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Mission to improve Mission to the Monastery of Two Winds
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<blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 8799053" data-attributes="member: 63"><p>If you think of WotBS as having three acts of four adventures each, act one’s climax is thwarting the advance of Ragesia in Dassen.</p><p></p><p>Mission is the start of act two. The overall thrust of this act is retrieving the Torch and using it to strike the Koren Obelisk, your first real attack into Ragesian territory. That climax involves the big reveal of The Tempest, so we want to set that up. Also, after the appearance of Madness in adventure 4, you want to give the players a sense of what the <em>point </em>of the trillith is, and why they keep popping up. (Namely, they’re linked to the creation of the Torch and are needed to restore it to full power.)</p><p></p><p>Then act three is all about bringing the campaign to a close and winning the war. Pilus sorta falls into the background for adventures 9 and 10 before suddenly betraying the Resistance in 11. You beat him, and all he’s really good for is letting you show off by teleporting an army onto his flying leviathan with the Torch.</p><p></p><p>We can do better.</p><p></p><p><strong>Working with a Bond Villain</strong></p><p></p><p>There are five plot beats I want for Pilus in this rewrite.</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Adventure 5.</strong> At his monastery he’s enigmatic and charming, untrusting of outsiders but a potential ally against Ragesia. Environmental storytelling gets you info about his backstory and motivation. You either get his support or steal an orb of storms. Either way, you reach Korstull in adventure six.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Adventure 8.</strong> The Tempest breaks the defenses of the Koren Obelisk. After the end of the adventure, he offers you a ride out of Ragesian territory, so you can get to know him better, and to set up some key locations that the party will return to in adventure 11. You also get to meet some named underling/apprentice/etc. You hopefully realize Pilus is not being 100% straight with you.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Adventure 9.</strong> During this adventure, the Tempest isn’t useful because you don’t want to cause civilian casualties by blasting Gate Pass, so Pilus agrees to use his ship as a distraction. He’ll hit military targets around southern Ragesia, creating the impression that the plan is to attack north through the Alydi Gap, which will distract Leska’s attention away from Gate Pass. However, some west wind monks help the Resistance in the city, acting as flying scouts. And at the adventure climax, his brother Longinus is at the square when the colossus comes alive. You get a chance to hear his side, specifically that Pilus always needs to be reined in, but that Longinus hopes this cooperation will blunt Pilus’s nationalist fervor.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Adventure Ten.</strong> When divinations show that it’ll be necessary to fly in Trilla’s dreamscape, Longinus accompanies the party. And you try like hell to kill him. Heck, have Deception show up and pose as some other NPC ally and gank Longinus. Have the trillith suck his soul or something so he can’t get resurrected.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Adventure Eleven.</strong> The party gets back from the dreamscape and discovers Pilus has loaded up the Tempest with Ostalin’s army and a bunch of his biomanced warbeasts, and he’s hovering over Seaquen. He’s also alerted the authorities that if they resist, he’ll open the fire portal under the city and destroy it.<br /> <br /> He intends to put Seaquen under military occupation. He’s not looking to destroy it (unless, like, his brother died, in which case he may lose his temper), just use it as leverage to demand the PCs give Onamdammin the Torch, and that Seaquen yield to Ostalin’s authority.<br /> <br /> But does it really make sense of Pilus to do this ‘sudden but inevitable’ betrayal?<br /> <br /> That’s when you have Crystin or someone reveal that Leska’s using the magic of the Aquiline Heart to lay a curse on the land, compelling Pilus to go to war. Hopefully you’ve learned enough from his brother to talk him down; otherwise, you have a grand showdown on the bridge of his flying leviathan. One way or another, this shows the threat Leska poses as the ultimate big bad; you must stop her in adventure 12, or eventually everyone will turn on everyone, and war will be unending.</li> </ul><p>But that’s the big picture of Pilus’s role in the campaign. How do we improve Mission to lay the groundwork for that?</p><p></p><p>Well, I’ll have to write that post tomorrow.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="RangerWickett, post: 8799053, member: 63"] If you think of WotBS as having three acts of four adventures each, act one’s climax is thwarting the advance of Ragesia in Dassen. Mission is the start of act two. The overall thrust of this act is retrieving the Torch and using it to strike the Koren Obelisk, your first real attack into Ragesian territory. That climax involves the big reveal of The Tempest, so we want to set that up. Also, after the appearance of Madness in adventure 4, you want to give the players a sense of what the [I]point [/I]of the trillith is, and why they keep popping up. (Namely, they’re linked to the creation of the Torch and are needed to restore it to full power.) Then act three is all about bringing the campaign to a close and winning the war. Pilus sorta falls into the background for adventures 9 and 10 before suddenly betraying the Resistance in 11. You beat him, and all he’s really good for is letting you show off by teleporting an army onto his flying leviathan with the Torch. We can do better. [B]Working with a Bond Villain[/B] There are five plot beats I want for Pilus in this rewrite. [LIST] [*][B]Adventure 5.[/B] At his monastery he’s enigmatic and charming, untrusting of outsiders but a potential ally against Ragesia. Environmental storytelling gets you info about his backstory and motivation. You either get his support or steal an orb of storms. Either way, you reach Korstull in adventure six. [*][B]Adventure 8.[/B] The Tempest breaks the defenses of the Koren Obelisk. After the end of the adventure, he offers you a ride out of Ragesian territory, so you can get to know him better, and to set up some key locations that the party will return to in adventure 11. You also get to meet some named underling/apprentice/etc. You hopefully realize Pilus is not being 100% straight with you. [*][B]Adventure 9.[/B] During this adventure, the Tempest isn’t useful because you don’t want to cause civilian casualties by blasting Gate Pass, so Pilus agrees to use his ship as a distraction. He’ll hit military targets around southern Ragesia, creating the impression that the plan is to attack north through the Alydi Gap, which will distract Leska’s attention away from Gate Pass. However, some west wind monks help the Resistance in the city, acting as flying scouts. And at the adventure climax, his brother Longinus is at the square when the colossus comes alive. You get a chance to hear his side, specifically that Pilus always needs to be reined in, but that Longinus hopes this cooperation will blunt Pilus’s nationalist fervor. [*][B]Adventure Ten.[/B] When divinations show that it’ll be necessary to fly in Trilla’s dreamscape, Longinus accompanies the party. And you try like hell to kill him. Heck, have Deception show up and pose as some other NPC ally and gank Longinus. Have the trillith suck his soul or something so he can’t get resurrected. [*][B]Adventure Eleven.[/B] The party gets back from the dreamscape and discovers Pilus has loaded up the Tempest with Ostalin’s army and a bunch of his biomanced warbeasts, and he’s hovering over Seaquen. He’s also alerted the authorities that if they resist, he’ll open the fire portal under the city and destroy it. He intends to put Seaquen under military occupation. He’s not looking to destroy it (unless, like, his brother died, in which case he may lose his temper), just use it as leverage to demand the PCs give Onamdammin the Torch, and that Seaquen yield to Ostalin’s authority. But does it really make sense of Pilus to do this ‘sudden but inevitable’ betrayal? That’s when you have Crystin or someone reveal that Leska’s using the magic of the Aquiline Heart to lay a curse on the land, compelling Pilus to go to war. Hopefully you’ve learned enough from his brother to talk him down; otherwise, you have a grand showdown on the bridge of his flying leviathan. One way or another, this shows the threat Leska poses as the ultimate big bad; you must stop her in adventure 12, or eventually everyone will turn on everyone, and war will be unending. [/LIST] But that’s the big picture of Pilus’s role in the campaign. How do we improve Mission to lay the groundwork for that? Well, I’ll have to write that post tomorrow. [/QUOTE]
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