Regarding Pakano

[btmaja]

He immediately seems sketchy as hell, and I think my players would immediately think he killed Wipa's husband if they heard his backstory (which I feel like would be common knowledge for members of the tribe). Also he's so openly antagonistic to them that I have a really hard time believing they wouldn't just kill him the moment they're alone with him. Thoughts?

[keftiu]

If your party's response to someone in their Following with bad vibes is to immediately murder him, they shouldn't expect to be counted as members of the Broken Tusk for long.

[LoreMaster GM]

He is the relative to one of the Following's elders and they have no evidence of him doing anything wrong besides being a jerk. Your players should get bad vibes from him and they should not trust him. But nothing he does should warrant putting him to death. If your players attack him, I would use his stat block at the end of the book but have the Following break the fight up after 1 round or something. If you let the fight play out for long, you will probably have some dead PCs on your hands.

If they take off with the idea that he may of killed Wipa's husband, I wouldn't let them find any evidence that he did because that would accelerate the conflict.

My take on Pakano is that he is an entitled jerk due to his physical strength and his status with Grandfather Eiwa but wasn't set on causing harm to the Following until the Night of the Green Moon when he gets embarrassed in front of the whole Following and scolded when he was expecting everything. That was the final straw that made him go from jerk to villain.

[Leon Aquilla]

Quote:

He immediately seems sketchy as hell, and I think my players would immediately think he killed Wipa's husband if they heard his backstory (which I feel like would be common knowledge for members of the tribe)

There are ways of delivering information as more than just a dry text dump or dossier which is able to impart various pieces of information that may not be explicit.

Example 1 (not suspicious): "Yeah, that's Wipa. Poor Wipa, her husband died a few weeks ago. Mauled by aurochs -- guess he bit off more than he could chew. But that's life isn't it? Fandarra gives, Fandarra takes it away."

Example 2 (suspicious): "Yeah, that's Wipa. Poor Wipa, her husband died a few weeks ago. Mauled by aurochs. Never would have thought he'd make such a novice mistake, just doesn't seem in his character."

If you're just text-dumping on them, yeah, they're going to be suspicious, but try and keep in mind this AP is not about solving a murder mystery. Some of the responsibility is on you to keep things 'on track'.

[H2Osw]

My party managed to knock him out during the end of book 1 and captured him. Now I'm trying to figure out how to deal with that.

[JDoom]

I had a realization while playing our first session of the AP.
The core theme of the AP is family (Spoken in Vin Diesel's voice)

Pakano in my campaign came out as such a loser. The PCs started bullying him from moment one.
He was last in initiative (despite giving him a +2 circumstance bonus), missed his first and only attack against the moose, he critically failed the Reflex save when being trampled, I had him faint from fear at the charging moose and miraculously be unharmed.
He lost the challenge for the spear and ended up ass-first in the muddy bank of the Gornok river.

But, during one of the PCs interactions, one of my players said something that resonated with me, our Flame Elemental Sorceress, who beat him for the spear:

Adhain wrote:

"Um, about Pakano... maybe don't parade that fight around too much? He's... still a child." Adhain taps her head with a finger. "Up here. Too much to prove to too few people. (...)"

So, I have decided to give him a redemption arc.

He's still an entitled, proud, arrogant, reckless, and slightly racist prick. He's not necessarily evil, just very misguided, he believes he deserves respect and power just because of his blood lineage, being descended from Lomok the aasimar and tracing his ancestors to the eldest Burning Mammoths.

Instead of him intentionally ...

Book1:

killing Weohatan by pushing him during the hunt.

I'm gonna rewrite the story, have him try to outshine the seasoned hunter, make a brash and rookie mistake, so Weohatan pushed him out of the way to save his life, getting gored and trampled in the process. He didn't know how to react, he had gotten rid of a potential rival, but it was a freak accident he had foolishly caused, that's why seeing Wipa causes him such despair.

He's later humiliated by his fellow scouts, during the Moose Hunt and the wrestling challenge for the spear.
Then, during the Night of the Green Moon, he is given the title of Pakano "Fire in the Eye" and his Glyptodon Broken Tusk amulet. Despite this honor, he was expecting to be named the successor for Falcon House. He's been humiliated and denied yet again, this time in front of the whole following.

So, of course he flees the following that very night. While crying, he gathers his stuff, including his grandmother's shield and goes to those who might consider him family. There he meets Ivarsa, who takes him in and shows him the tiniest bit of affection, so he's immediately drawn to her. His hate for the scouts, those who robbed him of his inheritance and title (at least in his dual colored eyes) fuels him, he wants to see them humiliated and then hurt.

Book1:

In grandfather Eiwa's dying bed, he will ask for Pakano, and when he's nowhere to be found, he asks the PCs to tell him when they see him: "Tell him I loved him like a son, tell him I'm sorry I couldn't keep his family safe, tell him I'm sorry..."
During the final confrontation in the book, Pakano taunts them and tries to show how he's become stronger and more powerful, but I'm going to give the PCs a special Diplomacy action to repeat grandfather Eiwa's last words to him, potentionally Slowing him down as he reconsiders his grandfather, and how he always took care of him. He then either dies in the avalanche or survives to be punished by Ivarsa for his failure. He won't allow himself to be saved by the scouts, that would be yet another humiliation to him.

Book3:

Finally, in Grimgorge castle, the PCs will meet and face against Pakano's grandfather, the aasimar Lomok. He will ask forgiveness from Sister Cinder for raising his sword against fellow men. During combat they might spare him or kill him. Either way, he pleads for the PCs to save his grandson Pakano, as he's been turned into a monstrous beast. He also says: "I've made many mistakes during my long life, but my worst one was abandoning my family to their fate." Those are his last words for the party. Even after killing worm Pakano, they will have the chance to Reincarnate him. If they do so, he is grateful for getting his life and humanoid shape back. He then breaks down in tears, as he says just wants to go back home. His bloodlust tempered by the adventure and Ivarsa's treatment of him like a literal worm.