ZEITGEIST Results on PC research on Bleak gate

[Summorox]

Greetings!

In my last session running 5e 5Zeeitgeist on roll20,my players managed to capture Reed Macabannin and prevent the witchoil catastrophe, so all thats left is some closing roleplay to the adventure. For that reason, i asked for my players to give me any activities that their characters would do in the timeskip for the next adventure.

Some of the activities i received are fairly easy to implement, but i'm struggling to decide on the results for some activities.

My biggest one is probably this: the technologist character, who is a warforged (justified in setting by being an abandoned borne prototype without any memories), wishes to some research on witchoil and the energies of bleak gate to discover some of it's properties and how to find a vulnerability in further witchoil enemies they find. What i'm struggling here is what kind of info should i give for this activity and whether i should give a tangible benefit from this research.

Thanks in advance!

 

[RangerWickett]

This ain't pretty, but it's an excerpt of the section on witchoil creations in the upcoming ZEITGEIST setting book.

It's up to you how easy you want it to be to find this information, but if you hand out this info, you'll want to throw in a handful more witchoil foes. As written, I think there actually aren't any more until adventure 8. Maybe you could have Kaja Stewart selling a flayed jaguar in adventure 3, or when the lantern trap is sprung in adventure 4 on the train, maybe the Ob sent a 'shadow hound killer' on board, disguised as a normal passenger, who then tries to assassinate the party as they're being drawn into Nem. (Or maybe Bree could be one, in addition to her other tricks.) And certainly you could add another witchoil golem to the Bleak Gate facility in adventure 5.

 

[arkwright]

One of my PCs wanted to research witchoil. I let them invent a way to use cocoa powder to 'soothe' spirits trapped in witchoil so that they weren't in constant existential agony. Useful for ethically storing witchoil.

 

[Summorox]

Thanks for the help! Depending on what he focuses on, im probably going to let him find out about some of the origins or about some of the weaknesses mentioned in the document you gave me @RangerWickett . Maybe also some manner of product that can counteract or soothe witchoil like @arkwright said too!

 

[MarkM]

One of my PCs wanted to research witchoil. I let them invent a way to use cocoa powder to 'soothe' spirits trapped in witchoil so that they weren't in constant existential agony. Useful for ethically storing witchoil.

This ain't pretty, but it's an excerpt of the section on witchoil creations in the upcoming ZEITGEIST setting book.

It's up to you how easy you want it to be to find this information, but if you hand out this info, you'll want to throw in a handful more witchoil foes. As written, I think there actually aren't any more until adventure 8. Maybe you could have Kaja Stewart selling a flayed jaguar in adventure 3, or when the lantern trap is sprung in adventure 4 on the train, maybe the Ob sent a 'shadow hound killer' on board, disguised as a normal passenger, who then tries to assassinate the party as they're being drawn into Nem. (Or maybe Bree could be one, in addition to her other tricks.) And certainly you could add another witchoil golem to the Bleak Gate facility in adventure 5.

This summary makes me even more excited about the upcoming setting book. There is so much rich detail in this world, and I'm the kind of DM who likes to understand how and why everything works, even where it doesn't really impact gameplay. Any idea of when a copy will be available for purchase or advance purchase?