Scarred Lands Rat Bastardry needed ( My players STAY OUT )

While obstensibly based in Mithril, my players have not been there for a long while as they have been chasing the Serpent Amphora around Eastern Ghelspad.

I'd like to shake things up considerably, and am considering having the Mithril Golem just up and leave his post. Walking right through the city causing much havoc on its way out, destroying a portion of the inner and outer walls. Perhaps a few deaths, but nothing major, as it does not need to walk through much of the city to get out ( The Golem heads south ).

The PC's will get news of this ( perhaps seeded with some mis-information ) while stil in Vesh, and should be busy enough that they may not be able to go immediately investigate. I'm sure the conflicting emotions this will illicit will be fun to roleplay.

Whats really happening: Agents of the Penumbral Pentagon have "stolen" the Golem, and are planning on using it to attack allies of Mithril, throwing the region into Chaos. ( I'm planning on running a modified version of a semi recent Dungeon adventure, where there will be dozens of baddies INSIDE the Golem...)

Where I need help: What happens in Mitrhil if the Golem ( the very spirit and soul of the city ! ) just gets up and leaves? Will the church factionize? Will looting erupt in the city? Will trade be disrupted? Will other nearby threats take advantage of the situation and attack? Your ideas are appreciated.

I think there would be a small element in the city that would cause chaos. surely the church of Corean would start an imediate investigation and the golem would definately be followed. its big and slow so unless it walked into the ocean that wouldn't be all that hard.

But the ramafications from Calista and other places would be HUGE. without the threat of the Golem as a deterent the armies of the east would be taking a good long look northward. Also those allies of the city would be reavaluating their allience an the potential support of mithril if war were to break out.

Sanackranib said:

I think there would be a small element in the city that would cause chaos. surely the church of Corean would start an imediate investigation and the golem would definately be followed. its big and slow so unless it walked into the ocean that wouldn't be all that hard.

But the ramafications from Calista and other places would be HUGE. without the threat of the Golem as a deterent the armies of the east would be taking a good long look northward. Also those allies of the city would be reavaluating their allience an the potential support of mithril if war were to break out.

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Yeah, for best effect, I have thought about somehow having the Golem escape being followed somehow. It happens at night : Perhaps the squad assigned to follow the Golem was ambushed after many miles... Need some further thought here. CC says move of 50 though, so it could still easily be caught, but definitely not slow.

While I'm not familiar with Scarred Lands, I am familiar with Rat Bastardry. Perhaps I can help.

Also, for excellent advice in being a rat bastard, don't forget to ask questions at your local friendly Rat Bastard DM's Club public boards!

BigFreekinGoblinoid said:

Where I need help: What happens in Mitrhil if the Golem ( the very spirit and soul of the city ! ) just gets up and leaves? Will the church factionize? Will looting erupt in the city? Will trade be disrupted? Will other nearby threats take advantage of the situation and attack? Your ideas are appreciated.

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First of all, if I may say so, this is an excellent set-up. There is a lot of potential here to go in any direction you care to. To answer your questions, I'd say, "yes" to all of the above. But what you really need to do is pull the PCs in and make them responsible for something.

Here's an idea: Shake things up a little. You're planning on having the PCs do the standard save-the-town routine. Play it up. Have the townsfolk latch onto them as saviors as soon as they show up. Have them worship and idolize the PCs. Then send the PCs out to take care of business.

Here's where you break from routine. Slap a time limit on the PCs that is too quick to actually work with (preferably unknown). Then, give the PCs a taste of failure. The Agents of the Penumbral Pentagon succeed in their plot. And the town turns on the PCs.

That's when the PCs get to face an interesting moral quandry. Do they continue to risk life and limb to stop the Agents from carrying out worse, unspecified deeds--all for no reward, nor gratitude--or do they leave the Agents with total victory?

Biggie,

When it comes to being rat bastardly DMing in the Scarred Lands, only I should apply.

Firstly while the PP THINK they are controlling it, the Golem is ACTUALLY responding to the fact, Kadum is waking up...and he's MIGHTY teed off.

So now what happens is the Church in an effort to keep civil order, have the Company of Crow keep watch on the docks. Meantime the PP tries to start using the "priest" of the Golem to start a religious riot, claiming the paladins and priests there have "forgotten" their duties and are now "heretics" So now there are riots in the streets, and the PP then use elicspe to blot out the sun..and try to start a full scale assault with shadow creatures and such...and as the PCs think it can't get any worse...up rises Kadum! So now it's monster fighting time! And perhaps during that skirmish the PCs kill off some of the cultists of the PP and also show the people the error of their ways. Kadum gets laid out by the Golem and also goes back to sleep, but only AFTER causing something akin to a Blood Sea Tsumani and thus making the dock part of Mithril a little large...and also more dangerous.

Howse that?

Pirates. Pirates would be all over the city once the guardian left.

Orcs, Proud, Pisceans. All sorts of bad elements would be up and rising.

A large portion of the city might leave as well, based on the followers of the Cult of the Golem.

Iron and Silver Knights might come into Mitrhil in some force in order to keep the peace since the Mitrhil Knights have failed.

I remember that adventure (in Dungeon) interesting. Don't remember the details but sounds fun.


In terms of why's:
Have to admit, I wouldn't have the golem leave Mithril without changing it somehow myself. In the books it's an extension of Corean, and was instrumental in the defeat of his father. There's never evidence been eveidence it can be controled or manipulated by anyone.

Given that Corean periodically manifests around Scarn and is at least as active as any other god in standard SL cannon the slapdown would probably be sudden and harsh.
(Obviously someone can probably think of a different interpretation).

So I think you have a few choices unless you want to change the Mithril Golem's history.

1. Corean wants the golem to leave. Some possible reasons
a. He feels that the city needs to stop depending upon the golem for support and stand on it's own two feet (so to speak).
b. he wants to demonstrate his irritation with the current rulers of the city
c. the golem is needed elsewhere. It could be Nightfall's Kadum Awakes thing, a bid to block Nathalos from acheiving the gate at Burok Torn, or something else entirely.
d. The golem is more intimately connected with Corean than people have realized, and contains a spark of his divinity. He never intended for it to remain on the material plane. However He didn't want to pull it off the material until he was sure it wouldn't be needed, and that his father was really out of the picture. So he just left it someplace with good access to Kadum. Now time has passed and he's confident that the golem will not be needed so he's pulling it off the plane.
e. The same as d (above) but some of the gods have said that the golem is a violation of the spirit of the pact that they will not manifest in the material plane. Rather than have discord (or because they are right) Corean -must- remove the Golem from the plane.
f. The golem is inhabited by a good spirit. The spirit is tired, it's sick of watching over the city, it's petitioned Corean for release. Or, alternatively, it's gotten sick (because of the corruption it sees below it) and has wandered off. Corean doesn't want to intervent because he beleives the golem has the right to make its own moral decisions. He may even be teaching the golem some sort of lesson about morality.

2. Someone -has- gained control of the golem over Corean's will. Unless the gods are weaker or less active in your world than in canon the number of people with this power are extremely limited.
a. A titan did it.
b. A slarecian did it.

That's about it. Someone with access to a powerful psionic item (tainted by the Slarecians) is probably the best choice. Gods apparently can't apprehend psionic powers, or detect their use, so it's possible that Corean is unaware of why the golem is moving. That might discourage him from just manifesting his avatar and reclaiming control of the golem.

In terms of what happens
The golem performs two key roles: I demonstrates to people within the city the celestial mandate of their Paladinic rulers (to borrow from chinese history); and it scares away titanspawn which would otherwise completely overun the city.

Exodus
The government can't defend itself without the golem, given that the rulers are Lawful Good types, and neither terribly manipulative nor political it seems likely they won't be able to reasure at least part of the city. So you have a mass exodus to places like Hedrad, Vesh and the Bridged city by land and anywhere you can get to by boat that isn't being attacked by Calastians (so not Durrover basically).

Attacks
Titanspawn probably go nuts. Expect an increase in attacks from the Blood sea, as well as Titan spawn working their way in through the port side and the sewers. Titan spawn probably mass along the boarder and act to cut off trade.
If the Penumbral Lords are prepared they probably act to incourage titanspawn attacks. I expect that they start laying growdwork immeadiately but don't act openly (except for an assassination or two). They use concerns about the security outside the city to weaken security and reclaim the sewers, wait until the city is fully destabilized before acting to secure their position, either just reclaiming the sewers or (more likely, who wants a sewer system anyway?) just taking over the whole damn place.

Religious issues
While Mithril isn't Hedrad this is still going to be a tremendous shock. Especially if Corean doesn't explain what's going on or communicate with his folowers this will be a tremendous blow to people's faith in him, not only in Mithril but across Ghelspad.

Crazy Doomsday Cults
Everybody loves psychotic cultists. The cult of the golem probably fragments, some people follow the golem, some people leave and some people claim that the golem is ascending and push that the cult come out into the open....
Kadum worshipers probably start insisting that now that Corean's abandoned people they'd better "find Kadum" before his monsters find them.

Can't think of much else right now.

JoeGKushner said:

Pirates. Pirates would be all over the city once the guardian left.

Orcs, Proud, Pisceans. All sorts of bad elements would be up and rising.

A large portion of the city might leave as well, based on the followers of the Cult of the Golem.

Iron and Silver Knights might come into Mitrhil in some force in order to keep the peace since the Mitrhil Knights have failed.

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I have to admit, I like Joe's idea. Graf's too. Thanks guys. (Still want to have Kadum and the Golem tangle though. Round two DING-DING! )

One flaw I see in the initial idea...

The PP would seek the destruction of Mithril. Immediately. What a trophy, eh?
If indeed the PP were to animate/control the golem, as it's in the city already, I feel that it's first 'order' would be to grind the city to a fine powder. The way the PP seems to me, at least, this would be well worth the priests of Corean eventually getting control of the golem back. He would already have leveled most of the city. Starting with the temple of Corean.

Thanks for the great insights so far everyone!

Based on all your feedback, I'm leaning on skipping the PP angle for now ( and therefore the Dungeon Mag Scenario too ), just having the Golem act for "unknown" reasons... It is really reacting to be at the proper place when a certain titan is to be reconstituted on Scarn so it can be there to lay the smackdown before full strength can be recovered - that is, IF the PC's have read the clues right and have done their part by disrupting the ritual enough so the Titan is indeed not at full strength, and the Cult of the golem has followed in sufficient strength... True that Kadum would work better for Corean's involvement, but It may be Mormo, as I have been considering heavily modifying The Seprent Amphora part 3 ( I don't like certain elements of the module as written - The first two and the prologue have been great though ) which the PC's are ready to start now.