So, I'm not sure how many people will see this, but I'm running Mummy's Mask and currently am in a weird spot at the start of book 3. We just had to say goodbye to another party member who had to drop, but we still have three party members:
A catfolk aasimar paladin of Bastet (fudging the LG thing, I think it makes sense to do so for that deity and in the context of Osirian religion)
A kitsune oracle (Neutral, spellscarred and god-meddled, believes himself essentially cursed by the gods and privately hates them. Very vain and concerned with wealth and beauty)
A kasatha ninja (LE assassin type of character, also wealth-motivated, has enough ties to the group that I think he'll stick with them through things, but has a very rough view of the world, believes it best to kill people before they come back to hurt you and had a lot of arguments with the cleric of sarenrae who left the group recently)
I don't really have any worries about the players, they're great (and shouldn't read this if they find it). What currently concerns me, is that after getting the mask, not fully understanding what it is yet and only that it's extremely powerful and potentially dangerous, their IC reaction is ultimately to try to sell it to the church. Which, as per the book, leads to the temple of Pharasma turning them down for political reasons. Now after hearing about Tephu, though, they plan to go there. Albeit, not to research the mask so much as to.. sell it. To the temple of Nethys. This is, uh. Problematic.
And in general, it's making me realize that I'm going to have bigger problems as this campaign starts to become more and more about stopping the cult. As it stands, the party doesn't know the whole situation about the mask. When they do, I'm sure the paladin will be on board with stopping an evil cult, but depending on how it's framed, I'm not sure the other PCs will end up caring about that plot, maybe just going on with it for the sake of money (which, to be fair, is something they care a lot about, but I can see that wearing thin, again depending how I describe Hakotep's vast wealth). And even getting there is a bit of an issue, as right now my biggest problem is motivating them to actively try to do research in Tephu in the first place, as opposed to just selling the mask and leaving for greener pastures.
That said, I suppose there <i>is</i> also always the option of allowing them to sell the mask and go off only to face the consequences of their actions. Much as that would essentially result in having to prepare a whole adventure beside the main plot and having to put aside the actual written components of the adventure, I think it's what would theoretically happen RAW and they've at least been assured by the Temple of Pharasma that the mask shouldn't get into the wrong hands. I don't see why the temple of Nethys would refuse to buy it, since they don't want knowledge of it to get out, and don't necessarily know about the cult that wants it, and then it can potentially have attempts at theft from the cult? And eventually, if actually stolen, the cult's plans could eventually come to fruition. But I'm not sure that's necessarily worth the extra work, since the timeframe of that would definitely necessitate some other adventures occurring in the meantime.
Thoughts? I'm also planning to delve more into the PCs personal backgrounds and plots which should have a significant effect on motivation, but those are more individualized and won't necessarily have much tie to the larger plot (except the paladin but he's set).
Okay, first off, Mummy's Mask runs into problems if PCs are purely motivated by greed. They can easily make a bunch of money and want to stop the bad guy. Thankfully you have the paladin so it might be okay.
For them selling the mask in Tephu:
-Cultists can attack them before they leave Wati (if it's too late for that, it's okay).
-Cultists attack the group when they first arrive in Tephu.
-Someone high up in the church of Nethys would have to authorize the purchase of the mask, I'd make that Deka An-Keret, which will take some time for her schedule to be "open" enough for the PCs to talk to her, so more cultists can attack the group.
If, by this point, they're still trying to sell it, let them. Deka An-Keret will buy it from them. But then cultists steal it from the church of Nethys and the PCs get blamed. Have Deka An-Keret tell the group that getting it back is their best way to prove their innocence. (Since, even if the PCs can prove they didn't steal it it would be easy to make it look like the PCs hired the thieves.) They'll have to follow the cultists out of the city and into the desert.
Sure, they won't know what the mask does, but you can run the second half of book 3 as written while still using bits and pieces of the first half. Once they get to the end of book 3 they learn that the mask was taken elsewhere, which leads into book 4...
Hopefully the group will eventually want to learn about the mask, in which case they can go back to Tephu, maybe they already checked out the information at the end of book 3... But then they'll also have to get the mask back from the church of Nethys... Which completely depends on how they want to get it back but the church isn't likely to just sell it / hand it over.
Let them come up with a solution and run with it. (Which might end up benig a lot of work though.)
-snip-
Thanks for the reply, that gives me a lot of ideas to ponder on. I have a feeling if there's adjusting to be made it'll be a lot clearer what direction to expect it to be going after letting things develop naturally (maybe with a little subtle situational prodding) next session, so it remains to be seen what'll come of it. I can see doing things a bit out of order like that, though, since the mask would probably still have to go through the various agents already present before actually reaching the FP and there are a few ways for that to potentially go lopsided.
And, in the end, if the FP gets the mask that's okay. She'll be more powerful, but not in any insurmountable way.