D&D 5E CUrse of Strahd - Vallaki help

[Sloblock]

[FONT=.SF UI Text][FONT=.SFUIText]Hello all

if you are playing Curse of Strahd please look away now
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[FONT=.SF UI Text][FONT=.SFUIText]Ok so a question [/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=.SF UI Text][FONT=.SFUIText]The pcs are embroiled in various Vallaki plots, and I used the plot set piece of when they meet Rictavio in the inn guards turn up asking for the PCs to hand him over.

We then[/FONT][FONT=.SFUIText] had a scene at stockyard with the wagon, and a fight with Izek and some of his guards. After a vicious fight in which most of them fled away. Izek was been taken prisoner and stored in the cellar of the burnt down Coffin shop.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=.SF UI Text][FONT=.SFUIText]So my question is this [/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=.SF UI Text][FONT=.SFUIText]The morning of the festival, the mayor knows that his most loyal servant is gone. Some of his guards report the travellers murdered some of their friends. [/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=.SF UI Text][FONT=.SFUIText]I was thinking the mayor could request the attendance of the pcs mid-morning. The scene revolving around whether they turn up and if so mention he knows that they attacked his main man. Hand him over and all is ok between them. [/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=.SF UI Text][FONT=.SFUIText]He would do something worse but he needs to focus on the upcoming festival

or do I just have the guards front out the PCs??

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[FONT=.SF UI Text][FONT=.SFUIText]Thoughts / comments[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=.SF UI Text][FONT=.SFUIText]I don't want to ban them from the town but if that is how the story goes...[/FONT][/FONT]

 

[hawkeyefan]

In my game, once Izek was removed, the Mayor was vulnerable to a move by the Wachters. So maybe play that angle....that the mayor is the better option compared to Lady Wachter. Have Izek's disappearance cause a real bustle and have townsfolk talking about what it will mean and so on.....clue the players in to the situation so that they have to decide to free Izek or to provide the Mayor with help to fend off a move by Lady Wachter.

That's Ravenloft for you....uncomfortable choices with no clearly preferable answer.

 

[abirdcall]

Yeah, if the PCs have taken out Izek then the Wachters won't have much trouble taking out the mayor and turning the town into a haven for Strahd where their cult can work in the open.

That's what happened in the game I ran. The PCs took out Izek and moved on. When they came back things were in bad shape.

And it makes sense, the PCs did take out the rightful captain of the guard. They strolled into town and then roughed people up.

 

[hastur_nz]

Are you saying Izek is tied up in N6, home of Henrik the carpenter? There's no Cellar in that place. Why is it burnt down? There is a large number of Vampire Spawn in the attic, who would be more than happy to accept the fresh meat the PC's have conveniently placed there for them... or were the destroyed in the fire you seem to imply?

p.s. I too tried to make sure actions had consequences; my players never fought Izek, in fact he was a temporary ally; if the players just fight everyone that opposes them, you really owe it to the adventure to make sure that helps Bad Things happen, ideally to other NPC's in a way that helps show the players that violence isn't the only answer.

 

[Rils]

You have to think about who the NPCs are and the consequences of the PCs actions. Izek is not just Random Bad Guy #14, he's the captain of the town guard and the Baron's bodyguard. Good or evil, bad things happen when you kidnap someone like that! In this case, as mentioned above, the Baron loses his primary protection, and the Wachters stage a coup, possibly in conjunction with the Festival. You could run the beginning of the festival per the book, but when the fire goes out, the guard laughs, and the Baron doesn't have Izek to back him up, the Wachters are in a perfect position to raise the crowd against him. Now the PCs are in the position of either joining the rebels (devil worshipping allies of Strahd) or defending the very Baron who's bodyguard they kidnapped (ironically doing Izek's job for him). Decisions, decisions...

My PCs came to the conclusion that although Izek is a really really bad dude, that removing him would lead to even worse things. It's not a "right/wrong" decision, it's a "lesser of two evils" decision. As is most of CoS. As DM, you should really play that up. There's no good guys in Barovia. Just slightly-less-bad guys. There's no "White Hats vs. Black Hats" - they're ALL black hats, and you gotta deal with that.

 

[Sloblock]

Are you saying Izek is tied up in N6, home of Henrik the carpenter? There's no Cellar in that place. Why is it burnt down? There is a large number of Vampire Spawn in the attic, who would be more than happy to accept the fresh meat the PC's have conveniently placed there for them... or were the destroyed in the fire you seem to imply?

The Pcs hatched a plan to burn down the shop once they found the spawn upstairs. I decided that when the pcs were looking for a place to hide Izek that the shop would have a small cellar.

On the plus side they got the coffin maker out and paid for him to start again. PCs are a weird thing

 

[evilbob]

I was thinking the mayor could request the attendance of the pcs mid-morning. The scene revolving around whether they turn up and if so mention he knows that they attacked his main man. Hand him over and all is ok between them.

That sounds like a good plan. As others mentioned, the Wachters will quickly make a move once they know Izek is not a threat. So the Barron will try to make a deal to get his man back - "all is well" if they return him - but if it doesn't work, he could try to get them evicted but by the next morning he'll be dead/deposed and the Wachters will be in charge - and likely start out friendly toward the party that helped them come to power...

 

[evilbob]

The Pcs hatched a plan to burn down the shop once they found the spawn upstairs.

This makes perfect sense to me.

 

[maxed]

Yeah, I would have the mayor summon the party to discuss a trade of some sort. He would probably have more guards with him than normal, ready to pounce on the party if things go poorly.

I agree that he would want the festival to go on, so he can keep up his sense of "normalcy" in town.

My players killed a guard, unprovoked, so they were ejected and banned from the town. They had to sneak back in, thru a back gate into Lady Wachter's estate which I added to the map. Her servant met them outside the city gates and told them Lady W had a proposition for them: to get the mayor out of the way for her to take control.