Where's Mom?

[Grogg of the North]

I've been running a game set in a small town that is run by a lumber company. The lumber company is pretty despicable and is the true power in the town. The head of the lumber company has a son that is an alright kid despite his father. Now my players have started asking, "Where's mom?"

Through some diplomacy checks, the party learned the following about Ms. Meredith Kreed:

• She used to be an entertainer at The Rogue Lady, the show hall, tavern, inn and not so secret gambling den in town. Her fellow workers were thrilled by her good fortune and moving up in the world.
• Shortly after her marriage her husband, Thuldrin Kreed, arranged for her family to move to a "nearby" larger city so that they could live in comfort compared to the frontier.
• The story around town is that she moved to be with her family because she missed them, leaving her husband and son behind. However, in all the time she's been gone she's never come back to visit or written.
• The Kreed family servants danced around any attempt to discuss Meredith or her marriage.
• Through magics, the party talked with some animals who recalled that the couple quarreled often but the animals could not remember the details.
• Meredith was friendly with a travelling priest who would come through town about once a year.

I'd like to start trying to wrap up this plot thread soon and I want to give the players a bit more information to work with but I'm kinda blanking on where she is. Thuldrin is definitely one of the villains, though he does definitely care for his son. So I think my options are:

1. The story is legit. She left town to be with her family and never looked back. She felt trapped in her marriage and the town she was in. Or she was given this as an out but she had to agree to leave her son behind.
2. She ran off with the traveling priest for true love.
3. Something darker. She was killed by Thuldrin or she's trapped in a painting/mirror in their manor. Was it done out of anger? Or was Meredith something else and Thuldrin did it to protect his son?
4. Faeries. There's a whole bunch of them living in the forest nearby. Why not?
5. She was waylaid by bandits?

If it matters, I'm running this in Pathfinder 1E and it's loosely set in Falcon's Hollow.

Where would you have her be? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Rune]

I've been running a game set in a small town that is run by a lumber company. The lumber company is pretty despicable and is the true power in the town. The head of the lumber company has a son that is an alright kid despite his father. Now my players have started asking, "Where's mom?"

Through some diplomacy checks, the party learned the following about Ms. Meredith Kreed:

• She used to be an entertainer at The Rogue Lady, the show hall, tavern, inn and not so secret gambling den in town. Her fellow workers were thrilled by her good fortune and moving up in the world.
• Shortly after her marriage her husband, Thuldrin Kreed, arranged for her family to move to a "nearby" larger city so that they could live in comfort compared to the frontier.
• The story around town is that she moved to be with her family because she missed them, leaving her husband and son behind. However, in all the time she's been gone she's never come back to visit or written.
• The Kreed family servants danced around any attempt to discuss Meredith or her marriage.
• Through magics, the party talked with some animals who recalled that the couple quarreled often but the animals could not remember the details.
• Meredith was friendly with a travelling priest who would come through town about once a year.

I'd like to start trying to wrap up this plot thread soon and I want to give the players a bit more information to work with but I'm kinda blanking on where she is. Thuldrin is definitely one of the villains, though he does definitely care for his son. So I think my options are:

1. The story is legit. She left town to be with her family and never looked back. She felt trapped in her marriage and the town she was in. Or she was given this as an out but she had to agree to leave her son behind.
2. She ran off with the traveling priest for true love.
3. Something darker. She was killed by Thuldrin or she's trapped in a painting/mirror in their manor. Was it done out of anger? Or was Meredith something else and Thuldrin did it to protect his son?
4. Faeries. There's a whole bunch of them living in the forest nearby. Why not?
5. She was waylaid by bandits?

If it matters, I'm running this in Pathfinder 1E and it's loosely set in Falcon's Hollow.

Where would you have her be? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

What have the players been suspecting has happened to her? I’d go with one of their theories, but twisted once or twice. That way, you can be sure whatever you choose is interesting to them.

Failing that, I’d personally go with faeries. Because if they want to find her, they’ll have to go there.

 

[ccs]

I guess it'd depend upon how likely the PCs are to seriously pursue this thread.

If they just need an explanation? I'd go with she felt trapped in the town/life she was living. So she ran off with the traveling priest. Was it for love? Was it for a bit of adventure? Some degree of both?

But if they're likely to actively chase this thread? Then you need something interesting. So I'd go with the faeries.

 

[fba827]

1) if the -players- don’t seem like they’ll put in any effort to this thread beyond just asking the question, then make what you decided all true and simple like that

2) the faeries are nearby? What if the mom is actually a fae in human guise due to magic. Maybe the husband never knew, or found out much after the wedding, or he knew early in the relationship. Each of those has very specific implications on the nature of their arguments. And that would mean the son is half fae yet without any obvious characteristics and might have some minor ability he doesn’t yet know ( or he’s supernaturally been charming people unintentionally yet everyone just thinks he’s an ok and charismatic guy). And how bad is the husband? The mom might be with the family but whose to say the husband hasn’t trapped mom and the family together

3) maybe she has a child from a relationship before dad came around. But gave that child to a church for adoption. The priest gives her word how the child is doing. The arguments started when dad overheard mom and the priest talking one visit. He didn’t like her having a prior child. He made her leave and said if she ever came back he’d kill her and her family for having lied to him so she stays away out of fear

4) the lumberyard had cut down a tree that was bound to a dryad. This dryad turned in to an evil vengeful fairy spirit as a result. Things started going wrong at the house. The husband being busy with the business never paid it much mind but the wife witnessed it all. He thought she’s just gone crazy with talk of haunting in the house. She eventually left on a long journey to understand how to appease the evil spirit. She didn’t want people to know as it might affect the son and so it was easier to tell the son that ‘mom is going back to stay with family. ‘

5) mom realized she was pregnant....and the child wasn’t the dad’s. She had to leave before she began to ‘show’ and is raising the baby with her family. She hasn’t returned because the dad said he’d kill their son if she ever came back ( he was hurt/betrayed and vengeful and so this threat was the one he knew that she would take seriously). No good mother just leaves the first son though, she has found some way to check on him from a distance

( ok just rambling as I’m tired. Maybe not great ideas but maybe something there might spark a better idea)

 

[Rune]

I've been running a game set in a small town that is run by a lumber company. The lumber company is pretty despicable and is the true power in the town. The head of the lumber company has a son that is an alright kid despite his father. Now my players have started asking, "Where's mom?"

Through some diplomacy checks, the party learned the following about Ms. Meredith Kreed:

• She used to be an entertainer at The Rogue Lady, the show hall, tavern, inn and not so secret gambling den in town. Her fellow workers were thrilled by her good fortune and moving up in the world.
• Shortly after her marriage her husband, Thuldrin Kreed, arranged for her family to move to a "nearby" larger city so that they could live in comfort compared to the frontier.
• The story around town is that she moved to be with her family because she missed them, leaving her husband and son behind. However, in all the time she's been gone she's never come back to visit or written.
• The Kreed family servants danced around any attempt to discuss Meredith or her marriage.
• Through magics, the party talked with some animals who recalled that the couple quarreled often but the animals could not remember the details.
• Meredith was friendly with a travelling priest who would come through town about once a year.

I'd like to start trying to wrap up this plot thread soon and I want to give the players a bit more information to work with but I'm kinda blanking on where she is. Thuldrin is definitely one of the villains, though he does definitely care for his son. So I think my options are:

1. The story is legit. She left town to be with her family and never looked back. She felt trapped in her marriage and the town she was in. Or she was given this as an out but she had to agree to leave her son behind.
2. She ran off with the traveling priest for true love.
3. Something darker. She was killed by Thuldrin or she's trapped in a painting/mirror in their manor. Was it done out of anger? Or was Meredith something else and Thuldrin did it to protect his son?
4. Faeries. There's a whole bunch of them living in the forest nearby. Why not?
5. She was waylaid by bandits?

If it matters, I'm running this in Pathfinder 1E and it's loosely set in Falcon's Hollow.

Where would you have her be? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Equally as interesting:

What does Thuldrin think happened to her? How does it inform his actions?

What does the son think happened to her? Will he search for her?

 

[Tonguez]

Meredith was a changling who is being hunted by an Archfey. She had been hidden and raised by a human family in the village, her latent nature unknown to her until she started to manifest strange glamours whilst working at the Rogue Lady.

Thuldrin Kreed made a pact to protect Meredith and she married him in order to gain an increase of influence and access to Artifact A which Kreed held in his home. She had Kreed send her family off as stated, for their own protection.

Unfortunately the Travelling Priest knows Merediths secret identity and has threatened to reveal it if she does not relinquish the Artifact over to him.

Meredith and Thuldrin argued when Meredith told him she had to go with the Priest (she is now his prisoner until she reveals where the artifact is hidden)

The twist however is that the Artifact is infact the kid who Thuldrin loves as a true son (neither Thuldrin nor the kid know the truth).

Okay it does need some work ...

 

[Emerikol]

My very first thought was that her husband had her killed and was just covering things up and trying to keep the knowledge from his son. Since you've said the son is a nice guy and the husband is not this fits the facts as known.

If you want a twist to things, have the mom be the one that is alive and the father was murdered by the mom. The mom is a shapeshifter and changed into the dad and then made up the story about the mom moving. This still fits the facts because the mom is posing as the dad so it is her that is the bad one. You might even have the group discover evidence that at one time prior to the marriage the dad was really nice and the town saw him as a beloved and upright citizen. That would be new info.

Maybe the dad is not dead but is being held in some sort of magical prison. So the group can discover the dad and reunite him with his son after defeating the mom. Maybe they discover a clue that the mom was once seen wandering in the woods and that is why they think the faeries did it. The reality is the mom just changed back into her true form for a while. So the group going after the faeries could get interesting but in the end they will have to discover that the faeries didn't do it.

If the group keeps digging around they might get more clues of when the mom worked at the gambling den. How for a number of years people remarked on the fact she seemed almost ageless. Maybe these rumors forced her to marry the dad and remove him from the picture because her story wasn't going to hold up much longer.