Fort Rannick; need your ideas!

[MundanGT]

Hi all!
So, the following situation.
My players freed the three black arrows, but none of them sensed Kaven motive, so he's basically a usurper in the party right now.
After the party freed them they send the druid in Owl form to the Fort for scouting, while Vale drew them the complete map and they discussed their options to attack the fort.
The plan is right now:
The main part of the group will head into the fort via the tunnel with the thunder lizards. They will drive the lizards into the fort. The main reason why they chose this route is because they hope to find captives in the cells.
Meanwhile they want Kaven to burn the "new" barracks to cause some trouble inside the fort.

Spoilers: he will not.

So, as written the party will encouter Lucrecia in the basement. I don't want this to happen.
I think Kaven will head straight into the basement of the fort, taking the secret route at the barracks. He will arrvie there shortly before the PCs will and will warn Lucrecia, who then teleports both of them via dimension door into the top of the tower. Should she block the stairway before she leaves?

She will then ask Kaven about everything he knows before she kills him. After that she will advice the Ogers how to handle the situation and let them imprison her into the tower, so that the party later finds her and hopefully think she is a hostage of the ogers.

But how should I go on from this?
As planned, the PCs will have no secret entry into the fort anymore, obviously the ogers will block all secret doors after Kaven tells them where they are.
I think maybe Jaagrath will challenge the PCs? Telling them to fight for the fort, he and his Brother-Sons against the party plus the black arrows?
Any suggestions?

[ckdragons]

Spoiler!:

I personally wouldn't kill Kaven. For Lucrecia, he's still useful as a tool and fodder against the PCs. Maybe she would instruct him to help the ogres ambush the party, or remain at her side as a personal body guard (i.e. human shield).

As a side note, I know that the campaign has been out for awhile so there's spoilers everywhere, but you should really ask these types of questions in the GM forum or protect it behind a Spoiler button. Just to help keep this from players that haven't played or currently playing this campaign. :)

[Lawrencelot]

I thought Kaven didn't actually know Lucrecia was in the basement, but that he thought she was in Turtleback Ferry or something. But maybe I misread. Anyway, letting the strongest ogre guard Lucrecia as a fake hostage sounds like a cool idea. It doesn't sound like she has a lot of time to prepare though, the party can go to the basement in a few minutes if everything goes well for them. So she can't lay traps or block the doors/stairs in my opinion. She can give some instructions for the ogres though, for example to defend certain stairs or doors.

[Askar Avari]

Just want to pop in to give my recommendation.

What to do with Kaven:

Rather than having Lucretia simply kill him, I think the book provides as valuable recommendation. Lucretia would like to see the party/the Black Arrows kill him. She kind of gets off on the discord and betrayal of it all.

When Kaven fails to set the barracks on fire, one of two possibilities occurs. First, that Kaven has betrayed the Black Arrows. Second, that he was found and captured before he pulled it off. When Kaven and Lucretia dimension door to the tower, they need to work out which version of events they're going with. Here are the scenarios I might recommend from that:

Option A: Kaven is the traitor. This works best with Lucretia being a prisoner - she may have been taken prisoner and kept is such good condition 'for Kaven's reward' or a similar explanation, acknowledging that it's a little weird that she hasn't been impaled, eaten, or had some other cruel fate befall her. In this instance, Lucretia reveals Kaven's betrayal under the guise of a prisoner so she can watch them rip him apart without the fight spilling over to include her.

Option B: Kaven is captured. In this case, Kaven becomes the hostage, and is intentionally dangled out somewhere for the party to get trapped. However, while Kaven thinks the plan is to have his 'exchange' be the set-up for an ambush, it's actually about rendering him powerless so Lucretia can expose his deeds and allow the party to execute him. Perhaps after that she could admit to being the mastermind behind things, just to see their rage grow

Sidenote: In either instance, even if the party finds out that Kaven is the traitor, but they fail to execute him, Lucretia would likely not kill him herself unless she's abandoning the Hook Mountain Region. Even after selling him out, she would likely take him with her when she flees, given that she can just tell him she never intended to let him die, only to make the Black Arrows sloppy with rage. Abusing Kaven is one of her favorite activities, and he's a decent fighter - she'd probably prefer to keep him around as long as she can wring out more hurt from him and he's not getting in the way.