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Message: <blockquote data-quote="twofalls" data-source="post: 2175506" data-attributes="member: 23718">I've thought about this and had to discard it. You see there is a small secret faction of Cyricists still in Darkhold, the last Zhentarim outpost they still have any presence in. It was a plot of the Cyriscists that caused the fight between the Battlehall and the Dark Fane. A cabal of priests of Cyric murdered the High Priest of both the Banite and the Tempus temples and planted evidence to incriminate the other two factions A Greater Demon of Cyric intercepted the inevitable divinations and answered them falsely (it's strictly forbidden for Gods to interfere in this way, but Cyric seldom plays by the rules) . The Cyricists plan was to weaken the Dark Fane and it worked. The PC's figured part of it out, but too late to avoid a fight. At any rate, the reason I had to discard it is because one of the PC's (the team leader) and his Lammasu follower are both Exalted. Neither would ever agree to work with the Cyricists, even to save the captives. So the PC's are aware of a schism, but not sure how to take advantage of it, nor would the exalted warrior agree to it.The strategic bonus was to bypass the hefty defenses that the Zhentarim have erected to ferret out infiltrators into their western most stronghold. The Hill Giants were local before the Zhents took over; in return for loyalty the Giant Chief has been heavily equipped and given treasures. Essentially they are well paid mercenaries and a very effective (if rather stupid) brute squad. I have the Dragonlance books... but if Manshoon knew they were coming, they'd be screwed. Dontcha think he'd be a bit more direct, ambush the party in a prepared magic null zone and slaughter/capture them, or some such? This mission hinges on stealth to get in I think.I like the refugee idea, I don't have a plan at all for them to get back out... or even to get in right now. A lot of this is coming together for me as I write to this post. It's helping me organize my thoughts. I like the Beholder at the entrance to the keep with the Lens, I'm going to use that. I'm still fishing for more ideas... trying to tap Enworld's vast reservoir of talent. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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