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This is a series of homebrew additions to the campaign to better flesh out the Twilight Four plan to replace the primarch and hopefully make it more interactive for the players.
Feel free to add your own.
According to Lost Omens: Absalom Olansa Terimor is part of the Citizens’ League, the party representing labourers and the dispossessed. The party has the tacit support of Norgorber's cult and Olansa is the main link between the two, promoting the cooperation from the shadows. However Olansa is not the leader of the party. That would be Adrielle Neprathep. Olansa is not even in the High Council originally (although that can be fixed, see the Larrett vignette).
To become the primarch Olansa first needs to get Neprathep out of the way, otherwise securing the votes in the High Council for her party would result in Neprathep getting the title. Thankfully Neprathep does have one vulnerability: there has been a rumour for a long time that she was involved in the disappearance of Harbormaster Hugen... after all she was close to him and directly benefitted by seizing his position as Harbormaster. Olansa's plan is to inflame this rumour into something tangible which will force Adrielle to step aside. She will plant fake evidence that Adrielle was involved and then let Hugen's daughter Lady Alidane find it. Alidane is already feeling resentful towards Neprathep for "stealing" the Harbormaster position and Olansa will take advantage of that sentiment.
She hires the services of an alghollthu vidileth called Uruluura and tasks it to create a fake shipwreck, complete with the fake body of Hugen and fake letters implicating Neprathep (or if you want subtler: painting a harsh picture of a very negative relationship between them). Once that is done, she gives a tip to Lady Alidane, handing her a wayfinder that supposedly belonged to her father and is configured to show the way to him.
If Lady Alidane has a good relationship with the PCs, she will ask them to investigate. If you want to run this side quest in detail, you can use the PLUNDER OF THE SLAVER SHIP mini-adventure at the end of Book 6 with the following changes:
- • Instead of the ship being ancient it looks like it sank fairly recently (Identify Magic DC 40 to realise it has been touched up to look like a recent shipwreck).
- • Instead of it resting above the waterline on a rocky pillar it is at the bottom of the sea but is partially covered in a magical sphere that keeps the water out of the upper deck (Identify Magic DC 40 to know it shows signs of alghollthu rituals).
- • Instead of finding the captain's corpse in B2, it's Hugen's corpse (Medicine DC 40 to notice it's fake). Instead of finding a missive in the chest, you find a lot of letters between Neprathep and Hugen. The contents are hard to summarise but it is evident to anyone reading them in detail that they had a lot of disagreements and frequently blamed each other in an aggressive manner (Vancaskerkin & Terimor used a variation of Norgorber's minor boon to forge the letters, so the forgery is impossible to detect).
- • There are no visible manacles or other signs this is a slave ship (DC 40 to notice there used to be originally)
- • Instead of having alchemical supplies in C3, Uruluura keeps its schematics for faking the shipwreck here. If the PCs are too slow to reach this location, the vidileth will destroy them and leave. If the PCs get there in time, it will attempt to destroy them during its first or second round of combat. If the PCs manage to retrieve them, a DC38 relevant check together with knowledge of the alghollthu language will allow them to understand what the schematics mean and the deception that is going on.
More likely than not, the PCs will not notice the deception and return to Alidane with "proof" implicating Neprathep. Alidane will be furious and she will decide to confront Neprathep, asking the PCs to be there with her for moral support and "in case she tries anything". During the meeting Neprathep will deny she did anything wrong (and she will doubt the authenticity of the letters if she is allowed to study them) but -unless the PCs intervene in her favour- she will ultimately concede that the material is damaging and will step down for the good of the party, hoping that will be enough to assuage Alidane so that she does not go public with the scandal.
And just like that, Olansa (as the second most senior councilmember from the party) is now the Citizen League party's nominee for the position of primarch.
In book 5, at room J3 of Bottles and Blots there's some very shocking evidence:
These boxes contain a treasure trove of secrets and blackmail materials [...] there are blackmail documents on many of the major noble families of Absalom.
This blackmail is the reason these people on the High Council feel compelled to vote for Olansa as the new primarch. But what did they do exactly and how did Vancaskerkin discover it?
Vancaskerkin had Ixusoth the hyakume brainwasher abduct people that had access to the dealings of these nobles (servants, advisors, colleagues, friends, relatives), swap their eyes for green ones then spy on them until their most corrupt, heinous or simply embarassing secrets were revealed. Then all Olansa needs to do is tell them they have to vote for her or else she goes public with their secrets... and Bob's your uncle.
Vancaskerkin has a file on every person he's been spying on which is way way more than the Highcouncilmembers. However there are only four files in which the names are circled in black ink (because they are the ones whose votes have been secured). Here are their secrets:
- • Ferridan Severus: The file has a detailed log of his activities as Diplomatic Minister (including information about ongoing negotiations with Cheliax on arranging a prisoner exchange). There are a lot of details about his private life, especially his interest in his orphaned nephew (and a note in the margins that he could make a good hostage). His 7 brothers and his father are all high-ups at the Vault of Abadar. A methodical audit of its accounts is attached which shows that the bank is practically bankrupted. The obvious blackmail here is that if more people knew about this, it could result in a bank run and complete economic collapse.
- • Lady Neferpatra: The so-called Great-Aunt Maut is actually an ancient Leng ghoul and the real leader of the House of Ahnkamen. Very few people know of this but Neferpatra definitely does and cannot allow under any circumstances more people to know since this is extremely damaging not only to her standing as the head of a noble house but also as a Priestess of Pharasma.
- • Jaress Molinarro: He's secretly in the pocket of the Kortos Consortium. On its own this would be bad but there's also his close friend and partner Diasco Vade (third law lord) who does not know and thinks Jaress is incorruptible. Jaress would hate to be a disappointment to him... which is why he is vulnerable to blackmail.
- • Chun Hye-Seung: The file goes into great detail about her interest in clockwork machines, her political blunders and her close friendship with Lady Adrielle Neprathep. There is nothing here that screams blackmail. (What is not written down in the file is that Neprathep asked Chun to vote for her party as a personal favour and Vancaskerkin buttered her up too by spending a lot of time talking with her, sharing knowledge about clockwork applications.)
(All the secrets were taken directly from Lost Omens: Absalom, if you want all the juicy details, get that book.)
That's 4 votes secured. The High Council has 12 seats normally but if the primarch is indisposed (for example if he's arrested for murder) the remaining 11 can still vote a new primarch with simple majority, which requires at least 6 votes. Lady Nephrathep will of course vote for her party's candidate, she tells herself that she's the bigger person and can put her personal ambitions aside for the sake of the people. Olansa Terimor will obviously also vote for herself if she has a seat in the High Council, which she achieves by taking Larrett's seat). (Alternatively if Olansa is not on the High Council in your campaign, you can invent some devastating secret for Larrett, who is so obviously corrupt that it would be child's play to obtain some blackmail on him, green eyes or not.)
How the PCs can interact with all of this: First and foremost, when the PCs raid Bottles and Blots, they will have a chance to interact with Ixusoth's files, guess which files are the important ones, what the circled names mean and be shocked by discovering the secrets instead of being told vaguely "you found all the evidence about some blackmail". Additionally, even before that, the PCs might grow suspicious if they ask some of the councilmembers that are being blackmailed for help and get stonewalled. That might lead them to investigate, potentially discover the secrets and help resolve them. That would ruin Olansa's plan (since the councilmember would be free to vote someone else) and change the campaign considerably. Alternatively the PCs could help resolve the secrets after Olansa is elected primarch; that would have less of an impact but might still make it easier to depose her.
This is an expanded and corrected version of the most critical part of the Twilight Four plan: get Wynsal Starborn, the acting primarch, arrested. It is put in motion at the end of Book 4 but you can start foreshadowing/preparing way earlier.
Instead of the Rabbit Prince being an insane stranger how about if he is a dark reflection of one of the PCs?
Vancaskerkin wants to bait Starborn to go to Harrowland where he can be framed for killing Harlo Doleen. So he needs a credible and authentic threat by whom it would seem realistic that Harlo was abducted. If Vancaskerkin had a great relationship with one or more of the PCs he could ask them to play the role of a mad serial killer to help him get the primarch. Obviously this isn't going to happen for most people running this adventure path.
Instead Vancaskerkin will try to trick the PCs into creating the Rabbit Prince and taking the blame for his murders. To do that he will need a darkside mirror. He will perform an occult ritual that will make the mirror only trigger on one specific target person (the chosen PC) and with a substantial delay in creating the mirror duplicate. Then he needs to find a way for the target PC to interact with the mirror for a little while to trigger the magic.
So he sends the PCs on a quest. This is a modified version of the Counterfeit Peak mini-adventure from Book 6. Vancaskerkin asks them to retrieve three golden rings for "my collection of historical curios". From then on run the adventure as normal. When they reach the dragon, the PCs will likely ask to trade. Crystal dragons love mirrors and the dragon will demand a bigger mirror than the small hand mirror the PCs already possess from this adventure. If all goes well, Vancaskerkin will take the PCs to Emporium Impossible (a secret market for high-end goods) and make a big show of all of them together picking a mirror to trade with the dragon. It is all in fact a deception: the seller will be in the know and pretend (Sense Motive DC 35) to sell the darkside mirror saying it's a Mirror of Sleeping Vigil (Identify Magic DC 35 to realise it's actually cursed). Then the PCs will have to arrange a meeting with the dragon to trade it which will necessitate them staying close to the mirror.
If the plan succeeds, Vancaskerkin will wait until the mirror duplicate emerges and together they will slay the dragon and take the mirror to Harrowland. There Vancaskerkin will brainwash the duplicate with his philosophy to turn him into a servant and instill in him the desire to be Rabbit Prince and turn things around him into a reflection of the Harrowed Realm.
(If the PCs instead slay the dragon or become suspicious of Vancaskerkin, he will have to try to find a different way to get the darkside mirror near them or he will have to find a different way to get a crazy Harrow-obsessed serial killer in Harrowland.)
Aftermath 1: Weeks or months later, the PCs might learn (through their old collegues in Edgewatch likely) of at least two Harrow-related cases:
- • Human man named Grulph Nimberdell -shipwright from the Docks district and local drunkard at Precipice Quarter- disappeared. A Harrow card depicting The Vision (but instead of an old man the card features the character of the Rabbit Prince getting struck) was found near the Tipsy Tengu tavern where the victim was last seen. (The PCs might eventually rescue him from Harrowland)
- • A murder tableau consisting of a dead body set up to look like "The Lost" harrow card. It was initially thought to be a zombie from the Undercity but it's actually a recently murdered body that has been alchemically treated and carved with a knife to look extremely decomposed. Body remains unidentified.
If the PCs investigate these in depth and discover the situation in Harrowland, that would require a substantial re-write of the adventure path. Perhaps the Twilight Four will attempt a different way to frame the primarch. Perhaps they would be forced to hasten their plan putting it into motion as soon as the PCs get to Harrowland. Perhaps their whole plan will collapse like a house of cards. For most GMs that don't want to derail the campaign too much, it would be wise to only present these cases to the PCs while they are distracted with other (seemingly) more important business.
Aftermath 2: Because of their newfound connection to the Harrowed Realm, any contact the duplicated PC has with harrow cards might trigger the party getting transported to the Harrowed Realm. Use the 1e adventure The Harrowing for inspiration if you want to pursue this. Conversion guide. Alternative conversion guide.
Before we get to the main act, there's some laying the groundwork that can be done. Getting the acting primarch deposed is a big deal and so it's important for the people to anticipate and accept this at an emotional but also symbolic level.
The ritual The World's a Stage is one way to accomplish that. Vancaskerkin is putting on a production of a play about a tyrannical primarch getting overthrown. If he has a good relationship with the PCs, he can ask them to help even, especially if he thinks they agree that there should be political change. Once the play is performed and the ritual is successfully cast, the universe conspires to bring about the events depicted.
Vancaskerking will, under the pretext of making casual conversation about the play or current events, ask prodding questions to the party about their political beliefs. Their answers determine whether he reveals the ritual to them. If he thinks they won't agree with the purpose, he tries to hide the ritual from them and cast it behind the scenes. If he thinks they would agree, he asks to be the director and primary caster but if a PC has other ideas he will teach them the ritual and let them direct.
If the PCs participate, he asks for their input on some or all of the following questions (depending on player interest):
- • What should be the title? (e.g. The Tyrant)
- • What genre? (e.g. opera, comedy, musical, drama)
- • What movement? (e.g. traditional, modern, frame story, avant-garde)
- • What should be the outline of the plot (e.g. an adaptation of the story of the fall of the tyrannical Lord Daynce)
- • How metaphorical or literal should the analogies with the present be? (consider that the Crier’s Table can intervene and censor the play)
- • Which venue? (e.g. Grand Dance Hall of Kortos, Ivy Playhouse, the Gutless Griffon, House of Shade and Grace, Irorium, Lantern lodge, Wandering Monster)
- • Who should be cast on each role? (maybe some of the PCs could act too)
- • To what extent should magic be used? (e.g. none, illusions for scenery and special effects, mental magic to enchant the audience)
- • How do we make the sets?
- • What kind of music should be used?
- • How do we organise the rehearsals?
Aftermath 1: Vancaskerkin will decide if he can ask the PCs for help to depose the primarch for real based on their disposition about the play. He can also use the premiere of the play as an opportunity to force the PCs to choose quickly (see below).
Aftermath 2: If the ritual works, Vancaskerkin will use his re-rolls at the most critical times for making the Twilight Four Plan a success. The PCs, if they participate, may re-interpret the play and use their own re-rolls on a wider set of circumstances around deposing tyrants (including Olansa Terimor and Vancaskerkin of course).
This is meant to provide fixes and improvements for the last chapter of Book 4.
The bait
Instead of Vancaskerkin putting a puzzle in the newspaper for Starborn to randomly find and Starborn deciding to fall for an obvious trap on purpose, how about this: Vancaskerkin will attempt to convince the PCs to trick the primarch into going to Harrowland. There are many ways this can work.
First, Vancaskerkin can gauge how okay the PCs are with deposing the primarch. He can ask them their opinion on the conspiracy theory that Starborn is secretly planning a military coup. He can ask them how they feel about his leadership, especially about his lukewarm middle-of-the-road unambitious policies that don't seem to do much ("he peaked when he took radical action and abolished slavery, it's been downhill since"). He can invite them to help with his play (see above) and use that as a pretext to ask political questions.
If Vancaskerkin has roped the PCs into helping him produce a play about deposing a primarch, he can set up a ruse during the premiere to put them on the spot. During the play, Layton Bryne (the editor-in-chief of Eyes on Absalom) barges into the auditorium, goes next to Vancaskerkin's seat, leans in his ear and whispers something to him. Vancaskerkin contorts his face to make it look surprised (visible to any PCs who are on the stage or are seated near him). Bryne leaves and Vancaskerkin makes no further moves until after the final curtain (unless the PCs interrupt the play to confront him). After the play is over and he gives his congratulations to any PCs who acted in it, he takes a deep breath, puts on a grave appearance and tells them he has sudden news. "Remember that Harrow serial killer in Precipice Quarter? We have an eyewitness source that can place him together with Harlo Doleen at Grislyfair." If he thinks the PCs might be willing to help with deposing Starborn, he adds: "But before you rush there, I have a suggestion that came to me while I was sitting here watching the play: What if you contact the primarch and ask him to come along? He's good friends with Doleen and cares deeply about him and he really trusts you guys so he can't say no. He's also a good fighter so your chances of success will increase considerably if he's with you. Of course the scandal of the primarch abandoning his duties to the city and putting his life in danger to save his personal friend will likely lead to him being replaced by the Council, but that's all for the better, he's not fit to serve because..." (add here some justification that aligns with the PCs' political ideology he has elicited from them).
If there's no play, he can call them to his office and tell them the same thing more or less. It just won't have the same impact and feeling of urgency.
If that fails, after they leave, he will forge a letter from the PCs. If "The World's a Stage" ritual was cast successfully, he will use one of his rerolls for this forgery. If the PCs have an animal companion or other mascot that isn't with them at the moment, he will send his clockwork assassins (fitted with nets instead of smoke bombs) to abduct them, take them to Ixusoth, replace their eyes, modify their memory and send them to hand-deliver the letter to the primarch. The letter would be ostinsibly written from the PCs, telling him they found Doleen but need his personal help to free him so he should meet them at Harrowland posthaste.
If that fails too, you'll have to think of increasingly desperate and risky ways for Vancaskerkin to get the primarch there.
Harrowland coming to life
Vancaskerkin and the Rabbit Prince have turned Harrowland into an elaborate magical-symbolic trap. The Rabbit Prince is abducting people and ritualistically "sculpting" them into harrow cards and recreating the harrow tales. This has bestowed Harrowland some of the properties of the Harrowed Realms, making the whole place more like a fairy tale where narrative, storytelling and plot convenience take precedence over realism. And of course the plot that is served by this dark reflection of the Harrowed Realm is to frame the primarch. This has several implications. First, it becomes harder to leave the area, anyone attempting to leave the abandoned part of the Precipice Quarter where the Grislyfair is located must succeed at a DC 41 Will Save or Track check or wander in circuitous paths until they are back where they began. Second, all people, events even the geography itself subtly behave in ways that line up with the predetermined demands of the plot. For example, Lavarsus will arrive with his cohorts to arrest the primarch and the PCs precisely when they get to Doleen's body, not too soon, not too late.
But that is not all. The Graveraker has been activated and its time magic is creating a gigantic time dilation field, encompassing the whole area. Everything inside the big top tent is practically frozen in time. The effect diminishes with distance, you can assume time moves 10 times slower for anything within 100 feet of the Graveraker / big top tent and you can assume time moves 2-3 times slower for anything within Grislyfair. Subjectively time feels like it's passing normally but anyone who makes contact with outside the field might notice something (for example, someone within the field scrying someone outside the field will see them move in fast-forward). The field is set to collapse if anything that is in time stasis is disturbed, for example the empty crates that are piled against the door between F18 and F19. Doleen is still alive in there, with the knife held in place perilously close to his throat. When the time dilation field collapses, the knife plunges into his throat, slicing it and killing him instantly.
Note how the time dilation field gives more time for the Twilight Four to make any arrangements they need, for example to convince Starborn to also go there or tie up other loose ends while the PCs are effectively in slow motion in there.
In order to understand the time dilation field a DC 41 Identify Magic check is required (DC38 Occultism). Nullifying or bypassing it to save Doleen should be complex but doable for smart players. (Only allow that to happen if you are prepared for the adventure path to be completely derailed.)
Rabbit Prince stalking and other details
If you don't want the PCs to randomly wander from attraction to attraction, you can make the scenario more dynamic by having the Rabbit Prince stalk them as they move through Harrowland. If they spot him, he makes a run for it, trying to bait them into as many dangerous locations as possible. His preference is to bait them into following him into F6 the hall of mirrors, which could possibly force them to fight their mirror duplicates and the shatterlings while he escapes from the back door and returns to his sanctum in F18. But his plan might change depending on where they spot him and other circumstances.
If you are using the "Rabbit Prince is a dark duplicate of one of the PCs" idea from above, don't forget that the duplicated PC will not be duplicated again if they face the darkside mirror, they simply will have no reflection. If you have presented the PCs with the "harrow serial killer casefiles" from above and the PCs meet Grulph Nimberdell in Harrowland, he remembers getting blackout drunk at the Tipsy Tengu before waking up in a prison cell in Harrowland. Finally, if the Rabbit prince is defeated he fades out, leaving only his crown and broken sword behind... which will make it likely that the duplicated PC might take the blame for his many crimes.
Lavarsus, brainwashed, making the arrest
Vancaskerkin leaves nothing to chance and even though Lavarsus is a fool full of pride he might be convinced by indignant PCs that this is a frame-up and they are innocent. So instead of just giving him a tip about Harrowland, he sends one of his glabrezu lie-masters to manipulate him, as usual taking the form of editor-in-chief Layton Bryne. The lie-master convinces Lavarsus that the PCs and the primarch are bad people by taking advantage of his pride. This discussion will culminate in the lie-master asking Lavarsus "Besides, isn't this your deepest, truest wish, Lieutenant? This is an one-of-a-kind opportunity to prove your worth, restore your honour as a guard and elevate Edgewatch into a proper district watch." As Lavarsus nods in agreement, the demon invokes its Twisted Desires ability to grant the wish in a perverted way. From that point forward, Lavarsus is compelled to ignore reason and rationalise until all evidence is twisted to "prove" the primarch and the PCs guilty. After accomplishing that, Layton Bryne accompanies Lavarsus and the guards to Harrowland.
If the PCs try to reason with him, he will twist everything he knows about their movements and their characters into "evidence" they were norgorberites all along. Diplomacy DC 40 or even higher to change his mind. (Later, after the adventure is over, if the PCs realise what had happened, they might confront or attempt to console a promoted but depressed Lavarsus who deep down knows he made a mistake. If they encounter the Lie-Masters in the Clockwork Halls under Eyes on Absalom HQ, the demons will taunt them by mockingly repeating any arguments the PCs used to plead with Lavarsus and will relate the story of how they corrupted him.)
Finally, even though the primarch surrenders after being accused and suggests the PCs do the same, I say let the players decide what they want to do instead of letting it play out like a videogame cutscene. Some of them might want to evade arrest (that changes almost nothing) or even fight back (that might change things more but ultimately will make the primarch and the PCs look even more guilty).
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This is a series of homebrew additions to the campaign to better flesh out the Twilight Four plan to replace the primarch and hopefully make it more interactive for the players.
Feel free to add your own.
I wrote the encounters in the back of Book 6. So glad to see someone has utilized them!
I wrote the encounters in the back of Book 6. So glad to see someone has utilized them!
Haha they were stewing in my brain for the whole campaign. I wouldn't rest until I found a place for them. And I'm glad I did. I loved playing through them but especially loved how my players slowly realised they were conned both times!
Thanks for the inspiration!