Introducing the lieutenants


Hell's Rebels


I was reading parts of book 4 the other day and reminded that in that one you basically run through all of Barzillai’s lieutenants on the way to the man himself. But in pretty much all cases there is limited interaction

Has anyone done anything to change this?

There are (I can’t remember and/or spell all the names )

Head of CCG (who several people I think have replaced)
Head of Dottari
Kyrre from the HellKnights
High Priest
Vampire ZK cleric
Witch (Tiarise ?)

There is also Hetamon’s mother who also drops in

The best I can tell there is no interaction with any of them. The witch performed the tooth fairy ritual which acts as a very hard to follow lead. The rest are leaders of all the established opposing organisations.

Perhaps I am overthinking this and the players don’t need to have interacted with them. There is of course always the risk that players will see someone and assume they should fight there and then. Although hopefully both the villains in Aria Park should serve as a message from book 1 scene 1 that that is not the case...


The way I'm running it is to introduce as much of the main lieutenants early on.

My party caught a glimpse of Trex at the end of the first session as she was charging towards Aria Park to help with the arrests there. Before they go to the Unsanctioned Excruciations encounter, they'll hear a rumour that Tombus will be there. I'm going to have Tiarise be pushing Lucella in TotT to be more antagonistic towards the party. Octavio is going to have a personal grudge against Kyrre and bring her up to the party fairly early on in his story line. One of my characters is an ex-Asmodean, so she's already familiar with Corinstian and heard rumours right about when she left that he was putting a lot of time and resources into something in the crypts, but left before that project was finished.

I've also created some random encounter tables where they could be running across one or more lieutenants early on in Kintargo before the full revolt.

In terms of leading a rebellion, it would be pretty useful to have eyes on leaders of various organizations against you like the CCG, Dottari, and Hellknights.

I'm doing this because I'm planning on bringing them all back as powerful devils in the Tower of Bone dungeon at the very end alongside Corinstian who is already in the book as written, Rivozair, and Nox.


I'm having the Gardener replace the herbalism prof at Alabaster Academy, the old teacher of one of the PCs. She'll be placing bulk orders for carnivorous plants at his plant shop, among others.

As a result of the student protest/riot, Zella Zidili was appointed the new provost of the Alabaster Academy and Lady Docur's School for Girls. She's being run exactly like Delores Umbridge. She's also the diviner who helped to frame the Ravens for some of the Wex killings. She also uses Mage's Dictum to broadcast House Thrune's messages to the city.

Kyrre Ekodyre will be issuing foreclosure notices in Old Kintargo, signed by Tiarise Izoni, as retaliation for that sector's seditious attitude. I think it's called "eminent domain" to do that to open the Barzillai Thrune Gladiatorial Arena.

The master of the Scorpion dojo that opposes the dojo of one PC is Tombus Regegius.


Good one there with the Gardener RogueRouge, bummer I didn't think of that (one of my PCs is a mycology student at the Academy so that would had fit great - too late now as we are in book 4).

Like others, I had Trex (and Ekodyre) squash protesters at the Aria park.

I had Barzillai send Zella Zidili as a secret emissary to Vyr, and she attended the dinner party along with the PCs. The characters knew there was a diplomat there from Barzillai's retinue, but they didn't know who (I made more guests foreigners than is in the AP). So they had a bit of a Agatha Christie-mystery to solve along with balancing the dinner itself. Resulted in some fun roleplay when the PCs tried to suss her out.

I had Tombus Regegius be the master of a fencing school opposed to the one where a PC duelist trained.

I had Tiarize be the instigator behind the Vex murders (and the one who gave him the kukri).

I had most of the lieutenants appear in some capacity in text, news or rumors. I made a regular newsletter where many of the dignitaries were interviewed about the going-ons in the city , which was a good way to introduce Barzillais gang without the players attacking them (the old meta-gaming problem where players think that NPCs that pop up are beatable because they pop up).


"Made a newsletter" - that is hardcore GM input right there

I like how more than one person seems to have Tombus as a sort of "Sensei Kreese" character


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Lanathar wrote:

"Made a newsletter" - that is hardcore GM input right there

Thanks. Here's the template I used, if you're interested - I just overwrote a copy each time for "new issues", easy enough to do in any graphics software: http://i.imgur.com/5BFwHTm.png.

I made a daughter of Aulamaxa who ran the leaflet, Corinne Aulamaxa. Since she is a noble she had some leeway and access. Now we're in book four and her and the newsletter have joined the Silver Ravens and gone underground.


Razcar -- Do you have any samples of the types of things the newsletters would contain?


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Warped Savant wrote:
Razcar -- Do you have any samples of the types of things the newsletters would contain?

Oh, they were mainly commenting on the things happening in the campaign, either through interviews with different officials, and offering exposition, rumors and introducing NPCs/villains. I made up a durotas (head constable) for each district, based on the system in Westcrown. So the newsletter interviewed them a lot.

An example: "A protest at the Aria park the 12th of Abadius exploded into vandalism, violence and chaos, claims the dottari of Jarvis End. We got a comment from our new Duxotar, Vanesses Trex: "Is this the way Kintargo welcomes their new leader? The lord-mayor himself tried to calm the rabid masses but to no avail. We had to charge the rabble with horse to disperse them. My own noble steed, Thunderscar, even got hit with a rotten tomato! The nerve. And had it not been for the calm and firm people-handling skills shown by the fine youngsters in the Chelish Citizen's Group, things could had gone much worse."
There are no official reports of injured protesters, although at least a dozen got arrested. As for the Dottari's report, one mount lost a horse-shoe trampling fleeing Kintargans, and a crossbow was accidently dropped and damaged when firing into the crowd. There was a rumor about the Lord-Mayor's assistant Nox getting seriously wounded, but this reporter saw her kicking in doors in Redroof this very morning and she perfectly seemed fine. And then of course we have the tomato incident with Trex's Thunderscar. We at the Silver Leaf send our regards, and hope 'Thundie' recovers swiftly."

The leaflet started to comment on the action of the Silver Ravens as they began to make an impact, and the tone turned more and more cheeky and sarcastic as Barzillai tightened the thumb-screws on the city. The PCs confronted the writer in book two and she later went underground and became an ally (and started the quest which led to freeing Jackdaw). It's been a fun addition to the campaign. I've made about one for each third session, and I post them in our game groups Facebook group page between sessions.

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