My players are currently in the Feywilds, and they've become involved in this expansive conflict between several Fae courts; The Court of the Wyld and the Winter Court.
They've learned of the return of a Traitor to the Summer Court (An archfey who fled and submitted his will to the Abyss to gain greater power, becoming a warlord for an ancient demonic entity - BBEG). Anyway, this traitorous demonic archfey is working with and corrupting several powerful entities, both fey and non-fey alike within the Wylds. One of these Fey is something I've come up with that's a mix between Kerrigan, Koh the Facestealer, and a Fey Drider Queen. This traitor has employed her and another Wyld fey to sabotage and infiltrate members of the Winter and Summer courts to spark a war and continue to sow discord to topple the political system. These two Fey have stolen the power of one of the Archfey of the Winter Court and usurped his position while continuing to impersonate him.
They've been at this location that I call the Nightmare Faire, which is the domain of the Reveler within the Winter/Seelie Fey. It's a weird, whimsical, twisted, place where people, fey, and non-fey come to enjoy themselves, and inevitably never leave because of the "allure and fun". I designed it as a mixture between the spirited away intro, Bonnaroo music festival, and a carnival.
The players have learned of this ruse, and news is soon to spread about the "death" of this Winter archfey I call The Reveler. They are headed to the "Drider-Koh-Kerrigan" Fey's lair with the "captured" imposter to forge a deal to gain back the powers of The Reveler in order to prevent an all out war in the realm and to stop the Traitor's ploy.
I'm at a bit of a loss to create some terms or deals they could make with this powerful entity for the power's of this Archfey back. It has to be a pretty significant deal to get back the powers/stolen identity of a prominent ArchFey of the Seelie Fey, however my players have been more than hesitant to make any deals or make heavy interactions with Fey since they've been here. So I'd like to create several deal options that would be foolish to refuse, I've had deals for when they were at teh Faire to buy things since money is no good here. Although I do expect them to just try and fight her...in her lair...with her minions...and the "captured" imposter...I would like to have a couple interesting, high stakes options available.
First let me say that I really like your setting, always loved the Fey/Fae and would love to play in this campaign.
After that, in terms of deals, there are a few important points:
So the players have experience in feys making good on their deals, without trying to trick deceive or just go back on their pledge ? Because that's one of the reasons for which in my campaigns (bot with feys and devils, which are amongst the adversaries that I like best) the players are extremely reluctant to make deals with anyone. This is partly my fault, as I've been using tons of NPCs making deals to that kind to show that, in the end, a devil's deal always benefits the devil.
So, at this stage, when I want so deal making to occur, I don't leave a way out of it, although I usually open things up to making different deals with different entities, that way they can always choose and negotiate the terms. But if you leave one way open for a straight fight, even if you say that it's going to be nigh impossible to win, I can almost guarantee that your players will choose the fight, if only for metagaming reasons.
And in the end, it's a bit of a shame, because that kind of deal is really a part of the genre and is always much more interesting than any fight, with long term consequences, so you're right, it's good to think about it.
Apart from this, at this stage, I'm not sure why the Archfey in question, which is clearly on the winning side, would offer them a deal which would reduce its power and put her in a difficult position wrt her boss. Is she planning to betray him or envisioning it ?So maybe it would be better for the players to seek deal with her minions or other allies, which can also be a lot of fun.
So, at this stage, the only thing that I can advise is that it's important for the players to realise that the fey have values which are very different from mortals, and these can be very spiritual things, with an extremely long term view. And that, in negotiation, it's important to offer something that has high value to the opposite party, not to oneself.
So the Archfey might ask one of them to give her his last laugh or something of the kind, which could have a huge spiritual/mystical value to the Fey. And something that a player might be wanting to give, and that can lead to interesting tricks and or consequences in terms of roleplay, for example.
First of all, thanks for the kind words! I've just recently hit my 2 year anniversary of the campaign, I have 5 players and they just hit level 12 last week.
The players have observed "the economy" while they were at the Nightmare Faire, in that people paid with all kinds of strange things. The rogue and monk set up a funnel cake stall in the food markets, and one person paid them a ruby for a single funnel cake, another gave them a handful of teeth (not his own). They watched people dance and party to death from exhaustion, they witnessed parents trade away their child or their fingers and wedding bands for another chance at playing a carnival game. They went to the markets, run primarily by hags and learned of the favors, and strange things that a hag would ask for in exchange for their magical items (a breath, a vision, a smile, a kiss, etc.) So they are QUITE paranoid and reluctant to make deals.
I'm currently thinking that "The Imposter" that they've "captured" may offer them a deal of some kind on the way to the "Drider-Koh-Kerrigan" Fey's lair. I have it planned that he's only pretending to allow himself to be captured, as he's quite the sneaky conniving scumbag, so there will inevitably be betrayal of some kind. The "Drider-Koh-Kerrigan" Fey would offer them a deal as well, probably much more of a drastic and aggressive deal, at which point it'll be too late to make a deal with "The Imposter" Who is a much less ancient and powerful Fey in comparison. They also know, that they have no way of getting home if the conflict between the Fey courts begins, which is near inevitable if the real Reveler is not restored and the Nightmare Faire crumbles, with all the people there flooding out into the Feywilds, ruining the balance of the Seelie courts. So they are aware that if The Reveler's power isn't restored , they are effectively trapped in the Fey, because the courts have joint control of on of the main Planar Portals that allow planar travel...
I'm just struggling to think of deals that would be monumental enough and render them without many options, The fey is definitely very strong and I have her statted out, but I don't see the point in making an impossible fight, it'll be a deadly encounter, but I think that's fair because they shouldn't actively plan to be fighting anything they see when they don't get their way.
Hello all,
My players are currently in the Feywilds, and they've become involved in this expansive conflict between several Fae courts; The Court of the Wyld and the Winter Court.
They've learned of the return of a Traitor to the Summer Court (An archfey who fled and submitted his will to the Abyss to gain greater power, becoming a warlord for an ancient demonic entity - BBEG). Anyway, this traitorous demonic archfey is working with and corrupting several powerful entities, both fey and non-fey alike within the Wylds. One of these Fey is something I've come up with that's a mix between Kerrigan, Koh the Facestealer, and a Fey Drider Queen. This traitor has employed her and another Wyld fey to sabotage and infiltrate members of the Winter and Summer courts to spark a war and continue to sow discord to topple the political system. These two Fey have stolen the power of one of the Archfey of the Winter Court and usurped his position while continuing to impersonate him.
They've been at this location that I call the Nightmare Faire, which is the domain of the Reveler within the Winter/Seelie Fey. It's a weird, whimsical, twisted, place where people, fey, and non-fey come to enjoy themselves, and inevitably never leave because of the "allure and fun". I designed it as a mixture between the spirited away intro, Bonnaroo music festival, and a carnival.
The players have learned of this ruse, and news is soon to spread about the "death" of this Winter archfey I call The Reveler. They are headed to the "Drider-Koh-Kerrigan" Fey's lair with the "captured" imposter to forge a deal to gain back the powers of The Reveler in order to prevent an all out war in the realm and to stop the Traitor's ploy.
I'm at a bit of a loss to create some terms or deals they could make with this powerful entity for the power's of this Archfey back. It has to be a pretty significant deal to get back the powers/stolen identity of a prominent ArchFey of the Seelie Fey, however my players have been more than hesitant to make any deals or make heavy interactions with Fey since they've been here. So I'd like to create several deal options that would be foolish to refuse, I've had deals for when they were at teh Faire to buy things since money is no good here. Although I do expect them to just try and fight her...in her lair...with her minions...and the "captured" imposter...I would like to have a couple interesting, high stakes options available.
First of all, thanks for the kind words! I've just recently hit my 2 year anniversary of the campaign, I have 5 players and they just hit level 12 last week.
The players have observed "the economy" while they were at the Nightmare Faire, in that people paid with all kinds of strange things. The rogue and monk set up a funnel cake stall in the food markets, and one person paid them a ruby for a single funnel cake, another gave them a handful of teeth (not his own). They watched people dance and party to death from exhaustion, they witnessed parents trade away their child or their fingers and wedding bands for another chance at playing a carnival game. They went to the markets, run primarily by hags and learned of the favors, and strange things that a hag would ask for in exchange for their magical items (a breath, a vision, a smile, a kiss, etc.) So they are QUITE paranoid and reluctant to make deals.
I'm currently thinking that "The Imposter" that they've "captured" may offer them a deal of some kind on the way to the "Drider-Koh-Kerrigan" Fey's lair. I have it planned that he's only pretending to allow himself to be captured, as he's quite the sneaky conniving scumbag, so there will inevitably be betrayal of some kind. The "Drider-Koh-Kerrigan" Fey would offer them a deal as well, probably much more of a drastic and aggressive deal, at which point it'll be too late to make a deal with "The Imposter" Who is a much less ancient and powerful Fey in comparison. They also know, that they have no way of getting home if the conflict between the Fey courts begins, which is near inevitable if the real Reveler is not restored and the Nightmare Faire crumbles, with all the people there flooding out into the Feywilds, ruining the balance of the Seelie courts. So they are aware that if The Reveler's power isn't restored , they are effectively trapped in the Fey, because the courts have joint control of on of the main Planar Portals that allow planar travel...
I'm just struggling to think of deals that would be monumental enough and render them without many options, The fey is definitely very strong and I have her statted out, but I don't see the point in making an impossible fight, it'll be a deadly encounter, but I think that's fair because they shouldn't actively plan to be fighting anything they see when they don't get their way.