WotBS What if the Party Joins the Empire?

[comanderbeef]

Really interested in dming this adventure. However, I'm more interested in having the party as agents of the empires expansion. I want to try a story where the PCs are torn between their duty to country and what they value as characters. I want to try to make the decision of following the Empire or not the real moral dilemma.

I'm curious how much of the campaign I will be able to use/rewrite to suit this and if anyone has some ideas as to how this might work using the source material. Also, reaching out to see if anyone else has done something similar,.

Here's a breakdown of what I'm thinking so far...
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My plan right now is to have leska really hate the dominant religion (for mostly good reasons) and take charge to declare war on stomping it out. She'll hope to unite the whole continent under her rule. I plan to have The heads of the dominant religion framed by Leska for the Kings assassination. Kings assassination is the PR stunt needed to engage the population.

Leska will be secretly receiving a ton of aid from some shady organization that, unbeknownst to leska, wants what O.G Leska wants, for the world plunged into eternal war. They help stage the coup and bolster her holy war.

Leska learns that the Aquiline heart is the source of the Heathens power and tries to find a way to corrupt it to basically win the war. However if she does, she destroys the one macguffin that would stop the shady organization from plunging the continent in eternal war.

 

[emeraldbeacon]

What... if... the shady organization is some remnant of the original Order of the Aquiline Cross? It would tie things to the Aquiline Heart strongly, let the new order (that Laurabec Adelsburg is part of) stand as a sort of counterpoint, it might make Rhuarc's actions that much more tragic (he'd be acting as an agent of the forces he swore to destroy), etc...

 

[Tormyr]

You probably should put a spoiler warning in the title.

Honestly, the trillith could fit the bill as well as that manipulative organization. If Annihilation comes out, they win. If Leska destroys the heart without a replacement, they win. Depending on how long the PCs are loyal to the empire, Pilus can send Tempest after either Ragos or the opposition stronghold. So the order of the final three adventures could go 11, 12, 10, or it could stay in the normal order.