I'm planning to run this AP in the future; really loved the first three books on my first read-through, then hit some stumbling blocks in book four. Most of them I think I can fairly readily adjust (or can tinker with once I'm actually prepping to run book 4), but there's one thing I was hoping to see if others had any thoughts on:
In book 4, the Fang and Key is described as being a ceremonial item which marks the PCs as being the legal rulers of Willowshore. It then is also able to provide the PCs with magical access to a number of parts of the manor and the mindscape in the last part of the module. Is there an explanation I've overlooked as to why this ceremonial item with no apparent past connection to the manor has such powers in it?
The only thing I can think of would be if the intent is about the bearers being the 'rightful rulers' of the area or similar and that that is what grants them more access to the manor and mindscape, but that's not a concept I'd want to use in a game I'm running (a society having something that ceremonially marks who its ruler is is something that I can roll with; but having something magical provide an in-universe 'objectivity' to who rules a place or people carries with it some political implications I'm not interested in including in my campaigns).
Does anyone know of any other explanations I could go with for why this item has the effects it does? Or if not, an alternative to the item entirely as far as it's role in the third part of book 4 goes?
Creative Director
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The reason is:
It's not that Fang and Key has a connection to the manor, but that it's an "override" of sorts to the one who's in charge of the manor. It's tangible proof that Heh Shan-Bao's superiors (the jorogumo) are giving the PCs his job, more or less, but they're leaving it up to the PCs to prove that they can do his job.
The simple version is that the governor has locked up his home with a magic lock that the PCs can't pick or bypass, but then the governor's boss gives them the key to his manor.
Think of it as a variant of a "search warrant" if you will.
Hi James, thank you for sharing the thought process behind this. It sounds like it is something I will indeed want to change when I run this AP, but I appreciate you sharing in more detail what the intent was.
Hi James, thank you for sharing the thought process behind this. It sounds like it is something I will indeed want to change when I run this AP, but I appreciate you sharing in more detail what the intent was.What changes do you plan to incorporate with the key? I just started running SoG so I have a while before my players get there, but I am always looking for better ways to incorporate plot points.
I'm not entirely decided... probably going to sort that out in more detail once my party reaches book 3 or so. I'd say that if I keep such an item around at all in a way which unlocks things in the manor/mindscape, I'm probably going to make it have some sort of more direct background connection to the manor or to Heh Shan-Bao. Maybe it's an item of Heh Shan-Bao's which Ren Mei Li found during her original visit to Willowshore and kept in a collection of trinkets from 'her' realm over the years. A fairly simple change like that (and a few other tweaks along with it) would at least be enough to resolve my most serious concern over the item.
A more significant change might involve a new ritual of some sort being needed to access the manor/mindscape areas, rather than this item. Perhaps either something connected to Heh Shan-Bao's original ritual, which the PCs could research in more detail, or maybe something that requires they return to the in-the-present Tan Sugi Monastery to figure out. That would also have the benefit of giving the PCs the option not to go along with Ren Mei Li's linear tasks while still having a way to access and address the dangers which remain in the mindscape (though of course if they end up angering Ren Mei Li by not doing as she asks, that would have consequences of its own.)
I'll have to give it some more thought, but those are the sorts of ideas currently bouncing around in my head.