DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 47C: Home Suite Home

Several hours into Ranthir’s candlelit researches, something sinister slithered under the door. Ranthir, intent on the strange intricacies of technomancy, noticed it not as it slipped across the room and attached itself to Tee.

Its first touch was so gentle that Tee didn’t even feel it. And when its voracious, lamprey-like mouths fastened onto multiple points along her spine it was too late… it had taken control of her body. As it drained her lifeblood, she twitched violently on the bed.

Ranthir, unfortunately, remained oblivious.

In The Art of Pacing, I talked about bangs, which are the big, explosive moments that launch scenes. Bangs come in a lot of different forms, and they can be prepped and discovered through play in a lot of different ways. One way that I use them is as a timeline of bangs, a list of events in my campaign status document that are going to happen in the PCs’ future. In practice, these bangs aren’t fully formed — “they’re more like bullets waiting to be fired. When the moment arrives, the actual bang will be customized to the circumstances of the PCs.”

The spineseeker which attacks in this session is an example of what these bangs look like in practice. Here’s how it appeared in the campaign status document:

2. TILAXIC ASSASSIN (9/25/790)

• The cultists summon a tilaxic, one of the Elder Brood.
• Tilaxic (Spineseeker, Book of Fiends 2, p. 58)
• Saavia (from NOD1; she has more levels and Pythoness House biocrystal breastplates)

Let’s break this down a bit.

First, this entry is #2 because it appears on a prep sheet titled “Laurea’s Doom.” This sheet contained multiple responses I planned for the cultists to take after they identified Tee as being “Laurea” (who had infiltrated their ranks and attacked the Temple of Deep Chaos, back in sessions 27 and 33, respectively).

I prepped this sheet as I was getting ready for Session 39, and then added the following entries to my master Event List:

9/22/790 (Evening): Chaos cultists identify Tee as being “Laurea.” They attack the Ghostly Minstel. (Laurea’s Doom)

9/25/790: Cultists send Tilaxic Assassin. (Laurea’s Doom)

9/28/790: Arveth uses Dais of Vengeance on Tee. (Laurea’s Doom)

These would have been interspersed with a bunch of other upcoming events.

Note the “(Laurea’s Doom)” reference, which reminds me to reference the prep sheet for these events. Not every event is supported by a full prep sheet, only those that require enough that they would clutter up the Event List. In this case, the prep sheet included a state block for Saavia.

The spineseeker is taken, as noted, from The Book of Fiends, a monster supplement published by Green Ronin. (I’ve talked previously about looting bestiaries for my campaign prep.) I’m fairly certain that I created the “tilaxic” species name.

The reference to the “Pythoness House biocrystal breastplate” because it’s one of the items taken by Wuntad and the other chaos cultists when they ambushed the PCs in Session 23. A good example how you can take a bunch of different loose threads and tie them all together to set up a new situation.

USING THE BANG

As I mentioned before, the bang is incomplete. It needs to be plugged into the specific context of the game session to turn it into an actual scene.

What I know is that:

• There is a spineseeker, which is being handled by Saavia.
• At some point on the 25^th of Kadal they’re going to try to assassinate Tee.

And that’s basically it. At the time I slotted this bang in to my campaign status document, these events are still days away. I have no idea where the PCs will be or what they’ll be doing on that date.

So when the 25^th rolls around, I’m looking at the list of current bangs on my campaign status document — of which this is only one — and I’m keeping my eyes open for any moment during play in which the bangs could be useful to

• escalate the action;
• fill a dead spot;
• logically happen;
• or basically anything else that makes me say “oh! let’s do it!’

There are limitations to this, of course. For example, the spineseeker won’t show up in the Banewarrens because the chaos cultists don’t know about the Banewarrens. So if the PCs, for example, spent the entire day of the 25^th in the Banewarrens, then this bang probably wouldn’t happen. (Although perhaps I might trigger it offscreen and the PCs might return to the Ghostly Minstrel to discover that there have been some strange deaths on the premises in their absence.)

Other bangs might be more restricted in time or place or circumstance (or they might be less so). Regardless, if the right moment arrives, I’ll use the bang (crossing it off on my campaign status document). And if it doesn’t, then that bang goes back in the bandolier (or simply gets deleted if it’s no longer relevant or useful).

In this case, getting ambushed at the Ghostly Minstrel was probably always the most likely use for the bang. But that can still leave a lot of questions that can only be answered in the moment: Who’s asleep? Who’s awake? Where are they? What time is it? And so forth.

So there’s a bunch of variables that can, literally, be in play here. But, in practice, it’s really pretty simple: You look for the moment where the bang makes sense. You combine you prep with the given circumstances of what’s happening in the campaign at that moment. You pull the trigger and frame up the scene.

The bang itself often requires very little prep, because the alchemy of the table will supply you with all the rich context you need to bring it to life.

Campaign Journal: Session 48A – Running the Campaign: TBD
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 47C: HOME SUITE HOME

December 26th, 2009
The 25th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

They started towards the Temple District with the crates, intending to dispose of the chaositech as quickly as possible. But on the way, Ranthir convinced the others to let him take the crates back to the Ghostly Minstrel so that he could study them: He was fascinated by what he had read of the technomantic arts of chaositech in some of the lorebooks they had recovered from the cultists and wanted to apply those skills with actual examples of the same. Moreover, even if the material proved useless to them (due to its taint), knowing exactly what these items were capable of might give them some clue as to how the cultists had intended to use them.

When they returned to the Ghostly Minstrel, they found that their new suite of rooms was almost finished: The window wards hadn’t been raised, the secret door leading from the false front room to their actual quarters wasn’t completed, and the reinforced inner door between their quarters wasn’t installed yet, but the rooms themselves were livable and it was clear the work would be easily finished on the morrow.

Ranthir set up his research area in the outer room of the suite (with Tee sleeping on a nearby bed to help keep a watch on the crates). Agnarr, for similar reasons, took Seeaeti to one of the beds in the next room. The others, however, scattered to their old rooms.

Ranthir used several spells to examine the various items in the crates, trying to intuit their purpose. He succeeded with none of them, although he was able to determine that the filigreed manacles could be activated by stroking the oblong device attached to them and the small silver balls could be twisted around their circumference. He also recognized the cord-and-plug attached to the noduled harness as being similar to the one they had found plugged into Shilukar’s neck, suggesting some sort of physio-mental control.

He also discovered, much to his own disquiet, that the floating brain would follow the person closest to it. (On the other hand, it seemed harmless.)

THE SPINESEEKER

Several hours into Ranthir’s candlelit researches, something sinister slithered under the door. Ranthir, intent on the strange intricacies of technomancy, noticed it not as it slipped across the room and attached itself to Tee.

Its first touch was so gentle that Tee didn’t even feel it. And when its voracious, lamprey-like mouths fastened onto multiple points along her spine it was too late… it had taken control of her body. As it drained her lifeblood, she twitched violently on the bed.

Ranthir, unfortunately, remained oblivious.

Tee, waking to find herself trapped in what felt like an endless life-or-death struggle for the control of her own body, felt the creature take her to the very cusp of death before she finally managed to seize a moment of self-control.

“It’s biting me! On the back of my neck! It’s controlling me and I don’t—“

The creature re-asserted its vice-like grip over her body. Tee’s mouth snapped shut.

Ranthir called out for Agnarr while backing nervously away from Tee, who rose from the bed and headed towards the door. Agnarr snorted himself awake and came into the outer room. “What’s wrong?”

“Tee’s acting strangely.”

By this time Tee had reached the door. As she opened it, Agnarr crossed to her. “Tee? What’s wrong?”

Tee smiled up at him. “Nothing’s wrong.”

But something was definitely wrong… She was being way too nice to Agnarr.

Agnarr shared a moment of befuddlement with Ranthir as Tee turned and walked out the door. Ranthir, at a loss for anything else to do, cast a web into the hall – filling it from side-to-side and stopping her from leaving.

But Tee’s reflexes seemed undimmed by her possession. She lithely avoided the worst of the webs and started making her way determinedly through the rest of them. Halfway through the process, however, she managed to wrench control away from the spineseeking demonic worm on her back a second time: “It’s on my back! It’s taken control of my mind! Help me!”

Agnarr, finally figuring out exactly what was happening (and perhaps truly waking up for the first time), used his flaming greatsword to rapidly burn his way through the web towards her.

As the thing tried to regain its control over Tee, Tee reached up, grabbed ahold of its slippery length, and tore it free. She got her first true look at the gruesome creature: A snake-like body covered with the chitinous hide of a scorpion; hundreds of skittering, insectoid legs; and three lamprey-like mouths.

It slipped through the thick strands of the web easily. Agnarr, coming up alongside Tee, swung at the creature, but his blade scarcely scratched its resilient, segmented carapace and the flame seemed to be sucked away in a snare of energy emanating from its radiating spines.

The spineseeker leapt at Tee’s face and its three dorsal mouths raked huge holes in her chest as it scrabbled across her body. Tee – already badly weakened from its possession – collapsed from the excruciating pain.

As the creature dropped away from Tee’s limp form, it suddenly split into a half dozen duplicates. There was a moment of panic at the thought of so many body-snatchers, but Ranthir recognized the illusion for what it was, shouting out, “Mirror image! They’re not real!”

The shouting and sounds of combat, meanwhile, had awoken Elestra and Tor. (Nasira, on the other hand, was far too comfortable in her bed.) While they began scrambling out of their beds, however, someone else had also been alerted: The door at the end of the hall was thrown open and a large drakken woman stepped through. They recognized her as one of the chaos cultists who had ambushed them at Pythoness House, although now she wore blue-mauve crystalline armor.

“Grab her pouch!” the drakken shouted, drawing her sword and advancing.

Ranthir summoned multiple magical missiles to sweep away the spineseeker’s mirror images, while Agnarr launched an assault to beat it back from Tee’s unconscious form. As Elestra opened her door, the creature made a break for it – having failed to secure Tee’s bag of holding.

(Nasira continued sleeping peacefully in luxurious dreams.)

Tor ripped open his door (which had been held shut by the webs) and started chopping his way through them. He felt particularly vulnerable in his lack of armor, which he hadn’t taken the time to don. And when he engaged the drakken he was particularly frustrated to find that her armor was absorbing the impacts of his blade by crumbling away to dust… and then instantly regrowing to repair the damage.

Tor was still half-entangled in the web, however, so the drakken simply backed away and began peppering him with shots from her bow. Agnarr, similarly caught in Ranthir’s web, was also trying to reach her when Ranthir managed to strike him with the familiar spell of growth. As Agnarr rapidly grew to twice his normal size, he ripped free of the webs. The drakken, suddenly finding herself within Agnarr’s reach, didn’t even have a chance to backpedal (or react in any way) before the barbarian’s sword had torn her in half.

But now a quagmire of sorts erupted in the torn remnants at the heart of Ranthir’s web: The spineseeker was ferocious; its demonic, chitinous hide almost impossible to harm. Even the mighty blows of Tor and Agnarr only seemed to deflect harmlessly away. And to make matters worse, it constantly churned out illusionary duplicates of itself and wrapped all of its forms into confusing displacement effects.

Hoping for additional reinforcements, Elestra sent her homonculus to awaken Nasira. But she was forced to call it back again only moments later when the spineseeker, seizing the opportunity of her weakened defenses, leapt at her in an effort to possess her. Elestra rapidly backpedaled, but still suffered deep wounds up the length of her arms as the creature’s claw-like legs and dorsal mouths ripped away at her flesh.

Nasira, however, had finally been roused. Unfortunately, when she opened the door she couldn’t get through the thick webs. Ranthir was forced to burn them away with a wave of magical fire (which also left scorch marks on the wall of the hall).

While Tor, Agnarr, and Elestra’s homonculus continued pounding away at the spineseeker (Tor having circled to take Elestra’s place in blocking its potential escape through the window), Nasira finally managed to reach the side of Tee (who was rapidly bleeding out). With a burst of holy energy she healed Tee, who went to check on the body of the drakken. She confirmed that it was dead (and unlikely to be sneaking away in the confusion).

In a final, desperate bid for freedom, the spineseeker leapt for the back of Tor’s exposed neck. Although Agnarr’s blade caught it in mid-air (slicing off a section of its tail), the spineseeker latched onto Tor’s neck and took control of the knight’s body. Agnarr suddenly found himself facing the body of his friend. He was unwilling to inflict mortal wounds, but uncertain what other choice he had.

Agnarr was just about to abandon his defensive posture and launch a (regrettably mortal) assault, when Tor managed to free himself from the spineseeker’s control. The spineseeker tried to leap to Agnarr’s body—

And that proved its undoing. The barbarian thrust it away and then beat it repeatedly with his greatsword. Finally caught unprepared and in the open, the spineseeker was segmented into parts as Agnarr forced his blade into the chinks they had opened in its devilishly hard chitin.

MISMATCHED CORPSE LOOTING

Agnarr joked about taking the spineseeker to a taxidermist and then hanging it in their room. (At least, the others hoped he was joking. Particularly since they were going to be sharing rooms now and Nasira was convinced it would give her endless nightmares.)

Tee searched the drakken’s body. Then she searched her room. While all of her equipment was of the highest quality (and some of it of considerable interest, like the crystalline armor) the room had been professionally stripped down and the drakken carried no identification of any kind. (The crystalline armor itself proved to be non-magical, leading Ranthir to conclude that it might be some sort of chaositech. They stuck it in one of the crates from Mahdoth’s.)

Tee suspected – hearing from the others about the drakken’s interest in her bag of holding – that they had been sent by Wuntad to retrieve the golden key from Pythoness House. In the morning, however, they would know more: Elestra would call upon the Spirit of the City and speak with the dead.

Running the Campaign: Inserting Bangs – Campaign Journal: Session 48A
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 47B: Children of Mrathrach

Mahdoth rotated towards them. “I’m going to release you now.”

And he did.

The artificial high of ebullient friendship fled from them, but not the memory of what they had experienced.

Mahdoth asked for their assistance in mounting a defense against whatever was coming. “Since I seem to find myself rather short-handed this evening.”

Games like D&D, Numenera, and Shadowrun have bestiaries filled with strange critters. The best of these will be filled with clever and creative lore that will inspire countless adventures and help you bring the creatures to vivid life at the gaming table. But what’s also important is that each creature is a little dollop of mechanical novelty.

It’s one of the ways in which fantastical games can be easier to run than games set strictly in the real world: Once you’ve introduced those fantastical elements, it becomes a lot easier to mechanically distinguish opponents — for a dragon to be different from a beholder which is different from a rust monster which is different than a black pudding. And that mechanical distinction, in turns, helps to keep combat-oriented play varied and fresh.

For this very reason, of course, these bestiaries are primarily designed to give GMs opponents that they can funnel into combat encounters: Take monster. Plug into combat system. Out pops 15 to 45 minutes of fun.

But here’s the secret: The same dollop of mechanical novelty that makes a creature a unique opponent can also mix things up and provide a breath of fresh air for the players. All you need to do is give the PCs an opportunity to fight with monsters at their side, whether that’s

• taming exotic pets,
• recruiting fantastical hirelings,
• forming a temporary alliance with a beholder, or
• having one of the PCs magically transformed into a harpy.

Not every monster, of course, will be appropriate or effective as a constant companion or permanent fixture in the party. (At least, not in every campaign.) But for a single fight or short-term alliance? You can have success with literally any monster, as long as the circumstances are right.

When a monster has joined the party, one option to consider is letting one of the players actually run the monster. (At least during fight scenes, if not otherwise.) It’s another nice twist and really mixes things up for the players. It can also be used to let players who PCs aren’t in the current fight scene still participate.

To make this work smoothly, thought, you need to make sure that the monster’s stat block is (a) in a format you can easily hand over (i.e., a separate sheet or paper or digital handout) and (b) organized in a way that will make the creature easy to pick up and start playing immediately. (It’s surprising how many games feature stat blocks that are opaque and difficult to use. If you’re planning to do this, you may need to, for example, prep a cheat sheet for the monster’s spells or abilities so that the player won’t need to look them up, possibly in books they don’t own.)

Ultimately, variety is the spice of life. And the best way to keep things fresh is often to shuffle these monstrous wonders along so that they don’t become commonplace or standard operating procedure.

The best part, though, is that once your players start thinking of the “monsters” of your campaign setting as a recruitable resource, you won’t have to set up these situations. You’ll just have to follow your players’ lead.

Campaign Journal: Session 47C – Running the Campaign: Inserting Bangs
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 47B: CHILDREN OF MRATHRACH

December 26th, 2009
The 25th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

Mahdoth rotated towards them. “I’m going to release you now.”

And he did.

The artificial high of ebullient friendship fled from them, but not the memory of what they had experienced.

Mahdoth asked for their assistance in mounting a defense against whatever was coming. “Since I seem to find myself rather short-handed this evening.”

They readily agreed. Elestra was still extremely paranoid (trying to figure out some way that Urak could think he had been suborned while Mahdoth was actually still calling the shots), but the others were quick to point out that he had released Agnarr, Tee, Tor, and Ranthir… even though he didn’t need to do that.

It turned out that the unused door Tee had spotted at the far end of the western cells actually led to the caverns. Mahdoth explained that an expansion of the asylum had broken into a section of the natural caverns beneath Ptolus. The caverns had never been properly explored, but when they became a perpetual source of random dangers, Mahdoth simply had them sealed off.

Mahdoth proposed that he would wait for the cultists upstairs while they kept a watch on the door down here. They thought that was a grand idea (particularly Elestra), and their only concern was the lack of any means of proper communication. To solve this problem, Ranthir went upstairs with Mahdoth to cast an alarm spell that Mahdoth could enter if he needed their help. Conversely, if they needed Mahdoth’s help it would be trivial for Elestra to send her homunculus up through the floor to fetch him.

Before they parted, Mahdoth grabbed the amulet that Urak had worn and gave it to Ranthir. It would allow him to punch through the suppression field with his spells.

UPSTAIRS WITH MAHDOTH

The minutes ticked past with tense expectation. They were drawing near the midnight hour—

Mahdoth floated through the door, carrying with him a statue depicting one of the goat-headed demons they had met in Pythoness House. They quickly realized that this was the only remnant of the battle that had been fought upstairs.

Mahdoth quickly related what had happened: When the knock came at the upper door, the beholder had opened it to discover the demon, two ratbrutes, and a dozen or so ratlings amassed outside. Leveling one of his eyestalks, he had instantly turned the demon into a statue. In the same moment, he had put one of the ratbrutes to sleep and disintegrated the other.

At the sight, the other ratlings had panicked and fled. He killed the ratbrute, plucked from its body a letter, and then dusted it. Then he grabbed the demon-statue and brought it downstairs.

Tor, upon hearing the story, bowed his head. “I apologize. We had absolutely no business trying to come in here and kill you.

“Yes,” Mahdoth said. “Quite.”

ILLADRAS’ PROMISSORY NOTE

Salcabot—

Your information regarding Silion’s last communion with the Black Voice is, indeed, most valuable. And your mercenary spirit in exploiting it is most commendable in the eyes of Wuntad.

To ensure that no disruption of this most important trade is to be suffered due to the recent and shameful disgraces of the Blooded Knife, Nalfarassik shall accompany you. He shall command the respect of the Children of Mrathrach.

But fear not. I witness the will of Wuntad, and this note shall serve as promissory to such effect, that if your information proves true and the trade continues unabated due to your efforts, we of the Tolling Bell shall support your claims to leadership among the Brothers of the Blooded Knife.

                                                                                Illadras

As Tee finished reading the letter aloud, they took some private joy in learning that the Blooded Knife had been shamed. Then they turned their attention to the second fight that they knew was fast approaching the far side of the locked door before them.

Mahdoth offered them a final briefing: The cells in this block were laced with antimagic. Three of them were currently occupied. None of them should be disturbed.

“What about that passage?” Tee asked, pointing at the narrow way she had noticed before.

“Don’t go down there.”

THE CHILDREN OF MRATHRACH

A chaotic and seemingly senseless knock came at the door.

The spellcasters turned Tee invisible. Ranthir conjured an illusion of the demon answering the door, carefully choreographing it to match Mahdoth’s telekinetic opening of the same.

In the cavern beyond the door they saw a procession of serpent people. Eight of them bore four crates, four more stood guard upon them, and leading them was a larger creature of red eyes and black scales.

The black-scaled serpent hissed something in a sibilant tongue that none of them could understand. Everyone froze for a moment (except for Tee, who slipped quietly through the door).

When the demon failed to respond, it was clear that the serpents were becoming suspicious. Ranthir, realizing that the jig was already up, dropped a fireball into the midst of the serpent’s procession. Tee, who had worked her way into their midst, hit the deck and was narrowly missed by the flames rushing over her head. The serpent people around her, however, were not so lucky. The scent of burning flesh filled the air.

The black-scaled serpent turned to flee, but Mahdoth floated into view and blasted it repeatedly with a coruscating array of beams – the last of which caused it to explode in a fine mist of blood as it collapsed at the far end of the cavern.

As Mahdoth’s rays dropped away, Tor dashed through the door and finished off the rest of the serpent people still trying to reel away from the charcoaled remains of their brethren. Tee had scarcely had a chance to regain her feet and the fight was already over.

Amid the bodies they found a scroll of black parchment. Strange, twisted characters were written upon it in silver ink. Elestra reached out through the ancient knowledge held quiescent within the Spirit of the City and translated the script. And then she cried out in dismay.

BLACK PARCHMENT

Know that the barren serpent savages of the Teeth are not unknown unto the Children of Mrathrach.

Know that we will not deign to meet their kin.

Know that they are no kin to us.

Know that we disdain their foulness.

Know that we scorn the questioning of this “Wulvera” as to such a purpose.

Know that we act only by action of the Voice of All Chaos.

Know that the blood of the slave races must be paid.

Know that we do not forget our labor.

Know that we do not forget the great labor to be done.

The four crates, for better or for worse, remained largely undamaged by Ranthir’s fireball. At Tee’s direction, Agnarr began wrenching them open:

The first contained some sort of strange, semi-organic foam – as if some terrible living entity had grown to fill the box like a swollen tumor.

The second had a suit of plate armor that was heavily insulated with a silvery fabric. The exterior of the armor was filigreed with copper and a number of iron antennae – some large and some small – jutted out from it at odd, almost disturbing angles; jagging this way and that in a chaotic fashion.

The third contained several items – two pairs of manacles made of intricately etched brass attached to a similarly-etched oblong device by a long, rubbery cord; a cocoon-like container of silvery-black metal containing six small, oblong spheres of similar metal; and a large iron collar with five oblong nodules extruding from it in equidistant points along its circumference.

The fourth held sixteen canopic-like jars containing some sort of thick fluid; twelve fluted vials containing a thick, pinkish liquid; and four three-pronged syringes containing a bluish-silver liquid.

The contents were almost certainly chaositech and uniformly disturbing, and it was only at Tee’s great insistence that Agnarr peeled back the semi-organic foam in the first crate to reveal its true contents: A two-foot-long brain trailing a pair of long, spindly, tentacle-like arms ending in complex, grasping clamps. Once freed from the foam, the brain slowly floated up into the air before it was vigorously shoved back into its crate by the barbarian.

Tee turned from watching Agnarr trying to wrestle the brain back into its crate. To Mahdoth she said, “We know where we can dispose of these items safely.”

“Fine,” Mahdoth said. “Take them. I intend to seal this door and use better discretion in finding new help.”

He escorted them back up the stairs. “Two final points,” he said. “First, lock the door behind you. Second… if you are to cross paths with the Pactlords, be wary. They are larger and more dangerous than they appear. And now, good night. Apparently I must arise early to single-handedly attend to all the affairs of this asylum.”

“Well, if you’re in the market for new assistants…” Tee offered.

“The pay is 5 gold a week.”

“Or perhaps not.”

Running the Campaign: Fighting With Monsters – Campaign Journal: Session 47C
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 47A: The Master of Two Servants

Tee babbled something about a letter and the shipment that Wuntad was delivering to Mahdoth. “And since Wuntad is a bad man, we just assumed that you must be—“

“Who the devil is Wuntad?”

“You don’t know who he is?” Tee, in her charmed state, was honestly befuddled. But those in their right wits were beginning to figure it out.

“Let me see this letter,” Mahdoth demanded.

Tee dug it out of her bag of holding. Mahdoth grabbed it with his telekinetic eyestalk and perused it with half a dozen eyes at once.

“Where is that traitorous halfling?”

When the PCs intercepted plans indicating that Mahdoth’s Asylum was being used to smuggle goods for the chaos cultists, they jumped to a conclusion: Mahdoth must be involved!

The assumption was reinforced by what seemed to be corroborating evidence: Mahdoth had been rude and secretive when they met him previously. More importantly, he was wearing a Pactlords’ ring, and they knew that the Pactlords were bad guys. This, in turn, caused even more conclusions to come spilling out: If Mahdoth was one of the Pactlords and he was helping the chaos cultists, then there must be a connection between the Pactlords and the chaos cultists. Maybe that double agent of the Pactlords they’d found embedded among the chaos cultists of the Old City hadn’t been a double agent after all; or maybe she’d just been scouting out the cultists for a potential alliance!

As we’ve now seen, none of this is actually true: The smuggling at Mahdoth’s was being coordinated by his corrupt staff members and has nothing to do with Mahdoth being a former member of the Pactlords. (Mahdoth is actually completely reformed and no longer has any contact with the Pactlords.)

When the PCs went haring off along this false trail, I remember being gobsmacked. It had not occurred to me that they would jump to the conclusion that Mahdoth was responsible, nor double and triple down on a course of action that would see them going toe-to-toe with a beholder.

(When I talk about not needing to prep red herrings for adventures, this is what I’m talking about.)

I also kept expecting them to course correct. (For example, by questioning Zairic or some of the other cultists involved.) In fact, the players had almost talked themselves out of precipitous action by the end of Session 46, but by the time we’d reconvened for Session 47, they’d worked their way back to, “Mahdoth must die!”

At no point, however, did I feel the need to correct the players in their mistake or somehow “fix” what was going on. This is because nothing was broken.

As long as the PCs are moving forward and with purpose, it doesn’t matter if they’re doing so due to a misapprehension: I had prepped a situation (in which chaos cultists pick up shipments of chaositech from Children of Mrathrach at Mahdoth’s Asylum) and the PCs’ actions were driving them to engage more and more deeply with that situation. Was that engagement different than I’d expected? Sure, and if I’d prepped a plot that might have been a problem.

THE REVERSAL

When running a situation-based scenario, in fact, these kinds of false assumptions are often desirable. They provide a completely organic, but dramatically satisfying reversal when the truth comes out.

A reversal, you see, is that moment when everything you think you know about a story is suddenly turned on its head: The private detective has been framed by the dame who hired him. The “CIA agent” who recruited the PCs was actually working for the bad guys. You thought you came to assassinate a beholder, but it turns out you’re actually here to help the beholder layoff some troublesome staff members.

There are techniques you can use to prep reversals, but they can be tricky to pull off in a satisfying way. Even when you do pull it off, the players will know you pulled a fast one on them, even if they appreciate the moment. But when the players know that they duped themselves? When they completely own the false assumptions?

That’s pure gold.

That’s a dramatic beat that lands and lands hard.

Or, alternatively, if the PCs finish the scenario without ever figuring out their mistake, it will likely generate all kinds of delightful complications and blowback for them to deal with later: Imagine if they had killed Mahodth and left the asylum completely unsupervised! What might the consequences have been?

Campaign Journal: Session 47B – Running the Campaign: Fighting With Monsters
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index