Hi,

I ran "A Day Late" four times on the demo day, and now I'm going to run it for my regular group to get the feel of the game before they make characters for 'A Gathering Storm.' I'd really like to add on an Act III to flesh it out a bit more, but I'm stumped. I understand that the package is a MacGuffin, but it was anticlimactic for all the demo groups--they all wanted to know what was in the box or what happened next. Has anyone tacked on an Act III that gives more closure?

If not, I could use some help writing one! I figure there's something nasty is in the box. Some options include:

A) Opening it summons some imps or something. This would effectively be just another combat encounter, but against summoned daemon(s) instead of beastmen. For it to make sense, I'd need to give the Elf Envoy a liitle more background so that there's a reason for someone to mail him a nasty surpise. This Act would be easy to write, but I just feel like it would be forced.

B) The box has warpstone in it (which the Envoy is expecting) and a group of skaven that have been tracking it ambush the characters on the return leg. This could get a little more complex, with an initial attack by an assassin followed up by some clanrats with a rat ogre. It could be designed to be obviously overwhelming so that I tracker could be used to represent the party's attempt to escape. Or, it could be designed to kill the pregen characters, which then gives the reason that the players need to make new ones.

A nice extra touch would be for Act III to somehow tie or allude to 'An Eye for an Eye' or 'A Gathering Storm.' Even if the new characters just travel past the location where the pregens were savagely slaughtered and dismembered, it would be a nice nod. The only clues to their fate would be large footprints that resemble those of rats and maybe patches of fur on the pregens weapons and an oddly shaped shuriken or two... I'm sure the player's would appreciate it, even if it doesn't directly impact their next characters. Plus, I get the feeling that the next adventure/campaign published will include skaven! (see pg. 5 of the preview doc 'Shifting through Shadows'... "Morrslieb!")

Anyone have an Act III or have any ideas/want to help write one?

Thanks!

To make it quick, my gamers played the characters from the demo, and I linked the demo to An Eye for An Eye.

The Elf Envoy ran some business for Ulthuan in the past with Lord Von Brauner (Eye for an Eye) in Marienburg concerning his family shipyard. As he knew the elf's journey led her around Reikland, he sent a request for help concerning Grunewald's Castle by the coach. So the box contains the request letter and his missing son Andrea Von Brauner's medallion, made with some warpstone... That's what attracted the beastmen around the coach.

The Troll Slayer lives around the Roadwarden's father, as written for the character. The dwarf protect his good friend's daughter : Birgitta Tageslicht.

The Roadwarden's father, Ivan Tageslicht, was a good friend of Aschaffenbrauer's assistant ( Eye for An Eye). That assistant left Grunewald to Ubersreik and asked him to investigate in secret about the troubles at the castle (don't want anybody consider his master can't keep safe the castle for Von Brauner). The Roadwarden's father disappeared in the attack at the castle and never came back. That's why his daughter Birgitta Tageslicht wanted to take his duty... As she's a girl she needed a special authorization from administration in Marienburg. His father's collegue, Rutger (the coach guy) come back from marienburg in the coach with the answer.

Finally in Eye for an Eye they discovered Ivan Tageslicht wasn't dead. He was left for dead by the beastmen around Grunewald, and Greg Piersson's cultists took him to sacrifice him in the ritual ran at the end of the adventure (instead of sacrifying one of them).

SORRY FOR MY POOR ENGLISH. Hope it helps.

After Eye for an Eye, the adventures decided to bring back the dwarf's legendary hammer to Karak Azgaraz. I ran a step in a Grey Mountain's Inn with Ghost of Mondstille (excellent fan adventure).

Then I ran A Shadow Fall (another excellent fan adventure) near Karak Azgaraz. Instead of running the last encounter with beastmen, I pictured the orcs came to get food for a Waaagh! raised near the dwarf small fortress... End with dwarves : give back the hammer, destroyer Andrea's Medallion, a high epic battle to defend Karak Azgaraz against the waaagh!

I actually cast the haughty merchant as a cultist who had a whistle on his person that could rally beastmen. Once the players dispatched the initial attackers, they began to interrogate the merchant, who, after a lengthy session of deflecting their inquiries, blew his whistle and locked himself inside the coach. That's where we left it.

I should also mention that the the merchant will resurface in the proper campaign, along with a Wargor decorated with the heads of the pregens.

In some other thread somewhere on this forum, someone had posted the idea of putting the social encounter with the merchant into the middle of the beastmen fight. You run the first phase of the beastmen encounter, then put in some delay before the reinforcements show up. So the merchant encounter happens with a time pressure of more monsters gathering off-camera. Use a tracker to chart how long it takes the PCs to talk the merchant into cooperating, and if they stall out, you hit them with the second wave of beastmen. This also helps reduces the chance of the PCs using violence on the merchant, because if the beastmen come back early it'll be a three-way battle.