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So I'm taking over my party's game starting with book 2, and I'm wondering how I can foreshadow some of the later events, or at least make sure certain events and people are given more prominence so they have more weight behind them later. Of course at the time of writing we can only talk up to book 4 and speculate on the rest.
1. In book 4, Wynsal Starborn makes a big request from the party. I am going to have him stop into the PC's station after they deal with Hendrid, passing by on his way to Starwatch Keep (and maybe a description of Starwatch), and thanks them directly for a job well done. I'd think he is one of the few people that makes Lavarsus sweat, so it might be a treat for the players. Book 1 mentions Wynsal is enthusiastic about restoring the Precipice Quarter.
2. In the Campaign Summary, it hints that Olansa Terimor has the stolen excavator, Graveraker. We'll want to really play up that it's missing in book 1, and keep bringing it up. The news chides Edgewatch for not having a lead, maybe Skinny (from the Faces of Edgewatch in book 1) is assigned to it and asks the PCs to watch out for any information at all.
3. Similarly, we want to mention Olansa Terimor early on. She's the City Planner in book 1, though not really mentioned outside of The 4720 AR Radiant Festival, and Chapter 1 where she was part of convincing the Grand Council to resurrect the Precipice Quarter. She might be seen walking the streets with a small retinue, mentioning...something?
4. Book 5's boss, Reginald Vancaskerkin, shows up in Book 1, and is mentioned in Book 2 as someone seeking an exclusive scoop. He should show up fairly regularly, perhaps giving them clues to certain adventures. While it would be fun to have him writing the PCs as idiots and twisting their words, I think he needs to be fairly endearing to the players. The Eyes on Absalom HQ is in the wise quarter -- without book 5, we can only speculate how it's connected to the story, so to be safe we should try and avoid the PCs going there, unless 5 has a description where they won't find out his secrets. He might set up a temporary office in a covered carriage near the edgewatch station. (Maybe it's drawn by a horse with a ginger mane, called "Red Top")
Any other suggestions?
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I agree with most of the ideas here:
My two cents is that I have written homemade articles signed by Vancaskerskin that I give to the players between the games, where they get little highlights and he exposes other plot elements.
As for Wynsal, I plan to have him give a speech and give the players the ''Purple Star of Valor'' for their work in apprehending the skinsaw cult as they are being promoted to the starwatch. A well spoken speech and strong roleplay moment should endear him to the party. Later, in hunting lodge seven, I plan to have Reginald vancaskerkin be the one to deliver the news that Wynsal Starborn has gone on to save one of his friends in harrowpark. He would say he is informing the party because he and the primarch go way back.
Then when they go and Wynsal looks at them confused, saying ''why have you come here, this trap was for me and me alone...'' and they go: '' Well your old friend reginald told us to come help you'' he'd just go : ''I have never met reginald vancaskerkin in my life...''
SPOTLIGHTS! SKINNY AND LAVARSUS COME IN, cut to black.
Hope it's as dramatic in the game as it is in my head ^^
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One of my players really wanted to publish some articles about what they confessed in the newspaper during some downtime, so naturally they went to Reginald Vankaskerkin. I'm very excited to see how that ends up playing out.
One of my players really wanted to publish some articles about what they confessed in the newspaper during some downtime, so naturally they went to Reginald Vankaskerkin. I'm very excited to see how that ends up playing out.
Try to take a picture of their face when they find out !
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One of the subtler foreshadowing I've done is the Larrett vignette.
Larrett, sometimes called Lord Filth, is Absalom’s infamous Commissioner of Sewers. With sunken eyes, a wrinkled nose, and long, greasy locks tumbling down from an unkempt and receding hairline, the twitchy administrator would look as if he had just crawled out of a septic puddle if he wasn’t always bedecked in the latest and most expensive Ivy District fashions. The smirking villain is perhaps the most caricatured politician in Absalom’s broadsheets, his face a veritable symbol of corruption known all across the city. The commission’s efficiency, as well as Larrett’s alliance with fellow Sanitation Commissioners Venlun Frusk (Streetsweepers) and Pondo Funt (Trashpickers), keep Larrett in power despite the fact that everyone seems to hate him.
He's a member of the High Council and thus has one of the precious votes for deciding who's the next (acting) primarch. The year before the start of the AP, Olansa very carefully orchestrated, in conjunction with the newspaper Eyes on Absalom, a damning exposé of his corruption. The scandal was so great that it left the acting primarch Starborn no choice but to replace him during that year's Exaltation of the Starstone. Olansa, with some expert political manoeuvring, was not only credited for catching him in the act, but also got his place in the High Council, thus securing one vote for herself when the Twilight Four plan was eventually enacted. There was a secret tradition that the positions of the High Council were reserved for the bearers of the magical cornucopias (see the 1e Guide to Absalom for more info about this recently expunged bit of lore) but that tradition had been waning for a long time after the artifacts lost their powers with the death of Aroden so Starborn wasn't particularly concerned with being the first to break it.
Since then, as is his right as a council member, Larrett has been regularly visiting the Starwatch and asking them to investigate how Olansa stole his high council seat. He will talk to anyone there who will listen to his ramblings about how he deserved the seat because of the cornucopia and so on. He has become a joke at the office. The Starwatch, as is their right, have decided, repeatedly and despite his protestations, to de-prioritise his case.
Enter the PCs. After they earn their Starwatch badges in the beginning of book 3, you can run this scene for them while they are in their office at Starwatch Keep, preferably when they feel they already have their hands full: One of their colleagues, preferably someone they already have a relationship with, sighs and mumbles "Not him again" as they're watching from a window. If asked, they will tell the PCs about how this low-councilmember has been bothering them with "a case of utmost urgency" (they do the air quotes to indicate the sarcasm). He used to come more often but lately he comes by every time there are new recruits so he's definitely there for the PCs. Larrett of course demands an audience with the new Starwatch agents and if the PCs grant it, he tells them what he tells everyone about how he is entitled to a high council seat and not just a lowly low-council seat and how Olansa stole what was rightfully his etc etc. Obviously he comes off as extremely entitled, corrupt and hysterical. If there's any other Starwatch guards present they roll their eyes incessantly through the whole ordeal. If the PCs recall knowledge about him they remember all the caricatures they've seen of him, not just in Eyes on Absalom but also as a character in puppet shows and word on the street about how corrupt he is.
The PCs will very likely completely dismiss him and write him off as another corrupt entitled nobleman that deserves his demotion... but the narrative seed of Olansa's meteoric rise in political power as well as her being a great thief has been planted.