Please enjoy my second offering to this forum. The Prince’s Courtesan is a fairly short scenario that starts in the Turanian city Sultanapur and takes the Player Characters on a journey into Shem. From frantic chases through chaotic city streets to perilous negotiations with powerful Turanian nobility, rugged desert adventure and final confrontations with dastardly bounty hunters and a seductive sorceress, please consider this brief romp. It spans a mere 15 pages, including custom statistics for three NPCs and a table of random wilderness encounters.
Wow, I really enjoyed reading this adventure! You did a masterful job of providing options no matter what the pc’s decide to do! Also, excellent job with your descriptive text. The only question I have - will you be writing more? Well done!
PJ - if we play it, I will post how it goes! We should be finishing the current “episode” either tomorrow or next week. Depending on How the story goes, I will try yo work this scenario in next!
That’s awesome! I am currently in the middle of running it. I had envisioned it as a single-session scenario but some surprising player choices drew out the opening scene. I’d be interested to know how your players handled it, and I already have thoughts on how the scenario design and my own GMing could be altered to make it run more as intended.
I feel like this ended up being two sessions as well . . . (There are lots of . . . herbal remedies being used during our games so things are tinged in this “purple haze” ) I had this great idea and spent a bunch of time arranging Zombie-cide tiles out for their attempt to smuggle the Prince out of the city. They responded by going out through the sewers. Not all the way through the sewers of course. He was a Prince after all. But it difficult to penalize players for doing exactly what we are trying to do as a group, which is bring in more skill use apart from slaying and the occasional flaying. Although not the daring chase and escape through the city I had planned for, it was good RPing had by all. (That puts it in my win column!)
The random encounters flowed very well as they traveled to the oasis. The loremaster in the group killed a giant crocodile with he Zhaibar knife, which was pretty exciting. She may end up like Lara Croft but so far has virtually no combat related skills. Once arriving at the oasis itself, I had decided to go with an Island of Dr Moreau, kind of feel. The sorceress Nymira greets the group, rising out of the water clothed in the sheerest of silks and her long dark hair. She lives apparently alone but food is always ready and prepared, fire stoked and fresh wood ready, etc. As the players found more and more signs of others, Nymira became more and more “persuasive” in her attempts to keep the PC’s away from the other parts of the oasis. Eventually, I bribed one of them with and Akbitanian blade (there is a post ) and the PC’s went on their way. I didn’t want them to slay the poor girl with the cat paw or the really big guy with a crocodile or any of the other npc’s who had been treated (sucsessfully) all be it in an unconventional manner by the sorceress Nymira for all manner of disfigurements and deformities.
Nymira did persuade them to not pursue further investigation but I was quite certain they would not heed such advice. They did! However, I am certain that at least one former thief will deem such a blade too generous a gift and seek to return it to her. Until then, there is a rumour among the poorest and hardest off of slaves, of an oasis where any malady can be cured, if only they can plead their case before the (unknown person/being).
Thank you for sharing your experience! It sounds like you and your group had fun. I ran this scenario myself, and I think it was my most gratifying scenario all around.
I had a similar experience to yours in the first scene. But instead of fleeing, the player characters decided to go toe-to-toe with the guards for several rounds. I had to fill the map with guard squads and put Arami in a heap of danger before they finally set a fire to cause a distraction and scattered into the streets. That might be something to look out for. GMs should do something to make fleeing seem like the best option. I had envisioned a thrilling chase through exotic city streets, but I haven’t gotten that yet. The rest of the adventure went smoothly and just as I had imagined it.
My group had had a series of run-ins with evil sorcerers that had left them rather paranoid, so I decided to throw a curveball by playing Nymira as charming and benevolent. She’s since become Patron to the party sorcerer, and a recurring ally in Downtime events. She and Arami are shacked up in some mystical, unexplained hidden lair located at the oasis. He has transformed into a sagely and stoic enlightened being after living several lifetimes in dreams via Atavistic Voyage. Nymira considers him and the PC sorcerer her “two apprentices.” We’re also dabbling in the Cabal minigame presented in The Book of Skelos, with the oasis serving as their first Stronghold. All in all, I’m happy with this scenario and how it’s shaped events later in the campaign.
Planning to host this game, good stuff indeed! Out of curiosity; don’t you think the random encounter table is weird? If you are travelling off the road, you are more likely to encounter someone recognizing Arami? I feel it should be quite the contrary, and also likelihood of encountering patrols and brigands should be lower. I actually created a different table for off road travel.
You’ve got a good question there. I guess you’re right, that is a little weird. The idea is that the table can be used as a tool to modify Doom spends to have things go wrong on the journey. I myself ended up using that table as more of a loose guide. It’s more a tool for dramatic tension and shouldn’t be held to hard-and-fast. I suggest Doom spends to avoid repetitive encounters, but you can always just drop the results and say the day is uneventful if none of the rolls seem to make sense.
I myself rolled an “Arami Recognized!” while the party was avoiding roads. I narrated that while attempting to steal water from a Shemite village, they ran into a shepherd boy who had befriended Arami on his last journey. Maybe it would have been a good idea to include some suggestions like that in the pdf. But I was trying to keep the whole thing brief, because as a GM, that’s how I like it.
One tip: If you really want the players to lead the guards on a dramatic chase through the city, you’ll want to make sure that standing their ground against the guards seems like a really, really bad idea off the bat. I’ve run this scenario twice and both parties fell on their first instinct of trying to kill all the guards, even though I dropped numerous hints that virtually unlimited reinforcements were on the way. I recommend putting Arami in grave danger right away, so the PCs must break away from the brawl in reaction. This is what I finally did after about 30 minutes of combat.
I can’t wait to hear how your players like the scenario! Hope you all have fun!
) I had this great idea and spent a bunch of time arranging Zombie-cide tiles out for their attempt to smuggle the Prince out of the city. They responded by going out through the sewers. Not all the way through the sewers of course. He was a Prince after all. But it difficult to penalize players for doing exactly what we are trying to do as a group, which is bring in more skill use apart from slaying and the occasional flaying. Although not the daring chase and escape through the city I had planned for, it was good RPing had by all. (That puts it in my win column!)
