High Level Plot Help -- Demon Haunted Earth

Piratecat · May 17, 2006

I need help with: Clues. The Thurn had tolerated the Free Men of the North until the PCs dropped off a Cleric. The Cleric naturally started spreading religion amongst the Free Men, and... well... the Thurn are kinda down on that. So there's now a full-scale war of extermination underway. I need clues to lead the PCs to uncover the mystery of Arachne and therefore the meaning behind this war.

Okay, color me stupid - but the only reference to Arachne that I recognize is the story of the weaving contest with Athena. Why should the Thurn hate her and be studying how to kill her?

Where I Need Help: More cryptic clues, and three more wizards, who should have some kind of bird names.

Be aware that after finding two unhelpful clones, the PCs won't give a damn about finding the third. Can you make one of the clones friendly and helpful? Can you make the other one seem friendly, but be a nefarious betrayer and backstabber?

Nokkin Kestrel is a man used to servitude. He was raised in a large city on a trade route, the kind of place where the population changes so often that no one really knows anyone else. His foster mother was a mute who had her tongue cut out for some offense; Nokkin never found out what. He spent his childhood sitting in the gutter and watching the rich ride gilt carriages into their walled estates.

"I deserve that more than they do," Nokkin thought.

He was 12 when he accidentally animated his first sewer rat. He decided to learn more by knocking a wizard's new apprentice over the head with a cobblestone and chaining him in the sewers. The apprentice died of starvation within a few weeks, but by then Nokkin had grasped the basics of magic. The apprentice's corpse eventually became Nokkin's first skeletal servitor.

Nokkin had no interest in explosions; he specialized in illusions, enchanetments, and necromancy. Divination wasn't bad, either. When he was 15, he picked the manor house of an elderly and unloved bedridden merchant and killed the man in his bed. Animating the corpse, he carried on a three month charade where he pretended that the merchant was still alive; by the time the smartest of the servants threw off their charm spell, Nokkin had pillaged the man's accounts and fled the city.

Nowadays, Lord Nokkin cares for personal safety and riches. He is likely to listen to the PCs, but will certainly lie extensively about his past and hide any ties to the undead. If there is an item he wants stolen or an enemy he wants killed, he may point the PCs towards it if he think they are hireable.

As usual, I need clues -- especially since she's obviously not someone they're going to face, but rather someone they're going to avoid, for quite a while to come.

The old blind woman spins to point directly at one of the PCs. "You! She hunts you, although she doesn't know it yet! I can feel her flying through my dreams. The devil herself rides her, and she seeks, seeks, seeks the axemen. Know that she's coming for you. Coming... with... TEETH!" A young woman grasps the old woman by the hand. "Don't mind my granny," she confides shyly. "She's a bit touched."

And you now have a friendly contact who can spout oracular gibberish whenever you like, AND a potential love interest.

Pielorinho · May 17, 2006

How do you hunt for your children? You can let the marketplace do its thang: tell merchants that you're paying a premium for them. Let the word get out that a certain powerful merchant will arrange a jaw-dropping 100,000 GP reward for shadow-tainted blue dragons of a certain age. Suddenly everyone goes on the lookout; and the PCs can do a counter-investigation to figure out what's going on.

Clues for Sparrowhawk: one of the last generations of clones was married and well-established in a household when he disappeared one night. When the PCs visit some noble household, an elderly servant, astonished, "recognizes" Sparrowhawk as his long-disappeared master.

Daniel

Nifft · May 18, 2006

typo

BTW, inside my setting, Vecna is called "the Fisher King". Maimed, stolen divinity, hard to find, eternally hovering just outside death's door... yep, that's Vecna.

Piratecat said:
Okay, color me stupid - but the only reference to Arachne that I recognize is the story of the weaving contest with Athena. Why should the Thurn hate her and be studying how to kill her?

Sorry for being obscure -- that's exactly the story.

Arachne was a master of skill, and a goddess cursed her when she out-performed the goddess in a contest of skill (and was incidentally insulting to human gods in general).

Elves are immortal and damn proud of their talents. Some are rather more proud than others. The Thurn fall into this "more proud" category, to the degree that they willingly enslave other races, like humans.

Anyway -- the issue here is wounded pride. Pride is the clear mark of a villian.

(BTW, IMC, "Lolth" is just a human name -- the derivation is a result of mistaken identity amongst mythical weaver entities. Arachne -> Clothos -> Lothos -> Lolth)

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I like the helpful backstabber Clone idea, especially if he knows more than he lets on. I can see him trying to manipulate things such that he's the "last Clone standing".

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Pielorinho: Brilliant. That's exactly what she would do.

The servant thing is really good, too.

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Thanks guys! Really helpful ideas so far.

Any more out there?
Thanks, -- N