Lessons learned from Intrigue at the Court of Chaos (part 3, the conclusion!)

Last time the adventurers had escaped the Plane of Law with the Yokeless Egg in hand, and plucked the Black Rose that would return them to the Court of Chaos. In this final session we concluded Intrigue at the Court of Chaos and returned the party to their hometown, which started the open-world, player-driven phase of play (more on that in a future post).

Just like with Starless Sea, we took our time with Court of Chaos: we finished the module in five sessions of 3 hours each. The first session was dedicated to dealing with the various members of the court, the next three sessions were spent overcoming the trials of the Plane of Law and debating what to do with the Egg, and for the last session the adventurers returned to the Court of Chaos. We likely could have done it in four, but because Keira the Fighter was separated from the party during the fight for the Yokeless Egg, we were splitting "screen time" for the last two sessions between the A Plot with the main party and a B Plot with Keira. We also spent a lot of time on group or duet roleplay scenes to resolve the intraparty conflict over what to do with the Egg. All this drew out the module, but everyone seemed to think it was fun and dramatic to lean into these areas. YMMV!

Here's what happened next (spoilers ahead!)

The session started with a bang. The party was transported to the centre of the Court, and all the parties that had parlayed for the egg were eyeing them to determine their next move. Each of the Lords of Chaos (many of whom had attempted to strike side deals with individual members of the party), Lexaliah the spy of Law (who had entreated the party as a whole to bring her the Egg), and the Chiaroscuro Envoy (who had made the same offer as Lexaliah on behalf of the Balance).

Much to their chagrin, the party hadn't really come to a decision on what to do with the Egg, and were put on the spot when the Court immediately demanded they hand over the egg. At first they attempted to stall for time, several of them making grand orations. Then they cajoled for better terms, threatening to shatter the Egg itself.

I felt the Court would not be intimidated by mere mortals, and instead had these titanic beings lash out with magic that choked and suffocated a few members of the party as a show of force. Here I was able to pay off something I'd set up earlier: Thom the Guild Beggar, one of the surviving zero-levels, had previously confessed he had been visited in a dream by an unnamed member of the Court, who had pressed him with threats to steal the Egg from the party. I had the player roll a long overdue Morale check here, at -1d, to see if his loyalty to the party would hold true. He passed, and overcame his fear of damnation to stick by his companions.

It was at this moment that Alva the Thief decided to take the Egg and make a break for the Chiaroscuro Envoy. The Court erupted in rage and turmoil at this betrayal, and the multitude of demons and devils turned on the party and each other as every faction jockeyed for position and favour. Amidst the raucous disorder in the Court, the party was divided into two groups, each with a set of three demons descending on them with weapons drawn: Alva carrying the egg, defended by Seocan the Elf and Thom the (0-level) Guild Beggar; and Malachai the Halfling, Fiona the Cleric and Alisaie the Caravan Guard.

With the help of successful contested strength checks, Alva and Thom burst through the blocking line of demons, but not before Alva received a vicious wound that cut her down to a couple of hit points. Seocan stepped in to the fray to defend his companions, sword sharp and shield held high.

Meanwhile, Fiona was cut down by the ravaging demons. Alisaie grabbed her bleeding body and quickly hauled her away from the combat, disappearing into the crowd of infighting demons that surrounded them on all sides. Malachai, rarely one to choose valour, followed her lead and melted into the background.

On the other side of the court, Thom was felled by a sharp blow from a devil's axe, and Seocan managed to cut down a demon as well. Heedless of her companions, and on death's door, Alva continued her mad sprint to the Envoy and at last delivered over the Egg. The Envoy held the Egg high and spoke words that returned the Court to stillness and silence.

With combat over, the party collected their wounded and their dead. Fiona had fallen in combat, but because her player was away for the session she automatically succeeded on her Roll the Body check. The Envoy thanked them, opened a golden portal and they stepped through to the Plane of Neutrality and then back home to the small farming village of Burle.

And so Intrigue at the Court of Chaos was concluded.

Lessons learned from running the module

One of my favourite bits of tablecraft is to set a player-facing timer or countdown without explanation. There are several places in Court of Chaos to do this, and it was super effective at generating a sort of nervous tension and pushing the action forward in new and surprising ways. In the first few challenges this played out in fairly obvious and straightforward ways: in the Creation room when Seocan picked up the PlayDoh, in the Perfection room for the ghostly dancers, and for Alva and Seocan when they had to recite their good deeds in the Judgment room. But my best use of this technique was when Malachai drank the tangerine potion and became unknowingly pregnant. I said "you don't notice any effect," rolled some dice as per the module to determine he had 20 hours until giving birth, set a d20 on the table with the 20 facing up for everyone to see, and smiled cunningly at him. From that point on, every time the die counted down (roughly an hour of in-game time) he was reminded that something was coming, but he didn't know what and couldn't do anything to stop it. This wouldn't pay off until later (more on that in a future post), but I felt this little tactic was an effective tension-builder that held its narrative weight over several sessions.

Confession time: I mistakenly dragged out the return home with two bits of world-building. First, one of the players had the idea that the portal actually leads through the Plane of Neutrality, and I thought that was cool so we did a bit of on-the-spot, collaborative world building. Second, I wanted to give the players an opportunity to portal to any part of the world, because how often do you get to hop through a planar portal? So I described a rough geography of the region and had them draw out a little map with four quadrants and what they (medieval peasants who had never left their village) had heard was in each of them. This was less of a geographic world map and more of a rough mental map, as a serf would understand the layout of the world from fables and rumour.

I love collaborative world-building, and I love giving my players wide open options. And these things mostly work great in play. But! In this case I think I had misread the table and the mood. Everyone was done with the adventure and eager to finish up the session. In retrospect, I should have just done the obvious thing: returned them to Burle directly and closed the book on this module. But instead my instincts led me to draw it out. I find endings hard, they're one of my weaker skillsets as a Judge. I hope you can learn from my mistakes!

Questions I have for experienced Judges

What happens if the players decide to hurl the chaos artefact into the endless void beneath the Yokeless Egg room? One of my players kept coming back to this as a solution, and though the party didn't go for it in the end I was a bit puzzled about what to do in that event. It's frankly a good solution, but it's not accounted for in the module, and it felt like a kind of underwhelming conclusion. Maybe it would have been fine to just let it be underwhelming? Has this come up at your table, and how did it play out?

The players were keen to negotiate with the Court, and repeatedly threatened to smash the Yokeless Egg. I tend to play powerful figures as powerful AND prideful, so instead of being cowed by uppity mortals I had the Court escalate with threats and violence. I didn't even call for a Personality check, though perhaps I should have when they were trying to buy time. Since the Court's goal is to unleash the Egg, I'm not even convinced that threatening to smash the Egg would register to them as a threat--more like getting the thing you want a bit earlier than planned. But I'm curious to know what other Judges have done in this scenario. What rolls would you have called for, and would you have been more lenient in allowing the adventurers to negotiate with the Court?

Am I the only one who finds the module's answer to the question "what happens if the players break the Yokeless Egg?" kind of boring? As written, the Egg is unbreakable within the Plane of Law, and if it's shattered when they return to the Court of Chaos it simply creates a portal back to their home plane with no other visible effect. But to me, smashing the Yokeless Egg is the most interesting and dramatic action available to the players, and I feel like it should result in an immediately interesting and dramatic outcome. "No visible effect" feels underwhelming to me. So I built a random table with some appropriately wild and campaign-breaking effects, which I'll share in a future post. Ultimately my players decided breaking the Egg was too risky, but I'm curious to know if the Egg has been broken at other Judges' tables and how that played out?

Lastly, do experienced Judges have tips or techniques for ending modules effectively? It feels like the kind of question I'm not even sure I know how to ask properly. But I'm no good at it and would love to learn what's worked for you.

Thanks for coming on this journey with me and my players! I'll have more updates in the weeks ahead. Was this set of posts helpful? Is the level of depth on these useful, or overwhelming? Hit me on Twitter with your feedback. I'm new at this and trying to improve.