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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kai Wren" data-source="post: 6391365" data-attributes="member: 6780995">Oh yeah, no doubt re: planning. I just find it helpful to sketch out the various 'factions' involved to help guide the action. It lets me set up the key 'bad guys' and figure what they might do if/when the PCs throw their careful plans out of whack (the cult, for instance, may turn on the orcs if they blame the orcs for losing the baby early, or the orcs might run the goblins out, or the villagers wind up taking a more prominent role etc etc)I figure goblins are easier to explain sneaking in and running off with the child; whilst the orcs COULD go in, they're far more martial, right? So the orc warleader doesn't want the village burning to the ground and a lot of aggravation coming his way, he wants to get the goblins to do it on his behalf because they can sneak in and run off with minimal attention. Likewise the cult would prefer not to go directly to goblins because orcs are easier to find and bribe. Thanks very much for the kind comments, though! I probably am overthinking it; generally I just wind up the broad outline and let it go, I rarely bother with more than a few NPC stats and some monsters... but DnD is still unfamiliar to me as a system so I'd want to sketch out the likely encounters and treasure etc beforehand.As for what happens if the baby does die - I figure there's two options there. If the child dies before it 'comes of age', either it is simply reborn and the Aboleth cultists will have to divine where the child is reborn - this is actually probably a good thing since that would take a few years and the child would be in better shape to defend itself when that happens... OR, the act disrupts the link between the God and the Material Plane until the next cycle. That would weaken their portfolios and might have severe consequences for the standing of the Church (I'm thinking it severely hampers the amount of new clerics/paladins that can be empowered - although it doesn't stop them entirely). That'd open up more inter-church plotting later on if the nature of the child gets out through the course of play, as killing the kid would be a big boon for the competing Gods, but would also prevent the Aboleth plot from coming to fruition... hopefully, my players would be of a mind that killing an innocent person themselves, even in the name of preventing a greater potential evil, is not acceptable (or is at least a means of last resort) but ... like you said, plans and first contact with the players.Either way I'm pretty excited about the game, and I'm glad the reaction has been generally 'plausible and cool' <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" /> Now I just need to find time in the week to run it!ETA: As for what happens if they ignore the goblins in the night entirely? Well, if they hook into other stuff, and that plot thread is dropped altogether, in six years game time they run into the scar-faced possessed child of the Aboleth-God-to-Be and things Get Real. If they just give them a headstart and pursue, they might pick up the trail further along en route to or at a major port city.</blockquote>

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