WotBS WotBS advice needed (SPOILERS galore)

[trencher7]

The summer is almost over... Gaming season begins soon.
I am preparing the second part of adventure 3 (luckily it just was released for 5e) and I am also preparing adventure 4. As you might remember my group extinguished the Seela and made the wood burn down. So now when the Ragesians march to Dassen there seems to be no need to use the Alydi Gap to Gallo. As far as I can see it the Ragesians could now just march through the remains of the burning forest. So what to do? Change the locations? Let just a scouting group come through the forest while the main part of the army uses the Gap? I´d like to make their decisions have an impact on the future.
Thanks in advance!

 

[RangerWickett]

You could make the scouts be an expeditionary force who, if killed or captured, won't report back that the route is clear. The fire forest has been impassible for so long, the Ragesians won't pay close attention to it unless their scouts find a clear path.

 

[Tormyr]

The summer is almost over... Gaming season begins soon.
I am preparing the second part of adventure 3 (luckily it just was released for 5e) and I am also preparing adventure 4. As you might remember my group extinguished the Seela and made the wood burn down. So now when the Ragesians march to Dassen there seems to be no need to use the Alydi Gap to Gallo. As far as I can see it the Ragesians could now just march through the remains of the burning forest. So what to do? Change the locations? Let just a scouting group come through the forest while the main part of the army uses the Gap? I´d like to make their decisions have an impact on the future.
Thanks in advance!

Keep in mind that my advice is only for the adventures as they are written, not for how you make it your own.

Up through adventure 9, the Second Ragesian Army has only made it through the six western districts of Gate Pass before they are defeated by the Resistance. They needed to make it to district 11 to be able to bring an army through Innenotdar. So the Ragesians are not really going to have a chance to actually use that route. The Third Ragesian Army's actually has two missions. They are going to destroy Seaquen, but they are also going to take over Dassen on the way after all the leadership is dead. So they are not going to march several hundred miles away. Their route lies through Dassen.

Also, a few things happen in adventure 4:
1. In act 2 Lady Timor is royally pissed that the route through Innenotdar is opened (regardless of why) though it doesn't affect whether she helped.
2. In act 3 the heroes run into some Tragedies and will recognize what they are and that Balan (and others) are dead.
3. Also in act 3 Serrimus is going to send a message to Guthwulf that hints the path through Innenotdar might be opened. So the heroes have a chance to slow down how quickly the information makes it to the Ragesians.

As for running into a scouting group, it might be a bit contrived. The heroes will take the western route to Bresk. A Ragesian scouting party would be hundreds of miles away.

Remember that the adventures were meant to be a bit modular in that each one is in a different location. So if Innenotdar falls, or Dassen descends into madness, the campaign saga can still continue. The success and failure of the heroes throughout the campaign is accumulated through Victory Points in adventure 12. You could add a -5 for the forest being burned down and represent it by Dassen sending a smaller army because they kept more soldiers at home to protect the northeastern border.

Honestly, the sense of failure about what happened is the biggest thing the heroes will carry with them. It will shape their decisions as they move forward and may save the royal court as they learn to dig deeper.

 

[trencher7]

Next question because my Group is killing me with their ideas...

How far is it from the edge of the firestorm to Castle Korstull?

 

[Tormyr]

Getting a little ahead of themselves aren't they?

The firestorm reaches out from Korstull in a 20-mile radius, but I am not sure anyone in-game has measured it. Sindaire Ambassador Cranston Snord just knows it's "big".

 

[trencher7]

Alright, session done! [MENTION=6776887]Tormyr[/MENTION]: my Group was just checking their possibilities and one route to go was to ask one of Lyceum´s mages to summon a flying steed, fly to Korstull and try to find a way into the Castle. So I at least just wanted to be prepared for this course of action.
But as always everything did not go according to plan...
They failed to get the Lyre of Fabrication from Naizelasa because they did not catch Lowduke alive. The Dragon felt betrayed of her revenge and just let the PCs live because they were able to retrieve the egg.
The Group then decided to find out about the raging storm. Knowing that the witches in the swamp were responsible for creating the Tidereaver´s tears and knowing that at least one of the witches escaped during the first encounter, they decided to recruit some of Foebane´s men and return to the swamp in order to see whether the remaining witch(es) are responsible for the storm. The preparations took quite some time. Meanwhile the Theater play had premiere and two days later was the performance set to which all the dignitaries have been invited by Giorgio. I as the GM kept track about the passing time and it happened that the group was in the swamp fighting the witch. Katrina was with the group so I made her become uncoscious all of a sudden and when she awoke she told the PCs that something terrible has happened. There was a grave disturbance in the fire plane... I ended the session there.

My group suspects that the wayfarer ship might have teleported. My first impuls was to really have the ship teleported and all dignitaries are dead. You see, I love to have the dicisions of the PCs have consequences. For example because they are responsible that the Forest of Inenotdar no longer burns Laurabec Adelsburg left Seaquen in order to prevent Ragesian Scouting Crews to spread the Information that this path would be accessible. But because Adelsburg left Seaquen there were some severe riots among the refugees which resulted in some deaths and a lot of injured refugees.

So my question is: shall I have all the dignitaries be killed on the Wayfarer´s ship? Did Crystin have a vision and some of the dignitaries survived by either leaving the ship just on time or by just not attending the play?

I think that the Dassen ambassador Numhaupt will have been killed by all means because this will be the entering hook for the PCs into Adventure 4.

 

[Tormyr]

You need to look ahead to the ramifications of the Seaquen leadership and the wayfarers being killed. Some of these would include,
1. After the leadership is teleported away to their fiery deaths, Lee Sidoneth cranks up the hurricane to full force. With the leadership dead, the Ostaliners convince everyone to attack the Shahalesti blockade. Seaquen will be demolished within 24 hours (more like 12, but it isn't a fixed timetable). With little adequate shelter, the refugee population is largely eliminated (as is most of the original population). The heroes are a day's journey from Seaquen if they are fighting the witch. They return to find little left.
2. Katrina likely sees that she needs to side with Ragesia if she wants to survive this war.
3. Without Seaquen you need a new center for the resistance. Maybe Dassen would work, leading into adventure 4.
4. Without the Wayfarers, it is more difficult to get teleportation (especially safe teleporation) to the monastery of Two Winds to get help making to Castle Korstull
5. Again, the heroes will want some sort of teleporation to get to Ycengled quickly to repair the torch.
6. Without Simeon's divination magic, someone needs to decipher the Ragesian intelligence and figure out where the Scourge Prison is when the superweapon is used on the heroes' new home base.
7. Seaquen's destruction means that it is more difficult to assemble the armies of the resistance for the final battle, resulting in a loss of 10 Victory Points.

Another option is that Larkins manages to unlock the door quickly enough to get Kiernan and a few others up to the main deck, and they stop Giorgio in the nick of time. Even then, the heroes are technically out of position to help the town before the townspeople attack the blockade and the hurricane wipes everything out.

Finally, Katrina's sense could have just been an intense premonition. A technical glitch occurred, and the big show has been pushed back a day (or if your player's were not paying attention, it was actually the next day all along). This gives the heroes the chance to be involved with the events of acts 4 and 5.

So I am curious why the heroes did not decide to attend the play.
1. Did they get the tickets from Giorgio at the war council?
2. Did Simeon ask them to attend?
3. Did they get the vision from Crystin/Foresight?

If they received all those nudges and still did not attend the play, then their absence may have doomed Seaquen.

 

[trencher7]

So I am curious why the heroes did not decide to attend the play.
1. Did they get the tickets from Giorgio at the war council?
2. Did Simeon ask them to attend?
3. Did they get the vision from Crystin/Foresight?

If they received all those nudges and still did not attend the play, then their absence may have doomed Seaquen.

They got the tickets/ Invitation from Giorgio during the council. Just before they were leaving into the swamp Simeon had a Meeting with the Bard from our group. The Bard even participated in the play in some minor roles as an extra. Simeon asked him about the play and mentioned that it would be great if all dignitaries and the PCs would attend. It seems that doing something against the storm was more important to them.
I was quite sure that they would attend the play so I planned Crystin´s vision to happen shortly before the actual event during the play.

Maybe I will treat Katrina´s behaviour as a vision of things to come and will find a reason that the "special play" was postponed for a day or two because, for example, of the riots in the refugee camp. I really would love to play the scene on the Wayfarer´s ship.
Or maybe the disturbance on the fire plane had something to do with Lee Sidoneth tapping the power of the fire plane to increase the storm´s might?

Okay, obviously I need to find a way that whatever Katrina felt has some meaning in the game but it should give me the opportunity to still play the scene on the ship...

 

[Mrpereira]

You could compromise a bit. Since the storm is magical, some of the Lyceum toppeople could have been warned that something magical was happening, and thus didn't attend the play, being saved by mere "coincidense". That way you could have a few important people die, like Foebane - which will mean that later on they will have to suffer Shaaladel's presence even more (that is a punishment in itself).

At the same time with the top of Lyceum alive, they could repulse some of the tragedies mentioned above keeping it as the center of the resistance and still having Simeon's magical help

 

[Lylandra]

so they deliberately missed the play? Or did they simply forget to track the time themselves? If it was the latter, then maybe you should let Katrina's vision just be some doomy foreshadowing. Especially when they are trying really hard to make sense of the storm.