I have some NPCs I want to insert into the path. I was hoping that when volume six was released it would be relatively simple to say that some extra giants/giantkin had wandered into the final setting, but that's just not going to work given the extreme location of Xin-Shalast.
My PCs are all descended from a single troll (Grigmurta). She left the Sandpoint Hinterlands about forty years ago, and hasn't been seen since. Two of her daughters and their Birdcruncher (goblin) husbands left about five years ago, after being initial suspects in the Chopper murders. Her third daughter left with her Seven Tooth (goblin) husband a year or two later.
The obvious place to insert giants and giantkin would be Jorgenfist. I'll almost certainly put some family members there, possibly making someone a runeslave if I want to ratchet up the angst. One of the big motivations of the party is to reunite with their family and then travel the planes to find their grandfather in "Heaven". Having them find some of their family in volume four is fine, but I'd rather not make it feel like the big climax (unless my players are feeling done, I guess) so I'd like to string it out a bit.
Any other thoughts on where I should stick some of these folks? I could possibly insert one trollkin (plus husband) with the trolls at Skull's Crossing, but I suspect that they might have been eaten in that situation.
I'm also unsure what to do with these NPCs once the players round them all up. If the reunion were happening in volume six they'd just stick around for the duration of the AP (possibly hiding someplace during the climactic combat) but I don't think that doing this for several volumes is the optimal solution. Maybe I should give them some young children (siblings to the PCs) they need to look after until the PCs secure safe passage to Heaven.
Okay, here's my tentative plan.
Grigmurta the troll is in charge of the Skulltaker trolls, having moved in and taken Grazuul's place in their hearts. Grazuul is so stupid that he didn't even notice. Once the ogres are dispatched, the purpose of the encounter changes to making sure that the floodgates continue to work.
Two of the three trollkin goblin sisters will be at Jorgenfist, but they'll have already been dunked in the cauldron. Their goblin husbands will be living with the redcaps. The giants of Jorgenfist will recognize the trollkin goblin PCs for what they are, since they'll already be familiar with the two sisters. Rescuing their parents is thus an added motivation for the Jorgenfist dungeon crawl.
This leaves me with one trollkin goblin sister (Fogbagez) and her goblin husband (Grubstep). She is known to have lived in Nybor for a while before meeting her current goblin husband, and it's hinted that she has children there. I could move her back to Nybor, and maybe leave Grubstep in Wartle as an encounter during the PCs' trip to Turtleback Ferry.
The downside is that this gets all of the family motivations out of the way by the end of volume four, but I just don't see a plausible way to draw it out longer. Grigmurta will stay on a bit with the Skulltakers, Fogbagez will likely have obligations in Nybor, and the goblin husbands of the two runeslave sisters will likely have their hands full dealing with their unconscious wives. At least this means I won't have to worry about wussy NPC family members trailing along behind the PCs.
Any thoughts?
This sounds like a good idea- if your PCs' 'family ambitions' are out of the way, it leaves them clear for the 'save the world' climax.
OOhh!!! Ooohh! I just had an idea! Maybe if they can get someone to try to locate their grandfather's spirit in "heaven", they can determine that (beat) he's not there....
In life, he was greedy (to a reasonable extent, certainly not Karzoug-style, just loved his gold) and Karzoug's runewell has captured his spirit. The description for the last encounter describes swirling spirit-type things in the walls... what about if they're going there to free granddaddy? You could have a sabotage-subplot in the last battle, while one of them is covering the others and distracting Karzoug, the others are trying to break the Soul Lens or something to release the spirits.
This way, they'd be driving the campaign to 'go find Karzoug' and free Grandpa... oh, yeah, and save the world if necessary.
OOhh!!! Ooohh! I just had an idea! Maybe if they can get someone to try to locate their grandfather's spirit in "heaven", they can determine that (beat) he's not there....
In life, he was greedy (to a reasonable extent, certainly not Karzoug-style, just loved his gold) and Karzoug's runewell has captured his spirit.
I love this idea!
One slight complication: My agreement with my players is that I won't change the AP's background story (ie everything that happened before play began), and Skrigbrug (aka Grandpa) died decades ago. He's obviously not in the path (so I can change his story if I want to, other than the fact that the players know about his death), but he wouldn't have had a Sihedron rune on him. Has Karzoug's runewell been collecting souls for ten thousand years? I thought that the point was that Mokmurian and the lamia matriarchs had to get souls fed into it.
Maybe Grigmurta left to get him raised, and they lived a happy life together until this year, when Skrigbrug got tempted into gambling at Paradise, and got branded. For a second death, he probably got eaten by the ogres attacking the dam.
Is that going to work?
Regardless: beauty idea, Blue Eyes!
There are some hints in #1 that a sufficiently close Runewell can take your soul whether you are Sihedron-marked or not; the mark allows things to happen at a much greater distance. So the Wrathwell in Sandpoint can claim wrathful souls who die in or around Sandpoint. I'm not sure this is canon: the metaphysics of Runewells have been debated here a lot, and my take on them ended up being very different. (James, I think it was, argued that they don't take souls at all, just sort of launder them--but I much prefer the interpretation where they do.)
Does this help with your backstory? Maybe not, because it's the wrong Runewell.
My PCs are wondering very much why they have seen no one Sihedron-marked in Xin-Shalast. They will be awfully upset if they figure it out: especially Lel, whose besetting sin is certainly Wrath.
Mary
Thanks for the heads-up, Mary! That could still work. They could hear that Skrigbrug is in heaven but his personality has lost its spark, and he's not enjoying his afterlife. It's not as dramatic as "We have to save Grandpa's soul", but it would save me having to break my agreement with my players and contradict canon.
I'll go through the books carefully and see what they say on the subject. I'm not bound by what the staff says on the boards (though I'm always delighted to read it).