D&D 5E Where now for my party? PotA spoilers within...

[JWO]

Hello all. I'm running Princes and we're pretty much at the very beginning of the campaign after three sessions. After the group successfully completed the Bears and Bows mission they came back into town and interrogated and killed Ilmeth Waelvur (one of the players is a caravanner who took personal offence when he thought that Waelvur was holding something back). They then used his blood to paint a warning from 'The Bringers of Woe' on the walls of his home (they've picked up a bit of information so far and decided to throw people off their scent). They then went straight down to the chambers underneath Red Larch and cleared them all out, although Larrakh and Baragustus escaped, and they didn't find the bodies of the murder victims (they killed all the Bringers of Woe).

I'm not sure what to do with them now. I'd quite like to run the other beginner quests and keep them in Red Larch for a bit but I feel like they may have screwed that. Should Larrakh stick around or should he flee Red Larch altogether? How about Baragustus? I was thinking that Larrakh is pretty frustrated after having been foiled in his attempts at regaining respect in the Black Earth cult so he might run off and try to gather his strength again with a brand new cabal in order to try to get revenge against the party. Baragustus is a total weasel so he might try to get in the good books of the party now that he's seen their show of strength wiping out the Bringers of Woe. Like, play his allegiance with the Believers as being pretty fragile until a more powerful group comes along...

Also, they're a goblin, a dragonborn and a green-haired forest gnome so it's not like they can exactly go incognito!

 

[ryan92084]

I'd have llarakh flee and return later. Maybe with the ankheds from the cult reprisals or in the monastery. If the party asks around town for information about a man and potential hiding spots I'm sure the party could be directed to the necromancer and the crypt encounters. Baraguatus could do it hoping to get rid of them. Might have to beef those encounters up a bit since they've already tackled the moving stones.

 

[jrowland]

While usually frowned upon, a well-placed/well-timed Deus Ex Machina can "sidetrek" the adventurers for a time, opening up new leads, and delay the adventure proper as you see fit.

Perhaps waves of skeletons and zombies come shambling into Red Larch (from the direction of Skull Rock) in a a steady cadence (once every 2 hours). The PCs help the villagers (they should be fighting too - in the background) defeat the first couple, but by the third wave it becomes apparent they won't stop. The PCs need to get to the root of the problem. There, run Skull Rock as normal, but with a "wave" of skeletons and zombies being summoned every two hours and shambling off to Red Larch (smart PCs will time their assault accordingly)...chalk it up to magic gone awry...if pressed, what's-his-face will reveal the stone/crystal thing in his cave became "overcharged, in anticipation of the 4 dooms of the apocalypse that will devour the world!" etc etc

 

[Rhenny]

When I ran that part of the adventure, I moved the Lord of Lance Rock closer to the east where Larmon Greenboot's Shallow Grave encounter was. Then, when the PCs investigated the shallow grave, they found it was already dug up and they tracked the bodies to the necromancer's lair. The party had to clear out the necromancer's lair to find the bodies. Then I had them find out more about the Feathergale Society Tower so they investigated the conflict between the Earth cult and the Feathergale Knights.

In your game, what was the reaction from the Constable when the PCs killed Waelvur? Did they PCs make it work in town or are they on bad terms with Red Larch? If they are on bad terms with Red Larch, maybe you can have them get arrested. Then, if the town has a problem with undead, maybe they can offer to take care of it to make amends for their earlier missteps.