So in the end I just went with everything as written - Ekossigan plans to kill the children through hanging. Because one of the characters is an orphan who was raised in the Cloudwood, and by a druid at that, I gave him knowledge of the orphanage as it made sense, and I feel like the likelihood of success in this thread is pretty high.
How did the players receive the knowledge that Ekossigan is going to hang a bunch of children? Well...
The session started off with the Lorcan Kell taskforce, and things really didn't go well. A few bad rolls resulted in a lot of dead officers (11 in total). After that there was the confrontation with Gale, finding the child's body and the ritual paintings on him, etc. We ended the session with B-Team crossing Quentin Augst.
I asked everyone if they had fun, and they did. I mentioned the someone darker tone of the session, but rather than the children being the focus, it turns out the players were more upset about the dead officers! I guess that's perspective for you.
