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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 9436911" data-attributes="member: 63">Can I tap into your genius?Tonight my players will be rescuing a priestess (Nita) being held hostage by a rival religion. The setting is broadly bronze age Mesopotamia, with the main action being in a Babylon analog (No-Ostalin) along one river, complete with a big ziggurat where the high priestess (Kalumum) can do powerful magic. They're trying to dominate another city (Eshkital) along a different river that runs sorta parallel. No-Ostalin's big ziggurat has a bunch of gods subservient to it, and so Kalumum the high priestess can command all sorts of miracles, but Nita the hostage priestess from Eshkital serves a river goddess who has purview over agriculture. Due to the way magic works in the setting, Kalumum can't do any miracles related to rivers or agriculture. She wants to consolidate power by strong-arming the river goddess's faith to join up, and the PCs are part of an opposition movement that wants to prevent Kalumum from having unstoppable tyrannical control over everything.The PCs intend to sneak Nita out of the 'guest house' and escape No-Ostalin, then flee 50 miles through canal-filled farmland (bare because it's winter) to reach a river they can travel to Eshkital, where Nita's temple is. They've got a boat lined up to meet them at the river, but first they've got two days of travel to get there. So, like, what sorts of pursuit should there be? What's the challenge? I've got ideas, but I figure you might come up with stuff to motivate more creativity.One fun twist: one of the PCs (Sayf) is seen by Kalumum as an ally, and he's positioned himself to be the guy in charge of chasing the rest of the party down. So we'll have 4 PCs fleeing with Nita, and Sayf a group of NPCs chasing them. I probably need to bounce back and forth between the two groups, keeping tension up on both ends.Like, Sayf's group needs some sort of skilled tracker, and he can't too obviously screw up the chase or else they'll turn on him and his cover with Kalumum will be blown. And maybe Nita's group comes across some people in trouble (probably members of a clan that one of the PCs belongs to), and there's a question of whether to do the right thing or keep running. And when the two groups finally meet up (which I'll try to contrive to happen), there should be some sort of monster that attacks too, which poses a complication for both sides. And what sort of monster should that be? And what terrain should the fight involve? Like, the PCs see the boat waiting for them just upstream, and they've got to hold off the pursuers and the monster for 5 rounds as the boat comes in to pick them up?The PCs are:Sayf - ancestral barbarian undercover as an ally of KalumumQusay - mastermind rogue from a tribe of "Githyanki with the serial numbers filed off" who are sort of desert nomadsChee-tor - Tabaxi fighter copper merchant who is blessed by the god of fireShenshen - alchemist from Eshkital who is trying to understand the setting's "stone-tablet"-based magic systemSag-e-kur - fey ranger who recently used treasure from a previous adventure to buy a farm to try to share the wealth with the common manI need:Interesting reason to slow the PCs down.Quirky NPCs chasing them.Cool location for a fight.Novel monster.Any help will be greatly appreciated.</blockquote>

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