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Hello all! Hoping to dig into the hive mind's honey as it were...
I'm running Extinction Curse for my group, and want to do more with Mistress Dusklight and the Celestial Menagerie, while also making the main selling point of the AP for my players remain a bit more viable through the end of the campaign. I've heard the climax of book 2 being like a home invasion, a justified home invasion of a nasty piece of work, but one that might make all the build up done in book 1 feel rather empty. As such, I want to work out something that might better serve a campaign that wants to keep some attention and focus on the circus past book three.
My ideas thus far are such:
* 'defeating' Mistress Dusklight in Book 2 is not a goal, at least not martially, I can take or leave her being in league with the Xulgaths, but if so, I want it to be on a much deeper level that can play out throughout the volumes.
With this in mind, I propose something else, finding dirt on her to effectively give her the boot from the town she's been holed up in. Essentially getting revenge, not through murder, but perhaps humiliation, which leads to the next idea:
* The thought that the Circus, even by the time it reaches the final volume and characters are approaching level 20, won't be able to compete with anything in Absalom, is ridiculous. Making it the end goal, at least for a campaign that maintains the circus element rather than casting it aside, strikes me as fitting. Doing this while maintaining Mistress Dusklight as a villain and the Celestial Menagerie as a rival circus, strikes me as even better. So how?
* Well, Absalom is a huge city, real estate is scarce, and as mentioned, only the best and most prestigious shows can really afford the good and worthwhile venues. I figure, every ten years, Absalom has a grand festival that hosts a competition where the best shows get exclusive right to a ten year contract to perform in one of the largest venues in the city.
* Humiliated and kicked out of her comfortable home turf, Dusklight challenges the Circus of Wayward Wonders to to competition, but to even compete, they have to reach a certain level of prestige. So, both the Celestial Menagerie and the Circus of Wayward Wonders are traveling Erran and Kortos to build up their prestige with the intention of a final showdown in Absalom.
* This could feature sabotage attempts, performance show downs, etc. Maybe recruitable NPC's that the PC's don't get end up in the Celestial Menagerie, or a number of other things. The final showdown could be an excellent epilogue for the campaign.
Doing this would require that Dusklight, while obviously evil, hasn't quite gotten to the 'she must be murdered or imprisoned' point.
Anyway, I'm reaching out to you Paizo Hive Mind, what do you think, any ideas or suggestions?
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I had originally thought this campaign would probably end with a circus performance instead of a cinematic final battle, this seems like a good occasion to do so.
One note about Absalom having a competition is that there is a once-in-a-century "Radiant Festival" set to happen after the conclusion of this AP, deeply tying into the Agents of Edgewatch AP. Performing at that festival is mentioned in book 6 of Extinction Curse I believe.
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I had originally thought this campaign would probably end with a circus performance instead of a cinematic final battle, this seems like a good occasion to do so.
One note about Absalom having a competition is that there is a once-in-a-century "Radiant Festival" set to happen after the conclusion of this AP, deeply tying into the Agents of Edgewatch AP. Performing at that festival is mentioned in book 6 of Extinction Curse I believe.
Thanks, I remember seeing something about that, and with the recent release of the Absalom sourcebook, I think I'll be leaning toward that. Might even lead to running Agents of Edgewatch if the Players are interested.