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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Unwise" data-source="post: 5810185" data-attributes="member: 98008">My main suggestion is, how is this betrayal? Does it lead to a sense of betrayal? Where is the emotional investment in this?The two guys involved are an Evil King and a noble that already hates the Good King. That is not really betray, that is just an enemy doing what an enemy does.I would suggest delaying the betray a touch. Give the PCs time to get to know the traitor and give them a reason to be shocked at the betrayal. A few suggestions off the top of my head.A) One of the noble PCs wives (or sister in law for less impact, but easier for the PC to swallow) is the daughter of a noble that has been disgraced by the PCs father. Her father was caught doing something wrong and stripped of title. Given the "true love" though, no grudge was held towards her for her fathers wrongdoing. All the while though, she has hated this family and plotted revenge for the 'wrong' done to her father.B) You know the old practice of taking an ex-enemy's son as a page/squire/ward/hostage? One of the PCs has grown up with a bloke, treating him as a brother. He was always treated well, but has always been plotting revenge for the perceived wrongs done to his family and for being effectively stolen away from his family. (Kind if like that Greyjoy guy that lives with the Starks in Game of Thrones)C) The Evil Uncle (tm) is always good. He got passed over for the throne, so now unwisely conspires with enemies to steal his brothers throne.D) The PCs father announces his new will. As in most medievil times, the youngest sons of nobles pretty much got screwed over and got nothing. They had to just trade on their good name and hope to marry a rich merchants ugly daughter. One of the younger sons does not like the sound of this at all and feels betrayed. He is the hardest working, most motivated and has made a fortune for his father. He will be left with nothing as his father gives it to the older brothers. He conspires to take revenge of his father and set himself up for life.E) To make things interesting, I really like having the betrayer deeply regret their actions. The bitter sibling/ward/wife likes the idea of revenge, but when they start seeing exactly what a bunch of orcs do to poor villagers they think "By the gods! What have I done!". They are powerless to stop it now though. It leads to some good RP.In the first battle scenes, I would have the PCs expect help that never arrives. The county has a set battle plan and course of action when orcs arrive, they do their bit, but the cavalry never comes to help them.I suggest that hte PCs see a signal fire spark up (and maybe then go dark again). They go to investigate. They see that one guy seems to have killed a bunch of the other guards guarding the signal. Investigation shows that he was trying to light it and the guards were trying to stop him. He cut his way through them (they later find he was some renowend badass) and got it lit, but died from wounds soon afterwards. They stand there wondering why this happened. Why did the other guards try and stop him? Later, investigating those guards shows that although they are in uniform, none of the locals know them, they were only hired in the last week. By who? Lots of other signal fires should have been lit too, it looks like similar things happened elsewhere.I think it makes for a powerful scene when the PCs fight a minor skirmish with an orc scout party (they were there to put the fire back out). Then during or after that, they see the orc army moving past. The scouts shot their horses, so they know they will never catch up to that army in time. They run back home to find the place already pillaged. The sense of powerlessness I think could be very powerful.</blockquote>

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