Into the Light Part 1.2: Behind the Screen

 

My ultimate piece of DM advice is this: somewhere in your campaign, be it in Waterdeep or Exandria, have a prominent NPC called Jason Scott. Make them assertive, American, and a little obnoxious. Your players might not remember the names of your other NPCs, but they will remember Jason Scott. I learnt this advice from an Adventurers’ League game I played where the captain of the City Watch was called Jason Scott. I think about Jason Scott every day; then I gave birth to my own Jason Scott, and now my players think about Jason Scott every day.

In this game, the character of Malweis is clearly the prime candidate for renaming to Jason Scott. He has no subtlety, and while he calls out every lie he hears, he seldom challenges the lie further than that. Don’t make him overly murdery, and make sure his heart is in the right place. A softcore version of Ajantis from Baldur’s Gate. Players will hate him because he does not compromise for them; but in time, they will fall for his incorruptible charm. Especially if you contrive a way for the PCs to save his life (more on that later).

Less Good Advice: in this adventure, treat combat as a release valve for players. Use it to change up the pace, and stop the investigation becoming monotonous. The stakes are always higher when the world is a dangerous place.

Using the NPC tracker to see who the players might meet, an encounter with one/two of Ivth’s swarms of cranium rats seems like a good encounter to give the players something to kill while adding to the mystery. Remember that in Planescape, cranium rats (found in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes) lack 5e’s Mind Flayer connection.

The party’s going to meet Cruigh Manathas this session, so I make a rough mental plan of his house. To me, Cruigh embodies that polite upper-class Englishman: someone who appears genial to all, but scratch under the surface and it’s clear they hold most people in contempt. Especially poorer people.

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