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| #1pukunuiJun 07, 2015 20:21:19 | Hi folks,
One of the PCs in my Scourge of the Sword Coast campaign is an eladrin noble who fled her home in Evermeet because she didn't want to go through with the arranged marriage her parents had set up for her. She is only 33 years old, so she's still a tween in elf years.
The session before last, the PCs were accosted in the woods by hostile wood elves, who led them to the eladrin PC's older brother. He's a member of the Eldreth Veluuthra, an elven racial supremacist group dedicated to wiping humanity off the face of Faerûn.
Upon seeing his sister, the brother told her that "playtime was over" and that it was time she went home to their parents. She didn't want to go, naturally, so he tried to grab her a few times, and when she proved to be too nimble for him and his bodyguards, they clubbed her over the head.
The other PCs were having a hard time of it against the wood elves, who had confiscated their weapons, so the brother - who is an eldritch knight and cast expeditious retreat - managed to make it through a portal to the Feywild with his sister's unconscious body. Two of the PCs followed him through the portal after finishing off his bodyguards.
I was going to use the chase rules in the DMG but as luck would have it, one of the PCs got to go first, and when he rolled on the complications table, it was the net. So the bad guy got caught and was hanging from a tree branch. I had him use his misty step to escape, but of course he couldn't take his sister's body with him.
So the brother got away and the PCs rescued their comrade. And the brother swore that wasn't the last they'd seen of him.
The question is: Now what?
What do you think this elven racial supremacist would do to get revenge? How many resources do you think his parents would be willing to commit to recover their daughter, now that they have a fair idea of where she is. I could even say that the brother managed to get something of his sister's when he escaped, even if it was some hair, so they can easily scry her current location.
Anyone got any good ideas?
I don't want to overwhelm the PCs. One eladrin eldritch knight (he's about level 11, if I recall correctly), plus two eladrin veterans, plus half a dozen wood elf scouts proved to be quite a tough encounter, although admittedly the PCs started off the combat with their hands tied and their weapons out of immediate reach.
Thanks in advance!
Cheers, Jonathan
p.s. As a side note, while the PC's older brother is a member of the Eldreth Veluuthra, their parents are only sort of sympathizers. They have all of the usual high elf haughtiness, but it's possible they don't know the full extant of what their younger son gets up to with his mates - murdering humans and insighting orcs to raid human villages and whatnot. |
| #2OrwellianHaggisJun 08, 2015 1:14:46 | I'd put them in against the same encounter, and let them enjoy how much more capable they are of dealing with it with their equipment and a level playing field. Maybe give the brother a minor magic item (his parents didn't want to give away the family sword, but they didn't want to look like they weren't supporting the Eldreth Veluuthra because that would draw trouble, so they gave the son a less important item from the armoury) to make it slightly different. |
| #3pukunuiJun 08, 2015 1:38:55 |
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| #4RazintarrJun 08, 2015 2:52:13 | This has a lot of potential. Make it last.
Him attacking them again would make sense, either him attempting to abduct his sister and return her home, or kill her companions so she will have little choice to return home by herself. But that probably ends it pretty quickly. The pcs are likely to kill him in that second encounter.
But maybe he doesn't have time to chase after his sister, because he's working on something big for the Eldreth Veluuthra. Maybe reclaiming elven ruins that are now a bustling human town, by slaying all of those townfolk. Discovering what he's up to and stopping him can be an adventure onto itself. With the added complication of him telling her parents where his sister was seen last, which will lead to friendly but stern envoys, or abduction attempts by either her parents or her fiancee.
Come to think of it....if he instead informs the fiancee and let him "resque" his sister from those filthy human abductors that she calls friends, the brother might convince his parents of his just cause. Two birds with one stone. |
| #5pukunuiJun 08, 2015 2:56:55 |
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| #6OrwellianHaggisJun 08, 2015 6:05:16 | As an extremist, I'd say the brother would attack immediately and in full force. An attack on their resting place, the inn they're staying in? Or taking a hostage and calling the characters out to fight in the street? Something like that. If the brother dies, the parents are moved from being sympathetic to the Veluuthra to fully participating supporters. As elders, these two have more political and material power than their son. They'll be a much larger thorn in the side of the character as the game progresses. |
| #7pukunuiJun 08, 2015 15:40:52 | I don't have a lot of time to develop this into a full-fledged adventure in its own right. We're playing through Scourge of the Sword Coast right now, and my plan is to end this campaign when that adventure is finished. This is more a sort of personal aside for the one PC.
Maybe what I'll do is have the brother show up again with some more of his cronies, and if they fail to take his sister again, then I'll have the fiance show up later and attempt a daring rescue or something.
The brother is sort of working on something big. There's a gold elf NPC in the adventure who has reactivated an old portal network, ostensibly for the Red Wizards of Thay to use, but she intends to actually give control of it over to the Eldreth Veluuthra once it's fully working again. I've made it so the brother is the organization's liaison with the other NPC, so he's going to be in the area quite a bit.
The PCs are currently in the ruins of an old hunting lodge, clearing out the gnolls that had set up camp in it. They've taken out the Red Wizard who was leading them, and now they just need to do a little mopping up. I could have the brother and his men show up again while they're doing that. Or I could have him wait and try to ambush them once they've dealt with the gnolls. |
| #8BRJNJun 08, 2015 16:15:18 | The parents could file a "missing persons report" with the local government - Daggerford? - and describe their daughter. When the PCs get back to town, the police want to talk to them. In the Courthouse, they are taken to a room for questioning ... and there's her brother. (If I was the sister, I would try to Fireball the room immediately.)
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| #9pukunuiJun 08, 2015 16:54:32 |
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