ZEITGEIST Book 6: The Princess Avoided

[jjtraw]

In Adventure 6, Lya Jierre is supposed to accompany the PCs to the Isla dolas Focas and dramatically betray them.

But my players never trusted her, and took great pains to give her group the slip and invade by themselves, early.

Future books assume they have a great battle and Lya dies in Gradiax's lair, or is captured and dies en route to Risur, enabling future interactions with her ghost.

The PCs are trundling toward the volcano lair in Tinker's mine cart now. Maybe Lya got wind of their trickery and made haste to the island, and will appear in the lair at just the right moment to disrupt the battle. It feels really contrived, and won't have the punch of the betrayal setup. But I'm not sure what else to do.

The only other thing I can think of would be to just leave her out of that last encounter, and let her die offscreen somewhere instead. But that feels really lame and unsatisfying.

How hard would it be to leave her alive? Has that worked in a game you've run? Or, is there another way to handle it that I haven't thought of?

 

[RangerWickett]

If the party made things harder on themselves to go to the island in a hurry, without giving the Beran navy time to back them up . . . well, first, maybe there ought to have been more defenders. But I don't know the specifics of what the PCs did, and what the circumstances on the rest of the island are. If you've already moved past that point, you could just, yeah, let them win and get Tinker.

Or if you wanted, you could have the party get Tinker, but then find out they're trapped, because Gradiax sounded the alarm and hundreds of gnolls are covering the exits to the volcano. Maybe the party gets worn down by spells being chucked into the tunnel entrance, creating poison gas or spreading firestorms. That might be too similar to being trapped in the church in adventure 2, though. Or maybe it could feel like a callback, where they look for a sewer exit.

Or if you do have them trapped, maybe a day later the Beran navy does arrive, and that is when Lya and her henchmen come to the volcano. They could deliver a sending to the PCs, offering to create a distraction to help the party escape, with a precisely timed teleportation circle ritual a short sprint away, but they'll only rescue the party if the party hands over Tinker. If the party betrays them, they'll cancel the teleportation circle, trapping them all there so they're all killed by gnolls.

But sure, you also can just leave Lya alive. She doesn't have to show up in the climax of 6, and doesn't have to be a ghost in adventure 9.

If you want to avoid complicating your next session, you could instead involve her in adventure 7, but carefully think through how that might rock the narrative boat. If she's at the convocation, she'll side with Han, and would likely try to stop the party . . . but if you include her, you should definitely give the party at least a chance of swaying her to their side, if that's something the players would like. (And then if that happens, who would be leading the attack on Flint in adventure 9? We've sorta exhausted all our named Obscurati agents by that point, unless it's Rush and Merton?)

Is that helpful?

 

[jjtraw]

If the party made things harder on themselves to go to the island in a hurry, without giving the Beran navy time to back them up . . . well, first, maybe there ought to have been more defenders. But I don't know the specifics of what the PCs did, and what the circumstances on the rest of the island are. If you've already moved past that point, you could just, yeah, let them win and get Tinker.

Or if you wanted, you could have the party get Tinker, but then find out they're trapped, because Gradiax sounded the alarm and hundreds of gnolls are covering the exits to the volcano. Maybe the party gets worn down by spells being chucked into the tunnel entrance, creating poison gas or spreading firestorms. That might be too similar to being trapped in the church in adventure 2, though. Or maybe it could feel like a callback, where they look for a sewer exit.

Or if you do have them trapped, maybe a day later the Beran navy does arrive, and that is when Lya and her henchmen come to the volcano. They could deliver a sending to the PCs, offering to create a distraction to help the party escape, with a precisely timed teleportation circle ritual a short sprint away, but they'll only rescue the party if the party hands over Tinker. If the party betrays them, they'll cancel the teleportation circle, trapping them all there so they're all killed by gnolls.

But sure, you also can just leave Lya alive. She doesn't have to show up in the climax of 6, and doesn't have to be a ghost in adventure 9.

If you want to avoid complicating your next session, you could instead involve her in adventure 7, but carefully think through how that might rock the narrative boat. If she's at the convocation, she'll side with Han, and would likely try to stop the party . . . but if you include her, you should definitely give the party at least a chance of swaying her to their side, if that's something the players would like. (And then if that happens, who would be leading the attack on Flint in adventure 9? We've sorta exhausted all our named Obscurati agents by that point, unless it's Rush and Merton?)

Is that helpful?

Yes! An army waiting outside could add a very nice wrench in the works. (They might choose to join forces with Pemberton. But I can plan for both possibilities.)

(As for how they managed the assault... let's just say that Elements of Magic mages never play by the rules anyone expects them to. They're having fun and feeling challenged, so that's what's important. But it does complicate the story!)