ZEITGEIST Starting Adventure Six Questions (possible Spoilers)

Hello my fellow storytellers,


i am about to start the sixt adventure and i have some issues that i like to hear your opinion about.


My group has only two players who play a male deva and an female eladrin.


The eladrin has been sold in to slavery to a NPC as part of her history. This NPC is a danorian industrialist named Fordren and i changed the name of Pemberton into Fordren.


Now i have the situation that:


a) my players went to the bleak gate without disturbing the peace conference


b) Han Jierre was not found out to be part of the conspiracy and only left the peace talks because of the giant golem threatening Flint


c) my player has already an uneasy peace with Fordren aka Pemberton and Pemberton has secretly agreed to not harm Risur (the female player does not know of that). He has told her that he thinks her metamorphosis from his toy into a selfconcious free being is fascinating (he wont tell her that he has plenty of time to regain and break her in the future and though she thinks that she was important to him, for the dragon she is more like a interesting pebble missing from his hoard) She does not know that he has other plans that are more important.


d) there are future peace talks planed and even Lya Jierre is kind of shady nice because she did not know of what the other cell was doing and my players even hope to talk some sense into her about her higher-ups actually decieving her


e) my players believe right now that nicodemus wants to use the planar lantern of Luke Jierre as a mindcontrol device and that the giant golem is a weapon to be used somewhere out of risur.


As they start into relevations from the mouth of a madman i am concerned about the following and would like to know how you would avoid these pitfalls.


I dont want Fordren/Pemberton to be revealed. During a visit to Elfaivar in between adventure 5 and six i placed an shadow industialist named Pemberton in Macdam who will take the blame of being involved in the South Ber Revolt. I plan to send Fordren to the court of Bruse Shantus and try to tell the players that Pemberton Industries is already established in Ber and that Fordren is actually trying to outbid Pemberton.


Now my first question: The replicants seem to need a small piece of soul and then will be realistic substitutes to the actuall guy. Who will control the replaced people? Could Fordren have used a replicant to make the people in Macdam believe that Pemberton is a different person and even have established him in Macdam and Ber years before? Does he need a „actual Pemberton guy“ to replace?


Fordren has of course planed to rule Ber himself and has eaten the gnoll chieftain in his dragon shape. But if things go south, „Pemberton“ will take the fall but i am very uneasy about Fordren forgiving the players about the certain future capture of his child Terakalir.


At the same time i would like Brakken Heffanita have a chance to not loose all prestige he has and even consider him to follow as the next Bruse if Shantus dies during the adventure.


Would his reputation survive if he is revealed in the starter plot of the adventure or shall i introduce the RHC agents in some other way to the court? Maybe Fordren could introduce them to the court?


How do i play Lya Jierre during the trials? She needs to get Tinker Oddcog but i want her to still be a nice honorable character. She is still officially the kings bride to be. Does she now know of the conspiracys final goal? Is she protected by the geas now? My characters tend to capture all important enemies.

I wonder, if any of you had similar problems?

Partial answers:
1. As far as I understand, "human" face of Pemberton is just polymorphed dragon form. As he's definitely present in this form as dublicant in some places of the story, this means, that dublicants can have an arbitrary form, not necessarily based on a real person.
2. In my campaign the battle in the volcano lair never took place, replaced by a very lengthy diplomatic three-way negotiations. Hence, Teraklir is still alive. In case of her death, Pemberton never really forgives the party, but his plans can stretch through centuries, so he can wait a year or two before striking them in the back (saving the world in the meantime).
3. As of adventure 6, Lya is head of Gold Cell, if I remember correctly (exact reference is mentioned in passing in the adventure 1, I think, in the beginning of the description of the Isle), only knowing that Ob is concerned about planar travel and seals. In adventure 5 she has no idea of Borne, for example. She's protected from divination by rites of Obscurati , but probably not by Kasvarina's unique geas, the timing doesn't align, I think. She still has her amulet of Bleak Gate, so if she's able to reach solid cave ground, she can slip away pretty nicely.

hirou said:

Partial answers:
2. In my campaign the battle in the volcano lair never took place, replaced by a very lengthy diplomatic three-way negotiations. Hence, Teraklir is still alive. In case of her death, Pemberton never really forgives the party, but his plans can stretch through centuries, so he can wait a year or two before striking them in the back (saving the world in the meantime).

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Interesting. I hope i can incite my party to negotiate as well. Who were the three parties in your case? What did Teraklir reveal and what did they settle for as their solution? I would try to avoid revealing to the public that the dragons of old are still alive though. Thank you for your insight.

Tizbiz said:

Interesting. I hope i can incite my party to negotiate as well. Who were the three parties in your case? What did Teraklir reveal and what did they settle for as their solution? I would try to avoid revealing to the public that the dragons of old are still alive though. Thank you for your insight.

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Three parties were Pemberton (in dublicant body), with support of Teraklir and former-PC-turned-willing-servant-NPC (changeling gunsmith with somewhat weird and unhealthy father-daughter fixation on Teraklir, projecting his dead daughter on her), Lya with bodyguards and PCs. PCs offered a safe passage from the island for Teraklir (via teleport), Lya suggested some help with Ber fleet by Ob's submarines and further help with Pemberton's plan of revolution through the country (replacement of Danor industrial specialists by dublicants). As party was neither willing to start the fight (Lya was never openly hostile to them and shared their slight disgust with Bruse and his games) nor wanted to raise the stakes and enter direct hostilities with Ber's military, Lya "won" and managed to kill Tinker. Party still left a primed teleportation circle as a token of good will and thus did earn some respect from Pemberton (they're now infiltrating Ob's convocation in dublicant bodies, enjoying resist 10 all) as well as remained in good standing with Lya. Ber's army found a burnt dragon skull in the volcano and declared a victory, Pemberton is still in hiding (Risur managed to keep it low that their thriving industrialist happened to be a dragon all along) and now harbors a back-up plot of an uprising of Yerasol Archipelago, whose people are getting weary of their status as bargaining chip between Risur and Danor and may be willing to accept a dragonlord.

The party suspected that Harkover was a dragon all along since at least adventure 3, I think (trope awareness is strong with these ones), so I didn't particularly strive to keep it secret. I made Cyneberg personally teleport to them and disclose the information about Pemberton after assassination attempt on Bruse, since RHC/King considered it a grave enough situation to share all possible information about their foe. Of course, there's always one more mystery to reveal, so another running subplot in my version of ZG is that Harkover was not actually born a dragon, but is a person from the days of War of the Burning Sky, with a long history of personal transmutations. But that's another story completely.

hirou said:

As party was neither willing to start the fight (Lya was never openly hostile to them and shared their slight disgust with Bruse and his games) nor wanted to raise the stakes and enter direct hostilities with Ber's military, Lya "won" and managed to kill Tinker.

The party suspected that Harkover was a dragon all along since at least adventure 3, I think (trope awareness is strong with these ones), so I didn't particularly strive to keep it secret.

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I know that Lya is the traveling politician negociating with other countries. She will tell the Bruse, that Danor wants to "buy" Tinker Oddcog because he is a marvel technologist. But what is Lya´s real motivation? She is head of golden cell and at this stage probably does not know of the grand plan. What have they told her to motivate her? Lya must have a reason why she needs Tinker Oddcog alive and even more a reason why she would kill him. That is the part i can not yet understand and i know my players will have the same question.

I made the mistake to show the players Harkover Lee raging after the Duchess infamy was revealed in adventure one. My players needed a repeated show of trust from king Aodan to stop inquiring into Harkover Lee´s true nature. I am quite sure that they suspect him being a dragon even, if they have not voiced it yet. Fortunatly i introduced the rearadmiral Dawkins as being a storm fey (who was sentenced to endless rebirth as a mortal), so they think Harkover could be a feylord allied to the kings of risur.

Tizbiz said:

She is head of golden cell and at this stage probably does not know of the grand plan. What have they told her to motivate her? Lya must have a reason why she needs Tinker Oddcog alive and even more a reason why she would kill him. That is the part i can not yet understand and i know my players will have the same question.

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She's a minister of foreign affairs of Danor (Minister of Outsiders, I think it's called) and niece of Han Jierre. When your uncle and Sovereign of Danor commands you to jump, you jump, then you may ask some questions. If you want Lya with some genuine interest in Tinker, look at her this way: a mad gnome, whose genius helped to build undoubtedly the greatest weapon in Lanjyr, in service of so-called civilized minotaur is one thing. Mad genius in service of freaking steel dragon? This is a perfectly justified case of "shoot first, ask questions later". She may regret a loss of innocent life (although Tinker is implied to kill his superior during undeground contruction in Slate), but Ob in whole defitely agrees with "you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs" mentality. This can also be that one last task, after completion of which she's promised to be given full explanation of Ob's plans.

Edit: am I a racist for mixing up dwarf and gnome?

hirou said:

She's a minister of foreign affairs of Danor (Minister of Outsiders, I think it's called) and niece of Han Jierre. When your uncle and Sovereign of Danor commands you to jump, you jump, then you may ask some questions. If you want Lya with some genuine interest in Tinker, look at her this way: a mad gnome, whose genius helped to build undoubtedly the greatest weapon in Lanjyr, in service of so-called civilized minotaur is one thing. Mad genius in service of freaking steel dragon? This is a perfectly justified case of "shoot first, ask questions later".

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Yes, you have a point there. If she was really just told to get that gnome by her uncle, that would make sense. Danor could even pretend to want him for questioning because Borne was a threat to the peace conference. She could even tell the party that she suspects that her uncle is pressured by the OB to destroy evidence or that she wants Tinker to find more about what they really did under the hill. That could even win the players over, if she has "honest" personal goals.

I am toying with the idea of Lya not being sure if she is on the right side and so can not really see her ordering her bodyguards attacking the RHC constables. One of my players characters has the scent ability and i fear his absurdly high perception will easily find the culprit of the stampede. I might add either some other OB bribing her bodyguards or have them secretly receive direct orders from someone else. Is there someone else whom i could blame and who i could foreshadow thus?

Thank you for your insight.

Not related to your last question, but your initial post:

Gradiax taking a second alias identity? That sounds both cool and interesting. Could you elaborate your reason why? Is it just because your other NPC is danoran while Pemberton is officially operating in Risur? And does anyone know of the identity of both human guises?

Another question is: What have you planned for each cover identity? Do you have some future shenanigans in mind? They could play good industrialist – bad industrialist. Or you could safely reveal one of them to be a dragon while the other one remains a secret.

From what I got from your post, Pemberton is kind of unknown to them, so if you want to go for a surprise, use him. If you want a more personal, shocking reveal, then use Fordren.

One way or another, you’re giving me neat ideas for my own campaign. Sweet.

Tell me more about high Perception, my eladrin artificer has passive Perception/Insight of 42 at level 13. If you're looking for Ob officers, check the roster at adventure 7, personally I'd try to introduce Vicemi Terio. An interesting tidbit of information is that he's Risuri in origin, kinda continuing the line of McBennin and Saxby, and being a ghost with at-will invisibility gives him a lot of opportunities to talk with Lya's bodyguards undetected (he can literally never show himself through this whole adventure, which will help to prepare dramatic reveal of his appearance in adventure 7).

Greys of Shade said:

Not related to your last question, but your initial post:

Gradiax taking a second alias identity? That sounds both cool and interesting. Could you elaborate your reason why? Is it just because your other NPC is danoran while Pemberton is officially operating in Risur? And does anyone know of the identity of both human guises?

Another question is: What have you planned for each cover identity? Do you have some future shenanigans in mind? They could play good industrialist – bad industrialist. Or you could safely reveal one of them to be a dragon while the other one remains a secret.

From what I got from your post, Pemberton is kind of unknown to them, so if you want to go for a surprise, use him. If you want a more personal, shocking reveal, then use Fordren.

One way or another, you’re giving me neat ideas for my own campaign. Sweet.

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My female players had this danorian Fordren Guy as an NPC in her background story. We had startet the first adventure an she mentioned him to her RHC partner at some point comparing him to other industrialists. She had defined him in her story and i wanted to involve him with a twist. Right now she has an uneasy truce with this Fordren and i kind of want to see her face when she later allies with him against the OB. I do not want her to discover him being a dragon to early.

Playing good Industrialist versa bad Industrialist is a nice idea. I would paint Pemberton more the "bad" guy to later on strengthen the shock wenn they discover more about Fordren. Thanks for the idea.