pukunui
Legend
Hi all,
As part of my ongoing episodic Eberron campaign, I ran "Prisoner 13" from Keys from the Golden Vault.
Warning: Spoilers for "Prisoner 13" and also the Oracle of War adventure, "The Last Word", follow. Continue reading at your own peril!
During the adventure, the PCs met with Prisoner 13 and agreed to obtain the warden's journal for her. However, they rightly didn't trust her, so they made a very good forgery of the journal that included false information. She failed to notice this right away, and so the PCs obtained the information they needed from her and departed.
However, I reckoned Prisoner 13 would eventually figure out that she'd been duped once she tried to make use of the false information and things went sour because of it.
Prisoner 13 is one of those classic "controlling a criminal empire from the relative safety of a high security prison" stories. She uses telekinetic links via magical tattoos to contact her criminal underlings. I figured many in her network would have no idea of her identity. This makes her ideal as a recurring (and somewhat untouchable) villain.
My first opportunity to do this came when I ran "The Last Word", an adventure from the Oracle of War series. This adventure opens with ambushed by two assassins on an overnight lightning rail train. Since I was running the adventure as a standalone rather than as part of the series, Prisoner 13 was the perfect employer for the assassins. However, I made it so they had no idea who had sent them. So far, my players haven't been too eager to look into this mystery.
I'll have to have more assassins show up now and again until they do want to figure it out. Ultimately, if they want to stop these assassination attempts, they will have to reinfiltrate Revel's End (which I have reworked as a special wing of House Kundarak's Dreadhold prison island) to get to her. Prisoner 13 is aware that they managed to infiltrate the prison once, but they will have difficulty doing so again unless they use magic to disguise themselves as other people - the first time they bluffed their way in as new employees + a proselytizing cleric. They scampered off unceremoniously, so the House Kundarak guards will be on the lookout for people of their description and they'll be barred from openly entering the prison again.
Prisoner 13 is only a CR 5 threat as well, and my PCs are currently level 6 (and there are five of them) - so if it comes to a fight, Prisoner 13 hasn't got much hope of winning. Even though she likes being in the prison, she may have to effect a prison break and come after the PCs with backup in order for it to be a fairer fight.
I am intending to run all of the remaining Golden Vault adventures plus other short adventures. I will work in assassins and such whenever I can. However, I would like to draw on the collective wisdom of my fellow ENWorld DMs to flesh out this idea more. Any and all advice on how to make this an enjoyable experience for my players would be most appreciated!
Thank you in advance.
As part of my ongoing episodic Eberron campaign, I ran "Prisoner 13" from Keys from the Golden Vault.
Warning: Spoilers for "Prisoner 13" and also the Oracle of War adventure, "The Last Word", follow. Continue reading at your own peril!
During the adventure, the PCs met with Prisoner 13 and agreed to obtain the warden's journal for her. However, they rightly didn't trust her, so they made a very good forgery of the journal that included false information. She failed to notice this right away, and so the PCs obtained the information they needed from her and departed.
However, I reckoned Prisoner 13 would eventually figure out that she'd been duped once she tried to make use of the false information and things went sour because of it.
Prisoner 13 is one of those classic "controlling a criminal empire from the relative safety of a high security prison" stories. She uses telekinetic links via magical tattoos to contact her criminal underlings. I figured many in her network would have no idea of her identity. This makes her ideal as a recurring (and somewhat untouchable) villain.
My first opportunity to do this came when I ran "The Last Word", an adventure from the Oracle of War series. This adventure opens with ambushed by two assassins on an overnight lightning rail train. Since I was running the adventure as a standalone rather than as part of the series, Prisoner 13 was the perfect employer for the assassins. However, I made it so they had no idea who had sent them. So far, my players haven't been too eager to look into this mystery.
I'll have to have more assassins show up now and again until they do want to figure it out. Ultimately, if they want to stop these assassination attempts, they will have to reinfiltrate Revel's End (which I have reworked as a special wing of House Kundarak's Dreadhold prison island) to get to her. Prisoner 13 is aware that they managed to infiltrate the prison once, but they will have difficulty doing so again unless they use magic to disguise themselves as other people - the first time they bluffed their way in as new employees + a proselytizing cleric. They scampered off unceremoniously, so the House Kundarak guards will be on the lookout for people of their description and they'll be barred from openly entering the prison again.
Prisoner 13 is only a CR 5 threat as well, and my PCs are currently level 6 (and there are five of them) - so if it comes to a fight, Prisoner 13 hasn't got much hope of winning. Even though she likes being in the prison, she may have to effect a prison break and come after the PCs with backup in order for it to be a fairer fight.
I am intending to run all of the remaining Golden Vault adventures plus other short adventures. I will work in assassins and such whenever I can. However, I would like to draw on the collective wisdom of my fellow ENWorld DMs to flesh out this idea more. Any and all advice on how to make this an enjoyable experience for my players would be most appreciated!
Thank you in advance.
