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Worldres' Zeitgeist Campaign
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<blockquote data-quote="Worldres" data-source="post: 8227710" data-attributes="member: 7029564"><p>Thank you so much for the kind words! And thank you for this - this was a lifesaver! My players were proud of themselves for confiscating the icon, and I also like that it sets up the thread that those with a strong connection to a plane can make planar icons.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I saw the art of your character in another thread and you're right, they do look similar!! We actually considered making Mona an Eladrin when we converted over from 5e because the race she was doesn't exist in pathfinder. It would have been pretty funny if we had, aha. Maybe they could have been sisters.</p><p></p><p><strong>Adventure 1, Digging For Lies Part II: What we actually learned about Ziggurats</strong></p><p></p><p>The rest of this adventure went off the rails, but in a fun way. See, our party is more or less filled with nothing but support characters, so my players try and twist themselves out of combat however possible, with sometimes hilarious results. They offered Bernard 3000 G to let them pass unharmed, which I let him accept, because that's a nice chunk of change. They immediately asked Finona to stand down by showing her Caius' ring and proving he was dead, and convincing her with several great Diplomacy checks that it wasn't worth fighting for a group she could no longer contact that she doesn't fully understand. They brought her back on their ship, and managed to befriend her, and later independently proposed that they use her in Adventure 4 without my prompting.</p><p></p><p>Also, the party literally <em>lost their minds</em> learning about the details in Caius' letter. Determining who is and who is not Obscurati is a party obsession, now, and I love hearing their theories.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]134493[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p></p><p>All bets were off about trusting Xambria. I tried to bargain with the players to give them Xambria's icon of Apet back, making her share some Sijhen-influenced sob-story about how the icon was the first finding of the first student she ever supervised and she wears it as a memento (I'm very sentimental about my own students), but no dice, the hard-hearted but incredibly savvy Gatria shut that down. They then left her alone in her room and discussed within earshot that someone from the party monitors her constantly going forward. Sijhen didn't like that, so it was Hydra time. When the fight was over, they went back to check on Xambria and realized their mistake when she was gone.</p><p></p><p>When they returned, there was still a few days until the Gala, so I let them hang out at the fair for a bit. I let them get introduced to Benedict Pemberton (I seem to recall from reading our old DM's book that the 5e version lets you do this, anyway), who was showing off Duplicant prototypes. Also present at Pemberton's tent was Heward Sechim, who Gatria pitched a new business to, and an incognito Catherine Romana, who is in Flint nursing her wounded pride for a short time after her Dream Road presentation was jeered at.</p><p></p><p>Look, I love me an uncomplicated villain. I love me a complicated villain too, but sometimes, it's just fun to be a jerk. I play Catherine Romana as a full 1959 Maleficent-esque witch, and I couldn't resist introducing her early as a recurring character. Because Mona is not smart, she was wearing Caius' Obscurati ring to the fair, and Catherine Romana, surprised to see an RHC officer in the Ob, tried to strike up a conversation with her to get a sense of where she fell in rank. Because Catherine later becomes one of the main faces of the Obscurati in Adventure 7, I figured that she would know a lot more about the Ob than your average tier-4, but hasn't been given her own cell because she is obviously power-hungry and using the Ob for her own thinly-veiled goals (her ring, by the way, says "Once Betrayed Clan"; she is the great-great granddaughter of Queen Caroline, who in my Zeitgeist was a traditional, Fey Titan-respecting Unseen Court-respecting Queen before her tragic sudden death and an extremely rushed abdication to the unwilling Lorcan - Catherine sees the country's shift away from traditional Risurian values as a slap in the face to her ancestor's legacy, and believes that she is entitled to finish Caroline's reign herself and enact her vision). She dropped a subtle clue, and when Mona didn't pick it up, Catherine figured it wasn't worth her time and dipped. Now my players think there is some activation phrase that lets Ob members identify eachother, which is a fun idea, especially since there aren't any Vekeshi mystics in our party and they do the same. Maybe higher ranking Obs can use some Palan philosophy to identify eachother or something, I'm going to workshop that.</p><p></p><p>I was going to have Catherine rat out the party to the Ob so the Ob could use Cauis' ring to spy on them, but Mona was clever enough to take the ring off after that.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]134494[/ATTACH]</p><p><span style="font-size: 10px">Hey look, one of my players drew a Planar Magic Circle! From the top, clockwise: Av, Avilona, Reida, Mavisha, Nem, Urim, Apet, Jiese. "Earth" at the center.</span></p><p></p><p>So anyway, the players totally bought that Sijhen wanted those artifacts. They guarded them at the Museum, and groaned when Rock showed up. They successfully beat back Xambria, and she gave her confession at the RHC, and Sijhen's plan went off mostly without a hitch. Unfortunately for Sijhen, the players made it up to Saxby's office in world record speeds (ignoring poor Delft, leaving Cleone in a steamsuit to beat back the Ob hitmen, and letting Saxby flee) and curbstomped him. First they made him drop his star map and played keep away for awhile, passing the star map from person to person while others whittled him down. To make a long story short, after Xambria had been yeeted into Hoya's brain (MUCH to her delight; both Hoya and her player were literally thrilled to have her), they got Sijhen to 0 HP and made him beg for his life at weapon-point. He gave his spiel, told them he wouldn't hurt them, gave away that he had been trapped on Apet for thousands of years, now, by the Ancients, and that he just wanted to go home. They thanked him for the information, and then Gatria slit his throat. Savage.</p><p></p><p>Gatria also wanted to rifle through Saxby's stuff; I let her find evidence from the MacBannin case that Saxby had been hiding, as well as his ring, which Saxby had removed from his corpse. Gatria decided to turn everything in to the Family (without telling the party about what she found), so they know about the Ob, now. That'll be fun.</p><p></p><p>Now here's something <em>really </em>fun. Mona caught up to Saxby alone while the others rushed to close the seal. She put the Obscurati ring back on, and then tried to copy what Catherine said at the fair. Saxby had no idea what she was talking about, but bought her bluff. Saxby asked Mona what it had all been for (while Serena, Carlao and Dima looked on in confusion), why the King would let MacBannin be arrested for doing what he ordered, and Mona didn't have a good answer for her. Saxby realized she had been played, laughed, and told Mona that she "knew her future", because she had lived it - someday, just like her, just like Cillian Creed, Mona would become a sacrifice to be thrown under the spokes to serve the King. Mona remembered seeing her death, but then answered that she accepted her fate. Knowing she was outmatched, Mona then decided to let Saxby leave unharmed, but was successful in convincing the other constables not to go with her. I should think about how I want to deal with Saxby... If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear it!</p><p></p><p>So yeah, now the party is totally convinced that the King is the head of the Obscurati, not realizing that Margaret Saxby was just small-fry who didn't know what she was talking about. They are convinced that Mona's death vision is the King executing her for knowing too much.</p><p></p><p><em>>rubs hands together maliciously</em>. All according to plan!!!</p><p></p><p>Onward to Adventure 4!</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]134495[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 10px">Pictured: Gatria forced to wear a disguise in Adventure 4, probably.</span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Worldres, post: 8227710, member: 7029564"] Thank you so much for the kind words! And thank you for this - this was a lifesaver! My players were proud of themselves for confiscating the icon, and I also like that it sets up the thread that those with a strong connection to a plane can make planar icons. I saw the art of your character in another thread and you're right, they do look similar!! We actually considered making Mona an Eladrin when we converted over from 5e because the race she was doesn't exist in pathfinder. It would have been pretty funny if we had, aha. Maybe they could have been sisters. [B]Adventure 1, Digging For Lies Part II: What we actually learned about Ziggurats[/B] The rest of this adventure went off the rails, but in a fun way. See, our party is more or less filled with nothing but support characters, so my players try and twist themselves out of combat however possible, with sometimes hilarious results. They offered Bernard 3000 G to let them pass unharmed, which I let him accept, because that's a nice chunk of change. They immediately asked Finona to stand down by showing her Caius' ring and proving he was dead, and convincing her with several great Diplomacy checks that it wasn't worth fighting for a group she could no longer contact that she doesn't fully understand. They brought her back on their ship, and managed to befriend her, and later independently proposed that they use her in Adventure 4 without my prompting. Also, the party literally [I]lost their minds[/I] learning about the details in Caius' letter. Determining who is and who is not Obscurati is a party obsession, now, and I love hearing their theories. [ATTACH type="full" width="583px"]134493[/ATTACH] All bets were off about trusting Xambria. I tried to bargain with the players to give them Xambria's icon of Apet back, making her share some Sijhen-influenced sob-story about how the icon was the first finding of the first student she ever supervised and she wears it as a memento (I'm very sentimental about my own students), but no dice, the hard-hearted but incredibly savvy Gatria shut that down. They then left her alone in her room and discussed within earshot that someone from the party monitors her constantly going forward. Sijhen didn't like that, so it was Hydra time. When the fight was over, they went back to check on Xambria and realized their mistake when she was gone. When they returned, there was still a few days until the Gala, so I let them hang out at the fair for a bit. I let them get introduced to Benedict Pemberton (I seem to recall from reading our old DM's book that the 5e version lets you do this, anyway), who was showing off Duplicant prototypes. Also present at Pemberton's tent was Heward Sechim, who Gatria pitched a new business to, and an incognito Catherine Romana, who is in Flint nursing her wounded pride for a short time after her Dream Road presentation was jeered at. Look, I love me an uncomplicated villain. I love me a complicated villain too, but sometimes, it's just fun to be a jerk. I play Catherine Romana as a full 1959 Maleficent-esque witch, and I couldn't resist introducing her early as a recurring character. Because Mona is not smart, she was wearing Caius' Obscurati ring to the fair, and Catherine Romana, surprised to see an RHC officer in the Ob, tried to strike up a conversation with her to get a sense of where she fell in rank. Because Catherine later becomes one of the main faces of the Obscurati in Adventure 7, I figured that she would know a lot more about the Ob than your average tier-4, but hasn't been given her own cell because she is obviously power-hungry and using the Ob for her own thinly-veiled goals (her ring, by the way, says "Once Betrayed Clan"; she is the great-great granddaughter of Queen Caroline, who in my Zeitgeist was a traditional, Fey Titan-respecting Unseen Court-respecting Queen before her tragic sudden death and an extremely rushed abdication to the unwilling Lorcan - Catherine sees the country's shift away from traditional Risurian values as a slap in the face to her ancestor's legacy, and believes that she is entitled to finish Caroline's reign herself and enact her vision). She dropped a subtle clue, and when Mona didn't pick it up, Catherine figured it wasn't worth her time and dipped. Now my players think there is some activation phrase that lets Ob members identify eachother, which is a fun idea, especially since there aren't any Vekeshi mystics in our party and they do the same. Maybe higher ranking Obs can use some Palan philosophy to identify eachother or something, I'm going to workshop that. I was going to have Catherine rat out the party to the Ob so the Ob could use Cauis' ring to spy on them, but Mona was clever enough to take the ring off after that. [ATTACH type="full" width="509px"]134494[/ATTACH] [SIZE=2]Hey look, one of my players drew a Planar Magic Circle! From the top, clockwise: Av, Avilona, Reida, Mavisha, Nem, Urim, Apet, Jiese. "Earth" at the center.[/SIZE] So anyway, the players totally bought that Sijhen wanted those artifacts. They guarded them at the Museum, and groaned when Rock showed up. They successfully beat back Xambria, and she gave her confession at the RHC, and Sijhen's plan went off mostly without a hitch. Unfortunately for Sijhen, the players made it up to Saxby's office in world record speeds (ignoring poor Delft, leaving Cleone in a steamsuit to beat back the Ob hitmen, and letting Saxby flee) and curbstomped him. First they made him drop his star map and played keep away for awhile, passing the star map from person to person while others whittled him down. To make a long story short, after Xambria had been yeeted into Hoya's brain (MUCH to her delight; both Hoya and her player were literally thrilled to have her), they got Sijhen to 0 HP and made him beg for his life at weapon-point. He gave his spiel, told them he wouldn't hurt them, gave away that he had been trapped on Apet for thousands of years, now, by the Ancients, and that he just wanted to go home. They thanked him for the information, and then Gatria slit his throat. Savage. Gatria also wanted to rifle through Saxby's stuff; I let her find evidence from the MacBannin case that Saxby had been hiding, as well as his ring, which Saxby had removed from his corpse. Gatria decided to turn everything in to the Family (without telling the party about what she found), so they know about the Ob, now. That'll be fun. Now here's something [I]really [/I]fun. Mona caught up to Saxby alone while the others rushed to close the seal. She put the Obscurati ring back on, and then tried to copy what Catherine said at the fair. Saxby had no idea what she was talking about, but bought her bluff. Saxby asked Mona what it had all been for (while Serena, Carlao and Dima looked on in confusion), why the King would let MacBannin be arrested for doing what he ordered, and Mona didn't have a good answer for her. Saxby realized she had been played, laughed, and told Mona that she "knew her future", because she had lived it - someday, just like her, just like Cillian Creed, Mona would become a sacrifice to be thrown under the spokes to serve the King. Mona remembered seeing her death, but then answered that she accepted her fate. Knowing she was outmatched, Mona then decided to let Saxby leave unharmed, but was successful in convincing the other constables not to go with her. I should think about how I want to deal with Saxby... If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear it! So yeah, now the party is totally convinced that the King is the head of the Obscurati, not realizing that Margaret Saxby was just small-fry who didn't know what she was talking about. They are convinced that Mona's death vision is the King executing her for knowing too much. [I]>rubs hands together maliciously[/I]. All according to plan!!! Onward to Adventure 4! [ATTACH type="full"]134495[/ATTACH] [SIZE=2]Pictured: Gatria forced to wear a disguise in Adventure 4, probably.[/SIZE] [/QUOTE]
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