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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jbear" data-source="post: 4987930" data-attributes="member: 75065">Maybe Douven Staul is not their mentor, maybe he owes them all money for different reasons, and they all converged upon his dwellings in Fallcrest to ask him not so nicely to give it back. Let them find the reasons he owes them money and figure out who is connected to who. Maybe they are the brightest young students of two competing adventurer's guilds. Their final examiner, Douven Staul is a week late for the final examination. The pc's have grown impatient. Some even suspect it is part of the test. They know he was meant to making his way back from dragonhunting near Winterhaven.  Some of them are friends, others are competitors. But in the name of adventure, and determined to get their adventuring liscence they unite under one flag forging a previously unheard of bond between the two schools. Douven then sends then on their final exam into the Shadowkeep. Have you checked out the LFR version of the story where the band of thugs bust into the Tavern where the adventurer's are drinking and start picking on a scrawny guy in the corner. They attempt to murder him. If the pc's save him he tells that he is the acolyte of the Priestess in Winterhaven. She is convinced there is a dark cult operating in Winterhaven and she has sent him to look for help to unmask them. Bairwin is the cult's inside man and supplier, he has a dark temple beneath his store. How I am running it has the Mayor being bribed/extorted by the cult to turn a blind eye. Ninaran has his dearest possession, a purebred racehorse, hidden at her cabin in the woods. (yes, he's a selfish twit who cares more about his horse than his townsfolk, although he uses the money he is given to try and repair the damage the cult causes) I swapped out lots of hobgoblins for darkservants to make the keep more flavoursome and had an encounter with Bugbear slaver's from the next H-module at the footsteps of the keep. the pc's interrupt their dealings for the latest batch of slaves. I also threw in a paladin from the order of the undead knight in the tower as an ally if the pcs succeeded in a skill test. He was there with intentions to clear the smear from his knightly orders honour. he died in the encounter with Irontooth however, and when the triumphant heroes brought his body back to Winterhaven the mayor's men took the body off their hands. Bairwin took it off the mayor's hands and when the pcs challenged Bairwin in his dark temple refusing to swear on the altar of Shar that they would stay out of Kalarel's affairs in exchange for a hefty sum he came back as an undead villain to fight against them. It was great! As for more hooks into the story you can link to their past, maybe they could be from the order of the fallen knight, going there themselves to restore their knightly orders former glory. Douven Staul, their captain was under strict orders to return with information of the current state of the keep by a certain date. He's 3 days late, which is very unlike him. They have been sent to find out what has happened to him.He gives them orders once rescued that they must take the mirror and delay kalarel's plans as much as possible. He returns to X place to warn the order of what is going on in the kept and to send reinforcements. He is not heard from again til the heroes return home after the adventure to discover the fate of the rest of their order... I also have the PCs throw a ST vs fear at each short or extended rest. Those that fail roll a 1d100 which chooses some strange spooky effect that they see, smell or feel. The scaryness of the vision corresponds with th DC of the insight check they have to make. If they fail this too they lose a H-Surge and the next ST vs Fear has a cumulative penalty. If they succeed on 3 consecutive ST they are no longer affected. I did this to add to the maddening atmosphere inside the Keep. Anyway bed time for me. I hope some of this maybe useful to spark off some of your own ideas.</blockquote>

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