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Sunday, April 12, 2020

Felltower, the "Ape Gate," and the PCs

The PCs recently discovered the "jungle gate" actually is better described as the "Ape Gate."

Right now, the options facing the party for the "ape gate" are fairly limited:

- Trade with the apes.

- Fighting "savage" apes.

- Fighting the civilized apes.

Everything else they'd like to do - get a quest (by whatever name - a job, a request, a requirement for access, etc.), fighting in the arena (Mild Bruce's goal, and almost certainly Wyatt would do it to show off), explore the city, find out information about the kingdom (presumably without giving any back, a bedrock PC concern in many games, including mine for some reason) . . . they all require a first step by the apes. The PCs can show up and just hope someone with authority and interest gives them something to do.

So exploration-wise, it's at least momentarily a dead end . . . or is it?

What they know is the area with the gate is a "dead end" of wild jungle surrounded by a C-shape or U-shape of mountains the civilized apes deem impassible. Inside of that are the "savage" apes. What else is in that jungle? They don't know. Are the mountains impassible? They don't know. Why is the gate blocked off so far away from the gate itself?

So there is something to find out, if only if the civilized apes are telling the truth. That might not be a profitable delve, and would need some better outdoor skills to back up Galen.

Let's call that "fighting the 'savage' apes."

The other options?

Trading is possible. It's unlikely to be a source of XP. It's possibly a way to get money, depending on what's on offer this time. The PCs have a personal coin from a merchant of some importance. They don't know what that means, though.

Fighting is also possible. It'll definitely be a way to get loot - assuming they could haul away the gear from the big ape guards, they'd have some unique weapons to sell. They might only get scrap prices from them unless someone has ogres to arm, though. The apes clearly use money and the more important ones wore jewelry of some value (they saw some gold or at least gold-colored jewelry.) They have wizards, so it wouldn't be a walkover no matter how much they buff up their best fighters. But it would be a very PC move.

Developing this into a larger adventure location is going to take some effort by the PCs - either repeated contact or just getting in there and doing something. We'll see which one it is, or if they're distracted by their need to "complete" the Lost City, or by other events in the main dungeon. But the apes will be an element in the future for sure.

9 comments:

  1. I know you basically gave it the run down... but to bullet point it, your Players have really only three options:

    1 - City shenanigans. Unfortunately you're running "RAW" (or at least very RAW adjacent) DFRPG so unless someone makes a Bard or really starts leaning hard into improving their Social Skills (and reducing Social Disads), they are very limited. Not saying it's unpossible, clearly they had a profitable social encounter last session, but they were leaning an Luck pretty hard (or so it seemed to me reading the write up).

    2 - Explore the Jungle. A solid option. Do you have a Barbarian or Druid in the party (who has leaned into the wilderness skills)? As you said, right now this looks an awful lot like "fight savage apes, win no prizes". However, I'm on to you mister, there is bound to be a lost temple, or something in that jungle. It's just to thematically potent for you to have left it as "jungle, savage apes, h̶o̶r̶d̶e̶ ̶p̶y̶g̶m̶i̶e̶s̶, and more jungle".

    3 - Take a run at the city. This feels like it would be Operation Bug On Windshield... maybe it's just me... but...

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    1. 2 is tough because it'll take time and resources to scout around over a large area, hoping to stumble across something they can explore and exploit. That's probably better done in conjunction with some other business that brings them to the "ape gate."

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  2. Are ape PCs an option in the future?

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    Replies
    1. Do you allow Half-Ogres? I could a 'small' ape being built as a HOgre with the serial numbers filed off...

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    2. So someone needs to pay the Druids Circle Local #732 to reincarnate Vryce so we can see a Grape Ape Knight?

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    3. Assuming the nature gods don't play a prank and put him in a cute little rabbit body.

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    4. Only druids can reincarnate, anyway, so it's kind of an academic issue what kind of harmless, fluffy fauna he'd return as.
      (Reincarnate is on DF11 p. 25)

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