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So! I'm running Hell's Rebels for a group, and this is their second AP ever after Carrion Crown, which they adored. I was running through the pawnset for Hell's Rebels, and I found the Skinsaw cultists, and I was a little disappointed that my players wouldn't get how much of a throwback this was. They don't know anything about Rise of the Runelords, much less the Skinsaw men and the infamy of those books! And I could certainly explain it to them, and leave the story intact, but something dawned on me- would it be viable to replace the Skinsaw Cultists with Whispering Way cultists?
I haven't managed to read up on what the Skinsaw Cultists are doing in HR, and I'm not sure if the WW are at all an appropriate replacement, but certainly the two cults have a lot in common- worship of a powerful entity involved in the domains of secrets, death and murder, and the shock of seeing the Whispering Way in Kintargo would definitely affect this particular group more than the Skinsaw Cult.
Is this at all an appropriate change? What would I have to change in order to get them properly adjusted into the story? Any and all advice is appreciated!
Would Vyre now be a town subverted by the Whispering Way? How would that change the Vegas of Cheliax?
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It should go without warning, major general lore spoilers ahead.
It's an interesting thought, actually. Well, I'd say that the answer for this depends pretty heavily on how much lore you want to rewrite. Practically speaking, there's very little reason why you couldn't do it. The Skinsaw Cult's involvement with the PCs is generic enough in nature that you wouldn't need to rewrite any of the actual story beats. You could very much get away with just replacing any named references (including possibly renaming some affiliates like the Gray Spiders), and possibly replacing some creatures (mostly the Jorogumos) with equivalent undead creatures.
The two biggest challenges are Vyre and the Skinsaw's affiliation with Barzillai.
Vyre itself would probably need a fairly significant rewrite, but that's only necessary if your party wants to do any actual interacting with the city. As Norgorber's home turf, the city is pretty heavily themed around his particular style of godhood, but that said there's he's also exactly the kind of god that wouldn't mind a few undead cultists doing their thing on his turf, provided they did it his way. And of course if the party just sticks to the interactions with Molly and the Queen of Delights, then the details of Vyre's seedy underbelly need not ever be mentioned (though personally I would consider that a waste; Vyre is super interesting as a location).
Later in book 4 when the Skinsaw Cult gets active in Kintargo again, it might be a little harder to justify why Barzillai would permit these chaotic undead worshipers to run amok in his city (the Norgorberites at least are NE, not CE). That said, you can hand wave that as Barzillai getting so desperate he's willing to make deals with more and more dubious groups to crush the rebellion, which still fits in fine.
So, TL;DR Yes, you can totally do it and frankly it would require fairly little in the way of changes on your part.
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Not that I care to undermine my own DM here, but: kind reminder that the Whispering Way is predominately Neutral Evil as well, and that their philosophy doesn't necessarily "clash" with any substantial sect of Norgorber's portfolio (at least as far as I know, though Tar-Baphon's fanclub is far from my subject of expertise.) If anything, I could definitely see the Whispering Way having a lot of common ground under his manifest as the Reaper of Reputation, and I hardly think much would need restructuring in terms of justifying Barzillai's affiliation in that respect. Heck, if you're really wanting to expand their influence, consider some of the earlier events of Book 6 as something they may well have been working towards, if not downright assisting with. It would certainly go some way towards hinting Tiarise Izoni's inevitable fate, at any rate.
Vyre is slightly more complex, but that may or may not be an issue at all depending on how deep you and your players are prepared to go down that rabbit hole. I for one concur with Trichotome: it's a fantastic setting, rife for intrigue and additional ploys and schemes as you please, but beyond its presentation in connecting the Silver Ravens to Molly and That Damn Tiefling, an in-depth introduction to Vyre isn't necessary for the purposes of Hell's Rebels' story.
Mechanically speaking, throwing together some appropriately themed Undead and adjusting the Grey Spiders as more necrotic in nature should probably do the trick. Throw around some Advanced Deathwebs, a Yurei or two, maybe some Exoskeleton'd Ogre Spiders if you want to give them something to chew on? Sure. Definitely doable.
TL;DR - Seems like it would work to me.
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Hmmm... I can definitely work with this! Getting the Way to negotiate with Barzillai should be a sinch with me- I played off a lot of the head members of the Whispering Way in Carrion Crown as being the type to sit someone down over a cup of tea and offer their services while borderline threatening them with blackmail or worse, so finding a way to get them in with Barzillai- along with his already apparent desperation, which I know my players would spot and greatly appreciate, story-wise- makes THAT part easy to work with. I really like Hourai's suggestion about Book 6's early events having been a lot of their doing- perhaps even one of the reasons Thrune requested for their aid, as a sort of backup plan should things go south.
Vyre, however... that IS a tricky one. I certainly do want them to explore Vyre, and to feel how shady that town is. Potentially, the Way isn't a permanent faction there, and have them be the "guests" of the Skinsaw Cult as they perform some dark experiments. Any suggestion what that might be? I'm considering bringing in Ysara Nine Eyes, a member of the Way who was mentioned in CC several times, but never appeared, as their new leader after the killfest that was Book 6 for their leadership.
What did you end up doing with this? I'm looking to have Vyre be more central to book five, with the King of Keys as the end boss.