# Mad King's Banquet question - SPOILERS



## Zinovia (Nov 13, 2010)

Players of the campaign steer clear unless you're the type who read the end of a book first. 

So in my reading of Mad King, I was unable to find the answer to one very important question.  Who actually killed the king's family?  Was it Madness, or the Ragesians, or yet someone else?  I went through the entire mod looking for an answer that doesn't seem to be there.  I haven't gone through the 3.5 version yet, but found nothing in the 4e book that explained it; although if it is written in the tactical encounter appendix, I may have missed it.

Some player groups seem to be free-spirited to the point of running away from anything that looks remotely like a plot hook and see even the gentlest attempt to direct them as railroading.  My group is pretty much the opposite of that.  They seize on each clue with the ferocity of a terrier with a rat, shaking it until they have wrung every iota of information from it.  They see dire prophecies in random events, and all too often take vague foreshadowing as something they need to act on immediately rather than allowing it to develop further in the fullness of time.

The first hint that the village of Vidor had missing people and some unknown menace preying upon the innocent citizens, and the party was off tracking, leaving Balan with the villagers.  I had to craft a suitable troll encounter for them featuring Paradim as the troll wrangling biomancer, rather than Haddin, who is dead at this point in my game.  See, it bothered my group that Paradim had escaped from Seaquen, and they felt that tracking him down was a high priority, because they can't let the Bad Guys get away!  They are the heroes!  

So now faced with a murder mystery, you can bet your britches that they won't rest until they know the true culprit.  Getting arrested, or fleeing Bresk will not stand in the way of them solving it.  

On top of that, they are all going nuts because of some foreknowledge I sent their way via an NPC with skill in divination.  She sent a letter describing two visions.  The first was of a royal banquet where the nobles all went insane and killed each other, the second was a similar banquet where the party presented some sort of dwarven  craftsman to the king (who is a dwarf in my game).  They've been going through Bresk determined to find out who this dwarven craftsman is, although the city abounds with dwarves, many of whom are craftsmen. They have no basis for knowing which one is the one from the vision, or why presenting him to the king would matter in the slightest, yet they are tenaciously following this lead.  The genasi swordmage, who happens to be gay, visited a brothel to speak to an information broker there, and was wondering if he should ask about the dwarven craftsman.  My husband jumped in with "Well there is a dwarf at the brothel who is skilled with his tools.  They call him the Craftsman.". 

So, moving right along... When it comes to the murderer of the king's family,  knowing whodunit would be helpful.  Perhaps I missed the info in my read-through.  I can make stuff up if need be, but would prefer to not mess up anything planned in the mod.  Thanks as always for the story, we're having a lot of fun with it, despite all my modifications.


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## RangerWickett (Nov 13, 2010)

I don't know, and I wrote the thing. Unless Russ changed things in the 4e version, I was thinking it was just some assassin hired by the Ragesian ambassador, or rather hired by someone working for him. 

Now, since ridiculous precautions are necessary in a fantasy setting to foil magic, the person who hired the assassin probably used a disguise, refused to identify himself, and paid in local Dasseni coins. The assassin would have no idea why he was supposed to kill the king's family, though it is a slight clue that he wasn't supposed to kill the thing himself.

So yeah, unless Morrus says the 4e version is different, I say feel free to make it up yourself. I never intended the party to cross paths with the assassin. I mean, the guy's a good assassin. He did the job, and now he's out of there.


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## Morrus (Nov 13, 2010)

Yeah, I'd just pick either the Ragesians or Madness, whichever you prefer.


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## Zinovia (Nov 14, 2010)

Thanks for your replies.  Perhaps once my group is swept up in the main events of the module, they will forget about looking for the culprit behind the original murders, but knowing my players, it doesn't seem likely.  I will make something up, knowing I won't be writing myself into a corner with respect to the overall plot.  

Loose ends seem to drive this group crazy.  As I mentioned, they hated the fact that Paradim has escaped twice; once when they found out about his nefarious alteration of abducted refugees, and again after the end of Shelter.   I had Paradim doing biomantic  experiments on trolls out in the swamp (as Haddin was in the 4e version of module 5).  I want to set him up as a recurring villain, so deliberately made the fight with him very challenging.  Despite the rogue rolling a 1 five times that fight, they got him before he could escape.  They burned fate points like crazy and went nova on him.  His dead body teleported away in a fiery burst.  I decided that it was his phylactery that caused his body to teleport away, and he will return next time as a lich.  Unless they figure out where his phylactery is and destroy it, he can keep coming back, even if they kill him.  He will not be as powerful as the big baddies necessarily, but I want them to have a recurring villain to hate.  Leska is all well and good, but they won't be meeting her for a very long time.

As for the main plot, right now they have already taken a look at the Book of Eight Lands and seen the info on the ritual to remove the mindhaunt affliction from the king, and the Brightstaff needed for it.  They seem to be focusing on that, the possibility of breaking the ritual preventing resurrection on the royal family, and the mysterious dwarven craftsman I mentioned in a prophetic vision.  My initial thought on the craftsman was to have him be an illegitimate son of the king that the party could find as a potential heir, presuming the family can't be raised.  If I want to take a different tack, the craftsman could be involved with the Brightstaff, and help them in recovering it.  I am not sure if allowing the family to be resurrected would be a good idea.  I may just say that their souls were dedicated to the Raven Queen by the sacrifice of their hearts, and they are dead for good.  The party may track down the person responsible, but it won't do them any good.

The players seemed to enjoy the last session, where they were running around the capitol gathering info, and talking to all sorts of people.  The only combat was when the warlord wound up in a challenge match after pretending to be a general from Sindaire.  He was bluffing his way into the office of one  the Dasseni military commanders.  By the way, Lord Jinis has been renamed to Lord Guinness by my group.  He is apparently a stout and bitter man.


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## Primitive Screwhead (Nov 15, 2010)

Zinovia, it looks like you are truely enjoying the depth of the campaign!

One of the things I liked about that module was that alot of the background was left up to the DM to fill in as appropriate for thier group. My players never even asked about the kings family 

Of course, they are also the guys who interupt my descriptions with things like "Yeah yeah, its Generic Evil Forest #3... lets move forward" 

PS, spam reported.


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## liggetar (Nov 15, 2010)

See, my party has one of those people who jumps to conclusions, and he just assumed that the Ragesians did it - there was no need to go searching for proof!  And he said it often enough to convince the rest of the party by the time we got to the end


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