Upon your order, I and my assistant Minyon traveled to the Plane of Mortals to halt the Cagewrights in their nefarious task to free your prized possession, Adimarchus, the Betrayer, the Two-Faced One.

Finding the hideout of the Cagewrights, what they refer to as The Fiery Sanctum, was easy.  Truly, these mortals are too easy to overcome.  Upon arrival, we found a group, fought with them, and forced them to surrender.  They claimed to be the Dungeon Divas, and working against the Cagewrights as well. Since it suited our purposes, we agreed to work with them.

Our ways parted when they wanted to investigate a tunnel too small for our siege engine.  Instead, continued through the large tunnel, following the tracks deeper into the mine.  At different points, we needed to carve our way through.  The tunnel ended at a wall, obviously put there to thwart weaker beings.  We burst through the wall in time to see the Dungeon Divas in the aftermath of battle.

Foolish beings were debating what to do to save the Marked Ones shackled in the tree.  That and moaning over their fallen comrade.  The Sun Worshipper.  Sure, it would be difficult for these weak beings to continue without their healer.

Tree of Shackled Souls

They wasted much time and energy trying to break the tree, and get the Marked Ones free.  After using magic to successfully get 6 of them, they invited me to join them above ground.  I offered instead to guard the tree.

When the Divas were gone, I killed the rest of the Marked Ones in the tree.  No longer can the Cagewrights use the Marked Ones energy to open the gate to Carceri.  Without the gate, they cannot find Skullrot, they cannot free Adimarchus.

We will further ensure the failure of the Cagewrights’ plan by tracking and killing the other 6 Marked Ones, the ones the Divas freed.  They cannot be allowed to roam and be recaptured for a second attempt.

Your Treasure shall be safe for another 500 years.

Respectfully submitted,

Rmongor

“Tropes are story telling devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members’ minds and expectations.”

You know, like when you are following a story, and it goes in a direction you didn’t expect, and then you find out it was All Just a Dream.

Or when the heroes are trapped in a locked room with no windows and the only way out is the Air Vent Escape. Or the only way in is the reverse of this.

In the Dungeon Divas (and perhaps D&D in general), I’ve been thinking that the story line follows a Jigsaw Puzzle Plot. This is a plot with many story arcs that intersect, thread together, and create a large Myth Arc. Of course, that’s just the story the way we’ve been playing it. At other tables, and even within this story, there are always opportunities for the heroes to battle against a Monster of the Week.

Back when the Divas discussed what we wanted out of gaming, we agreed that role-playing was more important that roll-playing. We wanted there to be a connected storyline, and for everything to relate. But if we wanted to do something off-track, we should be allowed to do that on occasion.

The Shackled City is a series of adventures by Paizo publishing. It starts with Chapter 1 and the characters at Level 1. Eventually, it travels to Chapter 12 and the characters at Level 20. We’ve been playing every week for two years and we are now in Chapters 8 and 9 with Level 13 characters.

It’s a pretty famous storyline and it’s been played by a lot of groups. We’re pretty dedicated — about 3+ hours a week for over 100 weeks — and we’re only 75% through the story. With such a complicated plot strung over a long time, it’s easy to imagine the risk of Continuity Lock Out. New players joining us have no idea what is going on. Even our Diva Charter Members can get lost in the intricacies of a plot this lengthy.

In our most recent episode, we encountered The Thirteen, and participated in The Reveal. Here we learn that the group’s main goal is Breaking Out the Boss. Now this could be a spoiler, except that in classic Jigsaw Puzzle Plot fashion, the Divas have been gathering evidence for some time. At this point, they’ve put enough of the pieces together that they can guess what the final picture could be. A classic Recap Episode, it serves as a great opportunity to review and introduce.

And what did we learn? The evil Lord Vhalantru, is not the Big Bad we thought. No, The Man Behind the Man is this group of Thirteen. And we get to utter the Arc Words “Everything is connected” as a parade of familiar faces comes to the meeting. The horrible people the Divas have been following were just Mooks. The Dixie Mattress Company, once thought as just The Convenient Store Next Door, was actually a centerpiece of villany. No, this Villian Episode did not provide a lot of opportunity for Evil Gloating but gives us a lot of information.

But does it give too much information? Of course not. Because the beauty of this scenario is that it follows the classic Xanatos Gambit. The heroes are supposed to find out the plot. How else to motivate them to action? And we know it works, because you can see an index of successful gambits, and that’s not even revealing too much because Xanatos Planned This Index.

And of course, as a DM, I must be well-versed in the Evil Overlord List of all the tropes to avoid.

Once we had secured the ground floor of the temple and secured our prisoner, we stopped for a moment. My hat of disguise had fallen off in battle. I swept it off the floor and put it on. “OK,” I growled in my half-orc voice, “What’s next? Where do we put the aluminum?”

Acgar raised her hands. “You don’t know if there are other people in here. You’re just going to blow this place up without checking for innocent lives?! Who are you? I really wonder,” she turned to the others, “I really wonder sometimes if this is really Indira.” No one spoke.

Sadi shrugged. “We could look around, I guess.” I nodded. “That’s fine with me. We might find evidence or treasure. It’s only, what? Ten o’clock. We can take a few minutes.” Various clapped her hands and took off through the big double doors. Sadi, Ian and Brus followed slowly.

Acgar stood looking at me. “Take off that hat! I hate not seeing your face.” I removed the hat and became Indira again. “I just don’t understand you! We’re the good guys. We don’t break the law. We don’t kill innocent people.”
I held up a finger. “These are not innocent people. They hired assassins to kill us. They killed the Pelorian clerics. This temple will somehow hurt Cauldron. Whatever their ‘dedication ceremony’ is for the morning, it’s not good for Cauldron.”
“And how do you know there’s a ceremony in the morning?”
I smirked. “Hello! It was in the paper!”
She smiled. “Oh, yeah. If I was an evil overlord bent on destruction, I’d make sure to tell a reporter from the Cauldron Herald!”
“That’s how sure they are of success. No one questions them. Their power in this city is complete. Most of the citizen are blind.” I looked around. “Look at the guard! I bet he has no concept of the evil he is helping to fester. None of them understand what I understand. If this temple is still standing in the morning, a lot of people, innocent people, are going to die.”
“You don’t know that! You need proof. Tell me one thing you know for certain. One thing!”
“OK, OK. Yeah, Ike Iverson, the head cleric here” I jabbed my fingers downward. “He hired those assassins.” Acgar threw her hands into the air. “You. Don’t. Know. That! You think that. You believe that, but you don’t know it for truth.” I turned away, struggling for words. I walked over to stare at the skulls in the walls.

I heard Myntilly say, “The assassins did say the man who hired them was wearing a Jasidian symbol. And their meeting place was here. That’s pretty damning.”

“Circumstantial evidence, at best.” Acgar dismissed the words.

I stared at the tied up guard. He was still unconscious. I resisted the urge to kick him. He was one of the three (or was it four?) who ganged up on me during the battle. It was… ungenerous of me to want to kick him. He was now helpless before me and in battle, he’d been simply doing his job.

I walked back to my friends. “God has laid this on my heart. I know it’s the right thing to do. The evil in Cauldron starts here. It grows here. It must be destroyed.” Acgar grabbed my shoulders and stared deeply into my eyes. Finally she spoke: “You can’t prove it. My friend, you have no proof. I can’t let you imperil your soul this way.” Her hands tightened and I felt fear. What spells could she cast on me? Hold Person? Could she cast hold person?

I broke free of her grip. “Proof? I have proof! I have proooooooof!” My screams echoed in the large chamber. I caught my breath. “I have proof. In the morning. In the morning this monstrous temple is going to block the morning sun from reaching the Pelorian temple.” I let my voice go to a whisper. “What more proof do you need?”

“A blocked shaft of sunlight? Is that an offense punishable by death? Is that your right to be judge, jury and executioner? Is it?”

I stretched out my arms and entwined my fingers. “Acgar, my friend. One day you will know that I am right. And on that day,” I smiled, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to refrain from saying ‘I told you so.’”

Acgar stared at me. “That is the most undiplomatic thing I have ever heard you say. And now, I really am frightened. I can’t stop you. And I can’t stop you from corrupting our friends, but I will arrest you afterwards.” I nodded. “I know that. And I will go along quietly. Once the temple is destroyed, I will gladly go with you. Now, if you are not here to help, then go away.” I waved my hands at her face.

Myntilly started to speak when we heard the others came back. “We got some pretty sweet evidence.” Sadi held out her hands to show us sheafs of paper.

Myntilly took the top inch of paper and hungrily scanned the writing.
“Who’s that?” asked Acgar, pointing to the body strapped to Brus’ back. Sadi laughed. “Would you believe Todd Vanderboren?”

Acgar started to walk over to the body when Myntilly handed her a letter. “You’ll want to read this.” Acgar scanned the letter. And then she read it slowly. And then she held out her hand and Myntilly put another sheet in her hand. And another. After a few minutes Acgar looked up at me. “It’s all true. Look at this.”
I shook my head. “I don’t need to see it. I told you it was true.” She grabbed the back of my neck and bent my head towards the paper. “You read it and then, we have a temple to blow up.”