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The administration is non-existent. The modules introduced the dining hall head cook, the supply center manager, and one groundskeeper, but those are staff rather than administration. I claim the teachers make administrative decisions when I need to explain decisions.
There very clearly is an administration. PCs can go ask them for help looking up records at a certain point. But the book isn't going to spend 200 pages painstakingly explaining how every aspect of the school works because its completely impractical.
I read, "Like you're not going to give an off the cuff lecture on using the Residue theorem to integrate to people who haven't even learned how to do Contour integrals yet," aloud to my wife and asked her if I would do that. Her response of "Totally" was matched by a chime of "Yes" from our housemate in the same room. I call my wife "long-suffering" for more than one reason.
Perhaps I model the teachers of the Magaambya after myself too much. I remember learning Cauchy's Reside Theorem in Prof. Lappan's Complex Analysis class in 1984 when I was a senior at Michigan State University.
The other thing about Strength of Thousands is that the PCs should be viewed as grad students, rather than undergrads- these are people you can and should offload unpleasant work to, not people who need to be coddled.
The Magaambya has a multi-millennia tradition of assigning students at all levels to service projects. The AP explains that they do projects for the city of Nantambu, too. This is a very clever gimmick by the authors of Strength of Thousands because it gave a reason why the PCs would be sent to encounters outside the classroom. The Nantambu chapter of Lost Omens: The Mwangi Expanse says on page 240, "The town’s prosperity remained entwined with the school’s popularity for many years, however. Students continue to serve the city as part of their curriculum, and classes moved from within the school’s walls and out into the community."
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I'm a big fan of The Alexandrian, who's been writing and foraying into youtube gamemastery advice. A particularly relevant episode is Calling in the Big Guns;
A unique challenge to running urban campaigns is figuring out what happens if the PCs, confronted with some horrible crime or circumstance, do the logical thing and seek help from powerful allies.
The video is well worth watching (15m), but there's a couple of key ideas in it that I think apply a lot to this discussion;
* At some point the PCs are going to run into an issue that is big and serious, and it just plain makes sense to take it to the authorities.
* But neither the GM or players want the authorities to take over and the PCs to be completely sidelined.
He goes on to discuss six different styles for achieving a much more satisfying outcome. A common trend in them is this: taking the issue to the authorities is a good thing, and should be validated in some way, but that doesn't mean the story ends for the PCs.
For example: there's a statue attacking people with lethal force. Okay, yeah that's pretty problematic, thanks for telling me. Let's turn this into a learning opportunity. I want you to deal with this statue, but I'll be standing by in case it gets out of hand. Also, let's review the magical theory of constructs, so that you can properly prepare for this fight.
Another one is to establish that powerful NPCs have big responsibilities. While they care about the issues the PCs bring up, that doesn't mean they have enough time to handle them. This is an opportunity to lift the curtain a bit and show that the faculty might be quietly handling some big crisis that they don't want to worry the population at large about. While they're doing that, they need the PCs to handle the new problem, but the faculty can give them some advice, and maybe a powerful scroll or too with just the right thing on it.
In these examples, the players are taking an issue to an authority figure who genuinely cares, and who validates that they did the right thing by bringing in the information. But the rest of the adventure isn't gonna be yanked out of the players' hands. They're going to be better off for having done this - face the monster with a bit more information and story context.
So players don't have to "play dumb" to get to actually play the adventure instead of delegating it entirely to their higher ups.
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I did it again in my game session yesterday, Tuesday, February 11. We were running the Spoken on the Song Wind scenario "Oozing into Trouble" in which the PCs are hunting down oozes that are loose in a conservatory garden that is not directly affiliated with the Magaambya. Instead, the timing was right before the Fall orientation week and Teacher Zuma received a request for help from the conservatory. Zuma wondered whether the problem could wait until orientation week, so that the new students arriving Fall Season could deal with it as a practice service project, so he sent the party to investigate. The 5th-level challenge was obviously higher than 1st- or 2nd-level new students could handle safely, so the party decided to clean up the oozes themselves. However, for extra challenge, I added a 7th-level Gahlepod that had been attracted by the scent of oozes and was eating an ooze it had killed.
The party looked at the gahlepod, rolled both natural 1s and natural 20s on their Recall Knowledge (Nature) checks, and retreated to argue. One was bitten for 18 damage by the gahlepod during their departure, but I let them retreat past other dead oozes and return to Exploration Mode. They figured out that the gahlepod was the mindless young polliwog form of a frog-like intelligent fey species called brughadatch. They decided that the Magaambya teachers should deal with it.
They contacted Zuma. He knew more about the oozes and the gahlepod. He concluded that the Magaambya teachers would have to set up a high-level team for a potential brughadatch incursion, but asked the PCs to finish clearing out the oozes, which he saw as a lesser problem.
I had chosen the gahlepod because (1) 7th-level was the challenge difficulty I wanted, (2) a fey or abberant creature seemed more likely than an animal or beast to eat oozes, and (3) the gahlepod was amphibious so could have swum to the conservatory unseen in local canals. My players, on the other hand, focused on the possibility of brughadatch parents nearby, so the gahlepod was more than they wanted to tackle without experienced guidance. My little addition flubbed due to common sense, but it did not derail the ooze mission.
... or being forced to wait for months after discovering that hostile snersons have already infiltrated the academy, wasting critical time while snersons are doing who knows what (because you're scripted to make more study checks), etc.That timeline is stupid. I will try to have the snerson subplot resolved in four weeks in-game time. Thanks for the heads up.
I wrote myself into a quandary due to wanting to finish the snerson subplot in four weeks in-game time. I need the PCs to level up to 6th level before they deal with the 9th-level snerson final boss. With a 5th-level 7-member party, that boss would be only a 91xp Moderate-Threat challenge, but with saving throws against 9th-level venom involved, the risk of a PC death is too high. I need the PCs to advance to better saving throws. The beginning of Fall Season is going to be very busy.
The party did earn 46xp for dealing with the gahlepod, even though they mostly avoided combat. They need 626 more xp to reach 6th level.
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... or being forced to wait for months after discovering that hostile snersons have already infiltrated the academy, wasting critical time while snersons are doing who knows what (because you're scripted to make more study checks), etc.That timeline is stupid. I will try to have the snerson subplot resolved in four weeks in-game time. Thanks for the heads up.I wrote myself into a quandary due to wanting to finish the snerson subplot in four weeks in-game time. I need the PCs to level up to 6th level before they deal with the 9th-level snerson final boss. With a 5th-level 7-member party, that boss would be only a 91xp Moderate-Threat challenge, but with saving throws against 9th-level venom involved, the risk of a PC death is too high. I need the PCs to advance to better saving throws. The beginning of Fall Season is going to be very busy.
The party did earn 46xp for dealing with the gahlepod, even though they mostly avoided combat. They need 626 more xp to reach 6th level.
I finished the snerson storyline within 4 weeks by the in-game calendar.
Learned One Janitimo had arranged a meeting with Mayor-Magistrate Asanda to have the PCs deputized as Chime-Ringers (that is, local police) at the end of Summer Season, before the events at the Hababe Building that led to this thread. This was one of the last acts of the real Asanda before he was impersonated
The Hababe Building was the start of the snerson plot. By the calendar in my campaign, this happened during the break between Summer Season and Fall Season. The "Oozing into Trouble" mission with the gahlepod also occurred during the break.
The 1st week of Fall Season is Orientation Week in which the new students receive five Perquisite service projects before classes start. Thus, it was pretty much a vacation for the older students, such as the PCs except that 4 PCs had volunteered to teach classes in the fall. I gave the "Flooded Workshop" mission to 4 new students named Menolly, Henry, Marjilla, and Squall as a Perquisite project. Menolly and Squall were assigned to Spire Dormitoty after Esi and Noxolo moved out, so when Marjilla noticed possible criminal activity, Menolly fetched the party in their role as Chime-Ringers. The Flooded Workshop was the 2nd mission related to the snersons.
The party had fought side by side with two of the minotaurs from Fire-Pot Ubanu's Forge during an encounter I added to the adventure path for the Runesmith playtest. During the 2nd week of Fall Season they approached Firepot's Forge about the alchemy bottles found in the Hababe Building before Ubanu started leaving fiery messages for the "Fiery Debt" mission. They learned about the debt due to snerson fraud in a non-hostile discussion. They managed to resolve the debt with an extra out-of-town mission (River into Darkness, comment #5"). The fraud was the 3rd clue about the snersons.
While two players were off on vacation, I added a class-field-trip mission in that 2nd week for the remaining five PCs based on the module Pathfinder Society Scenario #7–24: Dead Man's Debt. That deliberately had nothing to do with the snerson storyline, but it did bring the party to 6th level. All party members have the same level, regardless of absences.
Then on the Starday at the end of the 3rd week of Fall Season, the party was summoned to Goana's Woodcarving Workshop for "Carving Trouble." The party was not sent to Goana's place by Janatimo on an unrelated mission. Instead, the Magaambya teachers had asked Goana to investigage a wood golem found in the Hababe Building with the party given as a contact if she figured out who made it. She immediately recognized once it was delivered and contacted the party. Too bad the Magaambya was also keeping the Mayor's office informed about this investigation, so Salathiss read the message and sent assassins to kill Goana. The party was there when the assassins arrived. After the party defeated the assassins, Jinx Fuun sent her heron companion with a message for teacher Mafika Ayuwari at his weekend noodle cart. Both Mafika Ayuwari and Izem Mezitani showed up. Mafika amd PC Wilfred took the captured assassins to jail (Wilfred's player was absent that session) while Izem and Chime-Ringer Virgil Tibbs accompanied the party to Mayor Asanda’s Manor to either arrest the mayor or--as they suspected--arrest Salathiss impersonating the mayor in "The Flooded Manor."
The party was 6th level, one level lower than expected for "The Flooded Manor," but they had six party members, 6th-level Virgil Tibbs, and 14th-level Izem Mezitani. However, Izem pointed out that he was not a Chime Ringer and was not authorized to investigate private homes. As an archaeologist and a divine sorcerer, he limited himself to True Sight, trap finding, and healing. Okay, he did cast an occasional cantrip or throw his nonlethal dagger at obviously murderous serpentfolk, but he never fought at full power. He was a teacher ensuring that the party and their prisoners would stay alive.
The next game session, Wilfred returned and I sent Virgil to deliver captured serpentfolk to jail. Izem was sidelined upon encountering the unstable portal. He deemed the party able to handle themselves, but unstable portals needed expert handling.
All but one serpentfolk were captured alive, though most were knocked to dying by lethal damage and kept from death by the Stabilize cantrip. A Graitescale bodyguard tried to escape with unconscious Salathiss over his shoulder. He ran through an area-of-effect Cyclone Rondo, which killed Salathiss. Salathiss would have been executed after a trial for his crimes anyways, but we will have to argue this in court.
And that is how I handled the snerson plot in only 4 in-game weeks with the aid of Magaambya teachers. It required more than 4 real-time weekly game sessions.
Later that day, Izem gave PC Roshan a scroll of Sending to send a message to Roshan's mother. Roshan's backstory as a rogue fleshwarp with ifrit heritage is that she had been involved in a lab accident at the College of Dimensional Studies in Katapesh where her mother Setareh worked. Professor Setareh was the easiest expert in interdimensional portals to contact. Cara and Idris were sent to the archives to research the original of the portals that broke down. The next day Setareh teleported in, gave Roshan a hug, and set to work. With the aid of the party, she sent the innocent creatures dropped through the portal home and closed the portal. She gave the party 100 gp of her 1000 gp fee for their assistance. I gave the PCs 80 xp for it, bringing them up to 930 xp.
They will most likely reach 7th level before they tackle Frogleg's bandit camp. Virgil warned them that the Chime Ringers cannot properly round up Froglegs' gang while the serpentfolk fill all their high-security jail cells.
I have a question. The party captured 16 serpentfolk alive. Most of them have no illusionary disguise abilities and can be sentenced to a few years of hard labor. But 5 of them can use Illusionary Disguise at will and are trained in mimicking other people. Because of their disguise abilities, they cannot be held securely in a regular labor camp, but none of them has committed sufficiently horrendous crimes to merit execution.
I am following the sentencing guideline in TABLE 2: COMMON CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS on page 65 of the Lost Omens Travel Guide. They are guilty of Espionage (hard labor for 10 to 30 years or until a spy exchange), Fraud (a fine), Kidnapping (2 to 8 years hard labor, often followed by exile), Vandalism (ten lashes), and Assault & battery (ten lashes and/or a fine). Only Salathiss committed Murder (execution), and no-one was an accessory to that murder.
A 7th-rank Geas ritual could bind the serpentfolk against using illusions for one year. No-one at the Magaambya can manage higher-rank rituals.
Any suggestions for appropriate and effective punishments?
That is another problem with applying common sense and civilized decency in Strength of Thousands. The players want to know the sentences on the criminals they capture. I created a law class that some PCs attend to give them an excuse to see behind the scenes at trials.
Are Serpentfolk redeemable in your interpretation? Or are their ties to evil as much metaphysical/innate as cultural/learned?
That said, there should be mundane methods to keep the prisoners isolated, and as long as their numbers match, all's good in cell block S.
If that's too difficult (or they're too cunning, which they kinda are) and it's the 1st level version of the Zyss, then one might coordinate something involving worn and/or held items. All creatures in the prison might wear items they cannot remove, but which get removed when exiting or entering key zones (then replaced). If disguised as a guard, their item will revert to a prisoner's version when removed during the check. (And of course, one would want to prevent being able to attack it to oneself after killing a guard too.)
One might also use guards of very dissimilar height and/or weight to the Zyss, beyond the spell's ability. Maybe even Small or Large.
Maybe dangle a mouse in front of them and see how they respond. :)
I think the more troublesome aspect is Suggestion. You'd kinda need to ferry them through checkpoints in numbers much smaller than the guard count, or maybe with hoods so they can't target. Hoods might also be necessary because of their bite attacks.
So Dwarves.
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One option is to convince the lizardfolk to willingly undergo the geas ritual, which would only require the 3rd-rank version. If the lizardfolk were presented with the option of either doing 10 years of hard labour in a highly secure environment or taking the geas and doing 10 years of reparative labour somewhere with much lower security (maybe even in the community itself), they might take the latter. If the PCs want to be involved, you could make it a skill challenge to convince the lizardfolk and find them a suitable job in Nantambu.
Are Serpentfolk redeemable in your interpretation? Or are their ties to evil as much metaphysical/innate as cultural/learned?
Salathiss is a devotee of the headless serpent god Ydersius, and he sought artifacts in the Magaambya in hopes of restoring Ydersius's lost head (also see the Serpent's Skull adventure path). Strength of Thousands was written before the Remaster dropped alignments, and Salathiss and the various serpentfolk types created for this module are labeled Neutral Evil.
The Magaambya has been conducting archaeological digs around Saventh-Yhi, the ruined City of Seven Spears, and the local serpentfolk have been attacking them regularly because they oppose non-serpentfolk discoveries near where Ydersius was beheaded. Thus. the Magaambya is generally in conflict with serpentfolk. However, Salthiss's style was different, much more subtle, so I think he belongs to a separate faction of serpentfolk. And Nantambu has no relationship with serpentfolk tribes, so the city itself is indifferent.
The surviving serpentfolk are redeemable in some sense, but they are either religious fanatics or willing to work for religious fanatics for the possibility of wealth and prestige. And we will never see the long-term effects of their punishment unless I deliberately write a cameo appearance.
That said, there should be mundane methods to keep the prisoners isolated, and as long as their numbers match, all's good in cell block S.
I decided in an earlier case, 6th-level Loakan and 7th-level Reth, that the prisons in Nantambu are not designed to hold 6th- and 7th-level prisoners. Instead, those powerful convicts were sent to labor at the Saventh-Yhi digs, where they need to cooperate with authorities to survive against hostile serpentfolk. But the Nantambu prison could handle the two 4th-level Coil Spy illusionist serpentfolk. I could combine this with Jerdane's idea of persuading the Coil Spies to voluntarily accept a longer-term Geas in exchange for a more comfortable sentence in Nantambu rather than being sent to hard and dangerous labor at the Sarkoris Scar.
Thanks for the help.
Is the disguise is magic-based?
That imprisonment snag could be handled pretty easily by a minor anti magic invention.
Even something as "low level" as a magic collar that cannot be affected by illusory/etc magic would enable the easy long-term imprisonment of at-will disguising snersons.
Doesn't even need to actually nullify/counteract anything, just be an annoyingly "immutable" object that everyone can recognize at a glance, and ofc is locked on.
Also is kinda yikes that no one at the Magaambya can handle R7 rituals...
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Absolute worst case for imprisoning the powerful/escape artists is the "on ice" sentence, where instead of serving their time in labor, they get petrified, lol.
Also is kinda yikes that no one at the Magaambya can handle R7 rituals...
Oops, I see that my pair of sentences about Geas are unclear. The Magaambya has some 14th- and 15th-level teachers who can cast a 7th-rank Geas ritual that will last one year. But no-one there can cast the 9th-rank Geas ritual (which I vaguely called "higher level") that will last longer than one year. Thus, a sentence enforced by a geas has to last one year or less, or the teachers have to travel out to the labor camp each year to renew the ritual. I want to keep any sentence under a geas to one year maximum to skip the complications. A willingly-accepted 3rd-rank geas can last longer than a year, which Jerdane suggested could be arranged via negotiations for an easier sentence.
Enduring anti-magic magic is a complication that I do not want to introduce into my campaign.
An obvious immutable object would be manacles, and maybe a muzzle to prevent fang Strikes against the guards. But the labor camps will be in dangerous territory and preventing the convicts from defending themselves against natural hazards would be unethical.
I had not considered petrification or enchanted sleep. Unfortunately, that would perform no rehabilitation, unless the Magaambya sent the prisoners' minds into a dream.
An item like that could also be used for the Locate spell if the serpentfolk go on the lam! As for petrification, that would be quite plausible too as the PCs capture a basilisk and return it to its owner earlier in that very adventure.
(Also, just realized that I referred to serpentfolk as "lizardfolk" in my previous post. Well, too late to edit!)
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I found a lapse in logic in Spoken on the Song Wind, and would like to take a moment to rant. The Finding Froglegs mission in which the party captures the criminal gangleader Froglegs at her stronghold is loaded with contradictions. To let the party act like questing adventurers the module ignores that the city of Nantambu has laws and police.
The party finally gathered enough evidence to arrest Froglegs for murder. Therefore, the Magaambya, represented by Learned One Janiaimo, sends them to capture Froglegs. They have a question-and-answer session with Janatimo. The potential questions are bolded.
Why doesn’t the faculty of the Magaambya take action? “We are! We act in Nantambu through our trusted conversants, and you’ve certainly proven your trustworthiness to me.” (In other words, the Magaambya is taking action by risking their students who have demonstrated prowess in combat.)
Why don’t we just go to the authorities? “The Chime‐Ringers [the local police force] are too busy chasing petty criminals, ..."
Is our arrest binding? “Yes, but only provisionally. Once she’s in custody, ... we can investigate the scope of her network ..."
Can we kill Froglegs? "Murder would make you little more than vigilantes, and we can’t risk such a stain on the Magaambya’s reputation. We need to stop her, but we don’t want to become like her. She’s unlikely to come along willingly, but if you’re resolute and forthright, you can capture rather than kill her."
However, the party has to fight through Froglegs' minions in order to capture her alive. The 1st hut says about the criminals there, "They don’t surrender until there’s only one of them [out of 3] left standing." The 2nd hut says, "The [four] gripplis are dedicated to Froglegs; they fight until only one grippli remains, and that survivor tries to flee to warn Froglegs that the intruders were more than they could handle." And the dwarf Kolbo in that hut is described as willing to turn against the gripplis and kill one to prove that he is helpful. In the 3rd hut, fortunately, the grippli jinxer Grubush is willing to flee and Froglegs is willing to surrender if reduced to fewer than 30 hit points (out of her 135 maximum hit points). So 5 minions will fight to the death.
The module expects the party to kill a handful of minion thieves to reach Froglegs, but has to let murdering crimelord Froglegs live because killing her would be evil. (TV Tropes: What Measure is a Mook?)
Fortunately for my sensibilities, my party has tried to avoid killing intelligent beings ever since they had to chase gremlins out of a storeroom in Kindled Magic. They captured everyone in the 1st hut alive. And manacled them and delivered them to the Chime-Ringers waiting nearby. I declared that of the Chime-Ringers only my 6th-level playtest runesmith Virgil Tibbs is strong enough to face Froglegs, so the other Chime-Ringers hang back and guard the prisoners. We ended the game session before the 2nd hut. And the party has been officially deputized to help the Chime-Ringers for over a month, but the other powerful people in Nantambu, such as Magaambya faculty, have to stay away because they are not deputized.
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I feel like these sort of "gross errors" in adventures often come down to fine nuances of how you present them. Shade them a little bit differently and they make much better sense.
In this case:
* Law enforcement is not the same as pure (military) prowess. The chime ringers get much more training in de-escalation and solving issues civilly or nonfatally than a soldier or war-mage would get. The Magaambya prefers to let them do most of the policing because they're the experts.
* But, this is also an adventuring world and "levels" is something that the Magaambya is aware of at least on an intuitive level. They recognize that Froglegs is more than the neighborhood watch can handle, but unlikely to be a cosmic level threat. They estimate that the PCs are in fact more powerful than your typical chime-ringer and reasonably placed to do this.
In a way, the PCs are a pretty reasonable choice - the way most AP encounters are balanced, it's extremely likely that the players will win, so yes, the PCs are indeed a powerful enough supernatural SWAT team to send in there.
As for taking Froglegs alive - I would not interpret it as "it's okay to kill anyone else, just not Froglegs". You can read "survivor" also as "not knocked out".
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AoN states
Our group just played this part, we did not learn much about Froglegs, but as we were quite exhausted after the huts - and just reached lvl 5, but without gaining new spells yet - we tried a diplomatic approach despite all the other criminals fighting to the death.
This did not work out at all, we got quite a beating by her (i did not even know it was a her until just know) - but as your DM stated that the door was very sturdy we tried to lock her caster into it - without success. After the caster came out and the fight looked quite bad, we switched places, ran into the hut and locked it from the inside.
While they battered the door in, we searched the hut, gathered the items and finally shattered the wall to escape (learned that watching burn notice - the wall is sometimes weaker than a reinforced door).
A chase through the swamp at night followed, which we successfully completed.
Having played some time, we learned that resolving encounters peacefully or at least not killing enemies often rewards more XP and more praise from the professors.
We still opt for lethal force sometimes, and i did not think that assaulting a murderer in her swamp hut would be a situation were you are supposed to show mercy (unless your character is built that way).
Having mooks fight to the death (and lethally so) makes it really galling to switch to a mercyful approach with "named" enemys, a kind of metagaming i dislike.
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Yes, of course. I believe that (= branching out wildly off the intended script) is the very selling point of playing a TTRPG instead of watching a film, reading a novel, or else...
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I'm looking at the adventure now and it doesn't say fight to the death, it says "surrender when X left standing". Knocking them out or otherwise disabling them should work too.
And Froglegs does have a sad backstory that explains why she went bad, and the book discusses possible redemption.
This AP is pretty okay in having enemies that can be defeated without killing them. The fey are kinda silly and don't really realize life in the Universe is more serious than the First World. But they can be scared with iron bells much of the time too.
I also think it can be a bit on the GM how this plays out. If the PCs capture a mook, does the mook suddenly turn into a prison break genius and it's a huge pain for the players? Is it really hard to hand off captured enemies to NPC lawfolk who'll take care of them? Or is killing mooks really the only way for your players not to get saddled with a huge amount of trouble?
I think I might homebrew a bit more nonlethal magic for the Magaambya though. They've had a couple thousand years to develop techniques that match their ethics after all.
I feel like these sort of "gross errors" in adventures often come down to fine nuances of how you present them. Shade them a little bit differently and they make much better sense.
I give my players narrative control over the campaign, which often forces a lot of improvisation on me. In Strength of Thousands they have also assumed control of the tone. They want to roleplay as students rather than adventurers, though their characters all came from adventurer backgrounds and are better at the rough stuff than the typical student. Thus, I have been re-shading the tone in the modules.
Yet surprisingly, rewriting the modules to let them roleplay as students in the Magaambya Academy highlights how much the authors had to violate the school premise in order to let a group of players have adventures without teacher oversight or police involvement.
In this case:
* Law enforcement is not the same as pure (military) prowess. The chime ringers get much more training in de-escalation and solving issues civilly or nonfatally than a soldier or war-mage would get. The Magaambya prefers to let them do most of the policing because they're the experts.
My players asked for student jobs rather than getting a stipend for free.
[Supply manager] Xhokan gives each hero their initial stipend of 40 gp and some basic supplies, such as parchment, quills, and ink. He explains that, so long as they’re students in good standing, they receive basic school supplies and 4 gp at the start of every month. He gives them their first 4 gp as well but bristles at any suggestion that he should’ve simply given a lump sum of 44 gp—to Xhokan’s keen mind, the amounts are separate and should be given and tracked separately. This initial stipend seems like a lot of money, but it’s the bulk of the party’s treasure for this chapter.
For the Spring Season, they worked at tending the Leshy Gardens. For the Summer Season, they served as guides for visiting students from the Student Exchange module. For Fall Season, they were deputized to help the Chime-Ringers. For Winter Season, they will assist in a research project with visiting scholar Kassi Aziril.
The Chime-Ringers are notable in Spoken in the Song Wind for never appearing on scene. The PCs can go to them for information in their own independent criminal investigations, but that is all. I noticed the number of criminal investigation missions in the module and invented the Chime-Ringer assisting job to provide more justification. In addition, I decided to invent a Chime-Ringer character to work with them, and by lucky coincidence, this gave me a reason to add the runesmith playtest character to their adventures as their Chime-Ringer liaison. I presume that Spoken on the Song Wind put the Nantambu Chime-Ringer archetype in its Adventure Toolbox articles in case a GM wanted to add a Chime-Ringer NPC.
* But, this is also an adventuring world and "levels" is something that the Magaambya is aware of at least on an intuitive level. They recognize that Froglegs is more than the neighborhood watch can handle, but unlikely to be a cosmic level threat. They estimate that the PCs are in fact more powerful than your typical chime-ringer and reasonably placed to do this.
In a way, the PCs are a pretty reasonable choice - the way most AP encounters are balanced, it's extremely likely that the players will win, so yes, the PCs are indeed a powerful enough supernatural SWAT team to send in there.
The Nantambu Chime-Ringer archetype says, "The Chime-Ringers serve as Nantambu's elite town guard, keeping the peace while carrying on ancient traditions of crafting chimes in metal, bamboo, or glass." They are a police force rather than a neighborhood watch.
But I checked over the levels of Nantambu characters in this module and in Lost Omens Mwangi Expanse and decided that the Chime-Ringers would vary from 2nd level to 4th level. Sending a squad of 15 4th-level Chime-Ringers to capture 8th-level Froglegs and her gang would have worked, but sending the 7th-level deputized party was more sensible. (The module intended this mission for 6th level, but I moved the mission to take down the serpentfolk spies earlier, so the party leveled up.)
As for taking Froglegs alive - I would not interpret it as "it's okay to kill anyone else, just not Froglegs". You can read "survivor" also as "not knocked out".
"Not knocked out" means still on their feet and fighting. My party typically goes with unconscious but not dying, either by means of nonlethal damage or by casting the Stabilize spell on a target dying from lethal damage (most spell damage is lethal). One exception, however, is the fleshwarp eldritch-trickster rogue PC Roshan. She is a master in Athletics and grapples the enemy. After Roshan rolled a critical success against the gang member Hrroupo, the party put manacles on his arms and his legs while he was restrained but close to full health. I reduced the time to apply manacles from 10 seconds down to two Interact actions for gameplay convenience.
I'm looking at the adventure now and it doesn't say fight to the death, it says "surrender when X left standing". Knocking them out or otherwise disabling them should work too.
Not surrendering means to fight or escape. I had the burglar Yorulu try to escape, but she Hid in a tree without time to move from her square and the anadi wizard Idris successfully made the flat check to hit her with a Ray of Frost. Then Idris ran over to cast Stabilize on her (Idris knows primal cantrips via his Magaambyan attendant free archetype). Idris's player described a time she saw many raccoons hide in a leafless tree in winter, so she was okay with believing that Yorulu could climb a tree and disappear from sight.
And Froglegs does have a sad backstory that explains why she went bad, and the book discusses possible redemption.
That will be for a judge to decide. I added a courthouse map to my Roll20 game because the PCs ended up testifying so much.
This AP is pretty okay in having enemies that can be defeated without killing them. The fey are kinda silly and don't really realize life in the Universe is more serious than the First World. But they can be scared with iron bells much of the time too.
Student Exchange had some fey into burglary just for the sake of entertaining mischief.
I also think it can be a bit on the GM how this plays out. If the PCs capture a mook, does the mook suddenly turn into a prison break genius and it's a huge pain for the players? Is it really hard to hand off captured enemies to NPC lawfolk who'll take care of them? Or is killing mooks really the only way for your players not to get saddled with a huge amount of trouble?
Part of making the Chime-Ringers show up in my campaign is that I developed Nantambu's legal system, too. The PCs testified in court and mayor-magistrate Ananda or councilor-magistrate Owethu judged the defendants. The typical sentence has been a few years at a labor camp deep in the Mwangi Expanse, but the professional assassin Nairu was executed. The Crime & Law section in Lost Omens Travel Guide has a handy table on page 65 of common punishments for crimes. Most of the serpentfolk were sentenced to branding (as painful as flogging) and exile, but the leaders were given a one-year geas and hard, dangerous labor in the Sarkoris Scar. Serpentfolk vemon-caller Atathik who surrendered without a fight was sent home peacefully with the message that if the serpentfolk wanted the knowledge of the Magaambya then they could enroll in its classes.
I think I might homebrew a bit more nonlethal magic for the Magaambya though. They've had a couple thousand years to develop techniques that match their ethics after all.
The Nonlethal Spell spellshape is already in the Player Core and I houseruled that any Magaambya student can take that feat. A few spells also have the nonlethal trait and Illusory Creature also deals nonlethal damage. But my spellcasters are satisfied with Stabilize after lethal damage. The rogue Roshan and champion Wilfred like to punch targets for a knockout blow.
The Nantambu Chime-Ringer archetype says, "The Chime-Ringers serve as Nantambu's elite town guard, keeping the peace while carrying on ancient traditions of crafting chimes in metal, bamboo, or glass." They are a police force rather than a neighborhood watch.
But I checked over the levels of Nantambu characters in this module and in Lost Omens Mwangi Expanse and decided that the Chime-Ringers would vary from 2nd level to 4th level. Sending a squad of 15 4th-level Chime-Ringers to capture 8th-level Froglegs and her gang would have worked, but sending the 7th-level deputized party was more sensible. (The module intended this mission for 6th level, but I moved the mission to take down the serpentfolk spies earlier, so the party leveled up.)
It was made pretty clear to me in the text surrounding Nantambu that the Chime Ringers are a police force, but not in the way we think of one today. They're much more into deescalation and problem solving than offensive action. While they can do that in low level cases and there is a legal system and such, they're not a militarized police force. They don't have a magical SWAT team or such.
They don't need to: the Tempest Sun Mages are Nantambu's defenders. They're canonically strong enough to have defended the city from hostile forces for millenia. Mechanically we have the stats for those that were in Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, so we know that some of them are no joke.
They don't wander around the city unchecked because the Maaganbaya respects Nantambu's elected government, but if asked to intervene they're easily capable of handling Froglegs.
But the PCs need something to do and Janatimo is apparently a big believer in hands-on learning, so...