TL;DR brainstorming ideas to better integrate late unpleasantness and the catacombs of wrath in the first chapter.
There are a lot of things which I like about burnt offerings, but some which I would like to modify. The module gives a lot of background about the late unpleasantness period, which are very interesting and absolutely irrelevant for the campaign as written. Which is a shame. I feel that the catacombs/runewell should play a more important role in the present events, while currently they could be entirely skipped.
I am thinking of something like this:
First, after the festival PCs have to investigate to find what is the problem, getting to know about the late unpleasantness events. They should believe that the episodes of wrath are of importance for the current events. At some point they may need to deal with Tsuto to discover an entrance to the catacombs, or maybe they find the one hidden in the abbey. As a result they explore the catacombs of wrath.
Second, they focus on (Tsuto)/Nualia/Thistletop.
The two parts may partly overlap rather than being strictly sequential depending on how Tsuto's murder/kidnap plays out - here again I am thinking of inserting some more detective work rather than having a note delivered by the halfling servant: Ameiko has disappeared and they don't know what happened to her.
Here are my current ideas, but I am not completely happy about them.
Shortly after the festival there is another episode of people getting wrathful (possible including PCs). Of course the past events come to light and the PCs start investigating them. This should lead to a few things:
- PCs start to discover things about Nualia
- Maybe other discoveries/events related to Lonjiku and/or chopper island (please give me ideas!)
- Meanwhile, Tsuto's may or may not be doing his things. I find his action as written a bit too stupid so I am inclined for PCs to be able to discover Lonjiku's murder and maybe fight Tsuto/goblins in the glassworks, but at that point Ameiko has been already brought to Thistletop. However this may push the PCs to go straight away to Thistletop, which I don't want to happen.
- PCs explore the catacombs
- PC realise/start realising that something big is behind the activation of the minor runewell.
This new discharge from the minor runewell should coincide with some major advancement of Karzoug, but I am not sure what that could be, and it's a bit early for him to start antagonising the PCs...
- Finally, we go back to Nualia/Thistletop.
Other ideas are welcome. Also ideas about developments on chopper island, Lonjiku's murder of his wife, fun things to do with the minor runewell, and how to justify another runewell discharge would be great!
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I dropped the catacombs of wrath entirely, as their only real purpose to is to level up the PCs before Thistletop, and foreshadow the larger dungeon crawl at the start of book 5, which I also cut. The campaign did not suffer as a result.
The Sandpoint article mentions an abandoned house on Chopper's Isle, previously occupied by the bird-carving serial killer whose name I forget. The party visited the house, found his secret murder workshop and fought the killer's ghost. They also picked up some Pazuzu themed cursed treasure.
So if you scour the the Community Created Content thread, there's plenty of ideas in there that you can pull from. One of the things I like with the foreshadowing are the dream sequences that were created here. I added a prologue bit meant for the morning of the festival that is another set of dreams foreshadowing the impending raid, but it was merely just kind of a cryptic dream. Basically they could only see themselves in their surroundings as everything was on fire, and then an description of Nualia (without revealing who she is) throwing their mutilated bodies with threats of destruction at them. And then the further dream sequence I broke up into various parts that occur each night, with the reveal of Nualia being before they entered the Catacombs (or encounter Erylium).
I really like the idea of these dreams because it helps tie in the themes of Desna being a widely worshiped deity in the area, plus I've found it a tool to help the players feel more engaged into what's going on rather than feeling like they're just there until the next plot point randomly shows up.