Plot-relevant mechanics question

[hakoko]

Hi! About to start running SoG as my first PF AP after many many years of running 5e games. There’s a brief line about introducing a new PC to Willowshore if an existing one dies, and it doesn’t make much sense to me, which has me thinking I’m misunderstanding some fundamental mechanic of how the mindscape works.

On page 7 of “The Summer That Never Was” in the “Death in Willowshore” sidebar, it says: “This new PC…could be an adventurer who stumbled into the region back in 7108 and who arrived in Willowshore with a strange gap in their memory between the first day of summer and the current date in your campaign…”

What would be the reason for this gap? If the text is saying they arrived prior to the ritual on the 1st day of summer, 7108, their memories would get reset each loop; there’s no difference to how anyone else in Willowshore would experience time. If they arrived after the ritual, wouldn’t Willowshore already be gone, and there’s no established way for them to have entered the mindscape?

The only thing I can think the text is trying to say is that they entered the mindscape at some point after the ritual, and each loop they get reset… to where their memories were on the 1st day of summer 7108, even though they weren’t in Willowshore yet, causing a gap? But I don’t know if that’s the intention, since the AP also says people who enter the mindscape after are “visitors” who retain their memories.

Or am I overthinking this? Any help is appreciated!

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

Hi! First note, please be mindful of huge spoiler topics like this one. I know your title says 'plot-relevant' which hopefully wards off most curious player types, but for this AP, certain topics are under request to be extra-extra careful about direct spoilers.

On to your question, I think the memory gap is simply an off-the- cuff justification for what they've been doing off-screen up until now that has kept them out of the plot, as a way to smooth the transition to a new PC.

How I'm given to understand it goes:

Spoiler:

Spring, 7108 - A traveller wanders into the Willowshore Hinterlands, unbeknownst to what is coming.
Summer, 7108 - The town and everyone around it is swept into the mindscape
Summer, "7108" - Current iteration begins, PCs start their year for the nth time with some changes, and some lone traveller is out there
Eventually, "7108" - A PC dies. Lone stranger wanders into town. Since it's potentially been several months of them alone in a relatively small bit of wilderness, they conveniently don't remember what they've been doing out there.

Then a PC who has no memory between late spring and today joins the party to help figure out the source of the Willowshore curse. If it's early enough in the AP, they get to experience the reveal at the end of book 2 with everyone else and probably chalk up their amnesia to mind fog weirdness, or they get to find out from PCs who already know what's going on an can explain to them why it feels like they've been lost in a fog for upwards of half a year.

As far as I know, there's no specific reason why being out in the Hinterlands would have caused them not to form memories until they so happen to have wandered into town, but certainly there's room for justifications. My favourite off the top of my head right now is that they became trapped in the fog border, unable to fully enter the hinterlands proper same as the PCs couldn't get out. They've been lost for all these months, feeding on random plants and animals they've found, until one day a certain merchant was crossing the border and noticed a lost soul to bring into town with him.

On the other hand, there's plenty of weirdness going on right at the start of Summer--perhaps something supernatural happened with the bloodmoon that left this poor soul sufficiently traumatised that they lost the ability to form memories and couldn't find their way to town (possibly living somewhere relatively sheltered after the PCs cleared it out) until conveniently just after the death of one of the Willowshore Heroes.

[Synapse17]

I remember reading it, stopping, read it again, was confused, then resolved to have it be a non-issue in my game by having replacement PCs just be fellow townsfolk that hadnt been mentioned before.

I did tell my PCs that replacement PCs would have to come from the town, and asked if they had any "NPC" ideas that I could establish early on. (Didn't get around to it, but nor was it needed)

Before the PCs can access methods to bring people back, a hereto unknown but capable person stepping up is still plausible (One of my players took up playing Hai-Er Ha), just make up some excuse for who or what they were protecting or doing off-camera during book 1.

After means of resurrecting dead PCs come online, it would indeed be weird for a local mover-and-shaker of a mid-level PC to come out of nowhere, but you also no longer need to.

[BigHatMarisa]

Honestly, even mover-and-shaker PCs aren't too hard of a sell if you have need to swap characters even after gaining resurrection methods (after all, sometimes players get bored and wanna switch it up).

Someone could have taken up the idea of independently investigating when the first group of PCs never made it back from the forest, and been through a series of trials of their own. It'd make for a good bar story for roleplay!

Perhaps they are a veteran of sorts from Imperial Lung-Wa that wanted to settle down in Willowshore and has come to love the town, secretly glad that they are no longer tied to them. Now that these PCs have proven something is up and Willowshore is in danger, they'll step up to fill the place of the PC who leaves.

Since there's plenty of downtime, there's plenty of opportunity to meet characters who have been out doing their own thing during their free time, and in these dangerous lands that also means they've been learning to defend themselves (perhaps even having taken pointers from the PCs themselves)