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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ambrus" data-source="post: 1878466" data-attributes="member: 17691">Wow. I've never had a thread I posted promote such a large response before. Thanks for all the feedback. Some of you brought up some points of contention that I'll try to elaborate on for those who are curious.The artifact itself is fairly large (about the size of a large chest). They did consider putting a pseudodragon familiar and/or a sprite cohort into the box but decided that there was just wasn't enough spare room in the crate for that.No. They didn't cast any divination spells.They did have a few violent conflicts with this faction. But to their credit, the party did try to make it up to them by helping to pay for some of the gnomes to be raised later. After that, relations were a bit tense but some characters on both sides tried to champion the idea of cooperating.They did talk about it briefly. The gnomes admitted truthfully that they wanted to bring it back to their venerable dwarf lady messiah (which the party met at the beginning of the campaign, fought briefly and remained dubious about) while the party stated their general intention of carrying it through a portal into a fairy realm to ask a PC's fairy-queen/goddess' opinion about it. They never really resolved these opposing plans but did generally agree that their first concern was getting the artifact safely out of the city. I believe the intention was to try resolving the matter at a later date."Short sighted" He he. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />My players, please don't read this next bit (how does one black out text?):  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> The thing is most of the factions aren't entirely of one mind. The gnomes, for instance, that the party were speaking to were sincere and were even crated themselves alongside the party. It was those members of the faction who were responsible for loading the ship who actually made the decision to leave the party behind because they still don't entirely trust them and were afraid they wouldn't be able to stop the party if it insisted on taking the artifact elsewhere.I hadn't decided that the gnomes would screw over the party because I had no way of knowing for certain that they'd ever have the need or the opportunity to do so. I simply kept in mind the various gnomes' opinions, attitudes and goals in mind and had them react to developments as the campaign progressed. The gnomes, for instance, proved generally unable to explore the dungeon themselves because they weren't well suited to it (some of them kept getting killed when they tried). They knew the party was down there and seemed to be making better progress than they were capable of, but the party also remained out of touch with them for long stretches. On the occasions they did meet the gnomes, I role-played some of them as friendly and helpful while others openly voiced their distrust of the party while others simply adopted a neutral wait and see attitude.Heh. I suggested this possibility to them as a "hey things could be worse" scenario but, as expected, few of them were comforted by this. The gnomes could have likewise left with the party's equipment and loot (much of it was packed into separate crates) but the gnomes felt that would just be cruel. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/nervous.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":heh:" title="Nervous Laugh    :heh:" data-shortname=":heh:" /> Well, it's particularly hard when the player who is the most upset happens to be my live-in SO. Let me tell you, it was a cold lonely night in our apartment last night. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/paranoid.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":uhoh:" title="Paranoid    :uhoh:" data-shortname=":uhoh:" /> The other player who would have really freaked out was absent from the session. I fear she may just quit when she hears about what happens. She doesn't take party failure very well. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /> Thanks for your support everyone. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/nervous.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":heh:" title="Nervous Laugh    :heh:" data-shortname=":heh:" /></blockquote>

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