In primitive times its closer to 90% material 10% labor, in more modern days like today or hyperadvanced nantine ie fabricate & wall of stone/iron casting wizards its closer to 90% labor and 10% materials.
And the old rule holds true, the harder you work (sweat running) the less you are paid.
It's possible I've just missed ir but does anyone know where I can find the contributions that Baron Okerra promises to give the PCs if they befriend him? It's mentioned briefly on page 10 but nothing concrete.
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I couldn't find any information on that either. I planned on giving the PC's enough timber and crafters to have their manor rebuilt (about 1k gold).
If the PC's figure about the helpers in their manor early enough, I would count all the lumber from the Baron being used, and there would be 500 gp of labor left...maybe enough to help with the 1st improvement the group does to Stachys.
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Is there a reason to go straight to the Jubilee instead of going first to the betony estate and the jubilee a few days later (making a little adaptation in the 'calendar')? Going straight to the party feels rushed.
EDIT: Also, two characters I wish were better explored were the character guide in the party, Alista Cragus, and the coach that takes them to Meratt (he/she [the coach, not Alista] would likely be a trusted ally of Martella and could stay at meratt as part of the characters staff).
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I guess I can attempt to answer this (since my group just got done with the Jubilee yesterday). Take what you will out of it.
The best answer I have for the first part (going straight to the Jubilee) was it was probably the writers way to separate the "social" interaction in act 1 and the "rebuilding Stachys" in act 2. I think the hurriedness of making them go straight to the Jubilee also forces them to go in somewhat blind on what exactly is going to happen, and not allow them to do any gathering information except the basics. Additionally, it allows them to meet their neighbors, a few possible friends, a nemesis or two and gets them ready to see what they need to do for their town.
On the 2 characters....I used the bit they had on Alista and had her be the groups sounding board. It worked. I believe one person is going to take her to be one of her official agents. On the coach master....nothing was really talked about it in the intro, so I had Martella give them the coach...but not a driver. One of the players has one of their agents being their coach master and another has one being their porter (him being the one who sits shotgun on long runs, and will hold on to the step and back brace when being an official footman/porter).
About going straight to the Jubilee, the separation of different aspects of the book for organization purposes was what I had thought too.
I think I got my English mixed up. When I said coach I meant the coach driver. I thought I could use coach to refer either to the vehicle or to the one driving it.
I'm trying to figure out how the PCs pay for things in this adventure.
When they arrive in Merrit County, they (likely) have less than 400gp between them from Book 1. There are a few opportunities to "win" some fancy jewelry during the Jubileee, but not much.
The Manor and especially the town of Stachys require thousands of GP to fix, something level 4-5 PCs don't have. Am I missing something?
It feels weird the PCs are expected to take over a run-down manor house, and turn things around with zero funding. Do the PCs have an income source from the land? Although I can't imagine local peasants contributing more than a few silver pieces a month.
Also, how do they sell things? If they do find some 3000gp item, where would they sell it? They'd have to head back to Oppara. Lotheedar has a purchase limit of 5000gp, but even that seems weird (the Count sees the PCs constantly pawning random treasures, maybe even gifts from him, in his backyard)
Any thoughts?
I had my players figure out what their wealth was to compare it to wealth by level after book 1 and they were already over it by a couple thousand each (not to mention the priceless relics a few of them are carrying). Overall the adventure seems to be throwing more than enough money their way in terms of items, ie: platinum and diamond necklace in the lurker's cave (850g).
I'm currently running them through book 2 and they just got to Stachys and are making a list of the cost to repair Stachys and their estate. They're a little overwhelmed at how much money it is going to take, but they still had a decent amount in their pockets since one character didn't spend it on armour upgrades. They also just made friends with the domovoi, so that freed up some assets. Looking through the rest of part two, there are plenty of opportunities for them to make friends or do deeds that get them extra resources. I've actually worried that they might end up with too much money, so I increased the cost of fixing up the manor by 1000g (even with domovoi help). I think the town and the estate are a good way to use this item rich campaign to get rid of excess wealth.
Maybe I'll run into trouble, but we'll see how it goes.
Pg 10 states the party gets 2 Loyalty Points if Baron Okerra is made helpful. But on Pg 26, it states that they would get 4 points normally if he becomes helpful. Which is correct?
I think 4 is correct, since it matches the value that Night Swan grants. Also, if it is only 2, it is impossible to hit 51 or more Loyalty Points by the end without at least one of the Personal Victories from Pg 39. I calculate 50 total points if everything is done (and there are no loses) and the Baron is helpful. If the party opts to make Night Swan helpful, the total jumps to 52.
Of course, there is the question of whether the Baron's award (if it is 4 points) should be divided between Friendly and Helpful the way the Night Swan's award is as detailed on Pg 37.
For anyone that's already run this, how did you handle the above? Did you use the Personal Victories? Is my 50/52 point tally somehow wrong?
Can anyone explain to me how the layout of the Palace of Birdsong is supposed to make sense?
According to "Palace of Birdsong Features" (p.46) "ceilings are 20 feet high unless otherwise stated". The only area where this otherwise stated is area H7, where "the ceiling here is 40 feet overhead".
However, areas H27–H29 and the adjoining servant room are right above area H7, but they are also level with the rest of the top floor. How does that work?
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I've run parts 1 & 2 of this, and here are some notes for those who plan to run it in the future...
Baron Okerra was Friendly coming in to this, and the party pretty easily pushed that to Helpful during the Jubilee. This made the Night Swan Hostile before the event even progressed to her assassination attempt. We are on a limited play schedule, so I am trying to cram as much stuff into limited play times. This made making use of Night Swan very difficult without it devolving into endless hit-and-run attacks on the party as they travelled or attacks on their allies, which seems pointless in the larger scheme of things. I did things in a background nature... "the Night Swan has struck again, killing X and carrying off Y, etc". The most effective thing was to let her siphon off 10%-20% of the improvement rewards they got from befriending the other parties in the area. While there was never any danger of them not having enough funds to complete, they still worried about it and her raids rankled them each time. Also, unless you are careful to introduce several NPCs by name outside of the main noble players, it's almost impossible to make use of the Night Swan's normal personality without the party figuring out who she is. This becomes even *more* of a problem if the party ever encounters the Night Swan and learns aspects of her physical appearance. Lastly, one member of my group is playing a Vigilante, so this entire aspect of the adventure was a bit tougher to pull off. That player seemed to know what was going on from fairly early on, but was also not overly interested in direct confrontation. She seemed more inclined to do more than the Night Swan did to help people and simply make her name more well known. If your party lacks a vigilante, it might be better to have the Night Swan show up at key places trying to "help" people and set her up as a more involved antagonist.
The Beggarwood encounter area can be interesting as well as problematic. There aren't any guidelines about what should happen if that area is dealt with later rather than sooner. Taking out Gul early can lead to all sorts of fun issues with the Count, or if your party is like mine, they'll try to frame the Night Swan with the note left at their estate. They even added a "you were warned" note to the bottom by forging her handwriting. But they also very nearly opted to kill the group due to the questionable religious connotations of the Friar. The book does not state or even imply that she hides her religion any longer, but I suppose it's debatable whether she should be or not. They also assumed the Halfling here was a spy since "every Halfling we encountered in Oppara tried to stab us". They waited until almost the end of Part 2 to resolve this and I am making use of the chaos around Gul's death to lead into Part 3.
Travel times can make Part 2 take excessive amounts of time unless the party is carefully monitoring every day they spend. I pre-made an 8-week calendar with days where rumors were introduced and tasks expected to be undertaken. If you order the rumors just right, you can sort of guide where the party will go to do things. In hindsight I should have also added construction timelines, but I don't think they were detailed in the module and I never dug out the kingdom building rules as I didn't think I had the time to for detail being spent on that area. I simply allowed the party to allocate funds for a chunk of buildings at a time, dictate an order, and then declared each one "built" after a few days.
I repurposed Titus to serve as an antagonist that was mentioned in one of the characters backgrounds. It mentions that he will constantly goad the party (or a PC in particular for me) and spread rumors, and since the PC in question was a Dandy Ranger, this allowed me to make use of the Rumor abilities of the archetype when I didn't expect they would come into play. Physical confrontation will finally occur in Part 3 of course as no duel took place during Part 2, but the animosity has been built to a nice heated pitch, especially since the same PC is the one that was "gifted" the estate and title. It all worked amazingly well actually, moreso than the Night Swan.
The Gold Canyon was the one area where my scheduling and timeline screwed up. The group didn't visit Lotheedar until later, when they wanted help dealing with the body of the Queen without a Face. Then they promptly forgot about the missing acolytes. Then the bridge got built while the acolytes were still missing. And of course the inevitable "didn't the construction crew see this giant snake and floating body" question came up. Whoops! If your schedule for the bridge looks to come up before the encounter (and for most parties it should, given the effect on travel times it will be viewed as a priority), you can have the initial construction crew scramble back bloodied from a snake encounter and use it to lead into the acolyte mission or reinforce their memory of it if they forget.
Best moment from Part 2 - Having Baron Telus scramble down from his hiding spot near the ceiling and put a shocking grasp on the Ranger who was already assuming this was just an Ettercap. Always fun when meta-gamey expectations are thrown awry.
Pre-planning has been a bigger part of this module than almost any I've run to date, with the exception of some parts of Kingmaker. I don't expect Part 3 to be anything but a standard dungeon delve with some key moments. I'm still not sure if they'll talk the Count down or just off him. Looking forward to the next module more than I am the assault on Birdsong really. The party still talks about avenging Kalbio and still have the note from his parents. :) They also kept and still carry around Duke Squiggles as a reminder of how treacherous Halflings are. And yes, I plan to make use of that. :D
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I figure I would bring this up, as I have a lot of PC's who would rather fix problems instead of "fixing" problems (i.e. talk or think their way out of a combat vs just fighting).
I will have this all in spoiler, just so not to take a huge window block, though I would like to say it does require allowing the PC's room for problem solving against Baron Telus.
Finally, if you happen to be playing in my war for the crown, I might suggest you NOT read this :-)
They felt that they should help New Towne and Jambis. Not exactly knowing what happened to Baron Telus, they went to New Towne to find out. The Baronet there was able to--after asking real nice and high diplomacy rolls--give them at least the bare bones of what he knew or heard. That Baron Telus was cursed by a witch, and that he became more reclusive and paranoid. And that finally the people of New Towne fled from Jambis, and he felt obligated to help them. He did give the group his crest so that Master Mosle would know that they are coming with his blessing.
So the group travelled to Jambis first...seeing the creepy old manor on the hill nearby. They were ambushed by 4 black widows (6 player group...needed to do that to make it a challenge)...and almost killed 1 PC because of bad fort saves (also using Unchained Poison/Disease rules...Awesome but boy do they suck for players with bad dice rolls). Because of that they went to the inn in Jambis to stay the night, hopefully allowing the unconscious Swashbuckler to go up one point on the poison track so not to be unconscious for the next part.
During that evening, I asked them if they were going to make a fire in the fire place. They said yes, so I rolled perceptions for Master Mosle and his "bandits". They saw it late enough that they decided to check it out after midnight. Considering the group said they boarded up/reinforced the door and windows, I figure Molse would knock. The "Lady" of the group didn't open the door but talked to Master Molse through the door, explaining why they were there, and saying they had met a Baronet Caphridius Vort, and were here to help. A good diplomacy roll or two happened, and Master Molse and his men were let inside, and he basically explained everything.
Hearing the problems, they knew they would need something strong to break the curse. They rolled well enough to know that no low casting of Dispel Magic would work, and one was able to hypothesis that they needed something like Break Enchantment (i.e. 5th level cleric or wizard spell). The only person they felt MIGHT be powerful enough to get them that scroll was Archbanker Lady Paril. So they told Master Molse the would be back in a week or so, with a horse to feed the Baron (the horse almost staggering because of the amount of horse tranquilizers they would inject it with--high skilled Alchemist and a person which high handle animal got an idea on how to do that), and then try to cast break enchantment on the Baron.
I had set up one of the players with being the grand-daughter of Octavia Nicodemius, and she had made a good impression on her grandmother during book 1, enough so that she was given a special compass that would show the closest portal to the Endless Repository. Well, the group split up, the Lady and her "lawyer" staying to talk to Sir Gul Guisarme, while the others left to Lotheed to talk to Lady Paril. They got to the church of Abadar, but after finding out that the spell break enchantment was too high for the Lady to scribe (I believe she is level 7 or 8), they asked her to look around to see if she could locate one for them. While doing that, the PC remembered the compass and asked if there was a portal nearby. I rolled, and there was one. So they went to talk to Lady Octavia Nicodemius, who I have decided has to be at least level 17 or so Occultist. So, giving that I rolled another percentage and yes she did have one. Well, the PC's don't know this, but the more they ask Octavia the more likely something BAD is going to happen to her probably in book 5 or 6--nothing free or easy to come by can be without consequences after all. But they got the scroll from her and went back to deal with the Baron.
So....Baron. They drugged the horse, sent it inside. The baron ate...I decided the DC was 24 (again, Alchemist + Handle Animal...they were able to dose it enough to get it to stumble inside) and baron rolled decent...but failed by 1. With that I figured his Ettercap metabolism fought off some of the drug. They went inside and proceeded to bluff him into believing the Cleric of Asmodeus (lvl 1 BTW, the other 4 levels vigilante) was going to pray for good luck and health to the Baron. After an EXCELLENT Caster level check to cast a higher level spell off a scroll (needed a 14 or higher on a d20, as I made the scroll CL 15), and a "break enchantment" roll that was a 18, the curse was broken (Roughly figured the DC has to be at least 30--Major Curse is 5th level, it gets a +5 to resist breaking enchantment, And gave another + 10 for the casters INT modifier (I know it was less, but didn't have book 4 (I think) and just pulled a tough number out of my head)).
With the breaking of the curse, the Baron immediately FAILED the drug check (well...the ettercap templated had to give him at LEAST a plus +4-5 to fort save), and collapsed, mostly out of it.
And...because Sir Gul Guisarme brought up hearing that the Lady's claim on Bethony manor was possibly illegitimate, decided to have a crossbow wedding, the Cleric of Asmodeus officiating, Master Mosle as the best man (he was happy his friend was alive that he didn't argue much), and is now Baroness Telus.
TL:DR Your players will come up with a WAY for you to have to pull things out of your posterior. Better have a good enough imagination and a semi-grasp of the rules to survive when they come up with a plan SO crazy that it might JUST have a chance of succeeding.
Hello all, first time poster.
I am looking at the info in Concluding the Adventure and am curious how others interpreted the "If PCs resisted the urge to loot royal property" requirement for the bonus cloaks. There are the three specific instances, but "such as" implies these are only examples. That being the case, which things are "royal property" here? I get the idea that it would be ridiculous for them to be prying pearls off of the walls and looting library books, but are they really supposed to put forth all this effort and then get to the vault only to look at 10k in gold and just walk away? What about the fancy billiard balls? When are they looting Panivar/Bartleby and when are they looting what belongs to Martella?
I'm tempted to keep it simple or just make executive decisions on it but I'm curious if anyone else decided differently.
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TellinCob, my group is about 80% done with book 2. So I have been thinking about this a bit also.
My group, will likely be getting almost all the loyalty points. As in I think they are going to make sure that they do all the rebuilding of Stachys. And, because they are sinking a LOT of the money they are currently getting into rebuilding the town, I think I am going to tie the amount they can get away with on taking of things in the Palace of Birdsong to the loyalty points.
The ones that are obviously against the no looting royal property are still off limits. The group will likely not be pulling say the 10k gold, as they will think it is part of the no looting rule, but maybe have Martella tell them to take some (or all of it) if they completely rebuild Stachys and get the max loyality points.
Whatever you do, just make sure you keep the group in at least a little new cash...they do need to be at least semi-equipped for the next book ;-)
Can anyone explain to me how the layout of the Palace of Birdsong is supposed to make sense?
According to "Palace of Birdsong Features" (p.46) "ceilings are 20 feet high unless otherwise stated". The only area where this otherwise stated is area H7, where "the ceiling here is 40 feet overhead".
However, areas H27–H29 and the adjoining servant room are right above area H7, but they are also level with the rest of the top floor. How does that work?
The second floor area only extends about 60 feet northward over that ballroom area, leaving about 2500 square feet of the ballroom proper able to rise to the full ceiling height.
Waldergrave Venomous, thanks for that, all good information to consider!
The second floor area only extends about 60 feet northward over that ballroom area, leaving about 2500 square feet of the ballroom proper able to rise to the full ceiling height.
The problem here, though is that area H27, which is above H7 has windows that would go into the ballroom if your explanation was right, and that doesn't really make sense.
Hello all, first time poster.
I am looking at the info in Concluding the Adventure and am curious how others interpreted the "If PCs resisted the urge to loot royal property" requirement for the bonus cloaks. There are the three specific instances, but "such as" implies these are only examples. That being the case, which things are "royal property" here? I get the idea that it would be ridiculous for them to be prying pearls off of the walls and looting library books, but are they really supposed to put forth all this effort and then get to the vault only to look at 10k in gold and just walk away? What about the fancy billiard balls? When are they looting Panivar/Bartleby and when are they looting what belongs to Martella?
I'm tempted to keep it simple or just make executive decisions on it but I'm curious if anyone else decided differently.
The easiest way to handle this in my opinion: Include a "no looting" line in the note you give them from Martella before they move against the Bartleby. Then at the end of the adventure, evaluate the party wealth (use the WBL charts if you like, or take them and add/subtract whatever you feel comfortable with) and if you feel they are coming up short, throw in some additional cash along with the cloaks to allow them to pick up items they want... or even award the desired items outright along with the cloaks. Then you don't have to worry about what is or isn't loot, whether it is or isn't useful to your party, and whether the NPCs should be angry or not.
Hello fellow GM'S running book 2!
For books 1 and 2, I compiled a shared Google Sheet meant to be updated by the players and GM for tracking information related to parts 1 and 2 of the book (Dramatis Personae and Stachys Information). I hope another group benefits as much from it as we did!
The sheets for Songbird, Scion, Saboteur are listed here: HERE.
Hello all, first time poster.
I am looking at the info in Concluding the Adventure and am curious how others interpreted the "If PCs resisted the urge to loot royal property" requirement for the bonus cloaks. There are the three specific instances, but "such as" implies these are only examples. That being the case, which things are "royal property" here? I get the idea that it would be ridiculous for them to be prying pearls off of the walls and looting library books, but are they really supposed to put forth all this effort and then get to the vault only to look at 10k in gold and just walk away? What about the fancy billiard balls? When are they looting Panivar/Bartleby and when are they looting what belongs to Martella?
I'm tempted to keep it simple or just make executive decisions on it but I'm curious if anyone else decided differently.
Hey! I just finished running my group through this part. My players were a little tentative about what they could take, but I reiterated what Martella had told them when she first gives them the mission in Meratt: the furniture, books, portraits, etc. belong to the royal family. Everything else I tried to make clear that it belonged to the Lotheeds and was fair game. If someone was unsure, I let them roll a knowledge nobility check or something that made sense to determine who they thought it belonged to. Worked out alright in the end, but I also am pretty nice about pointing things out for my players.
The Dance of the Phalanx: at the beginning of the dance, how many pairs of dancers are there?
How is Dame Crabbe winning the Trucco matches on the fourth round? She's a level 4 aristocrat who (I assume) took weapon focus hammers for the Trucco bonus. To consistently win on turn 4 she would have to hit a DC 20 dexterity check with her Dexterity(unspecified)+3 bonus for 3 out of the 4 rounds. That's statistically unlikely unless she has a dexterity of 30-something.
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How is Dame Crabbe winning the Trucco matches on the fourth round? She's a level 4 aristocrat who (I assume) took weapon focus hammers for the Trucco bonus. To consistently win on turn 4 she would have to hit a DC 20 dexterity check with her Dexterity(unspecified)+3 bonus for 3 out of the 4 rounds. That's statistically unlikely unless she has a dexterity of 30-something.
The matches (Trucco, Joust, Hunt) all have default winners written in to play up the NPC's natures and cement them as characters. This requires a little hand waving, sure, but nothing is stopping your PCs from taking gold in these events - except the hunt, where apparently capturing two commoners is more impressive than slaying the Iron Lash of Meratt.
How is Dame Crabbe winning the Trucco matches on the fourth round? She's a level 4 aristocrat who (I assume) took weapon focus hammers for the Trucco bonus. To consistently win on turn 4 she would have to hit a DC 20 dexterity check with her Dexterity(unspecified)+3 bonus for 3 out of the 4 rounds. That's statistically unlikely unless she has a dexterity of 30-something.The matches (Trucco, Joust, Hunt) all have default winners written in to play up the NPC's natures and cement them as characters. This requires a little hand waving, sure, but nothing is stopping your PCs from taking gold in these events - except the hunt, where apparently capturing two commoners is more impressive than slaying the Iron Lash of Meratt.
I'm just wondering what kind of monster PC a character would have to build to to beat Dame Crabbe in one match, let alone all 5. The only way a PC can beat her is by succeeding on 4 consecutive DC 20 dexterity checks (presuming they go before her in the round, otherwise they can't beat her at all). The maximum dexterity a PC can have at this level is 23 (25 if they're somehow the goblin at the garden party). If they're proficient and focused in light hammers they get a +9 to the check which gives them a 50 / 50 shot of getting 2 points that round, which ultimately means a 7.5% chance of beating Dame Crabbe in any given match.
Am I blind, or am I just missing how much gold value Baron Okerra commits to rebuilding Stachys if made helpful? I've searched the module and can find nothing. I'm planning now to simply set it at 5,000 gp (halfway between the "taxes" returned by Bartelby and Voinum's vineyard assistance.
You are correct. There is no mention of a GP value for his supply offer. 5,000 gp sounds like a decent compromise.
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So during the Tanager Jubilee I had a PC using something that trivialized all of his rolls and I was wondering how my fellow DMs would rule on the use of this particular ability
Mainly as a result of this bardic masterpiece they managed to not only get every single NPC to helpful during the Jubilee but also learn all their weaknesses, strengths, biases, as well as a majority of their influencing skills.
Is that basically intended by the end of the Jubilee or was allowing this performance to crush the nobility a mistake?
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So during the Tanager Jubilee I had a PC using something that trivialized all of his rolls and I was wondering how my fellow DMs would rule on the use of this particular ability
Mainly as a result of this bardic masterpiece they managed to not only get every single NPC to helpful during the Jubilee but also learn all their weaknesses, strengths, biases, as well as a majority of their influencing skills.
Is that basically intended by the end of the Jubilee or was allowing this performance to crush the nobility a mistake?
Pageant of the Peacock is notoriously overpowered.
That said, my party of 5 got everyone to helpful by the end of the Jubilee, so I don’t think it’s the end of the world.
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My party got off to a disastrously bad start, botching all their checks right up until the assassination attempt, at which point they were able to regain their lost ground and get everyone to helpful (except Titus and Yander). I even ran the extra npcs (Titus, Yander, Lucretzia, & Gusairne) in the social rounds, and with a combination of good roles and excellent social skills they dominated the event. I think its fair to say that unless your party is really not geared towards socializing. this shouldn't be a Herculean task.
That said, the manticore fight would have been a TPK if the party hadn't brought Malphene Trant with them (she's engaged to one of the PCs).
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Yeah that nearly KO'd my group as well. It was actually the Purple Finch with a casting of hideous laughter and a really low save that ended up saving them. All of them were in negatives but the bard.
Malphene is their head of the guard at the estate and Purple Finch (who they suspect is the Night Swan) is their head of house.
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How much is Dame Crabbe's bust worth? Heyyyy O!
But no seriously any of you guys suggest a good value for the bust that Dame Crabbe gives for being helpful?
Well the Amulet is worth 8,000, and the treasure generator from Ultimate Equipment lists a "marble idol" between 300 and 500 gp. I'd round up for craftsmanship, assume 8,500. So after three failed tries to get the amulet off, you basically have a smashed lump of worthless marble.
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Pretty much what Blue Eyed Devil said. I told them what the amulet was worth, and told them that without it the rest of the statue was worth ~500 (nobody made a great appraise check, but I had figured it worth 500).
They had it professionally removed, as none was confident with their ability. I charged them ~150 for the removal (and extra). They didn't sell the statue though, and had the person removing it make a fake amulet to put on the bust--as they didn't want to insult Dame Crabbe when she came to their manor.
On the 'County of Meratt' article's first page, which estate is depicted there? the labyrinth seems to hint at Moost, Dame Crabbe's estate.
Also, other than p.48, is the Palace of Birdsong depicted/shown anywhere? (artist/outdoors/view from afar perspective?)
Thanks!
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GM PDK. It could be Moost, not enough to really determine it, except the hedge maze. It probably isn't Birdsong (doesn't have the tower on the west that would be the Prince's tower, or the L shape where the dance is held). It could just be a "generic" manor, but I would use it as the back of Moost if PC's want to see what Moost would look like.
I would think page 4 has a little of the Palace of Birdsong in it....behind the iconics and the peacocks that is. But yeah, not much artwork of Birdsong is in the book.
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Yep. That single mention in one of the questions to Martella is all I remember seeing the name Cateline. Makes me wonder if something got cut out from one of the books (book 2 maybe, or later...).
If you REALLY want to add her in (I am contemplating it once I get there), in book 6 I might add her as being one of the people Martella brings in to help her through the death. Or else, if your group didn't ask that one question, then just ignore it. My group did ask, and I have a person doing their own spreadsheet of people, so that will will be asked again of me I am certain.
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Yep. That single mention in one of the questions to Martella is all I remember seeing the name Cateline. Makes me wonder if something got cut out from one of the books (book 2 maybe, or later...).
If you REALLY want to add her in (I am contemplating it once I get there), in book 6 I might add her as being one of the people Martella brings in to help her through the death. Or else, if your group didn't ask that one question, then just ignore it. My group did ask, and I have a person doing their own spreadsheet of people, so that will will be asked again of me I am certain.
My group of 3 is through day 1 of the Jubilee.
I've incorporated some of the NPCs in the campaign into the PC's backstories. One of my players, a swashbuckler by the name of Dorius, is the elder brother of Lucretzia. Their reunion at this party was a surprise to both of them.
This has been some great fun so far, since he made fast friends with Baron Okerra. The Baron is helpful, so Lucretzia is mad at him but isn't getting too deep into why, just saying she has reason to dislike him.
I'm wondering how best to play up the tension between the three, and what exactly to do mechanically with her attitude now that Okerra is helpful. At the moment I have her friendly to Dorius, but unfriendly to the rest of the party. Basically, she trusts her brother has some sense and some similar motivations as her, but is suspicious of his friends, knowing basically nothing about them except that they seem quite comfortable among the nobility.
What's interesting is that she's going to know from the get-go that Dorius and co. are behind the recent goings-on.
Any input is appreciated, especially since the next session is in two days.
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It is a tough call...you make Baron Okerra an ally, you piss off the Night Swan, and vice versa....Honestly, I kinda hand waved it. The Night Swan unfortunately fell to a person who was designed for diplomacy (I think a +20 something) who assured her that they were of like mind (note that the player character's backstory was ~90% the Night Swan, and this is pure chance as the player made the character well before book 2 was even out!). Baron Okerra they assured that the Night Swan was not going to be a problem, as long as the common folk were treated well...and well the Asmodeus Priest with a +30 barrister (which can be used as Diplomacy or Bluff) assured him it was okay, and then married him off to the group's alchemist....all good :-).
My suggestion to you is that Dorius talks his little sister to let it be, and maybe go work on another area in Taldor...maybe Yanmass maybe? ;-) That way you can have her appear and maybe help in book 3.
On Okerra, maybe if you have a unmarried PC (or even a friendly NPC), marry him, and then explain that sometimes you work with people even though you don't want to.
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In my game at least, the Night Swan is a devious and manipulative individual.
My recommendations would be for her to hint that something that Okerra did while he was serving disgusted but that she doesn't want to say since she doesn't have all the details.
The goal would be to sow some distrust and hamper a future friendship with Okerra.
Maybe throw in some red herrings that make Okerra look like he is hiding something. Make him out to be some kind of war criminal.
"Why would he leave the army anyway?"
Lucretzia could easily sow such rumors through Madame Crabbe.
As far as her standing toward the group I would keep her relationship level with her brother and the group's separate with her being careful to keep him from discovering anything that would compromise her plans.
Fun Note: In my game the mystery of "Who is the Night Swan?!?!?" became quite a manic discussion on the part of the group. There were four suspects: The Purple Finch, Mona Sittas, Selli Okerra, and Lucretzia Marthane.
It all culminated with a plot to get the party to rush into a cave firing away at the Night Swan.
In reality she had bound up Selli Okerra in her clothes under the cover of a smoke stick in hopes that they would kill her and destabilize the noble relationship they had built with him.
It didn't work. :/
My recommendations would be for her to hint that something that Okerra did while he was serving disgusted but that she doesn't want to say since she doesn't have all the details.
The goal would be to sow some distrust and hamper a future friendship with Okerra.
I love this idea!
Ok so in our session on Wednesday...
We got through the rest of the Jubilee. Things were going great! Dorius bribed Titus's assigned servant (Yellow Canary) to screw up his hunt. Combined with the party bagging the Iron Lash, I had them win the hunt. They seemed to like trading barbs with and antagonizing Titus.
Things were going really well! They got all Dramatis Personae to Helpful (those with listed social stat blocks in Part 1). Literally their last round they got the final success with Baroness Voinum.
It took them to their last round because they decided to start the masquerade by prodding Titus. He insulted Shelyn, which prompted a strongly-worded response from her paladin, which prompted him challenging the paladin to a duel. Pretty straightforward, right?
Well... things escalated.
The "duel" was cancelled and replaced with a 3 on 3 fight at dawn. No rules, just a grudge match. The party was taking on a fight from Part 3, Titus and his goons. Three level 5 PCs vs three NPCs with 6 levels of PC classes.
Dame Carodd prebuffed--she was flying and mirror image'd up front, since the party was buffing beforehand, too. She flies out of melee, taking an AoO for half her health, and fireballs the party. The mesmerist, Casimir, retaliates with blistering invective.
Dame Carodd takes a bunch of damage, going to 1 from the d10 fire damage and the mesmerist's painful stare. She caught fire, dropping to -4 and falling 20 feet, taking 8 falling damage, bringing her to -12. Her Con is 12.
So the party killed a noble.
Syras, the other goon, is up next and stops the fight, running to Carodd's side and putting out the fire. The party pulls out the scroll of breath of life they got in Book 1 and tries to use it, but Casimir fails to emulate the requisite Wisdom.
Count Lotheed and Sir Gul rush out to assess the situation, drawn previously from the sound of the fireball. Lucretzia was watching the whole time.
With a masterful speech condemning Titus complementing a Diplomacy roll of 34, the party led by Cedric the paladin gets Count Lotheed on their side. He banishes Titus and has Sir Gul send to Cassomir for a cleric to raise dead the victim. He's also going to put a bunch of money into the guests' pockets and call in some favors to try to make sure word doesn't get out about what happened.
I rolled to see if Dorius noticed Lucretzia watching, and he rolled high. He noticed her and noticed that she seemed almost pleased by Dame Carodd's death.
That's where we ended. The party knows that next thing they need to do is go apologize to all the guests. So I've been figuring how they'll all react.
They already got Bartelby on their side. He doesn't really give a crap about Carodd, but he is annoyed that such a bad PR accident happened at his party. Luckily, his rage is directed at Titus. No penalty to the party.
Lucretzia is actually really happy that some fat hog noble got what was coming to her. Combined with Casimir's talking to her at the masquerade, I have her up to indifferent to him rather than unfriendly from the party getting Okerra to helpful. So she has a different attitude towards each member of the party. Apology probably won't change her attitudes, if she even sticks around for that. I'm wondering about whether she might do something to prevent the raising.
Okerra is mad, and thinks they should have kept it to a duel, following the established rules and procedures. Definitely reducing his attitude by one step short a very compelling apology, defense, and/or astronomical Diplomacy/Bluff check.
Crabbe didn't have a high opinion of Carodd, and is kind of happy for the gossip material, though she certainly blows a lot of wind bemoaning the poor girl's fate. She's too invested in any of the PCs potentially marrying her daughter to drop from helpful.
Voinum... I'm not sure. I don't see her being too torn up about it, and she's going to get revived. But, it having been a fight and not a duel might lower her opinion of the PCs.
Onora is probably a little put off by the PCs having jumped to violence, but the politics of it all is kind of over her head. If they botch the apology, she'll probably drop one level, but a reasonable defense or roll should keep her level.
SO YEAH. Lot to think about, and next session is tomorrow (Sunday). I'm planning on having Titus come back, staggering up to the Betony estate drunk off his ass, where he'll remember the PCs were at the Exaltation Massacre wearing the same pin as Martella. He'll declare his revelation and start staggering towards the Palace of Birdsong. I want to see how the party handles that. I could see Syras or the Night Swan showing up, either to talk Titus down and take him out of Meratt, or to kill the f~%~er and give the Night Swan some leverage over the PCs.
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A suggestion (YMMV).
I noticed that the encounter in Sotto was laughably easy for my party and given that it and the attack at the goat exchange were their only combat I immediately thought I should have upped the ante on the fight.
This may only be appealing if your party is near the end of the second part of the adventure (the regular encounter being a better challenge if done first... perhaps) but I suggest upping the difficulty.
I suggest making Halmash a Barghest and the regular wolves worgs. The bargh's magical abilities and resistances would make it a better challenge for a group I think.
Maybe even throw in some diplomacy interactions with the locals to hint that the wolf leader isn't simply a worg like his underlings etc...
The barghest would essentially drawing out the exchange with the Sotto residents and making them increasingly desperate due to lack of supplies. Then they either start giving up innocents willingly or finds some way to find fault in their exchange and claim an innocent or two as 'payment' for them failing the deal.
Just a random suggestion. :)
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I know this has to be somewhere pretty obvious but I can't find it. So far I've been able to figure this:
Stachys starts as unfriendly.
Tribune helpful = Stachys is Indifferent.
10000 Gold Improvements = Stachys is Friendly.
???? = Stachys is Helpful?
I was thinking it had to something to do with the amount of loyalty points but I don't see that anywhere.
Edit: I see it now. Portimer of Stachys. Missed it because my players snuck him out of the county and gave the credit to the Night Swan. :/
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A suggestion (YMMV).
I noticed that the encounter in Sotto was laughably easy for my party and given that it and the attack at the goat exchange were their only combat I immediately thought I should have upped the ante on the fight.
This may only be appealing if your party is near the end of the second part of the adventure (the regular encounter being a better challenge if done first... perhaps) but I suggest upping the difficulty.
I suggest making Halmash a Barghest and the regular wolves worgs. The bargh's magical abilities and resistances would make it a better challenge for a group I think.
Maybe even throw in some diplomacy interactions with the locals to hint that the wolf leader isn't simply a worg like his underlings etc...
The barghest would essentially drawing out the exchange with the Sotto residents and making them increasingly desperate due to lack of supplies. Then they either start giving up innocents willingly or finds some way to find fault in their exchange and claim an innocent or two as 'payment' for them failing the deal.
Just a random suggestion. :)
I like upping the ante on Sotto, but there are already a lot of outsiders kicking around this AP, and I wanted some variety. So I replaced Halmash with Ruxandra Katranjiev, the example werewolf from Classic Horrors revisited, and the wolves with werewolves that she has turned from the Sotto locals. The whole "intelligent wolf seeks revenge on a town that glorifies wolf hunting" bit works pretty well, plus the wolves can disappear back into the population to make the challenge of finding them harder if they employ hit and run tactics.
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I know this has to be somewhere pretty obvious but I can't find it. So far I've been able to figure this:
Stachys starts as unfriendly.
Tribune helpful = Stachys is Indifferent.
10000 Gold Improvements = Stachys is Friendly.
???? = Stachys is Helpful?
I was thinking it had to something to do with the amount of loyalty points but I don't see that anywhere.
Edit: I see it now. Portimer of Stachys. Missed it because my players snuck him out of the county and gave the credit to the Night Swan. :/
Seems like an odd place to put such an important thing, especially with no obvious sign that dismissal is the only way to get that last push.
Personally, I'm allowing my party to get to helpful by finishing all of the public works projects for Stachys.
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I ended up deciding that given how much chance that there is of losing standing with the town (through the trials and some other stuff) to up the party's standing with Stachys for every 20 loyalty points they gained.
One of my players also suggested that since they payed the town's taxes to Eta out of their own pocket that should have done it as well.
Either way they earned helpful as far as I can tell.
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I'd like to say that this book in particular (and seemingly the path itself) are turning out to be my favorite to run... perhaps ever. The way my players have engaged with the story from the mystery of the Night Swan to the question as to whether they are the actual villains has been great.
Some of the awesome NPCs (particularly Veletto and the Night Swan) provided such interesting backstories for me to build off that my players have had an amazing time. :D
They are just about to finish up the book this Sunday and I'm not sure how they are going to react to their characters having to go back to being their old personas. :D
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'd like to say that this book in particular (and seemingly the path itself) are turning out to be my favorite to run... perhaps ever. The way my players have engaged with the story from the mystery of the Night Swan to the question as to whether they are the actual villains has been great.
Some of the awesome NPCs (particularly Veletto and the Night Swan) provided such interesting backstories for me to build off that my players have had an amazing time. :D
They are just about to finish up the book this Sunday and I'm not sure how they are going to react to their characters having to go back to being their old personas. :D
I've had the same experience. I've never had a party commit so thoroughly to their characters, and I've been playing with this group for 10+ years. Book 2 particularly has topped my previous favorite, the 2nd book of Council of Thieves and the infamous murderplay. Every NPC is so complex and interesting. It takes a hell of a lot of work and note-taking to GM this AP as well as it deserves, but it is well worth it.