Ok, I just kicked off my banewarrens part of my Ptolus campaign last week, and I am looking for some suggestions on how to reveal information to the players
about the banewarrens in a believable and fluent manner.
I brought the players up from level 1, where they learned about Ptolus by going through several of the smaller stories in chapter 33. (Rescued Phon Quartermain, got frustrated with the dead end of who was trying to kill her. Ended up in the warrens and pissed off the crimeboss of the area. After being humiliated, they returned and killed Torridan, and later fell into the next part of the story with the vampire girl, the drug selling crime lord and the demonic watch. After releasing the demon inside Castle Shard, they worked hard to amend themselves and evict the demon, eventually giving the demon to the balacazar crime family in exchange for a friend that was being held hostage. They investigated the rat temples and eventually uncovered a chaos cult that had murdered the inhabitants of a technology church and were posing as priests.
After this, they set to the market to sell thier recent temple acquisitions and ran into the effects of the dark elf monk that kicks off the banewarrens story, and we stopped right after they killed him.
I have quite a few questions that need some shoring up. They have not yet been approached by Jevicca (Inverted Pyramid) or the Church of Lothian (3 PC's belong to the church, cleric, paladin and a enchanter).
I plan on having the city watch question them on the events (including to clear up a few details on some innocents that were killed by the party - the flaming half-orc, the guy shooting lightning bolts and another peasant who tried to escape the monks darkness spell and was cut down as he emerged from the darkness)
Obviously I can use the Church and Jevicca to bring them up to speed and inform them of some of the banewarrens story, and the party can also research at the mage academy and the church library for other facts and details. How much should the initially know? (after the story breaks and the church and inverted pyramid approach them?)
1) What should the general populace and even those who are more informed know about the banewarrens? I have thought I may want to move the events of the actual banes to about 6-7000 years before, or even a little shorter if I can. What does the church and Jevicca or the others know about the true nature of what turned the good cleric into the lord Dread - Esthlathagos Malkith? How much information is known about the true nature of the warrens, and how did they know this?
2) I really dislike the start of the adventure where the elf appears and suddenly the party will obtain information about the manor.... how does this information believably get to them? If the authorities tell them about it, wouldn't it be crawling with guards? How did they find out that this character came into the city from here, and that he escaped from the banewarrens?
3) A small group of the Pactlords of the Quaan somehow are investigating the area after the Broken Seal, and were able to sneak a big minotaur, a Lamia and who knows what else into the city and into the warrens itself.
-What would happen if I beefed up the defenses inside the manor (adding a few more low level non humanoid characters,)and made it apparent that a small group of the Pactlords have been operating out of here for a time? I figure a couple of them could periodically feed the Umber Hulk some sort of kidnapped victim in exchange for digging and added protection. Perhaps this could be a link for the party to investigate the manor after some sort of lead brings them to the manor area in the first place? The manor seems half-hazardly tossed out there in the module, so I was wondering what methods other DMs used to get their parties out to that neck of the woods and to clue into the manor as the point of entry?
I brought the players up from level 1, where they learned about Ptolus by going through several of the smaller stories in chapter 33. (Rescued Phon Quartermain, got frustrated with the dead end of who was trying to kill her. Ended up in the warrens and pissed off the crimeboss of the area. After being humiliated, they returned and killed Torridan, and later fell into the next part of the story with the vampire girl, the drug selling crime lord and the demonic watch. After releasing the demon inside Castle Shard, they worked hard to amend themselves and evict the demon, eventually giving the demon to the balacazar crime family in exchange for a friend that was being held hostage. They investigated the rat temples and eventually uncovered a chaos cult that had murdered the inhabitants of a technology church and were posing as priests.
After this, they set to the market to sell thier recent temple acquisitions and ran into the effects of the dark elf monk that kicks off the banewarrens story, and we stopped right after they killed him.
I have quite a few questions that need some shoring up. They have not yet been approached by Jevicca (Inverted Pyramid) or the Church of Lothian (3 PC's belong to the church, cleric, paladin and a enchanter).
I plan on having the city watch question them on the events (including to clear up a few details on some innocents that were killed by the party - the flaming half-orc, the guy shooting lightning bolts and another peasant who tried to escape the monks darkness spell and was cut down as he emerged from the darkness)
Obviously I can use the Church and Jevicca to bring them up to speed and inform them of some of the banewarrens story, and the party can also research at the mage academy and the church library for other facts and details. How much should the initially know? (after the story breaks and the church and inverted pyramid approach them?)
1) What should the general populace and even those who are more informed know about the banewarrens? I have thought I may want to move the events of the actual banes to about 6-7000 years before, or even a little shorter if I can. What does the church and Jevicca or the others know about the true nature of what turned the good cleric into the lord Dread - Esthlathagos Malkith? How much information is known about the true nature of the warrens, and how did they know this?
2) I really dislike the start of the adventure where the elf appears and suddenly the party will obtain information about the manor.... how does this information believably get to them? If the authorities tell them about it, wouldn't it be crawling with guards? How did they find out that this character came into the city from here, and that he escaped from the banewarrens?
3) A small group of the Pactlords of the Quaan somehow are investigating the area after the Broken Seal, and were able to sneak a big minotaur, a Lamia and who knows what else into the city and into the warrens itself.
-What would happen if I beefed up the defenses inside the manor (adding a few more low level non humanoid characters,)and made it apparent that a small group of the Pactlords have been operating out of here for a time? I figure a couple of them could periodically feed the Umber Hulk some sort of kidnapped victim in exchange for digging and added protection. Perhaps this could be a link for the party to investigate the manor after some sort of lead brings them to the manor area in the first place? The manor seems half-hazardly tossed out there in the module, so I was wondering what methods other DMs used to get their parties out to that neck of the woods and to clue into the manor as the point of entry?
