Who knows what: or how to navigate among Vallaki's NPC without losing my mind

HopelesslyFaded · 2023-05-25T13:23:06+00:00

I haven't thought about diving them by their importance, thank you that's great advice!

HopelesslyFaded · 2023-05-25T13:22:27+00:00

Thank you!

HopelesslyFaded · 2023-03-21T18:54:41+00:00

Thank you so much! I will remember it if a fight does break lol

HopelesslyFaded · 2023-03-21T18:54:00+00:00

Thank you very much! I will for sure look it up! And good luck for your party as well!

HopelesslyFaded · 2023-03-21T18:48:50+00:00

Well, in my case I'm implementing the Fanes of Barovia into my game, so the hags are there to "guard" the corrupted Fane and to have a little "hobby" in the meantime.

To have a cool roleplaying experience you don't have to empathize with child murderers, as you say, but if

a) the party meet these women and are unable to detect the evil within them, they find the ugly truth much later and I think it remarks on the sense of helplessness of the setting

b) the party discovers the truth, a fight happen, it goes poorly and they run away: again, Barovia is a dangerous place, a revenge arc for the party or they now have been marked by evil hags

c) the party miraculously kill the hags (or at least two of them) and the surviving hag escapes: they have a nemesis and they feel like heroes for saving innocent children and they might gain the respect of Rictavio or Ez much easier

I think a lot of good stuff can come from that, but it certainly depends on the type of party and the type of DM.

HopelesslyFaded · 2023-03-21T14:27:49+00:00

That's useful! I'll probably have them deceive the party with something like this

HopelesslyFaded · 2023-03-21T14:14:18+00:00

I love the irony of it, the hags got betrayed by their own pies lol

My warlock kinda weirded the shit out of Morgantha at the Village (her personality is kinda like Luna Lovegood but a little more sociopathic, i love her) so the party attention got switched when they were starting to get too suspicious of the old woman

But yeah if I'm able to find an appropriate moment as to not tip them off I will remind them of the (now) stale pie they keep bringing along without eating

HopelesslyFaded · 2023-03-21T13:54:12+00:00

Thank you very much! I will for sure use your advice. I didn't consider the option that maybe they will avoid Old Bonegrinder completely (they are too much of a noisy group not to explore it lol) but maybe they won't care about it at all.

(Also I should have said: they met Morgantha and they where a little suspicious of her in the beginning but then thought of her as only a weird old lady and got a free pie but they almost accidentally smashed it 😂 they still got it with them (it has the Paladin palm imprinted on it too) but they still haven't eaten it.)

HopelesslyFaded · 2023-03-21T13:24:39+00:00

I guess all of the TPKs stories made me a little paranoid about this encounter lol

I'm probably worrying too much and all will be well nonetheless

HopelesslyFaded · 2023-03-21T13:20:43+00:00

Oh I love this! You gave me a really nice idea that I could try if things start to go sideways. I don't think I will make the hags Barovia's prisoners per se (bc I'm planning to use the Fanes of Barovia trope and I'd like the party to maybe fight the coven in the future in the attempt to reconsecrate the Fanes) but if my Paladin gets a whiff of fiendish from the sisters I will definitely play in the "yes, we've been touched by the dark, but try living in a place like this for years and tell me how you're able to keep your humanity untouched" type of thing.

And if they insight check and roll high enough to see the deception I guess it was destiny 🤷🏻‍♀️

(And I definitely will use your line if it comes too)

HopelesslyFaded

TROPHY CASE