Extinction Curse non-spoiler details on members of the Celestial Menagerie


Extinction Curse


I'm just starting the first adventure in the arc and I have players who want to further build their backstories as part of growing up in the Celestial Menagerie. In the first part of the AP, it gives 3 members of that circus and says that more will be detailed in the second adventure. I'm not ready yet to buy that (I want to make sure my group finishes and wants to continue from the first).
Are there any notable performers and/or other circus-folk for people to hook their backstories in?

Liberty's Edge

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In what context and do you want your players to feel really bad?

Because Mistress Dusklight is really and profoundly abusive and if they have positive connections, they're gonna find them being badly and in some cases graphically mistreated in notably unpleasant ways, and the question arises why they didn't take them with them when they left if they were close. Or find them aiding and abetting such abuses, which is perhaps worse.

Also, and pursuant to the above, the Menagerie seems to have a pretty high turnover rate, so they don't need to know anyone in particular.

And if you want them to have an adversarial relationship with someone, I'd recommend Mistress Dusklight herself. This is very plausible as she tends to be pretty hands on in both recruiting new members to her circus, and in abusing them afterwards. She can easily have done just about any awful your players like to their characters or someone they cared about and it'd be consistent with her demonstrated character in the second book.


Walkin's right, but more context can help explain:

All of the CM NPCs worthy of the characters friendship are abused and imprisoned.

The NPCs that Mistress Dusklight allows to move freely are all wicked to some extent (or more).

You're much better off keeping it abstract and not encouraging the players to get attached.

One big reason is that the adventure reaches Escadar at level 5, but isn't ready to take down Mistress Disk light until level 8.

Players with strong bonds to named CM NPCs will only get frustrated when the adventure has them doing other stuff than freeing their friends for three whole levels.

It's best to consider CM just a long gone memory, a hazy backstory that isn't foremost on the heroes' mind.

Then, when time comes, the focus can be wholly on Mistress Dusklight herself, just like the writing expects.

So I second the advice to make it all about the evil cat lady and only about her.

Hope that helps...

Liberty's Edge

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It doesn't have to be hazy, it can be very vivid in what happened to the PCs themselves at Mistress Dusklight's hands, and I think that works fine.

But yeah, I'd emphasize that it was years ago and the Celestial Menagerie has a lot of turnover. There may not be a single person there now who was when the PCs worked there, and if there is they were an accomplice to Mistress Dusklight doing some ugly stuff, so not anyone they like or care about.

There's a good chance they'll come to sympathize with those there who are victims, but the adventure doesn't work super well if they're too focused on saving people from the Celestial Menagerie right this second to wait until they're high enough level to succeed.


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For my party I'm currently running in this, I did give them a cursory list of NPCs and brief bits about their jobs at the circus during my session zero. And I told them none of them should feature prominently in their backstories, they took me at my word. Most have outlined a negative interaction or two, that leads to dislike but not outright hatred/need for vengeance. All still see Dusklight and her organization as too powerful to engange at this time, and a group to avoid attracting attention form. So I feel that worked about right. One player did want to have his character's parent disappear as a performer in the CM off-screen, before the adventure started, and I'm working that in.

But I haven't gotten to chapter 2 yet, its possible they'll think they've grown up enough to take them on directly from the start....


Just to make it clear, the earliest level I personally think the heroes stand a chance of apprehending Mistress Dusklight is...

Spoiler:

level 7

Earlier than that, and you're setting up your players for disappointment.


Perfect, thanks for all of the very constructive feedback.

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