Hey all,
I’m running my first game of Torchbearer this coming Thursday and planning to use the Dread Crypt of Skogenby adventure available online. I have a couple of queries relating to the adventure that are less rules related and more just actual advice of how to run certain things. If anyone has any specific examples to my questions that would be great. A lot of these questions won’t really have a real answer. I really like how this adventure leaves lots of blanks for the GM to fill in themselves.
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First of all concerning the possession ability of Haathor-Vash. Assuming none of my players succumb to possession during the adventure they’ll come to the final room and find Jora currently possessed. Let’s say they manage to get Haathor-Vash out of Jora…whether that’s by killing poor Jora or taking her out into the sunlight. In this situation Haathor-Vash is not dead but able to possess again at some point in the future. The adventure mentions some vague suggestion that he will possess again “in the next phase”. How have people interpreted this? Made it seem like everything was fine then possess a player whilst camping? Or maybe you thought more long term and had Haathor-Vash return many adventures later.
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My second query concerns the final conflict that is likely to occur. Assuming the same as above the players will come to a room containing poor possessed Jora and some Temple Guardians. If they try and kill or drive off this group it’s a pretty easy conflict to figure out. If they try to convince Haathor-Vash then it makes sense that the Temple Guards don’t attack whilst the discussion is occurring. Clever players may try to banish/abjure the spirit of Haathor-Vash from the body of Jora. The rules say that in this conflict the Temple Guardians cannot help. However, surely they wont just stand around whilst the human cleric tries to exorcise their master? How have people ran this particular section? Two conflicts, one to kill the Guardians and one after to abjure the spirit? Two back to back conflicts seems a little fiddly.
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This last query is possibly more of a rules thing and concerns asymmetric conflicts. Now I’ve seen plenty of other posts about asymmetric conflicts where the players and the enemies intent aren’t the same. This isn’t what I mean here and I understand how those situations work. What I’m more confused by is situations where the players have different intents about the enemies they are fighting. Take the final conflict example again. The players want to capture Jora so they can take her out to the sunlight. They don’t really want to capture the Temple Guardians though… they just want to kill or drive them off. How would one run this? One capture conflict where, after winning I just say the Guardians are slain? Or again two conflicts, one to kill the Guardians and one to capture Jora? Again I’m not sure about back to back conflicts. Also surely Haathor Vash would get involved in the first conflict helping out her minions.
Anyway any advice would be great guys!!
Thanks