SPOILER ALERT!

Tattered Fates is a great scenario in setting, mood and atmosphere, but plotwise I've found it difficult:

* The Red Cages is a nice superdungeon but the events and encounters supplied seem a bit ... unimaginative, quick and dirty. I have elaborated this setting a lot including scav cannibals, an Ogryn beast keeper, and a boss fight with animal masked-Beast House operatives in which the acolytes may set free the zoo of horrors encountered - I have made up beasts such as the Hellwhelp, the Brontian Tuskbeast, bloodbats, razorbeaks (think evil ostriches) , ravagers (think steel-jawed wolverines), a plague toad, and included a chaos spawn, a thermo drake from Rogue Trader, an ambull, a mutated grox, and, ofcourse a carnosaur.

* Once the PCs have escaped the Red Cages and start looking for Jackal Mask/Marcus Vulpa, they may find a skinless corpse hidden in a trunk, missing its lower right arm. Does this corpse have any signifance? Is this the corpse of Jackal Mask, whose skin the Widower is wearing in the final act of the scenario? I know Vulpa's metal tentacled arm was his left arm, not his right, but this might be a blooper? Alternatively, it might he the body of a Haarlock scion whose hand is used to engage the clockwork mechanism of the Steel Clock in Gabriel Chase?

* Heron Mask's plan is a bit convoluted. He uses Haarlock scions to draw out the Widower to gauge its strengths. But then the attacks of the Widower in Act II should be a major plot device. In the book it is breezily supplied as an option for GMs to show the players some of the menace of the Widower.

* Heron Mask also hopes that the Haarlock blood may control the Widower like in ages past. But how would this work? The book is silent about how this would actually come into play. The Widower kills Haarlock scions to make sure he will never be controlled again .. so he thinks along the same lines as Heron Mask.

* Exactly how has the Widower summoned the black light of the Tyrant Star to Komus?. He seeks to perish under its baleful light .. but then why fight the acolytes and Heron Mask in the final act if he is on a suicide mission anyway?

* and what are Heron Mask's plans with the Widower .. he wants to control it to gain access to the Legacy .. but how? does he have a contingency plan? Does he intend to ship the thing offworld?

Curious to your thoughts!

The Laughing God said:

I have both played in the red cages and later ran it. I'll try to address things as you cover them, but if I seem to run off on a tangent, just bear with me... it will make sense...later.

Red cages is a bit vague, on purpose I believe for three reasons: First, many GMs have experience in other game systems prior to DH and coming up with something more definative isn't really the point here...it's keeping to the overall plotline, of following the haarlock plots. Rather than giving a million miles of dungeons (which can easily be copied from other game systems), then keeping thing small, so as to give the most necessary info. Second, more info, if provided would end up adding seriously to the price of the book... something that I think FF was trying to avoid. Finally, every GM generally knows his players... and knows if they will like a long dungeon crawl or if they will want it kept short. By leaving it left undefined, each GM can give his or her own spin, and cater to his or her players.

One thing the GM did when I played was putting players possessions on 3x5 cards... as people picked things up in the cages. Remember, people aren't exactly carrying a backpack, 50 foot of rope or whatever else they need...they going to improvise heavily... or die. You're dumped literally in a pit, half naked (if not fully naked), and it's do or die. Kinda reminds me of SF training, but I digress...

Don't make it too easy to escape the cages. If players haven't had to burn a fate point along the way (or maybe more than one), you're probably running it too easy (remember that they get rewarded with FPs at the end of each section if successful). OTH, the masked man is letting the PCs make a run for it... so a bit of leading them on a merry chase may be in order.

One thing I did is add other 'masked' leader types. Raven mask, and jaguar masked men made appearances... just to make the PCs wonder what in the bloody hell was going on?

Much of HOW the Heron mask is planning on controlling the widower is left intentionally vague, I think for two reasons here. First, at the start he doesn't know yet, but figures the PCs will end up gving him a few ideas. The other thing is FF is leaving much of it up in the air, so that each individual GM can define what the black star is for their campaign.

One last thought. Psykers spend much of the scenario drugged and unable to use their abilities, which may have those characters doing things to feel 'useful' after having been nutted for so long.

Most FFG ready-made scenarios are pretty 'breezy' and leave a lot to the GM. I don't mind, but I know quite a few GMs who do.

I am not going to rob psykers of their abilities and same for tech-priests with energy coils. Sounds too .. deus ex machina. But then again the psyker in my campaign relies mostly on divination and subtle powers and is not tossing warp lightning around all the time.

what do you make of the skinless corpse missing his lower arm?

The Laughing God said:

I'm assuming that a being made for killing people in gruesome ways probably has taken to enjoying what it does. So in short, why go out with a whimper when you can go out with a bang as well?

The Laughing God said:

I'd assume that Heron Mask has some sort of Ritual planned for when he has subdued the Widower to bind him to himself using the blood of the Haarlocks. This is at best only hinted at from what I can remember but I dont think it's really it's really neccessary to detail that part of the adventure. For me it always felt like the Beloved was trying to control things men was not meant to control. After all he shows up in person the moment the widower reveals himself in the manse, even with all his goons there's nothing really stopping the Widower from jumping him and tearing him to pieces within a few seconds.

The Laughing God said:

1) You could elaborate depending on how many sessions you want to keep your players down there. My groups was there for three or four sessions (partly thanks to Gregorius' ideas posted here on the forum).

2) I always thought it to be Marcus Vulpa though I haven't relized any blooper regarding the wrong arm I have to admit. Somehow a weak ending for him, but there are bigger fishes around anyway.

3+4) The Beloved expects the Haarlock blood to be able to draw out the widower. Controlling the Widower as a scion of Haarlock is not elaborated on in the book unfortunately and I missed it as well. Though maybe controlling is not really possible for a scion, maybe the Widower just feared a scion could know as much sorcery and arcane technology to cotrol him as Erasmus did; thus he kills them just to be sure.

5) It was more the Steel Clock's arcane technology, than the Widower that summoned Komus in my opinion. Maybe he can only go down fighting, as he is "programmed to kill and/or to self-defend" so to speak.

6) In Dead Stars it is hinted that the remnants/face of the Widower could be a "Guide" at the ice station on Mara. Maybe the Beloved thought about using it to reach/get access to the Blind Tesseract.

Keep in mind, that the Pilgrims of Hayte are a nihilistic and apocalyptic cult that wants to cause as much destruction as possible. The rise of the Tyrant Star above Quaddis is a success for them in itself, even without any further use of the Widower or even a contigency plan. Read about the False Prophets in DotDG how they cause massive uprisings on planets only to slip away at the latest moment.