ZEITGEIST Adventure 3 (spoilers)

[corwyn77]

So I just started running this and I'm wondering about the segue from the incident at the expo to finding Kaja. I don't see a chain that gets the PCs to the construction site. Interrogating the guy with the staff leads them to the alley where he bought the staff or the trinket tent. How do they find their way to the construction site?

 

[RangerWickett]

The title of the section is Investigations (page 226 in the act one hardcover).

Basically, the PCs figure out someone sold a dangerous magic staff, so they should do some surveiling of the arms fair. If they do, they find a guy named Isaac Randal who worked with Kaja and can set up a meet with her.

Or they might look for other crime, and get wind of some Family smuggling. If the party goes after them, Morgin Cippiano will offer them juicier fish to fry -- Kaja -- if they let his people go. Or the party might just go straight to Morgin, thinking he might know something.

 

[corwyn77]

So, the only lead to Isaac is through the pickpockets which is supposed to be one of the optional ones. I did run it, the party rogue caught the thief, retrieved the stolen amulet, and then let the thief go without getting a description of Isaac. Are there any other leads at the fair to Isaac that I'm missing?

They are just about to start the big fight at the fair; the leads that I see afterwards are:

Morgan - the party going off grounds to look for convenient smugglers seems a bit of a stretch but is doable if I'm willing to let a game day or two go by

The staff - Simon can lead them to his place of transaction (an alley away from the construction site and not likely fruitful) and the trinket stand (could possibly set up a meet with Kaja that way)

Could the staff lead them to the university directly without finding Kaja first? Would that be useful?

 

[RangerWickett]

Sure, they can go straight to the university, but the party would see fewer of the relics. But if the party finds the weird staff and doesn't go looking for where it came from, you should be able to drop a clue or two through NPC contacts of the party.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

My players very much wanted to track down who was selling dangerous magic items that summoned weird and dangerous creatures (i.e the staff) as it was clearly a potential problem and they did not want it happening again, those creatures could kill a lot of people if they start manifesting somewhere without highly skilled RHC constables on hand.
If my players had not followed up the staff I would have had Kaja sell one of the other item to someone and given it the ability to accidentally call creatures. Maybe a student wizard accidentally unleashes them in a coffee shop on campus or maybe a criminal buys the sword and you have an incident in a tavern or market. That would get the players looking for the source of the items again.

 

[corwyn77]

Well, regarding our highly competent RHC, at least half of the damage to the monsters was from Rock and the Dwarf.

Anyway, my group did not disappoint - the detective went undercover and arranged for a buy so that'll be next week.

Best part of the night? The rogue, previously established as greedy, retconned having lifted one of the mayor's amulets 'cause it might be valuable, just in time for the big boss to show up to stamp out corruption. His interview should be fun.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

Ok forget the competent RHC bit
The monsters may manifest where there are not dangerous adventurer type npc's to kill them!

My players tend to produce fairly well optimised builds and tend to do very well at killing things so I assume all pc's are like that. They argue , they get confused , they prevaricate and then something threatens them and they turn to a finely crafted and coordinated killing machine