Old Fezziwig
hell yes bro
When I ran Zenith Trajectory for my group in Chapel Hill, I dropped in some tubes and vats, basically spare parts, in the storerooms above the entrance and gave Zenith a steaming battleaxe or something like that (have to check my notes on that one if I can still find them). It was intended to be the beginning of a major arc in my segment of the campaign in a way similar to how you've described your idea in post 10, only my source was the Church of Shar and they were giving it to Sembia and Archendale (who they had goaded into war). Of course, then I moved and none of this panned out. 
Nick

Nick