A few points I noticed I’d neglected to mention earlier:
The tomes Lorrimor asked the PCs to take to the University of Rivalis (right back in the first session) were the Revelations of the Prince of Twilight (liberally sprinkled with the Professor’s notations), one volume of the Madrigorian, On Verified Madness and the Manual of the Order of the Palatine Eye (neither of which I changed from the description in the adventure. Upon hearing descriptions of the books, the players did begin to wonder what exactly Lorrimor had been into...
I also spread out the journal passages based on what the PCs told me they were looking for. Obviously, the first place they looked at was the last entry, so I read that out and told them the date had been circled. Then they started reading backwards, so I asked them how far back they wanted to go (bearing in mind he filled in 3 or 4 books a year – there were literally shelves of the Professor’s diaries to go through). Once they started to learn a bit more, they wanted to go back further, so that ate up more and more of their game time.
Doing that, and reminding them that Kendra needed them to help get her house in order and catalogue all of Lorrimor’s other stuff (and keeping the diary from them for the first week) stopped them from rushing off to the prison. In fact, I didn’t even mention the prison (why would you – it’s just a ruin of the hill) until they started to investigate why the warden’s statue was being vandalised. Generally, they were quite happy to play along with the slow pacing, and I didn’t draw it out in real time - “There are so many books in the house that three days go by before Kendra, Eudora and Albert have finished cataloguing the books in the sitting room. In the mean time, Julian busies himself with repairing and whitewashing the fence, while Ignatious sees to the running of the house by buying supplies and chopping wood.”
Now:
9/7/775
Professor Lorrimor’s diary makes reference to a supply stash held by the Eternal Order in the graveyard. We attempt to retrieve this stash, but are stopped by the Sentinel, Father Vudran. He is none too pleased with us. We are banished from the cemetery.
This was one of those scenes where GMs – even warm, supportive, collaborative GMs like me – secretly revel in the downfall of the PCs.
I made it clear that the priests of the Eternal Order probably couldn’t be trusted with the knowledge that there was a cache of magical items hidden in the graveyard. Since the downfall of Azalin, the Order had collapsed into in-fighting, corruption and embezzlement, and Ignatious couldn’t be sure that Vudran would be helpful. (Vudran’s NE here). So they went to the graveyard to see what was there, on the sly. Just at twilight, when Vudran and his acolytes would be busy conducting the nightly service. In fact, to burn a little more time, I said his acolytes often conduct the daily services, but Vudran always does the Friday night one himself, so you should wait until tomorrow (the 8th) to be sure he’ll be busy.
And of course they went about this like a SWAT team: Ignatious hid in the graveyard as a lookout, since he had some authority as an Inquisitor. Eudora decided she wanted nothing to do with grave robbing, and stayed at home with Kendra (while Matt the player just laughed at them). And Julian and Albert went into the tomb to see if they could find the treasure.
I try to make normal animals behave like animals as much as possible, so I don’t see the point in them rushing out to attack any and all intruders. Most animals try to avoid creatures bigger than them, so I try for an element of bad luck or fate or reasonable animal behaviour in these encounters. They’re also more normally sized. Let’s face it – a spider or centipede the size of your hand is a giant arthropod. They don’t have to be 2 m tall to be horrifying. Change the description but don’t change the stats.
So, the centipedes didn’t attack them until the PCs were trying to open to tomb (very, very quietly – we don’t want to attract attention). From the crack in the ceiling where they’d made their nest, the centipedes slowly unwound above the unsuspecting PCs, bodies thick as bootlaces and writhing with legs, and then one fell down the back of Albert’s neck and half over his collar. Playing his role to the hilt, Albert leaped up with a shriek of revolted terror, and the second centipede fell at his feet. They tried grappling with them, stomping on them, and otherwise utterly incompetently trying to kill them. Julian finally whipped out his pistol and tried to finish them off (“The shot rings out cacophonously in the enclosed tomb, deafening you both”), and even that took several shots.
Realising the jig was up (and they hadn’t even got the tomb open yet!), they fled. I said that Ignatious could see Vudran emerging from the church – essentially just to add a bit of tension to their flight, but Ignatious decided to pull rank and face him down (possibly to allow the others more time to get away, possibly not). So Vudran (NE Sentinel of the Eternal Order) saw a group of people fleeing from an opened tomb and an Inquisitor sent from Nartok to interfere with his territory trying to detain him and – what’s worse – pull rank on him. I think “This is none of your concern” may have passed Ignatious’ lips. So Vudran insisted that it was his concern, that this was his territory and how dare Ignatious stick his prying nose so disrespectfully into his business, and knocked him cold with an
inflict medium wounds spell. And then had his acolytes deliver him back to Kendra’s house in a wheel barrow. And wrote a letter of complaint to Ignatious’ supervisors in Nartok.
So they didn’t get any of the stash, which delayed them going to the prison even more. (Which is good).
Ignatious also wrote a letter to his supervisors, explaining himself and demanding that Vudran be removed from his position for disrespecting the Inquisition.
