ZEITGEIST The Great Change Zeitgeist Campaign Tips (Spoilers)

[Rukaiko]

I introduced a gidim before book 1 without anyone knowing that it was a gidim. I made a false hydra one shot so the group could know each other before as their first mission together and it worked pretty well!

 

[comanderbeef]

what exactly are you thinking the investigation would be? if it's just something like examining the body of one of sijhen's victims, i don't think that'd be too big of a deal. the players have an opportunity to do it with caius in book 3 itself, and they can't really get much from it (at least, not from the body itself - they can gather quite a bit from surrounding and prior evidence).

So I started the campaign with book 2. I'm giving the party 5 weeks of downtime before we start book 1. In that time, I'm preparing "something" for each of their characters to do for hopefully no longer then like 20-30 minutes real time. Goal is to have the downtime scenario be interesting, short and hint at things upcoming in the campaign.

Our Vekeshi is attending the cult meeting and will learn of the higher ups in the mystics. He'll meet: The Old Stag again, Asrabey Varal, Valentia Yorke, Erdanen Torrance, and Tyler Starke. He's planning on debriefing them on the bleak gate happenings and I plan on having Ekossigan present to hear of it for the first time (will lead to book 5 madness).

Our Aspiring politician Medium will be invited to a high level political gathering with Nigel Price-Hill who will offer a bigger role in the political workings of the city. He'll mention a "job" upcoming that he thinks the party will be well suited for (Its the security detail of book 1). He'll get a chance to meet; Ethelyn of Shale (remember, this is before the events of book 1 but after the events of book 2); Catherine Romana; Erdanen Torrance; and whoever random political figures I find. the gathering will be secretly about politicians swaying eachother to vote for the railroad vs wunderbahn construction.

Our Anti-Gale technologist will meet with Benedict Pemberton. Not exactly sure what this will look like, but will likely have the PC working with Pemberton to create the B.E.A.R for the expo in book 3. Would like for him to meet harkover but not sure how to do that yet.

Our Investigator who is the niece of Margaret Saxby, I have planned to start an investigation into potential disloyal/corrupt constables of the HRC. Perhaps Nigel will give a letter to the medium to secretly deliver to the investigator. My initial plan is to have someone give her a case (Sijen) where evidence has been mysteriously gone missing, witnesses have shut their mouths, the media has been halted access, and general progress on the investigation has been halted. Hopefully, during the investigation she'll draft up a short list of possible corrupt constables. If i'm really lucky, one of the people on the list will be Margaret Saxby.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

I am starting to reread ready for running again, and I was remined that what I brought forward as a diversion was the discovery of the broken golem where the steelshaper had prvented the Mindmaker and Kasavarina escaping. It left lots of interesting clues but nothing which could be followed up until the automata could be made to talk again which of course happenned when I wanted it

 

[comanderbeef]

I am starting to reread ready for running again, and I was remined that what I brought forward as a diversion was the discovery of the broken golem where the steelshaper had prvented the Mindmaker and Kasavarina escaping. It left lots of interesting clues but nothing which could be followed up until the automata could be made to talk again which of course happenned when I wanted it

Woah! I'm just reading this now. Some of the players are "rightfully" a bit annoyed that they've been taken off the case. I wonder if I can get Captain Dale to request the expertise of Both pemberton, Harkover, and the Technologist PC. Especially since the technologist PC has a mechanical arm and i've been looking for a way to weave that into the plot.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

The PC's are running around like madmen doing all sorts of actual fun player type things, not sitting in an office making abusrdly difficult Engineering and Arcane Lore rolls(depending on your system). The mad technologist frpm my group helped out when he could but
A) he really was busy
B) At this time the Royal Technologist was a lot better than he was, by the end of the campaign something like 12 levels later Manuel could have made all the dice rolls with his eyes closed, while riding on his bat and cooking waffles on his mithril waffle iron. But at this point the Royal technologist had higher levels and skill focus in the appropriate skills

Pemberton would not be allowed anywhere anything considered secret or important , with a 1000 foot long fire proof pole. Harkover and the King know he is Gradiax the Steel Tyrant a Red Dragon with form for world conquest , he has to be a good candidate for being behind any cunning scheme encountered

 

[comanderbeef]

The PC's are running around like madmen doing all sorts of actual fun player type things, not sitting in an office making abusrdly difficult Engineering and Arcane Lore rolls(depending on your system). The mad technologist frpm my group helped out when he could but
A) he really was busy
B) At this time the Royal Technologist was a lot better than he was, by the end of the campaign something like 12 levels later Manuel could have made all the dice rolls with his eyes closed, while riding on his bat and cooking waffles on his mithril waffle iron. But at this point the Royal technologist had higher levels and skill focus in the appropriate skills

Pemberton would not be allowed anywhere anything considered secret or important , with a 1000 foot long fire proof pole. Harkover and the King know he is Gradiax the Steel Tyrant a Red Dragon with form for world conquest , he has to be a good candidate for being behind any cunning scheme encountered

Right, I forgot the king and Harkover know Permberton is a dragon. Perhaps I'll get The Royal Technologist to be part of that scene with my Technologist player then, get Serena to secretly request for the two of them to investigate the scene with her. That will allow my investigator player another thread for discovering who is corrupt in the RHC.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

The Eladrin pc frommy game was also brought in when the fragments of old Eladrin clothing was found , and the players became puzzled as to what an Eladrin Matriarch was doing in Flint as they thought such women were ancient and powerful and would have been noticed. Magic was usless as Kasavarine had routinely been using Mind Blank as well as Ob anti-scrying measures and did not show up on any divination let alone anything low level pc's could deploy. In fact one of the things which convinced them it must be a matriach was when Harkover failed to penetrate the divination blcok