This week’s goal is simple: get the party into the dungeon under the Stairs of Allegiance.
Last session ended with the group wrapping up their first real fight and capturing a cultist. A large part of prep this week was building out her character and the internal structure of ‘the cult.’ She is Chella, the ‘cult’ has beenfleshed out as the Plate Three Historical Society this will clearly separate them from the revolutionaries when the party later encounters them. I had done the historical and mechanical work on the Historical Society but had not yet done the internal structure for them. Having now named their leaders and given them positions, they feel much more alive. This also will make Chella a heck of a lot more fun to voice. They’re not just chaos bringers now. They’re the Plate Three Historical Society who unravel themselves to discover the secrets of the Fourth God that are right there in plain view. In their eyes, they’re uncovering the history that the Senate has been hiding. They think everyone else has been gaslit by the government. Very fun stuff. And, there is certainly a major grain of truth to them. I enjoy creating elements of anti-villain within my villainous organizations. They have good reason to take their stance, they just happen to have come to the wrong conclusion. This makes them somewhat human and identifiable yet also undeniably incorrect.
I’ve also been tinkering with the festival plaza outside the stairs. Inspired largely by an early American county fair mixed with our Wizard city. They’ll liekly no stop long there this session, but it might be important on a future loop. Maybe that’s overprepping, but in a time-loop campaign, it helps to know where the breadcrumbs are even if nobody’s picked them up yet.
The puzzle to get into the dungeon is a little tricky, and with the Enforcer player missing this week, I’m curious to see how they solve it without the obvious social route. It’s very possible they find another way. Or totally blow past it. Or miss it completely.
That’s the other edge of time loop design: I want to give them real freedom. But I also didn’t prep the second floor of the dungeon past the map. So we’ll see.
Maybe I’ll go prep a battle for if they get to the second floor of the dungeon. Wish me luck.
