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TLDR: Does Academy of Secrets spoil the story in Curse of the Crimson Throne?
So I've been running a Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign for my group for the last 2 years or so. We're about the finish the 3rd chapter, Escape from Old Korvosa, and one of my players has suggested running a one shot module to give me a break and a chance to join the rest of the players. While talking about this he had an idea I thought was pretty good. He suggested the module be set in the City of Korvosa and that the characters everyone builds could be the rest of the players backup characters in case someone had a player death. I thought this would work pretty well and that we could slot these new characters in as NPCs that could easily be called upon if ever the need arose.
So looking through the adventures set in Korvosa I found the Academy of Secrets. I have already been doing my best to really make the Korvosan setting as detailed and rich as possible, so all the players were already aware of the Breaching Festival. We have even been keeping pretty close track of time passing in our campaign with a Golarion calendar, and I have even made it a point to insert some of the other Korvosan specific and general holidays into our game (such as, the King died while everyone was celebrating Merrymead, and the plague in chapter 2 started spreading right after Taxfest). So everyone generally knows that the annual Breaching Festival is coming up, but considering everything that's happened in the city it makes since that the festival wouldn't happen during the events of the campaign. Instead the idea is that they will do it as a sort of flashback to one year ago where all the backup characters will be introduced.
Ok, so here is my question. Are there any spoilers for the Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path in Academy of Secrets that would ruin my players experience if he ran the module? Since he has offered to run it and invited me to play as a PC in the module I can't really look for myself without spoiling the module. So I'm in need of some advice from someone who has run both who can help me and my player avoid the story spoilers of both.
Specifically I want to avoid spoiling the main plot of Curse of the Crimson Throne and all the things relevant to the Queen. I'd be more open to some spoilers for Lorthact as long as they don't give everything away (preferably just some tantalizing tid-bits that would make the players aware of the existence of other evil forces in Korvosa). I had thought of trying to incorporate his presence into the main plot, and perhaps use the suggestion of Lorthact as a story hook for a short post campaign adventure. If the spoilers are very expansive then we may need to look at some of the other modules, but if they are pretty limited then I was hoping to create a modified document for my player with the spoilers omitted (hoping that I can do so without spoiling the module to much for myself).
It gives away a good deal about Lorthact's history and his plans, although not about how they concern Queen Ileosa. Academy of Secrets also has a section dedicated on how it can be inserted into a Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign, and although said section is clearly marked as such it is on the same page as other parts of the module's workings.
Furthermore if the module is completed successfully and not ending in a TPK or worse, it would have an impact on the Acadamae as a whole and on Lorthact's plans in Korvosa.
There's no direct spoilers but there's a chance for the streams to cross, since the Queen is supposed to attend the ceremony. And you are of course taking some risks when things happen in one game and have a knock-on effect on the other. But you should be ok. It depends how much control you seek to have over your version of Korvosa, and how relaxed you'll be about having another GM change that. Which they will.
However you'll have a major meta issues: since you already know the secrets within the Academy of Secrets! You'll have to work hard for your character to not know what you know. That's going to remove a lot of the fun for you.
Having said that, Academy of Secrets makes a good addition to the overall CoTC campaign. I'm including it within mine as follows, in case that's something you've considered:
- I have Ornelos and the Acadamae as generally supportive of the Queen, which is not written into the AP.
- I have boosted the module to level 15. It comes after the completion of Scarwall, before the attack on Castle Korvosa. This gave me the opportunity to add challenges to the module, which to me makes the whole 'no one has succeeded at it' a bit more believable.
- The PCs are (probably, emergent plot-dependent) invited to enter the ceremony by the Queen! All entering the ceremony get the 'freedom of the city' up until the event. This means that the PCs can return to the city without fear of direct problems with the Queen. However the Queen is hoping that the PCs 'disappear' within the Hall of Wards, as Ornelos has promised her will happen. So she's content to sit back and let the ceremony do her work for her.
- Friendly NPCs (the Senechal etc) will suggest that if the PCs can complete the ceremony, it will gain them the support of many citizens. As a result, their move against the Queen will go better.
- Ornelos, at the end of the adventure, can advise the PCs about Sermignatto and what they are up against. Assuming that the PCs are not very hostile to the unfortunate wizard.
- I also have taking on Lorthact as a possible levels 19-20 extension if my players are up for it. They probably are, we ran Rise of the Runelords to 20 and that went well.
One of my PCs backstories involves 'issues' with the Acadamae (he's from the Theumanexus College), which also can get resolved via the adventure and dealing with Lorthact.
If you are looking for an adventure set in Korvosa that doesn't involve dealing with any NPCs from CotCT I recommend The House on Hook Street. It's awesome imho.
OK, thank you both for the input! That's actually very helpful. I knew that if I made a character to play myself that I might run into some meta game issues. If it's that extensive then I may rethink things.
I do like the setup you created to incorporate Academy of Secrets. I may just have to take you up on that offer and borrow it. :)
Also, thank you for the recommendation Yossarian. I bought House on Hook Street along with some other adventures I saw set in Korvosa and did see that it had some pretty good reviews. I'll talk it over with my player and see if that sounds good to him.
BTW Yossarian, would you be interested in sharing the adjustments you're referring to when you bump Academy of Secrets up to 15?
Tbh I've only done them roughly to make sure it works, when we get close in the campaign i'll fully detail them.
Partly it's by increasing the CR of the enemies inside Belzeragna. In particular giving Chyvom some devil minions to up the CR of that encounter. The fun part is adding a few magical traps and challenges before the PCs enter the demiplane.
My favourite one so far is just a 30ft wide gap. A deep pit the PCs have to cross. The challenge being: an antimagic field exists over the pit. So any magical attempt to cross it will fail. Another one is something that attempts to counterspell anything cast on it.
House on Hook street I personally think is an excellent module. It is quite complex and takes plenty of preparation time from the GM, but it pays that back.
I'm actually planning to use Academy of Secrets as part of my replacement for History of Ashes (the whole cowboys & Indians theme just doesn't do it for me). In my alternate plot, the party first has to rescue Thousand Bones from Deathhead Vault, where he's been imprisoned as an "enemy of the people". They're hoping he can tell them what was kept hidden by the Shoanti in the ancient mastaba. Unfortunately, he can't, but he knows a Shoanti shaman who possibly can. The bad news is, he's been captured by the Knights of the Nail, and is being held prisoner in Citadel Vraid.
The party journeys to the Citadel and negotiates with Lictor DeVries for the Shoanti's release (I hope to convince them that assaulting the Hellknights' stronghold is a Bad Idea). He agrees on the condition that they retrieve an item for him - something kept in the Hall of Warding in the Acadamae.
This takes us into Academy of Secrets. I'm going to dispense with the whole Breaching Festival thing. Instead they have to steal the key from the headmaster's quarters (yikes!) then use it to get into Belzeragna. The item DeVries wants is his contract with his hellish master, kept by the Contract Devil.
Once they've freed the shaman, he'll lead them into the Cinderlands to commune with the ancestor spirits (no Respect Points shtuff) to get the skinny on Kazavon and Serithial.