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So Ive been running iron gods for the last few months one of the things my players did early on was take Meyanda's head as a literal trophy. They're a pretty neutral party and have a Scrap worth of about 5 right now and they've been very careful to not reveal Meyanda's head to anyone but leaders and their closest people, plus they've convinced everyone to stay quiet about Meyanda until they're ready to strike.
In our last session my players managed to secure the Steel hawks assistance through killing birdfood and nailing some diplomacy with Sevroth Slaid. They've basicly agreed to hand over Scrap wall to the Steel hawks once they overthrow the lords of rust.
Today we had a long session where they decided to infiltrate the Smiler's base after one of them got ambushed and almost eaten by a few of their gangmembers. They killed just about all of them except Marrow (Hatchet hands is long dead never making it out of the fort alive) and rescued Whiskiss. They returned Whiskiss to the Redtooth's and now they're trying to forge an alliance between the two groups.
The book doesn't really account for something like that but I like their initiative so Ive already decided, yes I want them to go for it if its what they want to do.
However here are my thoughts, they need to have a formal meeting between the two leaders to work out some sort of formal alliance. I already figured Divinya would be willing to host a meeting at the clockwork cathedral as a good neutral territory.
I figured it could be a nice dinner, serving roasted rust monster but where I'm struggling is what would the gangs ask for in order to form an alliance and would it require the PCs constant vigilance to keep it going?
The ideas I have so far include
1. A formal Non-aggression pact between both parties at least until the lords of rust are overthrown
2. A share of the technology found in the Lords of rusts headquarters (neither group is ok with a straight 50/50 split leaving the PCs to negotiate the leftovers because I know they'll keep most of it)
3. Greater territory rights over scrap wall, letting them charge "taxes" on people and merchants in their territory (this one is destined to implode as both groups will want a greater profit and the only thing I see the PCs able to negotiate is forming a "market district" that's considered neutral territory and is split 50/50 between the gangs)
So Im coming to others out there for some more ideas. What are some other things both gangs might argue over and I would also love some more food ideas to include in this scene as I want it to be an important meeting.
I would make that whole dinner thing kind of bizarre, like pseudo royal, but let's face it, they are bandits..
I think the Steel Hawks have been the leaders before the lords of rust came, so they would definitely want that position back. Redtooths could demand a greater territory or a higher position in the chain of command. Or even demand to share the leadership of scrapwall between the two gangs.
Let the gangs offer things that include the PCs, like redtooths promise the steel hawks, that the pcs would serve them for 6 months as elite guards and train their troops
In my Iron Gods game, I established that most people where bigotted against ratfolk. Redtooth was the best spymaster in Scrapwell, using her spy network to gather information on everything, so that she could slip her people out of trouble before it reached them. She would view an alliance with the Steel Hawks as giving those humans an opportunity to abuse her ratfolk. However, she would agree to it if she had evidence that the alternative, such as being forced to stand against the Lords of Rust without allies, would be worse.
I established the Steel Hawks as living in the best part of Scrapwell. They had some real buildings, such as the headquarters Birdfood used, rather than burrows dug into the walls of scrap. When Birdfood and all the other Smilers were dead, the Steel Hawks held an election for a new leader. Sevroth Slaid was not interested in the job; instead, the candidates were Dewey a not-bright brawler from the River Kingdoms and Drumkoff, a fighter modeled after presidential candidate Donald Trump. Drumkoff won and started building a wall between the Steel Hawks territory and the rest of Scrapwall. In my game Drumkoff willing let ratfolk into Steel Hawk territory to work as servants, but he would never ally with them. Dewey decided to get a job with the party, traveled with them to Iadenveigh and the Choking Tower, and retired as the new boss of Silverdisk Hall in Torch after nearly dying in the Choking Tower.
Really, I wanted business as usual to continue between Sevroth and the party. Making her the new leader of the Steel Hawks would have let the party negotiate more from her and I didn't want that. It was also fun having Redtooth send the party information that she wanted them to act on, rather than risking her own people.
For fun at Windcaler's negotiation table, I would prepare Redtooth with lots of information about the Lords of Rust and use that to expose weaknesses in any offer from the Steel Hawks that puts Redtooth's Raiders at greater risk. Redtooth wants to reduce risk. She will want assurances that the alliance won't crumble in the face of the Lords' strength and leave the ratfolk exposed to Hellion's vengeance. Sevroth, in contrast, would view the ratfolk as weak, and demand to know that an alliance would bring to the Steel Hawks. She might want to keep the Steel Hawks in their state, as the most well-off faction in Scrapwell, and fear that an alliance would lead to others claiming some of their luxuries. But she fears the growing strength of the Lords of Rust and their new religion and divine favor.
Both Redtooth and Sevroth would be motivated by fear rather than greed.
A fancy dinner hosted by the party would reassure Sevroth that no-one is after the Steel Hawks upper-poverty-level relative wealth. But both Sevroth and Redtooth would want the party themselves to accept most of the risk. They will be the spearpoint while the warriors of the Steel Hawks and Redtooth's Raiders back them up. I have had players who would nod and say that accepting the high-risk position is what adventure games are about. I have also had players who view NPCs are disposable units to spent to protect the PCs. Windcaler knows his players. I don't.