ZEITGEIST No lanterns

[aartvb]

I am currently running adventure 4. One of my players caught Luc Jierre carving the symbols in the lanterns. One player put one of the lanterns in his bag of holding, but they threw all of the other lanterns out of the train! Do you have any advice on this? They are currently in Nalaam. I could make Luc add new lanterns, with symbols, but what would stop the party from throwing out the lanterns again? I could have the lanterns better guarded, by Malia for example, or let the encounter happen before they can take off the lanterns again, but I feel like that would take some player agency away, since it was an original idea to throw out the lanterns. Should I skip the entire encounter? Or maybe I can somehow use the fact that one of the lanterns is in the bag of holding. What would Luc do in this situation?

 

[RangerWickett]

I suppose in hindsight you probably shouldn't have let them spot Luc doing that, but what's done is done.

The adventure still works if the party doesn't get off in Sid Minos, but you lose some really important groundwork for later revelations if they never go to the isle of Odiem and the Crypta. Like, if you want to let the party just corner Luc and arrest him, Ottavia might be persuaded to tell the party that they're meeting people in Vendricce, though her geas would keep her from saying who. Or if the party outright kills the two of them, they could still, I guess, watch to see what the train does when it gets to the end of the line, and go up to talk to Lya Jierre when they spot her.

But no, that's not as fun. Don't let that happen.

Instead, try this:

Luc's first gambit failed, so he tries a different approach to shake the party's pursuit. Ottavia stays at his side at all times, fearful of him being abducted. When the train is pulling in to Sid Minos (or if the party comes ANYWHERE NEAR HIM BEFORE THEN), he immediately triggers a handheld device and both he and Ottavia blink out, and the air is suffused with the scent of burnt engine oil. (This is basically the Gatecrasher Charm effect that a few Ob folks get, including Lya and her allies get in adventure 6.)

Luc and Ottavia end up tumbling into the Bleak Gate and get hurt from whatever speed the train was traveling when they land in the grim parallel reality. But then they hustle for a contact Ottavia has in the city. In a few minutes they pop back to the waking world, and get hurt some more, but then they get help from a healer. Ottavia gives Luc her Ob ring to protect him from divination, and then she tells him to lay low and get back on the train before it leaves tomorrow; she's going to stay and try to lure the PCs off.

When the party reaches the city, concoct a way for them to get a lead to where Ottavia went. Maybe if Bree is still on the train, she'll go in search of them. Maybe they go to a local priest and get them to cast Locate Creature, which points the way to Ottavia. If they divine for Luc, the ring protects him and instead makes the divination act as if he's with Ottavia. Ottavia is, just then, heading to Odiem.

Ideally your party pursues and gets stranded for the night on the cursed island.

Oh, and a random fun idea.

It is generally a bad idea to mix different types of dimensional magic. So the next time the party tries to reach into their bag of holding, they discover that no living thing can enter it. They can turn it over and dump stuff out, or fish things out with like a hooked cane or something, but no living matter can enter. If they had food or water in there, it comes out eerily denuded of nutritious essence.

How does that sound? You really really ought to have plans and contingencies to get the party to Odiem.

 

[aartvb]

Hi Ryan, thanks for your elaborate answer!

However, I am a bit confused. As I understood it, the lanterns in the train are used for the encounter in the train (the trip to Nem). This is not related to their trip to Odiem, right? (apart from the trip to Odiem being a backup plan if the Nem encounter 'failed')
As a matter of fact, during the preparation phase at the beginning of the adventure, my Vekeshi Mystic PC already heard of the isle, and he is motivated to look into the isle anyways, so I am not worried they might skip the Odiem encounter. I was actually talking about the encounter in the train, where they are transported to the plane of Nem. I really liked the encounter, it would be slightly disappointing if they skip this encounter entirely.

 

[RangerWickett]

A sort of meta-purpose of the encounter is that sidelining the party in Nem for a bit gives Ottavia and Luc a chance to evade the party, so it's easier to get off the train and start heading to Odiem.

But if that's going to work out, I wouldn't try to railroad them into an encounter they reasonably avoided. I suppose you could have them hear anxious cries of other people who got caught in other lanterns (or just Boone, if you think they might try to save him). Then they could plug in the lantern they put in their bag of holding in order to willingly hop to Nem?