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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Taed" data-source="post: 5182866" data-attributes="member: 89454">I'm currently DMing KotS and the motivation for going to the Dragon Burial Site is one of the problems with the module.  I made a bunch of changes throughout the module to give motivations to NPCs and reasons for things being the way they were.I took a fair amount of it from someone's "rewriting" of it (at TheAlexandrian.net, as I recall).  The key from that is that at the Dragon Burial Site, they are digging up a small idol of Orcus, which will be used later in the final ritual.  So, drop that silly mirror.  The same idol is also what the goblins are REALLY digging for (though they don't know it) in the room on level 1 of the keep.  Additionally, Kalarel's Apparition (see the online version of KotS) keeps watch over both dig sites, so that helps expose the party to Kalarel before the final battle.So, why did my party go to the Dragon Burial Site?  When they defeated Irontooth, they discovered the note.  In the written module, it's written in Common.  But since Kalarel knows Goblin, it makes more sense for it to have been written in Goblin.  "Unfortunately" no one in the party read Goblin.So, they go back to town.  First, they meet Ninaran, who is surprised to see them back alive (she sent them to the Kobold / Goblin lair intending them to die), and stupidly asks if they killed all the kobolds and goblins.  One of the party realized that she could not have known about the goblins as they had never been seen by anyone else.  So, that's their first clue that Ninaran is not what she seems.  Then she "helpfully" provides them with an incorrect translation of the note (basically saying that the goblin stronghold is to the South), and she tries to keep the note.The party wisely seeks another opinion on the note and eventually chat up Valthrun the Prescient (who they nicknamed "bathroom depressant") who told them that his apprentice, Douven, knows Goblin, and he's out on an achaelogical dig.  Valthrun also gives them a book to deliver that Douven wanted to borrow.So, the adventurers go there and meet up with the Gnome, who happily admits to being Douven.  He's very friendly and calls them all down to see what he's dug up.  Everyone gathers around the dragon's skull, and they pounce the party, taking them completely by surprise.  Someone even said, "What?!?!  Why is Douven attacking us?"  So, once that's done (and they get their first taste of Kalarel's Apparition), they can chat up Douven.  Douven provides a correct translation of the note.  Also, the story of the Keep is mentioned, and the book that Douven wanted to borrow just happens to be a local history of the area.  That gives me an excuse to read the big section of the history behind Shadowfell Keep.The idols of Orcus are important to the ritual and they provide a reason for Kalarel's Apparition to be around.  Furthermore, if Splug (who the party rescued from the jail cell and he assists them in trade for his life) learns that the party has one or more of them, he will attempt to steal the idol(s) and give it to Kalarel (who he has heard of but never seen), providing a way for Splug to show his true colors.Some other changes I made was Ninaran's motivations.  She's clearly not the lush that she pretends to be.  She's in league with Kalarel for her own reasons.  She believes that her Elven mother was raped by Lord Padrig resulting in her conception (in reality, they had a brief romance when he was a young soldier, and Lord Padrig did not know of the child), and she seeks revenge on him.The first time that the party sleeps outside or heads back to town, Douven will come riding up to come get the party as Ninaran has raised the dead, killed the town guards (which explains why they aren't dealing with the problem), and has given the town until midnight to produce Lord Padrig for execution or she will kill everyone.The adventurers will hopefully (they haven't gotten this far yet) ride to the rescue to find that Lord Padrig has offered himself up to save the town.  The party might be able to stop his execution at range, but most likely, she'll kill him.  The battle ensues, and I assume she'll be defeated, perhaps able to explain herself.That sets up some long-term issues with the town becoming a farming co-op with Douven organizing things, as I suspect the party will visit the town occassionally in future adventures.I also made a bunch of changes to the magic items.  I kept most of them but customized them for my party, and moved some of them to give them some reason for being (the +1 magic wand in the goblin room really bugged me).  One nice change was to make Sir Keegan's boring +1 sword into a Sunblade (does radiant damage) of Bahamut, which helps to explain why Sir Keegan still "lives" and wasn't fully corrupted by the Shadowfell, but he also explains that he used it to fight the evil when the keep was in service.  Furthermore, I really thought that Kalarel's Horned Helm was silly as he's not a martial character and converted it into a Gem of Colloquy that allows the wearer to understand Abyssal (the language of Orcus), which only makes sense given the rite that he's performing.  Another tailored change, which will hopefully become a touching moment for my Warforged Warden, was to remove the Shield of Protection from the water room and instead have a strange glowing from the bottom of the water, where they discover a Warforged with a dimly glowing Delver's Light who is all-but-dead, having been at the bottom of the water for over a year, and asks the other Warforged to end his suffering.Well, that's a long answer to a simple question...  <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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