Hello PF Nation!
I'm running a PF2 campaign very loosely based on CotCT. Levels 1-5 was heavily inspired by DCC Lankhmar's Gang Lords of Lankhmar module with Gaedran Lamm as one of the many gang lords the PCs battled with as they rose in prominence in the city. Now they've established themselves in The Fishery, have built alliances in the government and underworld, and I'm ready to bring the city crashing down around them.
Through their connections in the government they've gotten and audience with the Queen to return her brooch which they recovered when they defeated Lamm. A scene where they meet and return the queen is fine, but lacks much dramatic tension. So my idea was to have the King die while they are in the castle. In my game there are many rumors about the King's poor health, and the Queen has started her plan to infect the city and blame the King's death on the Shoanti/Varisians as part of her overall plan.
So, what I'm picturing is that while they are meeting with the Queen the bells start to toll, house hold staff start running around screaming about the King dying, and the Queen's Guard (soon to be the Grey Maidens) whisk the Queen off to safety. This leaves the PCs in the throne room with chaos starting around them.
So, what are suggestions for how I can add some action and drama? It doesnt entire make sense that people would start outright fighting them in the halls of the castle, and I dont see an outside force attack the castle directly. Unless the Queen had an attack on the castle as part of her plan to consolidate power away from the Guard and Sable Company? I could imagine simmering tensions between nobles boiling over and hot headed nobles starting duels in the halls.
Help me out! What sort of action and drama can I add to make Escape from the Castle memorable?
Thanks!
Any reason you don't want to have the king just in the room a la King Theodin in Two Towers as this grody old man who is clearly ill and faltering?
There's justification for him to be fairly passive and spacing out as it's the queen's broach she is receiving, but he might go to give his own thank you only to begin choking on his blood, or coughing bile. This can do two things: When the queen goes to say he was the first person affected by the plague, the party *has seen* the symptoms of the King's (secret) poisoning to know its different than the blood veil, so they know something is up. The other benefit is not so much of a tell, but can be a dramatic way to show how quickly and ready the queen is to seize power, letting her seed excuses for her husband's health in her own acceptance speech to the party of how all sides are against her and her husband (maybe some false accusations that she believes people are planning to assassinate him to make her illegitimate) while she soliloquies on how nice it was for this small kindness, that when the king does die, she immediately has the guard round up other nobles taht you can invent that are in the court room as her scapegoats; since the Grey Maidens aren't revealed yet, the palace guard could initially be weak/slow to capture one or two nobles that have some martial prowess (thanks to Vencarlo Orisini, and thus putting the party in an awkward spot with him later maybe) and giving the party an opportunity to take sides, diplomatically and/or in combat to subdue the nobles or let them escape.
Later when Ileosa claims this disease was essentially an attempt to poison the king that has gotten into the greater city to start the pandemic, that's plenty of reason to accuse, oust, and persecute her opposition as co-conspirators and consolidate power in the aftermath. The disease will of course ravage the guard and sable company, which is why she folds them into one another in "book 3" (whatever that becomes in your ported version), pissing off Marcus Endrin and giving her all the public credibility she needs when he tries to assassinate the queen.