Negotiating with the Stone Woman in Broken Tower

[Scorus]

I'm very interested in your experiences running Broken Tower, particularly if your players ended up bargaining with the Stone Woman (successfully or not). I'm running a version of it soon and am intrigued by the notion of the players allying it, I could see that potentially happening. Did your players try this, what did they offer and what was the result? Curious how many cows/season would result in a truce or even alliance.

[Lordabdul]

2 hours ago, Scorus said:

I'm running a version of it soon and am intrigued by the notion of the players allying it, I could see that potentially happening. Did your players try this, what did they offer and what was the result?

As far as I know this is a very common outcome for this scenario. My players did it but since it was a one-shot, we didn't follow up on it...  The Earth priestess in the group basically just stepped forward, told everybody to shut up and stop fighting, and started talking to the Stone Woman, realizing what she was. She mentioned that the area was in bad shape, that her tower was crumbling, and that there was "another way": to be freely worshipped again, and to make the land good again. After a couple rolls (appropriately augmented), the Stone Woman calmed down and agreed.

I quickly described what would most likely happen in a campaign from then on: the priestess would become the first initiate in Idrima's revived cult, and she would be spending some time every season maintaining a Site, or hiring someone to do so. There would be worshipping involved, so I didn't mention having to sacrifice a particular number of cows per season -- that would be up to the player based on what kind of bonus they need on their "Worship (Idrima)" skill. Since that skill would be brand new, it would probably be a good idea to add sacrifices to raise its score in the first few seasons (I figure the starting score could be close to any "Worship (Maran Gor)" skill, or half of a "Worship (Ernalda)" skill... I don't know if there are guidelines for this?). In return, Idrima would provide access to a few Rune and Spirit magic spells, but most importantly allow the players' clan to expand their lands into what were previously considered "bad lands". If all done right, these lands would become progressively fertile and inhabitable again over the next seasons and years. This would potentially give tactical and economical advantage over the Grey Dogs, and would be a major plot point in a clan-based campaign going forward.

I wasn't super familiar with the Spirit Cult rules back then so you might realize this is not totally following RAW. Spirit Shrines (p378) have a bunch of requirements in theory, such as a shaman and at least 9 other initiates doing a ritual every week to appease the spirit. You might have to look into that (and deviate from it based on personal taste) if you want Idriam to be a Spirit Cult... The Broken Tower mentions that the PCs could also worship Idrima as a sub-cult of Maran Gor. That would mean, I think, maintaining a Site (p284) and figuring out a holy day (probably the day Idriam's cult was revived by the PCs, although going with Maran Gor's high holy day would also fit).

Edited November 4, 2020 by lordabdul

[tnli]

In my game, the Orlanth's assistant priest was down to POW 1 due to a Divine Intervention, and managed to get decent rolls when talking to Idrima. I rolled a really good reaction to Idrima, and she decided to help the assistant priest, calling him her husband. 

Basically, all present PC's (4) sacrificed a POW to her, and she took them into her cult and got 1 rune point for Maran Gor (whose subcult Idrima is), and she even gave 3 POW to the Orlanthi, bringing him up to POW 3 (4-1 for the Initiation). After this they then sacrificed half of the herd to Her, and promised to bring more worshippers to Her from Clearwine. 

Good thing they have contacts in Clearwine to fulfill this promise! 

[g33k]

2 hours ago, Scorus said:

... Curious how many cows/season would result in a truce or even alliance.

The key element, IMHO, isn't just "cows/season" but actually restoring a Cult to her -- worshipers, lay & Initiate both; and a priest(ess) (though Idrima's a "she" I am unclear if she would actually care (all that much) about gender in her Initiate-and-up worshipers).

Giving her a few animals to kill isn't much of an incentive (not NONE; but not MUCH).  Give her a Cult, and you have (IMHO) an nigh-irresistible lure.
 

[Scorus]

58 minutes ago, g33k said:

The key element, IMHO, isn't just "cows/season" but actually restoring a Cult to her -- worshipers, lay & Initiate both; and a priest(ess) (though Idrima's a "she" I am unclear if she would actually care (all that much) about gender in her Initiate-and-up worshipers).

Giving her a few animals to kill isn't much of an incentive (not NONE; but not MUCH).  Give her a Cult, and you have (IMHO) an nigh-irresistible lure.

Yes, I'm open to that possibility. The book emphasizes how she is mostly just hungry and that that is what she has used the NPC to accomplish, so I think that is an incentive. None of the players are Earth cultists and I don't think they will be interested in worshipping her, though in my game the tower she has moved into is highly strategic so they may realize the wisdom of finding someone that will worship her. As a daughter of Maran Gor she would probably prefer female worshippers, though she is in no position to be picky.

[French Desperate WindChild]

11 hours ago, Scorus said:

None of the players are Earth cultists and I don't think they will be interested in worshipping her

they may have a sister, mother , cousin, or friend who can do it and be interested

I didn't yet play this scenario and it was difficult to me to understand how you can manage a deity.. but I got an Illumination seeing the white bull campaign. That could give you some nice idea (and mainly how Jeff shows the path, so naturally that I didn't notice anything during the episode).

so finally

1) find a spirit / lesser got (that is easy in your case)

2) find someone leading the cult (pc or relatives)

3) find an agreement with the spirit/god about the value of sacrifice, as @g33k said, cows are not enough, pow is important, and what are the benefits for the cult (is it like a wyter, is it a god providing spirit and runic magic, some curse to ennemies, some blessing for the land/cultists ?)

4) then succeed to provide the worship (agreement + rules p284)

5) and now, you are not only playing an adventurers campaign, but a dignitaries campaign

[Scorus]

Thanks for this. I have a couple of other adventures queued up that will provide similar opportunities, including the dragon/queen scenario from the GA.

In this case, I have moved the Stone Woman to Tarkalor Keep and the enthralled bad guy is one of the PC's brothers. So she could become an ally in the Varmandi/Colymar feud with the Orleving/Malani.