Hello Hive Mind: Looking for help with Azaka.
My party have selected her as their guide, and have just finished Firefinger, where she revealed herself as a weretiger. They have just leveled up to 3rd. I don't want her to just turn into a big meat shield, but I also don't want her to leave in a way that has the players saying "DM just didn't want us to have a weretiger". I decided she would tell them that she needs to be gone for a week around the full moon, for everyone's safety. The full moon comes in two weeks, so according to my calculations, they will just be leaving Kir Sabal with flight powers. Azaka will tell them that she can track them in tiger form, as long as they hit a certain landmark (maybe the Heart of Ubtao). So, to sum up, she will be away for about two weeks, but will probably be back around the time they hit Omu. At that point, she won't be quite so unbalancing, and could make a dramatic first death in the Tomb--to let them know sh*t is getting real.
What caught me off guard, and what I'm looking for help with, is that one of the players asked if she could be cured. I have established that she has family in Port Nyanzaru, who don't want her around much. So, I am left with the problem: why would she not have just had a local cleric cast Remove Curse on her? By rules as written, that would work unless she was born a weretiger, but I have already established she is not from a family of weretigers.
To be clear, I am fine with the PCs curing her, I just thinking it should be a little more interesting narratively than hitting a high enough level to cast a third level cleric spell. I would just like there to be some sort of a wrinkle. Here are my ideas so far:
- Don't just want it to be a matter of money--that just seems lame.
- Remove Curse could work, but would also require a component like belladonna or a silvered blade. Azaka can't know this already, or she would have arranged it herself.
- Remove Curse could work, but during the ritual, 'the beast' comes out. She accidentally killed a cleric, and hasn't wanted to try it since.
- Azaka was born a weretiger, but to normal parents, because her mother was cursed by an anonymous old crone (Nanny Pu'pu). The crone has to be found and slain before the curse can be lifted.
So far, I am leaning toward one of the last two options. Anyone have any other suggestions?