Random tour of the demiplane! (Grand C help...)
-
Spiteful Crow
- Evil Genius
- Posts: 472
- Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2006 8:46 pm
- Location: Illinois
- Contact:
-
Garudos Celestar
- Evil Genius
- Posts: 279
- Joined: Sat Jun 10, 2006 1:51 pm
- Location: United States
The catch with the Dilisnya assassins is that they weren't incorporated into the wedding saga until after From the Shadows was released (FtS was in 1992; I, Strahd came out in 1993.) Basically, they weren't included in the adventure because the game designers didn't yet know they were part of the story.Spiteful Crow wrote:Also, didn't the Dilisnyas kill most of the people at Sergei's wedding? Would it be more historically accurate if I had the Dilisnya goons come in and start killing party guests and then have Strahd burst in a bit later?
I personally think they make a great addition to the storyline and should be included. After all, if one is updating the adventure to 3E/3.5 anyway, might as well take a few minutes to design the stats for a couple of extra assassins.
[i]"I too have begun to wonder about the legendary wisdom of our guardian angel and his pet rock."
~ Evee Beiderbecke[/i]
~ Evee Beiderbecke[/i]
-
Spiteful Crow
- Evil Genius
- Posts: 472
- Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2006 8:46 pm
- Location: Illinois
- Contact:
That's pretty much how I remember it, yes. The ringleader was Leo Dilisnya, and you could easily work in a few characters from I, Strahd. Gunther Gosco, Lavinia Buchwald, and perhaps even High Priestess Ilona could make appearances.
If you believe I, Strahd (and bear in mind its authorial bias), Strahd kills Sergei on the balcony and then goes to seduce Tatyana in the courtyard. At that time, Dilisnya and his men, disguised as Strahd's guards, start to murder key loyalist guard leaders and imprisoning them in storerooms and chambers. Mist surrounds the area, masking Strahd and traitors alike.
Strahd's lieutenant tries to warn him, drawing a curse (thought out? or spoken aloud?) and Tatyana comes to her senses. That's when she throws herself off the parapet, and Dilisnya and his men corner Strahd there and cut him down with arrow fire.
Strahd comes to in a storage room with a very young Lavinia, a near-dead Gunther, and Ilona and others. He overcomes the guard and then begins his rampage from there.
If you were to follow I, Strahd fully, then Dilisnya and all his men kill most of the guests. Strahd comes to and eliminates the traitors.
Of course, it's likely that the truth lies somewhere in between. Strahd is certainly no longer mortal by the time the wedding should begin, and he may already have the bloodlust on him. In my campaign I had him come out at the same time as the assassins strike. The PCs get stuck in between.
If you believe I, Strahd (and bear in mind its authorial bias), Strahd kills Sergei on the balcony and then goes to seduce Tatyana in the courtyard. At that time, Dilisnya and his men, disguised as Strahd's guards, start to murder key loyalist guard leaders and imprisoning them in storerooms and chambers. Mist surrounds the area, masking Strahd and traitors alike.
Strahd's lieutenant tries to warn him, drawing a curse (thought out? or spoken aloud?) and Tatyana comes to her senses. That's when she throws herself off the parapet, and Dilisnya and his men corner Strahd there and cut him down with arrow fire.
Strahd comes to in a storage room with a very young Lavinia, a near-dead Gunther, and Ilona and others. He overcomes the guard and then begins his rampage from there.
If you were to follow I, Strahd fully, then Dilisnya and all his men kill most of the guests. Strahd comes to and eliminates the traitors.
Of course, it's likely that the truth lies somewhere in between. Strahd is certainly no longer mortal by the time the wedding should begin, and he may already have the bloodlust on him. In my campaign I had him come out at the same time as the assassins strike. The PCs get stuck in between.
-
Spiteful Crow
- Evil Genius
- Posts: 472
- Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2006 8:46 pm
- Location: Illinois
- Contact:
The other instance of time travel that bugs me is in Roots of Evil. Strahd sends the PCs to Azalin to try to persuade him to Wish them back in time to the eve of the battle between Strahd and an enemy warlord. During that battle, Inajira responds to Strahd's summons, and signs a pact with him to aid him in the battle.
Strahd's plan is to sabotage the signing, so that Inajira has no power over Strahd. He doesn't seem to have any plans about how to actually win the battle against the warlord once Inajira's support is negated. Nor does he seem to worry about knock-on effects this might have concerning Inajira's Book of Keeping. It also is not made clear exactly what Inajira gave Strahd in return, nor how the Book falls into Strahd's possession when the deal fails.
All in all, this is an example of an eminently unnecessary encounter which, though fun to play, makes little to no logical sense and in fact courts paradoxical catastrophe by endangering the flow of the space time continuum.
Plus it's a huge risk for Strahd. He has to trust Azalin, as the caster, to take the care in anticipating possible future shocks and avoiding them. Azalin could purposefully arrange for Strahd's future existence to be far worse, or could even try to kill him outright. Or Azalin could make an honest mistake, which could jeopardize the current timeline and could even wipe the pair from history altogether.
Clearly, Strahd ought to leave meddling with the flow of history to the real professionals.
I'd be tempted to cut this encounter out entirely, but if you're set on including it, we need to try to justify it.
1. What is Inajira? Here, he is summoned by Strahd to "help" with a key battle. Bear in mind that this battle is well before Strahd even becomes lord of Barovia... long before he becomes a vampire too. So Inajira may or may not be the "Death" Dark Force that turns Strahd into a vampire - it doesn't matter because that's still in the future. (Personally, I do not count Inajira as being the dark force responsible for corrupting Strahd into a vampire. I prefer to keep that as a shadowy extension of the Dark Powers themselves.) Some people believe Inajira is the dark power that offers Strahd eternal unlife - I dislike this idea because it basically quantifies the forming moment of Ravenloft. "The Demiplane and all its Dark Powers and all its inhabitants were formed by the machinations of a badger-headed interplanar solicitor." I dismiss this notion.
2. What could Strahd gain from the exchange? Well, Strahd's all-consuming passion for Tatyana is still far in the future. He hasn't met her yet, and in fact has never even met his youngest brother, Sergei. So the Right now he is entirely concentrated on victory in the most crucial battle during the unification process of Barovia. (This could likely be the final battle against Darian, the former warlord who controlled Castle Ravenloft. Darian was the last holdout against Strahd's influence, and is briefly described in I, Strahd.)
3. What could Inajira grant him? You don't summon a yugoloth for peanuts. Strahd would want something thoroughly demoralizing or crushing to happen to Darian's host ahead of the battle. One possibility is to have Inajira enlist the help of Night Hags to visit terrible nightmares and night terrors upon Darian's men ahead of the battle.
4. What could Strahd bargain to him? Bear in mind that Strahd himself later becomes trapped in Ravenloft in a hellish torment for eternity. This is not particularly useful to Inajira. So it is probably safe to assume that Inajira A) is not a Dark Power, and B) does not appreciate the Dark Powers' whisking Strahd away. He had other plans for Strahd, which the Dark Powers were strong enough to frustrate.
Perhaps Strahd bargained his soul (the Yugoloths would indeed relish a powerful warrior's soul), or a portion of his state's future rights (perhaps agreeing to secretly host a temple to whomever Inajira dictates... Yugoloths wheel and deal across demons and devils alike, so they'd probably love the chance for the eternal souls of an entire country). Maybe he even bargains away his mojo. Either way, the soul/statutory rights/mojo is compelling enough for Inajira to accept the deal. (Hereafter referred to as the SRM.)
5. BOOK? Somehow, Strahd gets ahold of Inajira's book. This is similar to somebody getting ahold of a samurai's ancestral katana blade or a Jedi's lightsaber, i.e. from his cold dead fingers (usually). How does he do this? I have no satisfactory answer. Perhaps Strahd and his men took it from Inajira by force... which would then raise the question of why Inajira is even bothering to deal with Strahd in the tent. (Such a gross violation of what passes in the Lower Planes for ethics would likely send Inajira into a killing rage.)
The Vampire Strahd is now confident enough of his victory that he feels this meeting with Inajira can be safely disturbed without risking defeat. Why?
Here is what I propose:
Darian's crew is described in I, Strahd, as a desperate lot. Their castle had been under seige for many months. Darian later sallies forth against Strahd, in a move that many saw as being the best of a bad set of possibilities. Strahd beats him fairly conclusively.
Perhaps Strahd in retrospect realizes his enemy was not as powerful as he had feared, and now regrets signing away his soul/statutory rights/mojo to Inajira. Perhaps he feels that, nightmares or no, Darian still was no match for him.
Of course, this is just the sort of deal that Inajira would LOVE to make. Lure a person into bargaining his SRM to overcome an obstacle, only to realize afterwards that the obstacle wasn't that hard to begin with.
Strahd's interference:
This meeting is very important to Strahd. He definitely pledges or sacrifices something vital to Inajira, otherwise he wouldn't bother to go to such desperate lengths (and risk Azalin's interference) to get it. So by interfering, he hopes to prevent Human Strahd from making the pact and from sacrificing the SRM to Inajira.
However, Vampire Strahd still has the Book in his possession afterwards! This means Human Strahd must have somehow gotten hold of Inajira's Book beforehand. Inajira is a highly intelligent Yugoloth and it's largely unthinkable that he lets his treasured Book go unless he's gotten something hefty in exchange from Strahd. But this cannot possibly be the SRM because that's what Strahd is trying to prevent.
This is complicated and I don't have an answer. I would suspect the writers of the adventure may also be hard pressed to provide one. (Of course, they'd be more concerned about "gameplay" and that weird notion of "fun" which I gather designers are probably more worried about than logicians. Which is entirely fair enough.
)
The PCs cannot kill Strahd. If they do, they cause a massive paradox. They also cannot kill Inajira for the same reasons. However, Strahd, Inajira, and the guards DO kill the PCs' host guards.
This is dangerous. Presumably, the guards do not attack Strahd or interrupt the ritual normally. They only do so now because Azalin sent the PCs back to possess them spiritually. These guards may possibly have died in the following day's battle - if so, then history continues largely unchanged.
However, if any of the guards would have survived, perhaps to father a family or to otherwise impact history, then the fact that they are now killed presents a problem. As part of the populace of Barovia, think about the geometric descendants they would have, and how they might fit into post-Ravenloft Barovia. Not a few might be caught and drained by Strahd himself... without these prey humans, he would have to find and kill others. Perhaps one night of hunger isn't too bad for Strahd, but what if he kills somebody vital?
Crafty DMs may want to place the PCs in bodies playing a scripted role which A) disrupts the meeting, while B) not getting themselves killed. A PC could conceivably rush into the meeting with warnings of Darian's spies, or even the Ba'al Verzi. That could disrupt the meeting, while Strahd would examine the disturbance. The PC's possessed body may not be killed for disrupting the ritual, provided that Strahd believes he's fairly trustworthy, or that the threat is believable.
Vampire Strahd can even brief the PCs on what they should say to his human self, to try to prevent Human Strahd from killing them. He'd have to be very careful not to prematurely discover the real Ba'al Verzi assassin(s), but the whole business about Darian's spies could be very believable.
Finally, does anybody else notice that Strahd is portrayed as a straight low-level Necromancer while he's alive? Forget about all the talk of him being a warrior - in Roots of Evil, he's only like a level 4 necromancer, if I recall correctly...
Flying monkeys, as Kargatane.com's Azalin would say.
Strahd's plan is to sabotage the signing, so that Inajira has no power over Strahd. He doesn't seem to have any plans about how to actually win the battle against the warlord once Inajira's support is negated. Nor does he seem to worry about knock-on effects this might have concerning Inajira's Book of Keeping. It also is not made clear exactly what Inajira gave Strahd in return, nor how the Book falls into Strahd's possession when the deal fails.
All in all, this is an example of an eminently unnecessary encounter which, though fun to play, makes little to no logical sense and in fact courts paradoxical catastrophe by endangering the flow of the space time continuum.
Plus it's a huge risk for Strahd. He has to trust Azalin, as the caster, to take the care in anticipating possible future shocks and avoiding them. Azalin could purposefully arrange for Strahd's future existence to be far worse, or could even try to kill him outright. Or Azalin could make an honest mistake, which could jeopardize the current timeline and could even wipe the pair from history altogether.
Clearly, Strahd ought to leave meddling with the flow of history to the real professionals.
I'd be tempted to cut this encounter out entirely, but if you're set on including it, we need to try to justify it.
1. What is Inajira? Here, he is summoned by Strahd to "help" with a key battle. Bear in mind that this battle is well before Strahd even becomes lord of Barovia... long before he becomes a vampire too. So Inajira may or may not be the "Death" Dark Force that turns Strahd into a vampire - it doesn't matter because that's still in the future. (Personally, I do not count Inajira as being the dark force responsible for corrupting Strahd into a vampire. I prefer to keep that as a shadowy extension of the Dark Powers themselves.) Some people believe Inajira is the dark power that offers Strahd eternal unlife - I dislike this idea because it basically quantifies the forming moment of Ravenloft. "The Demiplane and all its Dark Powers and all its inhabitants were formed by the machinations of a badger-headed interplanar solicitor." I dismiss this notion.
2. What could Strahd gain from the exchange? Well, Strahd's all-consuming passion for Tatyana is still far in the future. He hasn't met her yet, and in fact has never even met his youngest brother, Sergei. So the Right now he is entirely concentrated on victory in the most crucial battle during the unification process of Barovia. (This could likely be the final battle against Darian, the former warlord who controlled Castle Ravenloft. Darian was the last holdout against Strahd's influence, and is briefly described in I, Strahd.)
3. What could Inajira grant him? You don't summon a yugoloth for peanuts. Strahd would want something thoroughly demoralizing or crushing to happen to Darian's host ahead of the battle. One possibility is to have Inajira enlist the help of Night Hags to visit terrible nightmares and night terrors upon Darian's men ahead of the battle.
4. What could Strahd bargain to him? Bear in mind that Strahd himself later becomes trapped in Ravenloft in a hellish torment for eternity. This is not particularly useful to Inajira. So it is probably safe to assume that Inajira A) is not a Dark Power, and B) does not appreciate the Dark Powers' whisking Strahd away. He had other plans for Strahd, which the Dark Powers were strong enough to frustrate.
Perhaps Strahd bargained his soul (the Yugoloths would indeed relish a powerful warrior's soul), or a portion of his state's future rights (perhaps agreeing to secretly host a temple to whomever Inajira dictates... Yugoloths wheel and deal across demons and devils alike, so they'd probably love the chance for the eternal souls of an entire country). Maybe he even bargains away his mojo. Either way, the soul/statutory rights/mojo is compelling enough for Inajira to accept the deal. (Hereafter referred to as the SRM.)
5. BOOK? Somehow, Strahd gets ahold of Inajira's book. This is similar to somebody getting ahold of a samurai's ancestral katana blade or a Jedi's lightsaber, i.e. from his cold dead fingers (usually). How does he do this? I have no satisfactory answer. Perhaps Strahd and his men took it from Inajira by force... which would then raise the question of why Inajira is even bothering to deal with Strahd in the tent. (Such a gross violation of what passes in the Lower Planes for ethics would likely send Inajira into a killing rage.)
The Vampire Strahd is now confident enough of his victory that he feels this meeting with Inajira can be safely disturbed without risking defeat. Why?
Here is what I propose:
Darian's crew is described in I, Strahd, as a desperate lot. Their castle had been under seige for many months. Darian later sallies forth against Strahd, in a move that many saw as being the best of a bad set of possibilities. Strahd beats him fairly conclusively.
Perhaps Strahd in retrospect realizes his enemy was not as powerful as he had feared, and now regrets signing away his soul/statutory rights/mojo to Inajira. Perhaps he feels that, nightmares or no, Darian still was no match for him.
Of course, this is just the sort of deal that Inajira would LOVE to make. Lure a person into bargaining his SRM to overcome an obstacle, only to realize afterwards that the obstacle wasn't that hard to begin with.
Strahd's interference:
This meeting is very important to Strahd. He definitely pledges or sacrifices something vital to Inajira, otherwise he wouldn't bother to go to such desperate lengths (and risk Azalin's interference) to get it. So by interfering, he hopes to prevent Human Strahd from making the pact and from sacrificing the SRM to Inajira.
However, Vampire Strahd still has the Book in his possession afterwards! This means Human Strahd must have somehow gotten hold of Inajira's Book beforehand. Inajira is a highly intelligent Yugoloth and it's largely unthinkable that he lets his treasured Book go unless he's gotten something hefty in exchange from Strahd. But this cannot possibly be the SRM because that's what Strahd is trying to prevent.
This is complicated and I don't have an answer. I would suspect the writers of the adventure may also be hard pressed to provide one. (Of course, they'd be more concerned about "gameplay" and that weird notion of "fun" which I gather designers are probably more worried about than logicians. Which is entirely fair enough.
)The PCs cannot kill Strahd. If they do, they cause a massive paradox. They also cannot kill Inajira for the same reasons. However, Strahd, Inajira, and the guards DO kill the PCs' host guards.
This is dangerous. Presumably, the guards do not attack Strahd or interrupt the ritual normally. They only do so now because Azalin sent the PCs back to possess them spiritually. These guards may possibly have died in the following day's battle - if so, then history continues largely unchanged.
However, if any of the guards would have survived, perhaps to father a family or to otherwise impact history, then the fact that they are now killed presents a problem. As part of the populace of Barovia, think about the geometric descendants they would have, and how they might fit into post-Ravenloft Barovia. Not a few might be caught and drained by Strahd himself... without these prey humans, he would have to find and kill others. Perhaps one night of hunger isn't too bad for Strahd, but what if he kills somebody vital?
Crafty DMs may want to place the PCs in bodies playing a scripted role which A) disrupts the meeting, while B) not getting themselves killed. A PC could conceivably rush into the meeting with warnings of Darian's spies, or even the Ba'al Verzi. That could disrupt the meeting, while Strahd would examine the disturbance. The PC's possessed body may not be killed for disrupting the ritual, provided that Strahd believes he's fairly trustworthy, or that the threat is believable.
Vampire Strahd can even brief the PCs on what they should say to his human self, to try to prevent Human Strahd from killing them. He'd have to be very careful not to prematurely discover the real Ba'al Verzi assassin(s), but the whole business about Darian's spies could be very believable.
Finally, does anybody else notice that Strahd is portrayed as a straight low-level Necromancer while he's alive? Forget about all the talk of him being a warrior - in Roots of Evil, he's only like a level 4 necromancer, if I recall correctly...
Flying monkeys, as Kargatane.com's Azalin would say.
-
Spiteful Crow
- Evil Genius
- Posts: 472
- Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2006 8:46 pm
- Location: Illinois
- Contact:
If you need them (and of course I may be sticking my nose where it's not needed, but here goes ) here are a few plot hook suggestions for Web of Illusions in the GC series:
PCs could be there escorting a trade shipment to Sri Raji from the Core. Because Sri Raji is an Island of Terror, a Vistani guide is needed to navigate the Mists.
Who's the trader? It could be somebody smalltime who is running valuable shipments of luxury commodities. Historically, the British East India Company traded in tea, opium, and saltpeter with India, amongst other things. Perhaps the PCs are on a vessel from a Darkonian nobleman of Martira Bay, who is trying to secure some smoke powder base ingredients?
The secret mission could then be that Styrix, the Martira Bay night hag, needs an especially pure sapphire or other gem to power her Rift Spanner, and she wants the PCs to get it for her.
The PCs could have a few smaller adventures (perhaps with no combat involved, and focusing entirely on the wheeling dealings with the various merchants in Sri Raji) before the Vistani goes missing and the borders come down. In order to retrieve their guide and return home, the events with Arijani in "Web of Illusion" then come about.
) here are a few plot hook suggestions for Web of Illusions in the GC series:PCs could be there escorting a trade shipment to Sri Raji from the Core. Because Sri Raji is an Island of Terror, a Vistani guide is needed to navigate the Mists.
Who's the trader? It could be somebody smalltime who is running valuable shipments of luxury commodities. Historically, the British East India Company traded in tea, opium, and saltpeter with India, amongst other things. Perhaps the PCs are on a vessel from a Darkonian nobleman of Martira Bay, who is trying to secure some smoke powder base ingredients?
The secret mission could then be that Styrix, the Martira Bay night hag, needs an especially pure sapphire or other gem to power her Rift Spanner, and she wants the PCs to get it for her.
The PCs could have a few smaller adventures (perhaps with no combat involved, and focusing entirely on the wheeling dealings with the various merchants in Sri Raji) before the Vistani goes missing and the borders come down. In order to retrieve their guide and return home, the events with Arijani in "Web of Illusion" then come about.
-
Rotipher of the FoS
- Thieving Crow
- Posts: 4683
- Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2003 4:18 pm
Not to mention that if Strahd were planning to re-write his own history, he might as well say to heck with all this "vampire darklord" nonsense, and have the PCs arrange for Sergei to get run over by a wagon and killed, a week before the wedding. With his ego, Strahd would probably take it for granted that Tatyana would turn to his former (living) self for comfort in her grief, thus nixing his whole deal with the Dark Powers and erasing four centuries of his own personal misery. Sure, it'd erase all Ravenloft, too, but why would Strahd care?HuManBing wrote:The other instance of time travel that bugs me is in Roots of Evil. Strahd sends the PCs to Azalin to try to persuade him to Wish them back in time to the eve of the battle between Strahd and an enemy warlord. During that battle, Inajira responds to Strahd's summons, and signs a pact with him to aid him in the battle.
Strahd's plan is to sabotage the signing, so that Inajira has no power over Strahd. He doesn't seem to have any plans about how to actually win the battle against the warlord once Inajira's support is negated. Nor does he seem to worry about knock-on effects this might have concerning Inajira's Book of Keeping. It also is not made clear exactly what Inajira gave Strahd in return, nor how the Book falls into Strahd's possession when the deal fails.
All in all, this is an example of an eminently unnecessary encounter which, though fun to play, makes little to no logical sense and in fact courts paradoxical catastrophe by endangering the flow of the space time continuum.
Plus it's a huge risk for Strahd. He has to trust Azalin, as the caster, to take the care in anticipating possible future shocks and avoiding them. Azalin could purposefully arrange for Strahd's future existence to be far worse, or could even try to kill him outright. Or Azalin could make an honest mistake, which could jeopardize the current timeline and could even wipe the pair from history altogether.
Clearly, Strahd ought to leave meddling with the flow of history to the real professionals.
Actually, it's even worse than that. IIRC, pre-vampire Strahd was statted as a 20th level fighter (!) in RoE, yet described as a 5th level wizard (not even specialized) in other products. Granted, the 2E rules made it pretty tough for a human to have two classes back then, so the writers were in a bind to reconcile his spellcasting and his "mighty warrior" rep, but the 20th level RoE stats were all but openly declared to be an excuse for live-Strahd to hold his own against the PCs, should stubborn players insist on attacking him. Just another example of how adventure-plots written solely to get the PCs into interesting confrontations suck, I guess....HuManBing wrote:Finally, does anybody else notice that Strahd is portrayed as a straight low-level Necromancer while he's alive? Forget about all the talk of him being a warrior - in Roots of Evil, he's only like a level 4 necromancer, if I recall correctly...
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow
-
CorvusCornix
- Agent of the Fraternity
- Posts: 74
- Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2005 4:32 am
- Location: Hamburg, Germany
I've still got that one lying around at home, but after I browsed through it some time ago I was quite disappointed. As far as I remember to me the latter (and unfortunately: major) part of it looked like some very bad dungeon crawl, mainly designed to kill every last one of the players. Is it worth the time to give the adventure a second glance? Do you have any recommendations for improvements? Also, have you already created a new rhyme for Hyskosa's hexad?Spiteful Crow wrote:From what I heard, the whole deal with Inajira was only created to cover up for the fact that Web of Illusion wasn't finished on time. (Inajira reversed is Arijani) I'm just going to cut that whole part out and use Web of Illusion as part of the hexad.
-
Lord Cyclohexane
- Evil Genius
- Posts: 512
- Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2006 1:59 pm
- Location: Tanelorn, OH
Just as some ideas to try and grant some consistency...
Of course, that leaves the problem of how Strahd lost those levels if the deal had been disrupted... But this at least gets us half of the way there...
"It’s a long story, but I will tell you some of it. When I was a human general fighting for the freedom of Barovia, I...I suffered from moments of self-doubt. One night, before a particularly hopeless battle, a conjurer came to me with the Book of Keeping and told me that I could achieve easy victory with it. Foolishly, I agreed to use the book. Inajira came, and I agreed to serve his masters if they would grant me the throne of Barovia."
So Strahd wasn't the one to obtain Inajira's Book of Keeping, it was this random conjurer who did. Was this conjurer the "Death" that Strahd would later bargain with?
But as to many of your other points... Yeah, the whole "time travel" idea is a mess. Which, really, isn't a surprise, seeing a "time travel" always creates messes. It would have been better if the whole idea had been left out and the adventure done differently... But whatever. I can't really criticize until I can write something better.
I'd say that he's nothing more than he seems, a yugoloth offering a trade of services for unspecified returns. I also discount the "Inajira = Death" idea, as otherwise Inajira wouldn't be so surprised at Strahd's changes.HuManBing wrote:I'd be tempted to cut this encounter out entirely, but if you're set on including it, we need to try to justify it.
1. What is Inajira?
You answered your own question better than anyone else could. Strahd is entirely focused on reclaiming his homeland of Barovia from the Tergs. It's not surprising, though, as he was the ruling Von Zarovich and so it's a point of pride to reclaim the land.HuManBing wrote:2. What could Strahd gain from the exchange? [...]So the Right now he is entirely concentrated on victory in the most crucial battle during the unification process of Barovia.
Assurance of victory. It need not be specified how Inajira would achieve this for him, as Human Strahd likely would not have thought about that, seeing as he didn't know about things magical at that point in time. Strahd would merely set his request and Inajira must figure a way to uphold his end of the bargain.HuManBing wrote:3. What could Inajira grant him?
Perhaps that can resolve the issue that question by smoothing out Rotipher's note below:HuManBing wrote:4. What could Strahd bargain to him? [...] Perhaps Strahd bargained his soul (the Yugoloths would indeed relish a powerful warrior's soul)...
Strahd could have traded his martial ability as part of his cost to Inajira. After all, after Strahd has successfully regained Barovia, what need does he have of his fighting abilities? And so, after winning the war and reclaiming Barovia but before moving into Castle Ravenloft (pre-"I, Strahd"), Inajira could have stopped by for the first installment of Strahd's payments. I figure demons/devils/yugoloths should have the ability to drain a *portion* of someone's life essence and need not take the entirety of it. This would then explain why Strahd is no longer a 20th level fighter but is instead a 5th level wizard.Rotipher wrote:IIRC, pre-vampire Strahd was statted as a 20th level fighter (!) in RoE, yet described as a 5th level wizard (not even specialized) in other products. Granted, the 2E rules made it pretty tough for a human to have two classes back then, so the writers were in a bind to reconcile his spellcasting and his "mighty warrior" rep...
Of course, that leaves the problem of how Strahd lost those levels if the deal had been disrupted... But this at least gets us half of the way there...
It says it in Roots of Evil, during the Q&A session with Strahd before heading off to Azalin's crypt.HuManBing wrote:5. BOOK? Somehow, Strahd gets ahold of Inajira's book. [...]How does he do this? I have no satisfactory answer.
"It’s a long story, but I will tell you some of it. When I was a human general fighting for the freedom of Barovia, I...I suffered from moments of self-doubt. One night, before a particularly hopeless battle, a conjurer came to me with the Book of Keeping and told me that I could achieve easy victory with it. Foolishly, I agreed to use the book. Inajira came, and I agreed to serve his masters if they would grant me the throne of Barovia."
So Strahd wasn't the one to obtain Inajira's Book of Keeping, it was this random conjurer who did. Was this conjurer the "Death" that Strahd would later bargain with?
Look at the picture in RoE. Inajira is safely in a summoning circle.HuManBing wrote:Perhaps Strahd and his men took it from Inajira by force... which would then raise the question of why Inajira is even bothering to deal with Strahd in the tent. (Such a gross violation of what passes in the Lower Planes for ethics would likely send Inajira into a killing rage.)
But as to many of your other points... Yeah, the whole "time travel" idea is a mess. Which, really, isn't a surprise, seeing a "time travel" always creates messes. It would have been better if the whole idea had been left out and the adventure done differently... But whatever. I can't really criticize until I can write something better.
I would say perhaps the best way to rewrite Hyskosa's prophecy is to put it in the form of a non-rhyming, non-rhythmic statement that presages clearly some important events. I'm thinking something along the poetic eloquence of Roy Batty's final words in Blade Runner, rather than Chaucerian verse.
Each verse would have an obvious hook, such as the events in the adventure and the obvious badguys there. Then each verse would also have a secondary hook, which will be less obvious and which will refer to the secret objective in the missions.
Hyskosa himself is male, which would in theory make him a bit less reliable than a female raunie fortuneteller. The adventures clearly state he is "the greatest fortuneteller ever" but I think that could be more interesting if he is portrayed as a doubtful, uncertain human who is actually quite terrified by his own prophetic powers. There have been rumors among the Vistani that a wild card prophet Vistani male will cause great sorrow... what the rumors don't know is that the wild card male will actually try to solve the evil as well.
That is why Hyskosa is working with the PCs to try to stop the signs. Each verse would clearly show an evil force that needs to be stopped. Hyskosa believes that by stopping the evildoers, the "great upheaval" can be averted. What he doesn't know is that the prophecy is self-fulfilling: completing each of the primary objectives while ignoring the secondary objectives will actually cause the Grand Conjunction, because Azalin will get all the mystical items he needs to bring it about.
When Azalin eventually catches up with Hyskosa and kills him, he faces his death far from heroically - he's after all a lone man, and he dies with fear and despair. It is not until after his death, when the Vistani realize he was entirely right, that the legend of Hyskosa came to pass as a benevolent doomed man who tried to do what was right, despite the terrifying visions he had.
So here's the adventure cycle I'm currently toying with and which I might use. The prophecy would then progress from this. The bolded entries are the ones that directly deal with the Grand Conjunction.
Introductory mission: PCs arrive in Ravenloft, pursuing their homebrew villain (an eccentric and casually violent ogre mage). During a period of planar weakening, they find themselves mist-lost and on an Irish-style island. They work their way through an adventure closely resembling Clive Barker's Undying, to close a mystical portal. In the end, the portal stays open and a great dragon attacks them from it. After they defeat the dragon and drive it off, the portal draws them into Ravenloft. (The dragon is Ebb, and was sent here by Azalin to investigate a weakening in a planar seal he had earlier observed. The island of the adventure is not far off the coast of Prime Material Mordent.)
Interrupted mission: The PCs have no clue how this happened, but they're suddenly in the middle of a metropolitan area with completely different equipment and gear. They are following a merchant who is attacked by thugs. The PCs help drive them off, and the merchant progresses with them to his destination. During this time, a load of very unfamiliar people come up and greet them familiarly, thanking them for "a good job well done". The PCs slowly learn they've been part of an urban guild called "L'Agence d'Affaires" for a little over 3 months now in a city called "Il Aluk" in a kingdom called "Darkon". The Agence is a quasi-legal guild that ostensibly trades in artworks, but its members have been known to act as guards, enforcers, and even private detectives on occasion.
During this time, they find they are wearing headscarves, to hide the branded hawk symbols that have mysteriously appeared on their foreheads. They also have various horrific wounds - a sword thrust to the back on one, a dagger cut in the thigh of another. No doubt they'll want to know how these came about.
Courier missions: The PCs have various small adventures, including sheltering political asylum seekers from the southern domain of "Falkovnia". During this time they get a feel for the politics of Darkon's barons and its king, Azalin Rex, who rules from afar. They also learn that the asylum seekers came to Darkon as spies intending to assassinate the king, but then after a few months they lost their memories entirely and had to regain them. This may clue the PCs in to why they suddenly "appeared" in Il Aluk, with no memories of how they got there. It should also pique their curiosity even more about what they may have missed.
One asylum seeker will be Hyskosa, whose tribe has dwindled in poor fortunes, and who has been driven into the Mists by their brethren Vistani. The Agence has orders from the local government to protect Hyskosa (actually the wishes of the Kargat, who want to know more about his prophecy). During this time, Hyskosa talks to the PCs.
First Tarokka reading - introduction and the PCs' history.
Inverted "T" pattern:
...1
...2
3 4 5
1: Marionette. 2: Swashbuckler (Coin 1). 3: Dictator (Swords 8). 4: The Ghost. 5: The Berserker (Swords 6)
Assassination mission: A female shadowdancer Darkling (i.e., a corrupted evil Vistani) makes an attempt to hit Hyskosa and to silence him. The PCs must overcome her (which is not too difficult) but then need a way of imprisoning her (much more tricky, since she's a shadowdancer). During this time, Hyskosa is injured and poisoned, and only has time to rant a few words of warning.
6 1 7
...2
3 4 5
1 through 5 are the same. 6 and 7 are new. 6 is The Myrmidon (Swords 5) and 7 is The Necromancer (Stars 8).
The Myrmidon refers to the forest bandits whom the PCs meet early on in Night of the Walking Dead. The Necromancer refers to the zombie lord who is the real threat there. (Of course, in later adventures the Myrmidon could easily refer to Strahd von Zarovich and the Necromancer to Azalin Rex.)
1. Night of the Walking Dead. Change this to set it in the Core, most likely in the Boglands in Darkon. I would suggest north of Corvia, to the east of Il Aluk, near the Great Salt Swamp. The PCs are sent to investigate why trade caravans to a cluster of villages have not returned. The Agence is concerned because a few of its couriers have gone missing. A mage in the Agence accompanies the PCs - he is actually a member of the Kargatane as well, and is keeping an eye out for the secondary mission objective: to recover a valuable pendant lost in a Kargatane shipment to Il Aluk.
To lull the PCs into a false sense of security, in the first village, it's forest elves who are committing petty banditry. ("Bloodstains in the shady groves.") The PCs recover the Agence couriers easily enough. But in another village, the PCs get more than they bargained for when the dead walk the earth from the swamps ("sandpits, buried footsteps quicken to the surface") and this is where the booklet adventure Night of the Walking Dead starts in earnest.
The Agence mage follows them to the next village and recovers the pendant from an undead second-in-command, a former Kargatane warrior who had been bringing this up to Il Aluk when he was killed.
The pendant is an ethereal amulet crafted by Hazlik, the darklord of Hazlan. Azalin, with his own curse hampering his research, secretly made available some of his own knowledge to Hazlik, who then proceeded to fashion this amulet. The amulet was stolen by a thief named Julio, who vanished into ethereality, but could not escape the Demiplane. Hazlik declared the magical item a failure and lost interest. Azalin's couriers, operating through the Kargatane, were bringing it back to Darkon for his examination when they stopped for a night near the Corvus Road. That was the same night that zombies emerged from the swamp, and this adventure begins. The line about "ghostly garotte" refers to the amulet.
More to come in a second post.
Each verse would have an obvious hook, such as the events in the adventure and the obvious badguys there. Then each verse would also have a secondary hook, which will be less obvious and which will refer to the secret objective in the missions.
Hyskosa himself is male, which would in theory make him a bit less reliable than a female raunie fortuneteller. The adventures clearly state he is "the greatest fortuneteller ever" but I think that could be more interesting if he is portrayed as a doubtful, uncertain human who is actually quite terrified by his own prophetic powers. There have been rumors among the Vistani that a wild card prophet Vistani male will cause great sorrow... what the rumors don't know is that the wild card male will actually try to solve the evil as well.
That is why Hyskosa is working with the PCs to try to stop the signs. Each verse would clearly show an evil force that needs to be stopped. Hyskosa believes that by stopping the evildoers, the "great upheaval" can be averted. What he doesn't know is that the prophecy is self-fulfilling: completing each of the primary objectives while ignoring the secondary objectives will actually cause the Grand Conjunction, because Azalin will get all the mystical items he needs to bring it about.
When Azalin eventually catches up with Hyskosa and kills him, he faces his death far from heroically - he's after all a lone man, and he dies with fear and despair. It is not until after his death, when the Vistani realize he was entirely right, that the legend of Hyskosa came to pass as a benevolent doomed man who tried to do what was right, despite the terrifying visions he had.
So here's the adventure cycle I'm currently toying with and which I might use. The prophecy would then progress from this. The bolded entries are the ones that directly deal with the Grand Conjunction.
Introductory mission: PCs arrive in Ravenloft, pursuing their homebrew villain (an eccentric and casually violent ogre mage). During a period of planar weakening, they find themselves mist-lost and on an Irish-style island. They work their way through an adventure closely resembling Clive Barker's Undying, to close a mystical portal. In the end, the portal stays open and a great dragon attacks them from it. After they defeat the dragon and drive it off, the portal draws them into Ravenloft. (The dragon is Ebb, and was sent here by Azalin to investigate a weakening in a planar seal he had earlier observed. The island of the adventure is not far off the coast of Prime Material Mordent.)
Interrupted mission: The PCs have no clue how this happened, but they're suddenly in the middle of a metropolitan area with completely different equipment and gear. They are following a merchant who is attacked by thugs. The PCs help drive them off, and the merchant progresses with them to his destination. During this time, a load of very unfamiliar people come up and greet them familiarly, thanking them for "a good job well done". The PCs slowly learn they've been part of an urban guild called "L'Agence d'Affaires" for a little over 3 months now in a city called "Il Aluk" in a kingdom called "Darkon". The Agence is a quasi-legal guild that ostensibly trades in artworks, but its members have been known to act as guards, enforcers, and even private detectives on occasion.
During this time, they find they are wearing headscarves, to hide the branded hawk symbols that have mysteriously appeared on their foreheads. They also have various horrific wounds - a sword thrust to the back on one, a dagger cut in the thigh of another. No doubt they'll want to know how these came about.
Courier missions: The PCs have various small adventures, including sheltering political asylum seekers from the southern domain of "Falkovnia". During this time they get a feel for the politics of Darkon's barons and its king, Azalin Rex, who rules from afar. They also learn that the asylum seekers came to Darkon as spies intending to assassinate the king, but then after a few months they lost their memories entirely and had to regain them. This may clue the PCs in to why they suddenly "appeared" in Il Aluk, with no memories of how they got there. It should also pique their curiosity even more about what they may have missed.
One asylum seeker will be Hyskosa, whose tribe has dwindled in poor fortunes, and who has been driven into the Mists by their brethren Vistani. The Agence has orders from the local government to protect Hyskosa (actually the wishes of the Kargat, who want to know more about his prophecy). During this time, Hyskosa talks to the PCs.
First Tarokka reading - introduction and the PCs' history.
Inverted "T" pattern:
...1
...2
3 4 5
1: Marionette. 2: Swashbuckler (Coin 1). 3: Dictator (Swords 8). 4: The Ghost. 5: The Berserker (Swords 6)
The Berserker represents the ogre mage whom my PCs followed into the Demiplane - in their lost memories, he was an important character. The Dictator represents Vlad Drakov, whose regime was responsible for the PCs' burns and wounds (even though they don't know it yet). The Ghost represents their lost memories. The Marionette represents the future, where numerous organizations (starting with the Agence d'Affaires and culminating in Azalin Rex himself) will try to control them."You are brave and merciful, bold adventure-seekers. (Swashbucklers) But you carry a void within you - a piece of your being has been taken, leaving a raw wound in your memories. You would strive mightily to regain your lost selves. (Ghost) Once, you chose between two evils - between the murderer who spills blood when the lust is upon him... (Berserker) and the monster who does so as a matter of course (Dictator). In your future, I see pawns and lackeys of powerful enemies. They watch your every move, and wait to ensare you... to make you lurch and stagger for their own ends. If you are wise as well as bold, my friends, perhaps you will escape them yet." (The Marionette)
Assassination mission: A female shadowdancer Darkling (i.e., a corrupted evil Vistani) makes an attempt to hit Hyskosa and to silence him. The PCs must overcome her (which is not too difficult) but then need a way of imprisoning her (much more tricky, since she's a shadowdancer). During this time, Hyskosa is injured and poisoned, and only has time to rant a few words of warning.
The PCs will see the fortune arrangement will have changed somewhat, now in a letter "I" formation:"There are screams, bloodstains in the shady groves. But in the sandpits, buried footsteps quicken to the surface! He must be stopped!" He screeches, as an animal in pain. "O, stop him, lest the ghostly garotte tightens about the countryside!"
6 1 7
...2
3 4 5
1 through 5 are the same. 6 and 7 are new. 6 is The Myrmidon (Swords 5) and 7 is The Necromancer (Stars 8).
The Myrmidon refers to the forest bandits whom the PCs meet early on in Night of the Walking Dead. The Necromancer refers to the zombie lord who is the real threat there. (Of course, in later adventures the Myrmidon could easily refer to Strahd von Zarovich and the Necromancer to Azalin Rex.)
1. Night of the Walking Dead. Change this to set it in the Core, most likely in the Boglands in Darkon. I would suggest north of Corvia, to the east of Il Aluk, near the Great Salt Swamp. The PCs are sent to investigate why trade caravans to a cluster of villages have not returned. The Agence is concerned because a few of its couriers have gone missing. A mage in the Agence accompanies the PCs - he is actually a member of the Kargatane as well, and is keeping an eye out for the secondary mission objective: to recover a valuable pendant lost in a Kargatane shipment to Il Aluk.
To lull the PCs into a false sense of security, in the first village, it's forest elves who are committing petty banditry. ("Bloodstains in the shady groves.") The PCs recover the Agence couriers easily enough. But in another village, the PCs get more than they bargained for when the dead walk the earth from the swamps ("sandpits, buried footsteps quicken to the surface") and this is where the booklet adventure Night of the Walking Dead starts in earnest.
The Agence mage follows them to the next village and recovers the pendant from an undead second-in-command, a former Kargatane warrior who had been bringing this up to Il Aluk when he was killed.
The pendant is an ethereal amulet crafted by Hazlik, the darklord of Hazlan. Azalin, with his own curse hampering his research, secretly made available some of his own knowledge to Hazlik, who then proceeded to fashion this amulet. The amulet was stolen by a thief named Julio, who vanished into ethereality, but could not escape the Demiplane. Hazlik declared the magical item a failure and lost interest. Azalin's couriers, operating through the Kargatane, were bringing it back to Darkon for his examination when they stopped for a night near the Corvus Road. That was the same night that zombies emerged from the swamp, and this adventure begins. The line about "ghostly garotte" refers to the amulet.
More to come in a second post.
Courier missions: The PCs are sent to Neblus to steal a painting from a rival collector's house. The rival collector happens to be Neblus' ruling baron. While there, they become involved with a plot to unseat the baron, who oppresses the city's elven citizens. The elvish faction wants to replace the current baron with an elvish one. If the PCs will work with them, they have a human carpenter smuggle them into the baron's house inside of a furniture shipment, in return for the PCs' providing crayon rubbings of the mansion's locking mechanisms. The PCs return triumphant and the Agence rewards them well.
Second mission: The PCs board an Agence-allied merchant ship in Mordent, and babysit it into Martira Bay, thwarting a planned mutiny attempt. That leads into the underground slave trade in Martira Bay, and the first hints of lethal employment. The weaver's guild head, Stephen Dyreth, is implicated in a mission the PCs undertake, leading them to solve a series of dockfront disappearances. (Dyreth goes to the gallows protesting that he's been framed. He's partially honest - Styrix the Night Hag is also responsible for many of the disappearances, but he's been guilty of reanimating his dead slaves in his mills. After all is said and done, the PCs get a load of rewards... and a moment of pause when they see the disappearances still continue, though lessened.)
Flushed with the success of the mission, the Agence promotes the PCs to overseas work, and sends them on a top-priority mission, leading to Touch of Death.
A wealthy patron wants priceless artifacts and handicrafts from the Amber Wastes. The Agence is keen to establish a trading outpost in Muhar and this exploit, if successful, will help them. The Agence will send a cleric and the same mage as before to aid them. Up until now, nobody has been able to navigate the misty seas through to the Amber Wastes and to Har'Akir. However, Hykosa's kinswoman, Dulcimae, thankful for the Agence in helping her clan, has volunteered to go with them and to try to navigate the mists. Before they go, she relays them what her kinsman Hyskosa told her:
Imagine their horror when they are met with sealed borders. They will not be allowed to leave until Senmet or Ankhtepot is killed. (Likely the former.) If Senmet wins, he will try to kill them all. If Ankhtepot wins, he will return to his rest and not bother the PCs, as long as they do not take any of his personal effects. (The artifacts the collector wanted are of no interest to the Pharoah.) The PCs will need to kill Senmet, and may even try to get Isu's help. This could be interesting because Isu believes she can control Senmet, but she is far from a goody two-shoes herself. Their mage ally will insist that they defeat the mummy without using fire, so he can accomplish the secret objective here:
Senmet's body wrappings feature religious texts to do with navigating the ocean of souls. One in particular has to do with penetrating the veil of mists, and how to anchor the soul to the land. In his scryings, Azalin has seen this and wishes to possess it, as he believes this may in fact be a Scroll of Return. The Agence mage needs Senmet's body reasonably whole so he can retrieve it.
In the original adventure, Dulcimae dies horribly and nothing the PCs can do will prevent that. In this adventure, such an end might be problematic for the PCs. Even if they lower the domain borders, they will be unable to navigate the mists back to Darkon. This can be handled a few ways:
1. Play the combat straight. If Dulcimae dies, she dies. But the PCs have a fair chance of protecting her and keeping the mummies from abducting her.
2. Let the abduction happen, but give the PCs a chance to recover her before her transformation to mummy is complete. She wastes away steadily through the course of the adventure, but retains just enough clarity to direct them through the mists. She dies upon reaching Darkon, whereupon Hyskosa and his clan are bereaved. An extra quest may be able to purify her soul and allow her to rest in death.
3. Let the abduction happen, but allow the mummy rot to lift if and when the PCs kill Senmet.
Either way, the Agence fails in its gamble to establish a foothold in the Amber Wastes. The local leader, Isu, is either dead or extremely anti-foreigner by the end of the adventure, and the best the Agence can do is sell its artifacts on to the collector to recoup some of the losses. The PCs may also fail in the secret mission, as fire is an extremely tempting form of attack to use against the Ancient Dead, and doing so would destroy the Scroll of Return along with Senmet. If they do, that will accelerate the doom of the Agence in future missions.
Second mission: The PCs board an Agence-allied merchant ship in Mordent, and babysit it into Martira Bay, thwarting a planned mutiny attempt. That leads into the underground slave trade in Martira Bay, and the first hints of lethal employment. The weaver's guild head, Stephen Dyreth, is implicated in a mission the PCs undertake, leading them to solve a series of dockfront disappearances. (Dyreth goes to the gallows protesting that he's been framed. He's partially honest - Styrix the Night Hag is also responsible for many of the disappearances, but he's been guilty of reanimating his dead slaves in his mills. After all is said and done, the PCs get a load of rewards... and a moment of pause when they see the disappearances still continue, though lessened.)
Flushed with the success of the mission, the Agence promotes the PCs to overseas work, and sends them on a top-priority mission, leading to Touch of Death.
A wealthy patron wants priceless artifacts and handicrafts from the Amber Wastes. The Agence is keen to establish a trading outpost in Muhar and this exploit, if successful, will help them. The Agence will send a cleric and the same mage as before to aid them. Up until now, nobody has been able to navigate the misty seas through to the Amber Wastes and to Har'Akir. However, Hykosa's kinswoman, Dulcimae, thankful for the Agence in helping her clan, has volunteered to go with them and to try to navigate the mists. Before they go, she relays them what her kinsman Hyskosa told her:
The adventure would pretty much proceed as outlined in the booklet. The PCs land at a deserted beach in very hot, buoyant water (think Dead Sea) and progress inland under scorching heat from there. They are required to meet with Isu at Muhar for permission to enter the desert. They may even get as far as the tomb of Ankhtepot before realizing that the place is still occupied, and they're not just going on a treasure looting hunt. After the first trespass, Senmet would start terrorizing them in the desert, trying to make them into his desert zombie servitors. The PCs would eventually pull themselves together, assault the tombs, and get the artifacts specified by the Agence, and then get out."He saw two knaves surrounding the king, writhing in fire, off the rims of the desert. He watched soul-chests glitter in the dark and strange texts grace the breast of the dead..."
Imagine their horror when they are met with sealed borders. They will not be allowed to leave until Senmet or Ankhtepot is killed. (Likely the former.) If Senmet wins, he will try to kill them all. If Ankhtepot wins, he will return to his rest and not bother the PCs, as long as they do not take any of his personal effects. (The artifacts the collector wanted are of no interest to the Pharoah.) The PCs will need to kill Senmet, and may even try to get Isu's help. This could be interesting because Isu believes she can control Senmet, but she is far from a goody two-shoes herself. Their mage ally will insist that they defeat the mummy without using fire, so he can accomplish the secret objective here:
Senmet's body wrappings feature religious texts to do with navigating the ocean of souls. One in particular has to do with penetrating the veil of mists, and how to anchor the soul to the land. In his scryings, Azalin has seen this and wishes to possess it, as he believes this may in fact be a Scroll of Return. The Agence mage needs Senmet's body reasonably whole so he can retrieve it.
In the original adventure, Dulcimae dies horribly and nothing the PCs can do will prevent that. In this adventure, such an end might be problematic for the PCs. Even if they lower the domain borders, they will be unable to navigate the mists back to Darkon. This can be handled a few ways:
1. Play the combat straight. If Dulcimae dies, she dies. But the PCs have a fair chance of protecting her and keeping the mummies from abducting her.
2. Let the abduction happen, but give the PCs a chance to recover her before her transformation to mummy is complete. She wastes away steadily through the course of the adventure, but retains just enough clarity to direct them through the mists. She dies upon reaching Darkon, whereupon Hyskosa and his clan are bereaved. An extra quest may be able to purify her soul and allow her to rest in death.
3. Let the abduction happen, but allow the mummy rot to lift if and when the PCs kill Senmet.
Either way, the Agence fails in its gamble to establish a foothold in the Amber Wastes. The local leader, Isu, is either dead or extremely anti-foreigner by the end of the adventure, and the best the Agence can do is sell its artifacts on to the collector to recoup some of the losses. The PCs may also fail in the secret mission, as fire is an extremely tempting form of attack to use against the Ancient Dead, and doing so would destroy the Scroll of Return along with Senmet. If they do, that will accelerate the doom of the Agence in future missions.
Memory missions: Interspersed in their usual present-day adventures, there will be a few very brief, one-off flashback adventures that alter their current status. With successes in these flashback adventures, they slowly regain skills and spells. One may have them all together, chained and bound and marching across a bloody massacre site, when their captor soldiers suddenly panic and a terrifying invisible force looms out to attack. In another, the PCs could be clearing up the corpses in a gutted village as their supervising soldiers go about raping the surviving women and killing the children. In both these cases, the PCs would have the chance to escape and save themselves, or to equip themselves and turn on their captors. These would also explain certain things, such as where their wounds came from, or why one is missing an earlobe, etc. These missions establish the fear that the Falkovnian soldiers, hardened and sadistic though they are, have for the invisible spirit that stalks them - the "Cackling Headsman".
Meanwhile, the Agence's collectors are calling again. Rumors of war between Gundarak, Barovia, and Kartakass are brewing, and the Agence needs some good people to get out there to exploit it to their advantage. An object of immense beauty and power called the Crown of Souls has been uncovered, and the Agence's client wants it. The PCs are sent out to see if they can spirit it out from Kartakass with the help of the underground operatives there.
This leads us to Feast of Goblyns. This adventure goes largely as described, except that I would be likely to rewrite the character of Akriel. Instead of being trapped in a lover's circle, she's actually masquerading as the head of a Gundarakan resistance leader who wants to sow discord and dissention in Kartakass. Daclaud Heinfroth would be a political sympathizer in Gundarak, and the Crown of Souls is required to turn the tide of battle against the "merciless tyrants" of Kartakass, Gundarak, and Barovia.
Their plans go awry when Radaga acquires the Crown herself and marches off into the Mists, creating the domain of Daglan. The PCs get to see this and are able to assist in neutralizing the darklord there. Here, the booklet adventure ends.
I would propose an assault on Duke Gundar's castle. Perhaps the shaky alliance between Heinfroth and Akriel endures long enough for them to attack Gundar's keep, Hunedora, and the PCs can assist in that effort. They might even be able to face off against the Duke himself, and strike a killing blow. Then it's up to Heinfroth to use his knowledge of his deceased master to find and purify each coffin or resting place of Gundar, ending the Duke's reign for good. The PCs are hailed as heroes in Gundarak for a while... until the lord of Barovia sends his soldiers over the border.
The PCs have secured the Crown of Souls for the Agence (and indirectly for Azalin). However, Azalin sees an excellent opportunity to exploit this situation for his own ends. Kargatane operatives arrive and increase the anti-Barovian sentiment in Gundarak and Kartakass. Flushed with their success, the Heinfroth-Akriel leadership declares an immediate follow-up attack on Castle Ravenloft, to topple the other tyrant, Strahd von Zarovich, and to emancipate the peasants who for so long have shouldered the burden of these parasitic nobles.
This plan does not go smoothly.
First, the Crown goes missing, spirited away by Azalin's men. Without it, the alliance loses their main method of recruiting new soldiers. Secondly, the two leaders begin to squabble and Strahd's own spies quickly increase the acrimony. However, the Agence receives note from their employer that he would be willing to pay an enormous sum of money for a pair of elegant worked pieces of metal in Castle Ravenloft - one a holy symbol in the shape of the sun, the other a raven statue.
(Azalin does not seriously expect the PCs to retrieve the two items. In fact, Azalin2 in the timeline would probably not even honestly believe them to be in the castle itself. He's actually after the Mist-walking potion from the Vistani, and the current state of war means Strahd's castle is encircled by his choking fog. Hence, the only way in is to get the mist-walking potion.)
The Agence is prepared to muster its full resources to aid the PCs going in, and the Kargatane mage is among them. The PCs meet up with the Zarovan Vistani tribe, and undertake a small quest for them in return for the potion. Once this is done, the Agence mage abandons the PCs and returns to Darkon. The rest of the operatives go into Castle Ravenloft with the PCs, setting in motion House of Strahd. Most die in the assault against Strahd. One of the Agence employees is an Asian man named Bei Ying (Northern Eagle), or "Bane", and he is a skilled martial artist who also carries a firearm that can injure undead. (Bane's Adder, from "Forged of Darkness" accessory.) In a tense standoff, Strahd gives him a chance to escape, saying he only wants the PCs. Bane refuses, citing he is tasked with their protection, and they are all summarily thrown into his prisons and tortured. Secretly, Strahd is impressed with Bane's abilities and also his single minded obedience, and intends to use him against Azalin.
After a decent spell of nightmarish experiences, Strahd unexpectedly sets them free, along with Bei Ying. Unknown to them, Bei Ying now has a Geas to kill Azalin, although it will not activate until he returns to Darkon.
The Gutted HQ mission
When they get back to Darkon, Azalin has tired of the Agence d'Affaires and has ordered its complete dismantling. The PCs get back to Darkon learning that their erstwhile allies and friendly NPCs are dead or imprisoned, and that a "rival outfit" called the Kargatane has destroyed the Agence. A few straggling Agence employees still survived, but rebuilding the organization is a faint prospect at best. If they are not careful, the PCs will be hounded by Kargatane wherever they go. Most of their former meeting places and properties have been repossessed by the Kargatane and their allies. They have to make do in very low-market areas for a while. Depending on how many "secret objectives" the PCs were (unwittingly) able to accomplish, the Kargatane may be more lenient, merely dispersing the group instead of killing the members. If the PCs repeatedly screwed up, the Kargatane are more vicious, torturing and killing Agence members.
During a suitable lull, the PCs are concerned mostly with simple survival. Depending on how well or badly they served the Kargatane, they may come under indirect or even direct attack in their safehouses. Eventually, the PCs are either captured, or progressively driven eastwards towards Nevuchar Springs. They are not particularly wanted by the police, but it is clear the Kargatane want to capture them. The final aim is to put them on a prison ship to ferry unwanted Darkonian political prisoners to... elsewhere. It is even possible that the PCs get on board the Endurance willingly, being ignorant of its secret use as an oubliette for inconvenient prisoners.
Ship of Horrors commences at this point. The adventure's main difficulty is getting PCs on a ship crossing the eastern sea. However, the series of political events up to this point makes that moot. The Darkonian secret service wants the PCs sent to Siberia (or the Ravenloft equivalent) and the cursed ship Endurance is just what they need to do it.
On board, the PCs are eventually attacked by the crew, who try to force them overboard. They are cursed for improperly disposing of corpses in the ocean, and now continually rise again and perform their unholy service. The Darkonian navy discovered the ship and reported it to the Kargat, who now use the ship as a political garbage disposal machine.
If the PCs fight back, they find the crew reasonably easy to overcome. They fight more with a sense of weary fatalism than any skill or rage. However, once the last crew member lies still on the planks, the corpses shudder and begin to rise again. The PCs can examine the ship and find the captain's log books, which reveal the corpse-retrieval curse. Otherwise, the adventure progresses as normal. The exact details of the curse could be complex: not only is Garvyn cursed for his part in the sea dumping of bodies, he also will remain cursed until every last participant in that affair had received his just desserts. This could implicate Meredoth, requring the PCs to either kill him or require him to make amends, perhaps by returning the undead creatures who were created from hapless Darkonian travellers whom Garvyn delivered. Meredoth is unlikely to agree to this, so it may be down to Garvyn's crew and the PCs to hunt down the particular undead and return their remains to Darkonian soil.
The PCs also have a personal mission objective here - on the ship, they find logs detailing the names of other Agence d'Affaires operatives who were captured and exiled before them. Some will be dead, and their bodies need to be recovered. Others will be alive but stranded on the islands on the Nocturnal Sea. The PCs will need to bring them back too.
Finally, I would suggest giving Meredoth an undead-controlling artifact like an amulet or some such, which tempted him down the path to Necromancy in his earlier life and which proved crucial to his entry to Ravenloft. Just as with the Crown of Souls, Azalin would probably find it interesting to investigate this particular item for its ties to the Dark Powers.
Meanwhile, the Agence's collectors are calling again. Rumors of war between Gundarak, Barovia, and Kartakass are brewing, and the Agence needs some good people to get out there to exploit it to their advantage. An object of immense beauty and power called the Crown of Souls has been uncovered, and the Agence's client wants it. The PCs are sent out to see if they can spirit it out from Kartakass with the help of the underground operatives there.
This leads us to Feast of Goblyns. This adventure goes largely as described, except that I would be likely to rewrite the character of Akriel. Instead of being trapped in a lover's circle, she's actually masquerading as the head of a Gundarakan resistance leader who wants to sow discord and dissention in Kartakass. Daclaud Heinfroth would be a political sympathizer in Gundarak, and the Crown of Souls is required to turn the tide of battle against the "merciless tyrants" of Kartakass, Gundarak, and Barovia.
Their plans go awry when Radaga acquires the Crown herself and marches off into the Mists, creating the domain of Daglan. The PCs get to see this and are able to assist in neutralizing the darklord there. Here, the booklet adventure ends.
I would propose an assault on Duke Gundar's castle. Perhaps the shaky alliance between Heinfroth and Akriel endures long enough for them to attack Gundar's keep, Hunedora, and the PCs can assist in that effort. They might even be able to face off against the Duke himself, and strike a killing blow. Then it's up to Heinfroth to use his knowledge of his deceased master to find and purify each coffin or resting place of Gundar, ending the Duke's reign for good. The PCs are hailed as heroes in Gundarak for a while... until the lord of Barovia sends his soldiers over the border.
The PCs have secured the Crown of Souls for the Agence (and indirectly for Azalin). However, Azalin sees an excellent opportunity to exploit this situation for his own ends. Kargatane operatives arrive and increase the anti-Barovian sentiment in Gundarak and Kartakass. Flushed with their success, the Heinfroth-Akriel leadership declares an immediate follow-up attack on Castle Ravenloft, to topple the other tyrant, Strahd von Zarovich, and to emancipate the peasants who for so long have shouldered the burden of these parasitic nobles.
This plan does not go smoothly.
First, the Crown goes missing, spirited away by Azalin's men. Without it, the alliance loses their main method of recruiting new soldiers. Secondly, the two leaders begin to squabble and Strahd's own spies quickly increase the acrimony. However, the Agence receives note from their employer that he would be willing to pay an enormous sum of money for a pair of elegant worked pieces of metal in Castle Ravenloft - one a holy symbol in the shape of the sun, the other a raven statue.
(Azalin does not seriously expect the PCs to retrieve the two items. In fact, Azalin2 in the timeline would probably not even honestly believe them to be in the castle itself. He's actually after the Mist-walking potion from the Vistani, and the current state of war means Strahd's castle is encircled by his choking fog. Hence, the only way in is to get the mist-walking potion.)
The Agence is prepared to muster its full resources to aid the PCs going in, and the Kargatane mage is among them. The PCs meet up with the Zarovan Vistani tribe, and undertake a small quest for them in return for the potion. Once this is done, the Agence mage abandons the PCs and returns to Darkon. The rest of the operatives go into Castle Ravenloft with the PCs, setting in motion House of Strahd. Most die in the assault against Strahd. One of the Agence employees is an Asian man named Bei Ying (Northern Eagle), or "Bane", and he is a skilled martial artist who also carries a firearm that can injure undead. (Bane's Adder, from "Forged of Darkness" accessory.) In a tense standoff, Strahd gives him a chance to escape, saying he only wants the PCs. Bane refuses, citing he is tasked with their protection, and they are all summarily thrown into his prisons and tortured. Secretly, Strahd is impressed with Bane's abilities and also his single minded obedience, and intends to use him against Azalin.
After a decent spell of nightmarish experiences, Strahd unexpectedly sets them free, along with Bei Ying. Unknown to them, Bei Ying now has a Geas to kill Azalin, although it will not activate until he returns to Darkon.
The Gutted HQ mission
When they get back to Darkon, Azalin has tired of the Agence d'Affaires and has ordered its complete dismantling. The PCs get back to Darkon learning that their erstwhile allies and friendly NPCs are dead or imprisoned, and that a "rival outfit" called the Kargatane has destroyed the Agence. A few straggling Agence employees still survived, but rebuilding the organization is a faint prospect at best. If they are not careful, the PCs will be hounded by Kargatane wherever they go. Most of their former meeting places and properties have been repossessed by the Kargatane and their allies. They have to make do in very low-market areas for a while. Depending on how many "secret objectives" the PCs were (unwittingly) able to accomplish, the Kargatane may be more lenient, merely dispersing the group instead of killing the members. If the PCs repeatedly screwed up, the Kargatane are more vicious, torturing and killing Agence members.
During a suitable lull, the PCs are concerned mostly with simple survival. Depending on how well or badly they served the Kargatane, they may come under indirect or even direct attack in their safehouses. Eventually, the PCs are either captured, or progressively driven eastwards towards Nevuchar Springs. They are not particularly wanted by the police, but it is clear the Kargatane want to capture them. The final aim is to put them on a prison ship to ferry unwanted Darkonian political prisoners to... elsewhere. It is even possible that the PCs get on board the Endurance willingly, being ignorant of its secret use as an oubliette for inconvenient prisoners.
Ship of Horrors commences at this point. The adventure's main difficulty is getting PCs on a ship crossing the eastern sea. However, the series of political events up to this point makes that moot. The Darkonian secret service wants the PCs sent to Siberia (or the Ravenloft equivalent) and the cursed ship Endurance is just what they need to do it.
On board, the PCs are eventually attacked by the crew, who try to force them overboard. They are cursed for improperly disposing of corpses in the ocean, and now continually rise again and perform their unholy service. The Darkonian navy discovered the ship and reported it to the Kargat, who now use the ship as a political garbage disposal machine.
If the PCs fight back, they find the crew reasonably easy to overcome. They fight more with a sense of weary fatalism than any skill or rage. However, once the last crew member lies still on the planks, the corpses shudder and begin to rise again. The PCs can examine the ship and find the captain's log books, which reveal the corpse-retrieval curse. Otherwise, the adventure progresses as normal. The exact details of the curse could be complex: not only is Garvyn cursed for his part in the sea dumping of bodies, he also will remain cursed until every last participant in that affair had received his just desserts. This could implicate Meredoth, requring the PCs to either kill him or require him to make amends, perhaps by returning the undead creatures who were created from hapless Darkonian travellers whom Garvyn delivered. Meredoth is unlikely to agree to this, so it may be down to Garvyn's crew and the PCs to hunt down the particular undead and return their remains to Darkonian soil.
The PCs also have a personal mission objective here - on the ship, they find logs detailing the names of other Agence d'Affaires operatives who were captured and exiled before them. Some will be dead, and their bodies need to be recovered. Others will be alive but stranded on the islands on the Nocturnal Sea. The PCs will need to bring them back too.
Finally, I would suggest giving Meredoth an undead-controlling artifact like an amulet or some such, which tempted him down the path to Necromancy in his earlier life and which proved crucial to his entry to Ravenloft. Just as with the Crown of Souls, Azalin would probably find it interesting to investigate this particular item for its ties to the Dark Powers.
Returning home: Once all is quiet, Garvyn returns the PCs to Darkon as his last repatriated passengers, and he sails his ship back out to the Nocturnal Sea for his final reward. The PCs may take odd jobs or hire themselves out as muscle in a quiet fashion. The Agence tries to painstakingly rebuild itself, but it knows it is compromised by the turncoat mage. The Agence offers the PCs a deal: help hunt down the mage Kargatane traitor, and the Agence will give the PCs back their pasts.
If the PCs succeed in taking out the Kargatane mage, they can pore through his documents, which show he was in the Kargatane's employ after the PCs arrived at the Agence, and that he had been personally responsible for taking the secret items in the relevant missions. The PCs can now see what they were betrayed for, although the identity of the patron is not mentioned directly.
The Agence also turns over all their documentation on the PCs, which leads them to the memory mission below.
The memory mission: In the current time, the PCs know they have unfinished business in Falkovnia. By visiting the villages, they can piece together a massacre that they were involved in, and talk to a farmer who discovered them in a nearby cave, ranting about a "great wyrm" (way back from the Undying adventure, where they fought Ebb).
The Agence d'Affaires records show the PCs arrived at a safehouse several months previously (possibly a year or so, depending on the time frame) from Falkovnia. They had been enslaved by the Falkovnian army, who had found them near a magical anomaly site in the northeast, near a deep cave in the hills. The PCs had been branded and assigned as conscripts after the discovery of suspected Darkonian agents in Alttempelhof, a small hamlet near the Darkonian border. They had been turned over to the command of Leichttrager Yuri Mitrovik, a cruel and despotic general in the Falkovnian army (and also a distant relative of Vlad Drakov himself, as per the family bloodlines in the back of the Realm of Terror sourcebook).
The Falkovnian soldiers were hunting a terrifying unseen spirit called The Cackling Headsman, which had been stalking the land for about a month and killing soldiers in eccentric and casually violent ways - the ultimate crime in a police state. The creature got its name by the booming laughter that echoed when it launched an attack, and the clean cuts with which it would separate head from neck, as if wielding an enormous axe. Mitrovik had the help of some mages, but was unable to drive off the Cackling Headsman. In one climactic confrontation, the Cackling Headsman caused a series of mass possessions in Alttempelhof, causing the local residents to go insane and turn on the soldiers. In the ensuing slaughter, dozens of soldiers were killed, and the following reprisal raid by Mitrovik claimed about a hundred villagers.
In their return trip, in the present day, the PCs not only discover the past, but they hear renewed rumors that the Cackling Headsman has returned. There have been no more attacks, but villagers are being possessed in a trail, and it appears the Cackling Headsman is looking for something. The PCs can jump from village to village looking for the townsfolk who are being possessed and then being released.
At the conclusion of this mission, the PCs find themselves face to face with The Cackling Headsman, who is surprisingly happy to see them again: he is finally unmasked, as the "eccentric and casually violent" ogre mage villain from the homeworld campaign way back when. He is delighted to see some familar faces, and becomes their dubious ally. He is furious with Mitrovik, who splashed him with acid once, scarring his face (and thus forcing him to remain mostly invisible out of vanity) and plans to kill him in an excruciating fashion when he can.
So far, Mitrovik is well fortified and even the ogre mage's formidable abilities cannot get him a clear strike. (He can fly and turn invisible, allowing him to infiltrate most areas, but the tight corridors and frequent patrols at Helsinger's camp make it inadvisable for a creature of his size to do so.)
The ogre mage was hoping to stir up more trouble, but is reluctant to use villagers since they are inefficient and die too easily at the hands of the Talons. The PCs, he feels, will do perfectly. He knows of a Talon convoy that will be passing through the area taking a census of newborns, including the daughterage tax. The Talons also will be aiming to recruit or conscript villagers. If the PCs can disrupt them and humiliate them militarily, that will definitely draw a response.
The PCs start a campaign of harrassment, although it's up to them how seriously or lethally to take this. Eventually, Talons start raiding the villages looking for the PCs, and the ogre mage retreats with them to the cave. In the end, the ogre mage's gambit succeeds in drawing out Mitrovik and his elite guard. If the PCs aid him, the ogre mage defeats Mitrovik and takes him captive after subjecting him to a surpassingly brutal beating that leaves his body broken and shattered.
Unless the PCs stop him, the ogre mage visits horrific injuries on Mitrovik during protracted periods of gothically decadent torture that keep the locals awake for days. (Standing by and watching this would be enough cause for a Dark Powers check.) Depending on the PCs' intervention, a variable amount of time may pass before the ogre mage finally puts Mitrovik out of his misery, and publicly stakes his body outside Castle Draccipetri for Vlad Drakov to see. To add insult, the body is clad in full Talon armor, except for the loin plate and the throat guard, to make way for the stake to enter and emerge from the corpse.
Not long afterwards, the ogre mage departs from his abode, leaving a letter to the PCs explaining that he received a visitor from Darkon. A member of the secret police has recruited him after witnessing how he dealth with Mitrovik. The ogre mage's letter mentions the Kargat member by name and mentions that she knows the PCs (indeed she does - she used to be the noblewoman who once ran l'Agence d'Affaires). In his typically carefree nature, the ogre mage invites the PCs to drop by to visit him anytime, as old friends, when he's a member of the Kargat.
This paves the way for the Asian assassin Bei Ying (Bane) to resume contact with the PCs and to solicit their help in getting him into Castle Avernus to attempt to kill Azalin Rex, in accordance with his Geas from Strahd. Whether the PCs choose to help him or not, he makes his way there during a decadent noble's ball, perhaps with the unwitting aid of the ogre mage Kargat member, and puts his assassination plan into action.
Unsurprisingly, it fails and he is killed by Azalin, but not before Azalin finds out everybody he has ever had dealings with. If the PCs are actually present in Avernus at the ball while the attempt goes on, it is very easy to kill them and start the
final adventure before the Grand Conjunction: From the Shadows. Otherwise, Azalin may have to send out the Kargat in a midnight raid to kill or incapacitate the PCs and bring them back to Avernus.
If the PCs succeed in taking out the Kargatane mage, they can pore through his documents, which show he was in the Kargatane's employ after the PCs arrived at the Agence, and that he had been personally responsible for taking the secret items in the relevant missions. The PCs can now see what they were betrayed for, although the identity of the patron is not mentioned directly.
The Agence also turns over all their documentation on the PCs, which leads them to the memory mission below.
The memory mission: In the current time, the PCs know they have unfinished business in Falkovnia. By visiting the villages, they can piece together a massacre that they were involved in, and talk to a farmer who discovered them in a nearby cave, ranting about a "great wyrm" (way back from the Undying adventure, where they fought Ebb).
The Agence d'Affaires records show the PCs arrived at a safehouse several months previously (possibly a year or so, depending on the time frame) from Falkovnia. They had been enslaved by the Falkovnian army, who had found them near a magical anomaly site in the northeast, near a deep cave in the hills. The PCs had been branded and assigned as conscripts after the discovery of suspected Darkonian agents in Alttempelhof, a small hamlet near the Darkonian border. They had been turned over to the command of Leichttrager Yuri Mitrovik, a cruel and despotic general in the Falkovnian army (and also a distant relative of Vlad Drakov himself, as per the family bloodlines in the back of the Realm of Terror sourcebook).
The Falkovnian soldiers were hunting a terrifying unseen spirit called The Cackling Headsman, which had been stalking the land for about a month and killing soldiers in eccentric and casually violent ways - the ultimate crime in a police state. The creature got its name by the booming laughter that echoed when it launched an attack, and the clean cuts with which it would separate head from neck, as if wielding an enormous axe. Mitrovik had the help of some mages, but was unable to drive off the Cackling Headsman. In one climactic confrontation, the Cackling Headsman caused a series of mass possessions in Alttempelhof, causing the local residents to go insane and turn on the soldiers. In the ensuing slaughter, dozens of soldiers were killed, and the following reprisal raid by Mitrovik claimed about a hundred villagers.
In their return trip, in the present day, the PCs not only discover the past, but they hear renewed rumors that the Cackling Headsman has returned. There have been no more attacks, but villagers are being possessed in a trail, and it appears the Cackling Headsman is looking for something. The PCs can jump from village to village looking for the townsfolk who are being possessed and then being released.
At the conclusion of this mission, the PCs find themselves face to face with The Cackling Headsman, who is surprisingly happy to see them again: he is finally unmasked, as the "eccentric and casually violent" ogre mage villain from the homeworld campaign way back when. He is delighted to see some familar faces, and becomes their dubious ally. He is furious with Mitrovik, who splashed him with acid once, scarring his face (and thus forcing him to remain mostly invisible out of vanity) and plans to kill him in an excruciating fashion when he can.
So far, Mitrovik is well fortified and even the ogre mage's formidable abilities cannot get him a clear strike. (He can fly and turn invisible, allowing him to infiltrate most areas, but the tight corridors and frequent patrols at Helsinger's camp make it inadvisable for a creature of his size to do so.)
The ogre mage was hoping to stir up more trouble, but is reluctant to use villagers since they are inefficient and die too easily at the hands of the Talons. The PCs, he feels, will do perfectly. He knows of a Talon convoy that will be passing through the area taking a census of newborns, including the daughterage tax. The Talons also will be aiming to recruit or conscript villagers. If the PCs can disrupt them and humiliate them militarily, that will definitely draw a response.
The PCs start a campaign of harrassment, although it's up to them how seriously or lethally to take this. Eventually, Talons start raiding the villages looking for the PCs, and the ogre mage retreats with them to the cave. In the end, the ogre mage's gambit succeeds in drawing out Mitrovik and his elite guard. If the PCs aid him, the ogre mage defeats Mitrovik and takes him captive after subjecting him to a surpassingly brutal beating that leaves his body broken and shattered.
Unless the PCs stop him, the ogre mage visits horrific injuries on Mitrovik during protracted periods of gothically decadent torture that keep the locals awake for days. (Standing by and watching this would be enough cause for a Dark Powers check.) Depending on the PCs' intervention, a variable amount of time may pass before the ogre mage finally puts Mitrovik out of his misery, and publicly stakes his body outside Castle Draccipetri for Vlad Drakov to see. To add insult, the body is clad in full Talon armor, except for the loin plate and the throat guard, to make way for the stake to enter and emerge from the corpse.
Not long afterwards, the ogre mage departs from his abode, leaving a letter to the PCs explaining that he received a visitor from Darkon. A member of the secret police has recruited him after witnessing how he dealth with Mitrovik. The ogre mage's letter mentions the Kargat member by name and mentions that she knows the PCs (indeed she does - she used to be the noblewoman who once ran l'Agence d'Affaires). In his typically carefree nature, the ogre mage invites the PCs to drop by to visit him anytime, as old friends, when he's a member of the Kargat.
This paves the way for the Asian assassin Bei Ying (Bane) to resume contact with the PCs and to solicit their help in getting him into Castle Avernus to attempt to kill Azalin Rex, in accordance with his Geas from Strahd. Whether the PCs choose to help him or not, he makes his way there during a decadent noble's ball, perhaps with the unwitting aid of the ogre mage Kargat member, and puts his assassination plan into action.
Unsurprisingly, it fails and he is killed by Azalin, but not before Azalin finds out everybody he has ever had dealings with. If the PCs are actually present in Avernus at the ball while the attempt goes on, it is very easy to kill them and start the
final adventure before the Grand Conjunction: From the Shadows. Otherwise, Azalin may have to send out the Kargat in a midnight raid to kill or incapacitate the PCs and bring them back to Avernus.