:
1. The PCs kill him by defeating the six souls. Afterwards, they might tell E. that he was an impostor, and no one will ever know the real truth.
2. Carrius survives in diminished form. He and E. reconcile and he reveals the story of his resurrection at the end of Book Six instead of Book Three.
3. Carrius survives and the PCs decide to eliminate him before E. finds out. They claim he's an impostor. See 1.
I suspect my players will do either 1 or 2, as they're generally good guys.
Hope that's helpful. Let me know if you have any questions.
My crew hated Xan from his first moment. They killed him at the city gate in three rounds.
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Oh--and also, because Xan got to achieve his goal, it had an ancillary useful effect.
(Our group is small, so there are only 2 PCs).
In Book Four, when they were trying to deal with the night hags, they used a sending spell to reach out to "that vigilante from Yanmass who killed Carrius". They had put together he was a powerful psychopomp, though they didn't know exactly what kind. I was able to supplement the party with a 'helpful' NPC who was still searching for what had happened to Carrius. Since the night hags in Book Four are partly responsible, it made sense for him to respond to the PCs' call for help and to go after them. I was able to then use Xan to supplement their abilities.
A lot of what I did with him was 'off-screen', so as not to usurp their central position to the story. He cleaned out the night hags and Water Hill Manor, which would have been very challenging for only two PCs to do on their own.
Being able to deploy Xan as an occasional ally (if not friendly, at least understanding that his path and the PCs' are the same for a time) has been useful in a short-handed group. Also, he's been able, in his own gruff, hardboiled way, to fill in some gaps in the Immaculate Circle's plan when the PCs missed clues.
I've tried to do that throughout the campaign. For instance, at the end of Book Four, they kind of kicked the hornet's nest on the assault on Abadar's Pillar. Things looked really dire, a raise dead scroll was burned in combat, and they had no idea how they were going to get out of this one. At that moment... the Night Swan (leveled up) arrived to help them out. Again, the NPC isn't the center of the story, but a useful tool as a GM if things really start to go sideways.
I like this use of him for your group. 2 PCs wow. Are they using Leadership Feats to help their numbers?
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No, they haven't been doing that. I don't like the feat tax on just two players. Instead, I've had NPCs at various points help them out. For instance, the Night Swan showed up in the raid on the Birdsong Palace (and, as mentioned above, in the assault on Abadar's Pillar). Her goals are her own, but they coincide with the PCs just enough that she can provide an extra hand in combat.
And for the Tall Grasses battle, they took the time to de-stone the loyal Taldan Horse, so I ran that encounter as a set-piece battle using a combination of troop rules and description. In order not to get bogged down the details (nothing is less fun that a GM who insists on rolling 20 times for every PC roll), I also focused exclusively on the parts of the battle the PCs were directly involved in. So while the two opposing troops did all kinds of stuff (recon, chase downs, mopping up), at the table the PCs had people to keep the main enemy force off their backs so they could target the leadership.
Gallindra Jondrek also followed them back to Meratt & then to Zimar. The in-game explanation was she resigned her commission after dealing with the traitors, being disillusioned with the Taldan Horse. So she's been able to be support at key moments and also take care of a lot of things that the PCs might not directly be interested in (e.g., they could hide out in Zimar for weeks without triggering a search because she could do all the logistics in town, since HER identity wasn't known as a Eutropian agent, whereas theirs is).
It also helps that my players are very, very smart. With one exception (when they tried to jump Pythareus during the Abadar's Pillar assault), they've been very patient and willing to use smart tactical thinking to maximize their impact while minimizing their exposure. Just "get 'em" usually isn't a viable strategy when you've only got two players. So they've used a lot of invisibility, gaseous form, enchantments, etc. to out-think the AP rather than brute force it.
Because there are only two of them (and this is a pretty lucrative AP), they also have relatively high WBL to expend on consumables to solve problems. And as we say at our table: "If you can throw money at the problem, what you have is not a problem. It is an expense."
There have be a few encounters I've scaled down. Not many, but every now and then on the fly I can tell they're in over their heads and so I'll reduce the number of extras just to give them a fighting chance.
And on a few of the sections, I've just eliminated what was a very dangerous challenge. For instance, Water Hill Manor could very easily overwhelmed two players, because of the small space and number of rakshasa. So that was one area where I had Xan go in first. There was nothing left by the time they got there but bodies, the snake in the basement, the water elemental & trap, and a whole bunch of clues that Xan hadn't bothered to gather up because they didn't concern his mission.
We've been short-handed for two APs now (the other one being Strange Aeons). It's doable, it just takes being aware of the limitations and adapting.
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Love it
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That's not how I read it. In Soraya the paraika's chamber:
...correspondence from Earl Yander Merkondus to unnamed recipients, in which he identifies himself as "the Gray Kingmaker" several times. The correspondence doesn't include anything incriminating--Yander is too clever for that--but it's damning in connection with the materials in Jaliessa's chambers at TallgrassesIn Jaliessa's chambers:
...correspondence to the traitors signed by someone called the "Gray Kingmaker". Although these notes don't indicate who the Gray Kingmaker is, when connected with the notes in Soraya's chambers... they prove that Earl Merkondus is behind both schemes.So.
In the set of letters to unnamed people in Soraya's chambers, Earl Merkondus (who is "too clever" to incriminate himself) identifies himself as "the Gray Kingmaker" several times.
Then, being too clever to incriminate himself, he sends a bunch of letters to treasonous Taldan Horse guards, signed with the alias that he told the aforementioned "unnamed people" he was going to use.
I think maybe the best way to deal with this is to swap the locations of the letters and just ignore what the AP says. Letters at Tallgrasses identifying himself can be explained away far easier than correspondence with actual hell demons. Yander could argue that the Tallgrasses letters were for the former inhabitants, or written to the traitors before their treachery was unknown. But I don't see a logical scenario where someone gets caught consorting with Divs and receives no consequences.
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Well, he *could* always claim that he had no idea how those letters got in the div's belongings. By my reading, the letters aren't TO Soraya, they're to "unnamed recipients." So he could always say "Hey, she had a lot of things in her lair. I'm as much a victim as everyone else here!"