Old Ghosts: Behind the Screen

I was keen to get back to the main campaign. It’s been ages.

That said, the first thing I did was ditch the Queen of Sigil/Vlrc diversion. If like me you made the original khaasta chase across the Outlands an epic one, the party is guaranteed to ask everyone around them for a shortcut back to Sigil, and there’s no plausible reason for the entirety of Crux to withhold that knowledge. The entire reason for visiting the Queen then becomes moot. Plus the whole visit thing shines a massive spotlight on an NPC that never appears again. It’s the opposite of Chekhov’s Gun. I don't know about you, but my players create enough fun-but-irrelevant narrative cul-de-sacs without me adding any to the mix. If I had time to find ways to reuse her, or if my party had gone a long time without any roleplaying, I might reconsider.

For the portal key from Ranais to Sigil, “The memory of a dead loved one” seemed a better roleplaying opportunity than plain white leather, encouraging players to delve into their backstory, and not making them go hunting for a plot progression coupon. It made for a tiny flash of poignancy mid-game.

Running the visages remains a difficult thing. Fights against them are slower, because their illusions slow down play, they have loads of damage resistances, and their damage output is low. In addition, the open-ended interpretation of how illusions affect players makes for a lot of on-the-fly rulings.  They’ve been fun enough, but as someone who likes combat to be bounded with consistent rules, I don’t know how much I’ll be missing them once the party passes chapter 5.

I was happy with how this session went. Letting the players return to old locations, seeing the seasons of Yggdrasil change, and seeing how NPCs from the party’s past treat them in light of their deeds – all of this creates a living world that changes around the players and reacts to their deeds. Hopefully the change in Veridis’ treatment of them stuck out for the players.

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