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I finished reading book 1 & 2 and I feel the motivation of the scorched hand not really fitting for the main antagonist in the first book (also they do not really interact with the players before the final act).
I can totally see my players agreeing with them, that they as follower of Nethys should have the honor to explore a temple of Nethys.
Also the BBEG from book 2 comes out of nowhere.
So I thought a little how to fix it and this is what I came up with:
Velariana was a memeber of the Cult of the forgotten Pharao, but her megalomania (she think she is some high priestess re-incarnated) make her being kicked out of the cult. She then hired the scorched hand (which is a normal adventure group and not a group of nethys followers) to help her during the Necropolis exploration (and serve as decoy/sacrifice if something went wrong).
After the first tomb, some other adventure group behave more secretive then before and some member maybe slip that they found something which hints to a powerful artifact in the necropolis and the exact location.
Velariana ambush this member in the streets this evening to get the location by force. The players interupt this attack, but Velariana escapes. Unfortunately her victim is already dying. just brabbling something about the "erudite eye" and "her mask/face" (Velariane covered her face with a half gold, half black variant of the golden masks of the cult during the attack).
After the second tomb Sebti asked the players to the temple to inform them that someone broke into the morgue and performed a ritual on the victims body to speak with his ghost (Velariana and the SH broke in and used "Speak with dead" to get the information). The players can find some hints (but no proof) that maybe the SH was behind this.
When they get the third tomb, everything should fall into place. The SH will go to the erudite eye as in the book, but with one additional member.
That's because Velariana will take over the role of Nebta in finding the Mask and becoming the BBEG of book 2.
Since she and the SH broke the rules of the temple, she told the SH to get rid of all witnesses (aka the players) and leaves the erudite eye.
The players then arrive at the erudite eye and the adventure moves on as written (except of Velariana being replaced by the new member of the SH).
What do you guys think?
Can this work? Does it interfere with anything in the later books?
(I will also add the "tomb raiders scoreboard" as someone mentioned here before, I like the idea to make it more of a friendly competition, this should point out the SH as the bad guys much better (they are not here for the fun))