Uh Oh Skinsaw man, what do I do?

[iStott]

So, the PC (Dorsk the Druid) that Skinsaw Man was obsessed with (Envy) died to a goblin ghast in a very preventable way (whole party vs a single goblin ghast; it (already at half health) paralyzes the druid, everyone gets a turn to prevent the incoming coup de grace, but fails).
Now, I rebuilt Skinsaw Man as a Vigilante with Guise of Life, having one identity for each personality (Lordship being the Living Social, Hurter being the Social, and Skinsaw being the Vigilante), and Lordship managed to trick the party into thinking that he was still Aldern and was imprisoned down in the caverns by the real killer, then escaped by burrowing away while they were reading Xanesha's letter.
I'm unsure how he will react to Dorsk's death, but last session I had him return to the Sanatorium, and murder Habe, the orderlies, and Caizarlu in the exact way that Dorsk died; paralyzed by a claw, then coup de grace with a throat bite, then burrow away.
But where do I go from here? It'd make sense for this to be the tipping point and for him to go to Sandpoint and go on a murder rampage, but I don't think the PCs screwed up enough to deserve this. He could return to the farmlands? The PCs haven't been there yet, and I've replaced Rogor's Craesby with the ghoulified version of a PC who left the party after three sessions, so maybe fighting Aldern in the presense of Ghoul mooks would be memorable?

[Lawrencelot]

Quote:

I've replaced Rogor's Craesby with the ghoulified version of a PC who left the party after three sessions

That sounds like a fun time for the whole family. If you have no other way to draw the PCs to the farmlands, definitely let him go there.

If there is nothing for the Skinsaw Man to do in the Farmlands, maybe he can use that as his base of operations to turn goblins and other monsters in the area into ghouls. The Brinestump marsh has a goblin tribe. The farmlands are also close to a forest that has some fey in it, if I recall correctly. Fey ghouls sounds terrifying.

Then wherever the PCs decide to go, have them run into some ghoul goblin/fey. If they follow the clues, it should lead them to the Skinsaw man in the farmlands.

Edit: his goal might then be to go on a murder rampage in Sandpoint, but he just wants to get even more ghouls to achieve this goal

[Askar Avari]

I'd frame this - specifically Dorsk's death - as the thing that finally leads to the Skinsaw Man taking Aldern over completely. Now with his element of surprise ruined, S.M. turns his attention to destroying the party utterly for 'letting my lovely Dorsk die a mortal death', and cranks the plan of attacking Sandpoint into high gear.

1) Before the party attacked, Aldern used ghoul-fever-infected corpses to pollute the river. This has led to small numbers of fey, plant creatures, and many goblins turning ghoul

2) Aldern takes a few days trying to rally these spread-out populations to his cause. This gets the attention of some surviving farm folk, who flee the area, giving Aldern and his new minions 'forward camps' of sort.

3) Once Aldern has a forward camp (the farms) and perhaps a rallying point (perhaps the barn from Book 2 Part 1?), this strange group comes for Sandpoint, but perhaps not as stealthily as the book predicts - after all, this force has goblins and fey in it!

4) The party fights alongside the city guard, but the Guard is no match for the Skinsaw Man, who brings his favorite new alies with him to fight the party head-on while the guards have their hands full. He curses them for their failures, and says something ominous about the Brothers as he dies.

(Note: In my own game, Aldern did the river-polluting thing and nearly turned a dryad's grove ghoul - it was the dryad fleeing desperately for her life that alerted the party to the condition in the farmlands. The situation was much more out of hand in my game, and the party recruited an extermination force of almost every capable fighter in Sandpoint while they struck the Misgivings. It felt very cool! So I may just be pushing for the kind of high-intensity ghoul nonsense that my group got up to).