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Curse of the Crimson Throne


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Having finished running Strange Aeons a while back, I'm starting to gear up to run a new campaign. I had it narrowed down to Curse or Hell's Rebels, and after presenting abbreviated pitches to some of my potential players, there seems to be a slight preference for Curse--so time to buckle down and start getting a handle on how I'll be running it!

I've GMed Curse before, but I ran it pretty straight out of the book those times, besides some stat block rewrites. I'm feeling a bit more ambitious this time around, and I've got a particular theme in mind. I'm planning to run a gestalt game where all players mix a progression of Vigilante levels with another class, developing into Korvosa's own team of superheroes. But that's definitely going to require rewriting and reworking more than a few sections. One that immediately comes to mind is reworking the quests in Edge of Anarchy (and to a lesser extent Seven Days to the Grave) to be more self-motivated than *directly* working for the state, emphasizing a more Commissioner Gordon type role for Cressida Kroft--but I don't want that to come at the expense of the opportunity to get Ileosa and Sabina's faces on-screen before it becomes obvious Ileosa is the antagonist.

I also want to expand the roles of various minor and one-arc villains like Lamm, Rolth, 'Emperor' Pilts, Bahor, Andaisin, Cinnabar, and the Cinderlander to create the feeling of a proper comic book rogue's gallery. I'm inclined to take some inspiration here from Inspectre's magnificent thread pn these same forums (linked here), especially making Lamm the main arc villain of the first book, and possibly Andaisin's zombie apocalypse version of Blood Veil. But I am torn if I want to also adapt their more sympathetic version of Ileosa. It's a fascinating conceit, and one that gives the lesser villains a chance to shine--but on the other hand, the way Ileosa's envy and vanity leads to the creation of the Gray Maidens is a character beat that's right at home in the superhero genre, and if the players lean into their secret identities, that might make for fewer opportunities for them to get to know a 'normal' Ileosa before Kazavon gets his fangs in her.

So, yeah, lots I'm still going back and forth on, so if anyone has suggestions, advice, or ideas--whether on any of the specifics I've named, or more generally on running gestalt games or tailoring the story more towards superhero genre conventions, I would love to hear it!

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

As someone who wants to run Curse of the Crimson Throne with a similar conceit, I've had some thoughts I've put into this.

First, I think you've got good instincts here, first thing would be to rewrite the player's guide with the change of tone and genre in-mind.

I'd have the PCs come up with some colourful villains of their own that you can seed into the Adventure Path.

Korvosa as a fantasy Gotham City is too good.

The other thing to think about is associating the PC's secret Identities amongst the factions in the city.

Might also be a good idea to introduce a few Newspapers to the city, one that is definitely in the pocket of the crown, one that's a bit more independent minded. Definitely throw a few "Vigilantes Threat or Menace" headlines out there.

Also make it easier for PCs to deal non-lethal damage, and introduce a "Justice Roll" if they capture a villain and hand them over to the guards, to see how long the villain spends in prison/asylum before they are inevitably broken out. With bonuses based on how much evidence they collected, witnesses saved etc. during the course of the adventure.


*cough, wheeze*

Why, hello there! I really ought to finish writing that campaign journal, if only so the forums can see the back end of my descent into madness.

But let's see what I can suggest for your game, as I've heard a couple other people suggest an all-Vigilante or gestalt vigilante game for CotCT, and I think it can work quite well!

So, for the overall arc of the campaign, you've basically got three options:

1) Ileosa is still straight up the main villain of the whole AP and always has been - pretty much can run things roughly as written for the end-game with just changes to suit the vigilante flavor.

2) Ileosa is somewhat to mostly innocent at the start of the AP, allowing for friendly association with the PCs at the start but she becomes so jaded and corrupted by power that at the end even if Kazavon is removed she still has to be overthrown. This effectively lets you have your cake and eat it too with the PCs developing a friendly relationship with Ileosa at first, but ultimately the campaign continues mostly as written in the second half with Ileosa becoming an irredeemable tyrant. Unfortunately this does come at the cost of undercutting some of Ileosa's truly evil actions within the first half of the AP (such as the Blood Veil plague) and replacing it with unavoidable tragedy - with Ileosa being irredeemable, the only solution is to just kill her.

3) Ileosa is mostly innocent, and while saving/redeeming her is an open question depending on how much effort the PCs put in, pretty much all of the bad things in the AP are someone else's fault or most especially Kazavon (and he's probably the big villain at the end of the AP). Obviously, this is the option that I would most support, but mostly because I love the melodrama you can squeeze out of Ileosa slowly slipping into madness and psychosis while the PCs watch, largely unable to help her until the very end when they can finally kick Kazavon's ass.

Lets talk about some of the things you can do throughout the different books of the AP to add some structure to support these options.

So first and most obviously, if you want the players to interact with Ileosa (And Sabina!) you need to provide opportunities for them to meet. This is difficult, particularly at the start of the AP where there is pretty much the widest gap there will be in the AP between Queen Ileosa and the PCs in terms of social standing. If at least one of your PCs has a social identity of a noble or someone well-to-do in the city, then this becomes slightly easier as the party's social identities can be leveraged to put them in the same room as Ileosa during various social gatherings - city hall meetings, discussions to elect a new seneschal to replace Neolandus, etc. etc. Then it's just a matter of engineering reasons for the queen to deign to speak with them.

Conceptually, while it seems unlikely that the PCs will be able to infiltrate the castle very often in their vigilante alter-egos, certainly you could also engineer a few scenarios where the queen is out and about in the city and runs into them. Perhaps they even save her at one point without realizing that it’s the actual queen, as a sort of vigilante-only counterpoint to meeting her socially to return the brooch. But you may not to turn your main villain into Penelop Pitstop, always getting into trouble and needing to be rescued by the super heroes – that works once, maybe, but after that it’s going to become a bit of a meme if they kept having to save her in their vigilante identities (unless, of course, she’s deliberately trying to get their attention by putting herself in danger – which is a superhero trope, but maybe not one you want to lean into).

Or . . . the most obvious solution is to just make Queen Ileosa a vigilante too. This is really hard to justify if you’re going pure villain mode Ileosa, unless she’s just been REALLY bored up in the castle and wants to go out slumming it to kill socially-acceptable scum as some sort of thrill. But for the less-villainous versions of her, it can really work – socially her ability to help the city is severed stunted, both by Eodred putting her in a gilded cage as his wife but also because the city HATES her and shuns her, leaving her with no real political power prior to Eodred’s death. Stymied in her attempts to help the city politically, Ileosa resorts to the desperate measures of sneaking out of the castle every now and then – to Sabina’s ever-growing consternation as she is NOT equipped to come along. Probably best to use my idea of Ileosa’s elven handmaiden “Elliana” as her alter-ego – as a Bard with access to disguise self and a ridiculous bluff score, even with the penalty from being a well-known figure she should be able to disguise herself pretty well (and you want the party to figure it out reasonably quickly if they put in any effort, so it’s fine if someone nat 20s their perception to beat the disguise). Assuming you just make her a bard playing at vigilante and don’t also gestalt her, anyway. And then once the campaign starts and Eodred’s dead, Ileosa is going out looking for Gaedren Lamm for revenge since presumably you’ll play up that he is the one claiming to have killed the king, whether that’s true or not. So while also hunting Lamm throughout Book One, the party vigilantes can keep running into this enthusiastic handmaiden of the queen who is competent but not really cut out for gritty crime-fighting (still being a pampered queen underneath), and hopefully they admire her intentions if nothing else (and if you do for some reason want to lean into the action girl damsel in distress tropes, as an inexperienced vigilante Queen Ileosa can certainly find lots of trouble for the party to bail her out of while Sabina is not there to rip everything’s head off). And of course, as the story progresses, that will be one of the stumbling blocks for Ileosa – she can’t handle everything personally, and she does have political power now, so she gradually has to stop slumming it as Elliana and be the proper queen . . . with an army of Grey Maidens to enforce the law on Gotham, er, Korvosa in her stead.

I’ve got some ideas for each book’s villains as well, but it’ll take me a little bit of time to type those up as well.


Inspectre wrote:

2) Ileosa is somewhat to mostly innocent at the start of the AP, allowing for friendly association with the PCs at the start but she becomes so jaded and corrupted by power that at the end even if Kazavon is removed she still has to be overthrown. This effectively lets you have your cake and eat it too with the PCs developing a friendly relationship with Ileosa at first, but ultimately the campaign continues mostly as written in the second half with Ileosa becoming an irredeemable tyrant. Unfortunately this does come at the cost of undercutting some of Ileosa's truly evil actions within the first half of the AP (such as the Blood Veil plague) and replacing it with unavoidable tragedy - with Ileosa being irredeemable, the only solution is to just kill her.

3) Ileosa is mostly innocent, and while saving/redeeming her is an open question depending on how much effort the PCs put in, pretty much all of the bad things in the AP are someone else's fault or most especially Kazavon (and he's probably the big villain at the end of the AP). Obviously, this is the option that I would most support, but mostly because I love the melodrama you can squeeze out of Ileosa slowly slipping into madness and psychosis while the PCs watch, largely unable to help her until the very end when they can finally kick Kazavon's ass.

So...

Option 2 is Jean Grey to Phoenix to Dark Phoenix?
Option 3 is Jean Grey to Black Queen (Madelyne Pryor) to Phoenix to Dark Phoenix?
Kazavon being the Phoenix Force of course.

Zellara could stand in for Xavier (maybe trapped in Cerebro).
Trina Sabor could be Moira McTaggert.
Grey Maidens are Sentinels, Red Mantis assassins could be Genoshan operatives. Reiner Davaulus is Sinister, Ramoska as Magneto, etc


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Inspectre wrote:

Or . . . the most obvious solution is to just make Queen Ileosa a vigilante too. This is really hard to justify if you’re going pure villain mode Ileosa, unless she’s just been REALLY bored up in the castle and wants to go out slumming it to kill socially-acceptable scum as some sort of thrill. But for the less-villainous versions of her, it can really work – socially her ability to help the city is severed stunted, both by Eodred putting her in a gilded cage as his wife but also because the city HATES her and shuns her, leaving her with no real political power prior to Eodred’s death. Stymied in her attempts to help the city politically, Ileosa resorts to the desperate measures of sneaking out of the castle every now and then – to Sabina’s ever-growing consternation as she is NOT equipped to come along. Probably best to use my idea of Ileosa’s elven handmaiden “Elliana” as her alter-ego – as a Bard with access to disguise self and a ridiculous bluff score, even with the penalty from being a well-known figure she should be able to disguise herself pretty well (and you want the party to figure it out reasonably quickly if they put in any effort, so it’s fine if someone nat 20s their perception to beat the disguise). Assuming you just make her a bard playing at vigilante and don’t also gestalt her, anyway. And then once the campaign starts and Eodred’s dead, Ileosa is going out looking for Gaedren Lamm for revenge since presumably you’ll play up that he is the one claiming to have killed the king, whether that’s true or not. So while also hunting Lamm throughout Book One, the party vigilantes can keep running into this enthusiastic handmaiden of the queen who is competent but not really cut out for gritty crime-fighting (still being a pampered queen underneath), and hopefully they admire her intentions if nothing else (and if you do for some reason want to lean into the action girl damsel in distress tropes, as an inexperienced vigilante Queen Ileosa can certainly find lots of trouble for the party to bail her out of while Sabina is not there to rip everything’s head off). And of course, as the story progresses, that will be one of the stumbling blocks for Ileosa – she can’t handle everything personally, and she does have political power now, so she gradually has to stop slumming it as Elliana and be the proper queen . . . with an army of Grey Maidens to enforce the law on Gotham, er, Korvosa in her stead.

I’ve got some ideas for each book’s villains as well, but it’ll take me a little bit of time to type those up as well.

Oooh. That's intriguing. Get to know her as someone who does legitimately care about making Korvosa a better place, and see Kazavon's influence twist that into an obsession with punishment and order. And/or, the possibility that she did poison King Eodred partly due to Kazavon inflaming her resentment of Eodred trying to keep her penned up in the castle, and had used contacts from her secret slumming to source the poison, and now wants to get Gaedren Lamm out of the way to cover her tracks...


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Alright, let’s see if we can spin some ideas on various plot points and NPCs to fill out each book of our CotCT vigilante-game. As always, take what you like, change what you need if you have an idea that would fit better, and throw out whatever you don’t like! Incoming wall of text!

Book One: Edge of Anarchy

So, Book One needs to do some heavy lifting here. Not just as the usual scene/universe set-up that all beginnings have, but this is also pretty much the most “normal” that your version of Korvosa/Gotham is going to be. So it would be best to introduce as many of the NPCs that will appear throughout the rest of the campaign here so that the players can get a feeling for them *before* all the s&+% hits the fan with the plague and Ileosa’s power-grab in the back-half of the AP. This is also probably your best chance to have the default superhero “Gotham” vigilantes taking down criminals before they start scrambling around trying to save the city from one disaster after another.

Speaking of criminals, Gaedren and Devargo are probably both going to be front-and-center here, and there’s probably some sort of underworld war going on between the two of them that your players will be sticking their nose into, swinging things in favor of one or the other (possibly in a back-and-forth fashion depending on who they’ve most recently hit) as Book One progresses. You may or may not have access to non-AP materials here, but there are also several other gangs mentioned in the Guide to Korvosa supplement that you can pull from for additional targets to face the wrath of your vigilantes.

I would recommend two gangs in particular – the Dusters (mostly humans who wear long dusters because they think its cool) and the Rat’s Teat Boys, a gang of wererats (you should use these guys sparingly since DR/10 at low levels is very painful, but it could hint that your players should invest in silver gear prior to having to deal with Girrigz and friends in Book Two when the wererats start causing problems). On that note, you can also have Girrigz either make an appearance here or be referenced by the gang members so that at least the players know of Girrigz’s existence prior to encountering him in Book Two. For the Dusters, the gang is led by a Shaonti by the name of Kynndor Thok and a Chelish woman named Marlessa.

The Dusters are basically kidnappers/murder/thugs for hire, and so Gaedren might hire them to put out a hit on our vigilantes once they start interfering in his business. The fun thing to recommend the Dusters here is everyone thinks Kynndor is the boss, so even after the party takes him down the Dusters keep going and suddenly they learn that the *real* boss is Marlessa, and she’s gunning for the party after they take out her boyfriend figurehead. Bonus points if you decide to replace Ghaeken with Kynndor as Thousand-Bone’s nephew, and after he dies (either due to the party taking him out or him getting shanked in prison after the players “arrest” him) this triggers that plot-point with the Shaonti needing his body recovered . . . which the players will now feel personally responsible for since they’re the ones that got Kynndor killed!

Obviously you also need to figure out a way for the players to meet and become at least familiar acquaintances with Kroft, Sabina, Vencarlo, Grau, and of course Ileosa. With the party being vigilantes rather than the “typical” adventuring party going through CotCT, this may be difficult but you really just need to get the party’s social identities on someone’s radar and then they can start getting invited to various social events/gatherings that get them around to meet everyone eventually. And then from the vigilante identity side of things, well . . . several of these people are going to be vigilantes themselves, and you can always do the cliché of them just happening upon a given NPC in trouble with some rioters or a hungry otyugh or what have you and in need of a superhero rescue. I would definitely also have them be aware of/inspired by the legend of Blackjack, and perhaps crossing paths with him as that famous vigilante is also hunting for Lamm to investigate the claims that he was the one who killed King Eodred – so that they have met Blackjack prior to when he shows up at the end of Book One.

Other NPCs that you should consider introducing to the players in one form or another during this book (most of which are villains later) are Rolth, Pilts Swastel, Togomor, Andaisin, Darvayne Amprei, Cinnabar, Kayltanya, Glorio and Melyia Arkona, Dr. Reiner Davaulus, Chief Arbiter Zenobia Zenderholm, Marcus Endrin, Ishani Dharti, Bishop Keppira D’Bear, and Salvator Scream. Obviously you have to be a little careful here to avoid a head-to-head physical confrontation with these much higher-level villainous NPCs, unless you want to PC-ify some of them and make up a much lower-level version of them in Book One for the PCs to fight, and then between that first fight in Book One and their regularly-scheduled battle in Book Two-Six, the NPC in question levels up a bunch . . . but that’s a lot of extra work!

So instead, I would recommend having the players encounter these NPCs socially, merely have their name dropped to them as someone to watch out for/come across evidence of their wrongdoing that they can do nothing about yet, or set up non-physical confrontations where it’s more about screwing up the villains’ plans than confronting them head-on (either due to the villain being too politically well-connected to be touched by even the vigilante PCs yet, or they know said NPC is extremely dangerous in a fight and thus to be avoided). Of course, it’s also a superhero game . . . if the party insists on sneaking into Glorio’s bedroom to gank him when they’re still third level, feel free to have him teach them some respect – and KEEP THEM ALIVE to villain monologue at and lock them into a surprisingly-easy to escape from deathtrap later. It’s a superhero genre convention!

For more specific advice for each character, let’s go one-by-one. The hardcover remake of CotCT made Rolth Lamm’s son – that’s certainly one way to tie him in with Gaedren although I prefer old business partner/adventuring buddy from years ago. While he’ll definitely be part of Andaisin’s Bloody Veil plague in Book Two, you can certainly bring him forward early, perhaps as part of the conspiracy that killed King Eodred (maybe he supplied the poison or something). Most likely the party won’t run into him in Book One, although you can certainly name-drop him here and the party will encounter his apprentice Vreeg, who can certainly talk up his mentor during the fight with the PCs. But if you want there to be an encounter with Rolth personally, you could arrange for the PCs to stumble across his heist of the owlbear skeleton from the Jeggare Museum . . . which later will be re-animated into a guard dog at the entrance to the Dead Warrens. He could also have a mole, either magically compelled or simply paid off, amongst the castle staff which allow him to have access to the castle, either to smuggle in the poison to kill Eodred or simply as an information source to let him know what’s going on politically in the city.

For Pilts Swastel, you could have the PCs end up meeting some information contact to give them information on what Lamm is up to during one of Pilts skeezy murder plays. Whether he’s actually killing any of the actors/actresses off or not is up to you, but certainly the rumors that he is actually killing people during his plays could cause the party to investigate him. If he is up to something nefarious, I would definitely have him surrender to the PCs almost immediately and get himself locked up by the guard . . . to be released/escape later so as to make a comeback as the “Emperor of Old Korvosa” in Book Three.

Togomor is a bit of an odd duck, as he’s not a pre-existing character in Korvosa prior to the events of CotCT, so either he’s a member of the Acadamae teaching staff that only rises to prominence now, an outsider who comes to Korvosa and somehow gets enough influence during events of the AP to be nominated seneschal, or basically a bone thrown to Ileosa by the devils as part of her contract with her, helping prop up her reign by providing her with a reasonably competent administrator (that the devils control very tightly through Sergmiotto’s possession). Wherever he comes from, there’s not really a lot of reasons for the PCs to pick a fight with the fat man prior to directly opposing Ileosa’s reign, so it should be reasonably safe to have him show up in Book One/Two if you want to give him a presence in the story prior to being introduced as the new seneschal by Ileosa out of the blue in Book Three. Or if he’s just a useless devil sock puppet without any agency of his own, just having him show up as a punch-clock minion during Book Three is fine too.

Andaisin as-written is basically just a contractor brought in by Ileosa to spread the Blood Veil plague, but that’s pretty much true of every villain in every Paizo AP – a bad guy brought in from off-screen for one book of the AP to just die and waste four pages of the book with their backstory and plans that the players will never see – boring. Personally I think she’s the perfect candidate for a corrupt government employee that the party investigates and brings down politically during Book One, and then she comes back for revenge against the ENTIRE CITY in Book Two by burning it to the ground with the Blood Veil. As I did in my game, I would recommend making her the ambassador from Cheliax, which gives her diplomatic immunity and should make even vigilante PCs outside the law hesitate to attack her head-on because Cheliax will not react well to their ambassador getting assassinated. If you want to get more city politics involved in Book one, I would also have an early search for a new seneschal to officially confirm Ileosa as the city’s new monarach. Andaisin could be a front-runner for that, prompting the PCs to get asked by someone to investigate her which lead to various discoveries – such as she’s an Urgathoite and possibly a member of the conspiracy that killed King Eodred. While she would be too dangerous to fight head-on during Book One, you could certainly have them fight against some traps she set up using her cleric spells to deal with any snooping interlopers. A greater glyph of warding with Animate Object to turn her house into an army to attack the party, followed by a band of undead in the basement secret Urgathoa chapel, could be a fun challenge for the vigilante PCs to overcome to learn some of Andaisin’s secrets (which they can use to expose her and ruin her politically).

If there’s one thing I hate more than the wasted potential of one-shot villainous NPCs, it’s the NPCs that literally pop up in the story one time and then are never mentioned again – Darvayne Amprei is a prime example of this. As-written Kroft asks the party to get some blackmail material from Devargo . . . so that she can use it against Amprei to get him to back off from enriching himself during Korvosa’s crisis. He’s the official ambassador from Cheliax, and yet he is never mentioned again after that one brief blurb. I hate this guy’s guts for that, so I just wiped him out of existence to replace him with Andaisin. One possible use for him though, would be that he gets elected to seneschal in Andaisin’s stead after the PCs ruin her chances, as he’s the one candidate that is considered unthreatening (and bribable) by all the other nobles, so they settle on him for acting seneschal. Then in Book Two, you can have Andaisin brutally murder him out of spite, AGAIN leaving the seat of seneschal open and explaining why that important position is getting filled by Togomor in Book Three – he’s just the next good candidate that turns up.

For the Red Mantis, obviously they’re already in Korvosa for Book One and Two since they as-written helped kill King Eodred by supplying the poison used, and then help with setting up the Blood Veil. Given how dangerous even the unnamed Red Mantis agents are, having a physical confrontation here is not going to end well. But you can certainly have sightings of a “strawberry haired woman” here and there doing various bits of dirty work, perhaps even setting up Trinia Sabor to take the fall as Eodred’s killer. If you want more melodrama here and to make redeeming Cinnabar a little easier, you can have her become disillusioned with the Red Mantis even more than she already is, and decide to betray the Red Mantis by helping guide the party around to Andaisin and the source of the Blood Veil, obviously in a more roundabout way with cryptic hints than coming out and saying “by the way, the queen’s physicians are evil and spreading the plague”. Then Kayltanya steps in and either forces Cinnabar to go after the party in Book Three/Four or otherwise brainwashes/Winter Soldier’s her to re-establish her loyalty.

Speaking of the queen’s physicians, it’s simple enough to have Dr. Reiner Davaulus established as the queen’s personal physician in Book One, perhaps making an appearance or two to testify to the poison that killed Eodred or called upon to provide medical advice/healing aid by Ileosa at some point in Book One. This also explains why Eodred died from the poison – Dr. Reiner examined him and gave him a clean bill of health, purposely doing a bad job. Then it just seems perfectly reasonable that suddenly Dr. Davaulus is the head of a small organization to combat the plague, as Ileosa trusts Dr. Davaulus. If Ileosa is innocent of wrong-doing, then obviously her trust in Dr. Davaulus is mis-placed and rather than spreading the plague under her orders his loyalties actually lie with Andaisin or the Red Mantis or Glorio/Melyia, and he betrays everyone – this can also justify the innocent Ileosa’s growing paranoia after Book Two as obviously some of the people she trusted most turned out to be against her (which will inevitably include the PCs as well).

As with other characters, it’s good for the PCs to be aware of the Arkonas’ existence prior to Book Three, and probably not like them very much (or at least suspect they are up to no good). If Ileosa is completely innocent, it’s probably these two who are behind everything going wrong with Korvosa, starting with King Eodred’s death. If you want another interesting wrinkle here, you can have Glorio/Bahor be behind the conspiracy to kill King Eodred, but then Melyia/Vimanda got her own ideas and screwed up his plans by empowering Lamm/encouraging Andaisin to start the Blood Veil plague. As a result Glorio may be more willing to negotiate and work with the PCs than he usually is, as he didn’t want to make QUITE that big mess of things.

Chief Arbiter Zenobia Zenderholm should probably be introduced if you’re going to have her appear in the Book Four Hardcover version of CotCT’s book-ending dungeon (The Deathshead Vaults). Her reappearing there as a monstrous worshipper of Urgathoa will have more impact if they get to meet the respectable judge/cleric of Abadar ahead of time. Possible ways to introduce her in Book One are that Lamm goes after her for some reason (perhaps she’s just there in the way while Lamm attacks the Longacre building to spring people from the Deathshead Vaults prison beneath it), and that she presides over Trinia Sabor’s trial (more on that in a little bit).

Given how Marcus Endrin’s (apparent in the Hardcover) death is the sort of final “mask off” moment for Queen Ileosa, it’s a bit of a shame if they never even know who that is. You should definitely play up that his role is to put the king/queen down if they become a tyrant, so that his failure makes clear only the PCs have a hope of fixing this Ileosa problem. You may also want to use the idea brought up in a couple places on these boards that Marcus Endrin has an arrow of slaying (or crossbow bolt in this case) specifically for this purpose so that he’s not relying on some DM fiat critical hit to Ileosa’s face to actually kill her (which of course she’s still ultimately immune to, either through just being that invulnerable or no longer counting as “human” for the purposes of the bolt’s magic).

While Ishani Dharti is not particularly important to the overall plot, getting to know him ahead of Book Two might make him a more palatable alternative to work with on curing the Blood Veil than Dr. Reiner, and fill in for your party if they lack the Alchemy and other skills necessary to craft the cure. In Book One, he can just be the acolyte they get if they ever venture to the Church of Abadar for healing, and showing up periodically to dose Field Marshall Cressida Kroft with Lesser Restoration to remove her growing fatigue from never sleeping during the city’s various disasters.

The leaders of each of the major churches - Bishop Keppira D’Bear, Archbanker Tuttle, and High Priest of Asmodeus Orhner Reebs, are all relatively influential figures in Korvosa that you might want to introduce at some point just so the PCs know who they are, even if their roles tend to be in the background of the AP unless you bring them forward. At least Keppira D’Bear will have a role in Book Six as providing a safe haven for the Resistance and thus should probably be introduced at least briefly prior to then.

Salvator Scream is a relatively minor character who really only exists to pass along information that 1) the original seneschal Neolandus is still alive & 2) the Arkonas are keeping him as a “guest” (read: prisoner) for this whole time. As such, he’s a pretty minor character UNLESS you want to play up Pilts Swastel early, OR foreshadow some of Kazavon’s influence over the city via the horrific dreams/visions he was pumping into artists like Salvator Scream prior to possessing Ileosa.

Speaking of Kazavon-related NPCs, you may or may not want to introduce Laori and Sial ahead of their introductions in Book Three and Four. Their introductions are pretty strong as-is and they don’t have a lot to contribute prior to the ongoing search for answers regarding Ileosa’s new power source (i.e. Kazavon), so they can probably stay where they are unless you want to bring some of the Kazavon stuff forward early.

One final thought on Book One that I have is that you may want to seriously consider having Trinia Sabor actually put on trial, rather than Ileosa just declaring an execution. If they hand her over to the authorities (seems doubtful given your vigilante bent), rather than pulling strings Queen Ileosa lets her be put on trial, and the PCs then have to prove her innocence in court, which should be an interesting change of pace for people used to working outside the law. Certainly, Trinia can be framed by any number of people to appear guilty, and it’s a simple enough tweak that Lamm arranged for the poison that killed Eodred to be smuggled into the castle as part of her paints (which Venster/Ileosa than stole to use on the playing cards that are the actual murder weapon). That gives Trinia enough culpability in Eodred’s death that the LE-leaning society of Korvosa might well just decide to string her up and execute her to satisfy the masses’ desire for a scapegoat of Eodred’s death. For the villainous Ileosa, once things don’t start going her way she can pull rank and get Trinia arranged to be executed, and this ostensibly gives her a little bit of cover in that she’s not just trying to cover her own guilt but to satisfy the crowd’s bloodlust. For the semi-innocent and truly innocent versions, you can hint at Zenobia Zenderholm’s eventual heel-turn here by having the normally composed and even-handed judge decide to do Ileosa “a favor” by finding Trinia guilty despite everything. This then leads Elliana/Ileosa to contact the PCs to stage a public rescue of the hapless painter, setting them on a course to run into Blackjack attempting to do the same thing. Or, Ileosa’s plan is to fake the execution/execute an imposter (who is guilty of some other capital crime) in Trinia’s place, thus settling the matter while quietly releasing Trinia to go into hiding now that she’s “dead” in the public’s eye. Of course, here Blackjack comes to spoil this and perhaps the PCs find themselves trying to stop the famous vigilante instead (or go along with it and spoil Ileosa’s plan to ensure no one comes looking for Trinia after she escapes).


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Oh, the Seneschal ideas are *so good*.

So I think a rough draft of what's running through my mind as to the tangle of schemes at the outset:

* Lady Andaisin has an existing relationship to Ileosa, and arranges to poison Eodred, both as a sacrifice to Urgathoa, and to isolate Ileosa to better manipulate the levers of power. (Possibly, she also fuels the rumors that Ileosa poisoned him, and/or selects Trinia as a scapegoat, figuring the arrest of rioting citizens or stoking anti-Varisian citizens will give her more test subjects for unleash and plague related experiments.) Her minion Rolth creates the poison and Dr. Davaulus oversee the king's treatment to make sure he doesn't get better.

* Rolth sources ingredients for the poison from his father/old partner Gaedren Lamm, tipping Lamm off to the plot. Lamm, ever the opportunist, sells the information to the Arkonas.

* Bahor/Glorio arranges the kidnapping of Senschal Kalepopolis, figuring he can get himself or a crony into the vacated position to become power behind the throne himself--especially now that he's got secrets he can leak about the obvious front-runner of Lady Andaisin.

* Perhaps Meliya/Vimanda decides to take bolder steps, investing in Lamm causing further chaos in the hopes of executing an all-out coup, or at least being able to make the case that she made the success of Bahor's plans possible as a victory in their contention for prestige and leadership among the rakshasha.

* I wonder if there's a sensible way for Lamm to play yet another angle, trying to extort Ileosa with the knowledge that her husband is being poisoned rather than just sick, perhaps leading to her getting held hostage in her civilian guise early on.

* In any case, Lamm is using this influx of resources to build a private little army, usurp control of the drug trace from Devargo, and generally go on a rein of terror, heisting from noble estates, and general vicious mayhem under the thin veneer of a peasant rebellion. Maybe he believes Vimanda will let him rule Korvosa, or maybe he just wants to be remembered as a big shot when age finally catches up to him.

Additionally, I can't plan this part until I know who the PCs will be, but I should definitely start with preludes in their Social Identities before they discover the Harrow Card invitations--that should give a great opportunity to establish various corners of the city and background characters.


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One of my thoughts about Blackjack was to establish him as an inspiration for the PCs taking up Vigilante activities, but one who's been mysteriously absent for quite some time (i.e., Vencarlo retired from a mixture of injuries and shame after everything that went down with Sabina), so that when he shows up again, it's explicitly that the PCs have inspired him to don the mask again.


Revan wrote:


* I wonder if there's a sensible way for Lamm to play yet another angle, trying to extort Ileosa with the knowledge that her husband is being poisoned rather than just sick, perhaps leading to her getting held hostage in her civilian guise early on.

This. Right here. You don't need Lamm to have Ileosa's broach, which is just a MacGuffin to give this street rat level 1 adventurer trash to appear in front of the queen and get passed along to the rest of Korvosan society via Field Marshall Kroft. I mean, if you want the broach to have some other plot significance like I did, where Lamm has the broach has insurance against Andaisin or Ileosa or something as proof they are supporting him (in case they decide to tie off his loose end), then sure that can be a later revelation that they find on his cold dead body near the end of Book One.

But here, at the start of the game, in the Old Fishery? The whole Harrow pulling everyone together through Zellara wasn't, in fact, to go kill Lamm at the Old Fishery that night of Eodred's death. Instead Fate was working to tie the party together to go and encounter Ileosa that night (and just used killing Lamm as the lure to get them all to go along with it).

Ileosa is lured there by promises from Lamm that he knows something about Eodred's condition, and that only his information (that Eodred is being poisoned and Dr. Davaulus is sitting on his hands) can save him. While maybe not a devoted loving wife to Eodred, even the villainous Ileosa would not want Lamm blabbing about the plot to kill Eodred, and so shows up in disguise to make a deal. Whether she insults Lamm, he was expecting the queen and got "just" her handmaiden and got pissed about the "insult", or whether Lamm was plotting the whole time just to kidnap Ileosa so he could completely decapitate the government after Eodred finally croaks, he decides to jump Ileosa and captures her.

And when the PCs get down to the bottom of Lamm's little fishery, instead of a little Lamm hanging from those chains over Gobblegut's lair, they find Elliana, a little worse for wear but still charming and humorous enough that she hopefully makes a positive impact with the PCs. At this point, Ileosa has not gotten the key to the vaults beneath the castle and gotten the Crown of Fangs, so aside from just the barest hint of Kazavon's presence (which lures her down below in the first place), this is pretty much 100% Ileosa, who at this point is like a 4th level bard, impressive compared to the PCs, but hardly unstoppable for Lamm and a bunch of thugs waiting in ambush. This also gives the PCs the chance to meet the real Ileosa (as Elliana) without any real twisting or influence from Kazavon.

Then later that night, she gets back to the castle, Eodred is dead, the city falls apart, and she ends up going down below to the vaults to find the Fangs of Kazavon and start her journey to becoming a full-on super villain.

This also gives the party a direction to go in during the night of the riots, as obviously Elliana will want to go back to the palace, and will need an escort at least part of the way (whether she actually says "to the palace" or just says something more vague like "The Heights" or "over that way" before parting ways with the PCs is up to you). But of course, she actually does remember the PCs, and somehow arranges a follow-up meeting with her so that she can then direct them towards Kroft, or Andaisin (in the guise of checking in on her to make sure she's okay), or whatever other high society NPC you want to steer the group towards to eventually get involved in the city's politics in a major way.

And for the less villainous versions of Ileosa, obviously the fact that she wasn't there for Eodred's death is a source of guilt and frustration for her, that drives her onward to seek revenge against Lamm (and those responsible) later.


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Inspectre wrote:
Revan wrote:


* I wonder if there's a sensible way for Lamm to play yet another angle, trying to extort Ileosa with the knowledge that her husband is being poisoned rather than just sick, perhaps leading to her getting held hostage in her civilian guise early on.

This. Right here. You don't need Lamm to have Ileosa's broach, which is just a MacGuffin to give this street rat level 1 adventurer trash to appear in front of the queen and get passed along to the rest of Korvosan society via Field Marshall Kroft. I mean, if you want the broach to have some other plot significance like I did, where Lamm has the broach has insurance against Andaisin or Ileosa or something as proof they are supporting him (in case they decide to tie off his loose end), then sure that can be a later revelation that they find on his cold dead body near the end of Book One.

But here, at the start of the game, in the Old Fishery? The whole Harrow pulling everyone together through Zellara wasn't, in fact, to go kill Lamm at the Old Fishery that night of Eodred's death. Instead Fate was working to tie the party together to go and encounter Ileosa that night (and just used killing Lamm as the lure to get them all to go along with it).

Ileosa is lured there by promises from Lamm that he knows something about Eodred's condition, and that only his information (that Eodred is being poisoned and Dr. Davaulus is sitting on his hands) can save him. While maybe not a devoted loving wife to Eodred, even the villainous Ileosa would not want Lamm blabbing about the plot to kill Eodred, and so shows up in disguise to make a deal. Whether she insults Lamm, he was expecting the queen and got "just" her handmaiden and got pissed about the "insult", or whether Lamm was plotting the whole time just to kidnap Ileosa so he could completely decapitate the government after Eodred finally croaks, he decides to jump Ileosa and captures her.

He certainly can't have any idea who he actually has, or he wouldn't be just leaving her in the fishery with just Yargin and some goons to keep an eye on things. And he probably wouldn't want to *actually* sell his information to the Queen, since Eodred actually getting better spoils things. So probably the plan was to collect a ransom, and then just capture whoever brought it, in the hopes that they can either make a useful hostage, or have access to information he can use for the coming reign of criminal terror. Just his luck that the mark turned out to be the Queen herself, and he never even realized.

On another note, I was re-reading Guide to Korvosa, and I noticed that it says Marcus Endrin would be the presumptive next seneschal after Neolandus passes, so it occurs to me, especially if I do go with an Ileosa who's not fully off the deep end unti Boook 3, for him to have personal animosity as well as suspicions about Ileosa's good intentions, resentment for being passed over (multiple times, even) for a position he feels should be his, that prompts his assassination attempt.

I am leaning towards 'initially innocent Ileosa', so I might need some other openings to bring the Red Mantis in down the road...


I can totally see Lamm insisting that Ileosa come herself if she wants his information, no intermediaries - both as a power trip to make the *queen* herself come to him on hands and knees to beg for his information, while plotting all the while to just kidnap her for ransom and/or just cause further chaos by removing both the queen and king from the government (and enacting his own plan to plunge Korvosa into anarchy/civil war, which Andaisin (at this point) and Glorio DON'T want because a civil war is too chaotic to control the outcome in their favor. Then her "handmaiden" shows up instead, and before Elliana can even get a word in to drop the act and reveal her true identity, Lamm gets pissed and triggers the trap - "Who's this b~#&!? Dump her in the hole lads! Gobblegut's gonna have a fancy meal tonight!" Because Lamm, for all his ruthlessness and experience at being a criminal, is still an impulsive idiot. :D

I have some more thoughts on things beyond Book One to suggest to help shape your campaign in that direction, like waypoints ahead to steer for, but I'll need a bit more time to write those up as well.

For now, I'll pitch an idea that Reverse used, who used the innocent Ileosa idea to beautiful effect over the course of his CotCT game (I certainly won't ask you to listen to hundreds of hours of another person's game as a podcast just for ideas, but it was wonderful to listen to someone else putting their own spin on my strange plot seed of Ileosa being mostly innocent).

So the idea that Reverse enacted - it's not actually Marcus that shoots Ileosa at/near the end of Book Three, despite everyone expecting that of him. Instead, it's Kroft, stealing the bolt of slaying and throwing aside everything she believes in to try and stop Ileosa's growing tyranny after having spent the entire first three books getting ostracized, humiliated, and the Guard methodically ground down and stripped from her. The final straw is at the end of Book Three, where-in Ileosa announces that the Guard will be entirely replaced with the Grey Maidens, and asks Kroft to hand over her Field Marshall badge to Sabina as a final insult. Having been struggling with a lot of Ileosa's increasingly draconian decisions (such as closing off Old Korvosa during the plague), Kroft finally snaps and shoots her with the bolt - fully replacing Marcus after Ileosa gets BACK UP and kills HER instead, and then arranges to have her body dragged off to the Deathshead Vaults to be revived so she can be killed again (and again and again) later.


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I'll definitely be borrowing your idea of making Vorel's Phage/Blood Veil as a full-on zombie apocalypse. Provides the extra action and heightened, pulpy drama of a superhero event comic, and emphasizes Andaisin's spite and cruelty, wanting the entire city to die in terror as vengeance for being denied political power within it. (Political power she would *definitely* have used to experiment on the poor, but she doesn't see why that would be relevant to the conversation about how wronged she was.)

Killing off their Commissioner Gordon figure is spicy, and I like it. Frees up Endrin to become seneschal in Book One when Andaisin's Urgathoan colors are first revealed, and then get ganked during Book Two to open the way for Togomor. (If the plague/zombies don't get him, maybe she hires the Red Mantis to do it as a way to bring them onto the scene.) Of course, if Glorio was planning to get control of the seneschal position, that role could go to one of his cronies...or Marcus could be compromised by the Arkonas.

The Grey Maidens would not be directly aiding the false Physicians, except to the extent that they genuinely believe that the Physicians are actually working on curing the plague. But they will be overzealous and ruthless enforcers, exposed to Kazavon's influence through Sabina. Perhaps it's suborned members of the guard who join the physicians in the fight in the Hospice of the Blessed Maiden, providing Ileosa a pretext to shut down the guard.

It won't be vanity driving this version of Ileosa--that sort of pettiness will be mostly shifted over to Andaisin. Rather, Kazavon will be stoking Ileosa's paranoia and need for control. Neither the guard nor Sable Company answer directly to the Throne? In such uncertain times, that just won't do, and if they object, that just proves they were planning treachery. She won't let Korvosa, her last gift from Eodred, be taken away from her, no matter that it's full of traitors and people who hate her for no reason. They'll just have to learn to *fear* her.


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Trying to figure out the right placement for Trinia being named the prime suspect in the king's murder. I think Andaisin's involved in scapegoating her--both for the obvious benefit of having someone to pin it on, and with an eye towards inflaming anti-Varisian sentiment as a means of acquiring subjects for infection and reanimation. So she'd need to make that announcement before the PCs expose her Urgathoan ties and get her removed from power--indeed, trying to clear Trinia's name might be what prompts that investigation. But I probably don't want it to come up *too* early, and was definitely thinking of dangling the selection of a new seneschal as a background detail early on that the PCs might bite onto, so I've got to balance that all out.

Also, random idea from re-reading the Guide to Korvosa--it mentions a secret guild of ironworkers planning a riot/general strike at the next opportunity, so it seems pretty clear that they would definitely start causing problems when the other riots kick off. Possible ways to incorporate them might be that Gaedran Lamm purchased under-the-table shipments of weapons from them, arming his growing gang and giving the 'Ironsoots' capital to support their strike; and/or that one or both of the Arkonas manipulate the events of the strike to make the candidate they're backing for Seneschal look good. The PCs might also end up exposing corruption on the part of the guard captain leading the standoff with the Ironsoots as part of building their reputation.


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Oooh! Playing up Inspectre's idea for Lamm to be producing a new drug as part of his schemes, I can take some inspiration from Silco Arcane, and have him using the drug to empower his forces...and getting some corrupt cops hooked on it too, to put them under his thumb and cause general chaos. Could be some particular corrupt captain planning to dose his men with the stuff to break the standoff at the Ironworks with a bloodbath.


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So! I've had my Session Zero now, so we've got the identities of our little Justice League:

* "Triskelion"--A half-elven daughter of House Endrin, using the cover of a frivolous noble brat uninterested in the family's military affairs in order to pursue arcane and alchemical studies unmolested. Now using those skills to investigate the disappearances of servant children she befriended--abducted into the Little Lambs. (I'm potentially thinking some of these more recent disappearances may have been with the idea of pumping the kids for information about the noble estates their parents work at, as Lamm plans a rash of heists for when the s%~$ hits the fan.) Marcus Endrin would be one of her brothers, I believe.
* "Whisper"--An elf capable of communing with the spirits of the dead, and Triskelion's half-sister. She masquerades as Triskelion's lady-in-waiting/nanny/minder in their civilian identities. She's searching for her missing brother--specifically, she has in mind an older brother who went missing, so that's probably more recent, and he had some skill or knowledge that Lamm wanted to tap for his schemes. I'm trying to get some more specifics about the brother to finalize my plans there, but could be fun to encounter him as a (reluctant?) ally to Lamm that the party has to confront at some point.
* "The Crimson Blade"--A human who deserted the Molthuni army when he became disillusioned with war; he settled into a peaceful life as a street entertainer, until his wife was found dead, victim of a random mugging by Gaedren Lamm. He took his sword back up and made a pact with Ragathiel to bring righteous wrath upon the wrongdoers of Korvosa.
* "Bloodline", a half-orc who woke up in an unmarked grave, caught somewhere between life and undeath. In times of stress and anger, his wounds may reopen and a vengeful, semi-undead personality comes to the fore, and even when he passes as a normal man, that other self lurks in the back of his mind. He believes Gaedren Lamm knows who killed him, if he didn't do the deed himself. (I'm thinking Rolth and/or Andaisin may have been involved in the death, with Gaedren either providing the body, or disposing of it afterwards. And/or, there's the idea that the 'other half' may be someone else entirely who latched onto a random dead body to claw back to some semblance of life.)
* "The Artful Sidestepper"--A halfling who escaped a childhood under Lamm's tyranny by forging a connection with something like the collective unconsciousness of Korvosa, a la the Shivers skill in Disco Elysium--though the process seems to have stunted or entirely frozen his aging, perhaps because Korvosa's still quite a young city, all told.

Trying to figure out some little scenes to introduce them for the first proper session--little day-in-the-life snippets that culminate with finding the Harrow Card messages calling them to Zellara's. If anyone has any thoughts, I'd be delighted to hear them.

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The PCs need to make a team of all female magical child vigilante team!

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