Hi,

I will be starting Rejoice for you are true tomorrow and have a couple of concerns. Before I go on I will stress that I do appreciate that purchased adventures like this often need a bit of tweaking. However, there are a couple of points that I am a little worried I might struggle to get to without some obvious shoe horning

1 - Getting into Alabaster Court - After thinking about this for a while this is the one I am least worried about. I think there is a good chance an invite from Borella might not happen but there are options for a forged invite or even the Strophes helping out

2 - Finding out about Ambulon - This seems entirely reliant on overhearing Shoal

3 - Seeing the Oracle - This seems to only be triggered by opening up to Kronis. On the face of it I cannot see undercover operatives being this open with him unless I get strophes to really stress how knowledgeable he is and how trustfull he is.

I know none of this is unsurmountable it just seems a bit tenuous.

The Alabaster Court is fairly easy, as it isn't hard to get an invite from Borella or the flunky/recruiter. Failing that, it actually isn't that hard to climb down the spire and infiltrate through the upper floor windows.

The clue to Ambulon could be grabbed from overhearing Shoal, or interrogating a flunky who just happened to overhear, or, at the very worst, interrogating a mercenary from the assault on House Strophes (presupposes that there is a survivor from the assault, and that he gets captured, but if need be you can get Laurent Strophes to do that)

As for the final clue to the Oracle Ocular- you're right, that is a problem. I've just run my group through that scene earlier today, and it took them a while, and much prodding before they even realised they needed to speak to Kronis Elgrun, not the young lady at the counter. However, once the PCs are talking to the right person, all it takes (if they aren't showing signs of trusting him) is assuming Strophes gave the game away in his letter, and/or Kronis' augmetics spot the relevant slate on one of the PCs. From there, it should fall into place...

There were originally a few more scenes suggesting Ambulon that got "left on the cutting room floor" so to speak. There are agents within the Alabastor court that are well aware of Shoal having dealings with a certain "augmented" fellow... If you've got Acolytes with the right investigative skills / personalities, they can find out about shuttle / ornithopter clearances, how much fuel is regularly used up on the shuttle, etc. All such information points to Ambulon.

The Oracle is famous even beyond Ambulon, but very famous on it. Questions about unusual technology will lead many natives to suggesting the Oracle is no other recourse presents itself.

antony131073 said:

Be prepared to set up this piece of information with several hooks, the rest of the adventure depends on your acolytes getting this particular piece of info!

Speaking from experience here(as a player), we -did- catch that piece of info from Shoal, but couldn't draw any more links to Ambulon other then that one.

In the end we decided it wasn't worth leaving the mission area for such a meagre lead and called in the cavalry with a 'mission inconclusive' ending.

Theodosia has a room within the Alabaster Court, which the players can find if they decide to snoop around in the Alabaster Court. Theodosia's room could contain clues that lead to ambulon. Freight papers, landing clearances etc. So that there is more than one way to discover the connection to Ambulon.

I would suggest either Shoal or Theodosia dropping a slate or piece of parchment. If Theodosia decides to whack Shoal and the councilors, have it be near one of the bodies, so it's an obvious find. The piece of parchment or slate would perhaps implicate Ambulon in some fashion, like Rosenthal said, ornithopter clearance documents, unusual freight manifests, the like. Given that Theodosia would be eager to 'clean house', it's not entirely unlikely that he would slip up in such a fashion.

And the Oracle Ocular is more of an Easter Egg for acolytes than it is a necessary part of the narrative. Yes, some nice information will be gleaned from the encounter, but none that would prevent the finale with Theodosia and the farcosia processing lab.

On a final note, getting an invitation from Lady Borella can be as easy as having Julia introduce the PCs to her. Even if they are uncouth and ragged by compare, she might take fancy with them for their backwoods appeal, and invite them on a whim. Given the haughty, barely-conscious nature of the Joyous Choir's upper echelon, I wouldn't put it past any of them.

TS Luikart said:

Fortunately it's quite easy to drop in an overheard conversation. In my game people were split up looking around the place so I waited till there were two of them walking around in the main room and had them come across the two of them.

Alternatively the place is described as having windows across one whole side so you could make a point of Theodosia's ornithopter turning up and it being tracable back to ambulon (with a bit of legwork). And It doesn't mention how they transport the drug, boxes from a company based on Ambulon could be found in any of the out of the way locations in the Alabster court such as the Theodosia / Caros Shoals room or even better, a room on the lower floor which is a bit sparse otherwise.

The Oracle is another matter. If they really go for the undercover approach (as almost happened to my group) you may want an alternative. A crazy soothsayer or offical might be the way.