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We’re firmly in the wrap-up stage now. If you’re here, the PCs have succeeded at dismantling the powerful magical defenses of the Temple of Asmodeus and disrupted a dire summoning ritual that was Barzilai Thrune’s last attempt at squashing the Silver Raven rebellion. They made it out with a literal dragon’s hoard worth of loot and if they were particularly skilled they might even have managed to kill Thrune himself during the raid! In this post, we’ll see what all of that means for the rebellion.

Strategic and Campaign Implications

As far as the rebellion is concerned, it has achieved its major goal. All of the Thrune leadership has been neutralized one way or the other, ceding control of not just Kintargo but the entire province of Ravounel.

The next few days immediately after the PC’s victory at the temple are a flurry of activity as the former rebel organization sets itself up as the new government. If Jilia Bailinus has been rescued and revived (a likely outcome), then she’s immediately reinstated as Lord Mayor. Otherwise the job goes to a sympatethic noble or priestly NPC - the players should have some input on who gets the job.

The new mayor will have several difficult issues to solve in the medium term, but for now it’s time to celebrate!

The Silver Span Celebration

All of the PC’s heroics quickly become common knowledge, now that there is no more need for secrecy on their part. Soon after they recover from the temple raid, they and their allies are invited to a huge party in their honor. It takes place on Bleakbridge - the same spot where the PCs busted a blockade in Part 01 of the adventure.

The place is quite crowded now. A wooden stage has been erected right in the middle of the bridge, where a whole bunch of statues are covered with cloth awaiting for their unveiling. The PCs, every single member of the Silver Ravens, and anyone else whom they had positive interactions with will be at the party.

Some time after the party gets going, the mayor calls the PCs up to the stage, makes a speech renaming the bridge from Bleakbridge to the Silver Span, and unveils the statues. These represent all the PCs, plus any NPCs who were especially important to the rebellion’s success at the group’s discretion. These are going to be installed along the Silver Span, as an eternal reminder of their heroic deeds.

The PCs themselves are then presented with silver Keys to the City! The keys are worth quite a bit of money, but the real prize here is the major reputation boost that comes with being recognized as an official hero. That’s a hefty bonus to gather information or perform for money in the city, as well as a permanent 10% discount on all Kintargan shops that don’t have reason to actively hate the characters.

Before we can close the curtains on this adventure, however, there is the small matter of the retributive strike.

From Hell’s Heart

… I stab at thee! That’s a particularly appropriate quote here.

You see, right after the PCs receive those keys, the remnants of the Thrune faction teleport in and try to kill the PCs. I don’t think they can take the province back at this point - this is simply done out of spite.

Who the attackers are depend on what exactly happened so far. From the worst case to the best one, we have:

  • Barzilai on a Fucking Dragon: If both Thrune and the dragon Rivozair are still alive, they both show up, with Thrune riding the dragon. This happens even if Rivozair fled the city after being defeated by the PCs in their previous confrontation.

  • Barzilai OR a Fucking Dragon: if either one of the pair is dead, the other still attacks. Rivozair shows up alone; Thrune appears accompanied by four bone devils.

  • The Dregs: If both main baddies are dead, the GM should build a CR 13 encounter with any secondary villains who managed to escape death over the course of the adventure, focusing on those the players loved to hate the most. If there are not enough to hit CR 13 on their own, fill the encounter with appropriate minions.

  • No One!: Particularly thorough groups might have not left anyone alive to attempt revenge! The chance of this happening is quite low, as there are a lot of named villains here and many of them will make an effort to escape when first fought. But if this does happen, just skip this battle altogether.

If anyone shows up at all, they fight to the death this time around regardless of their previous cowardice. This encounter is the “main event”, and it’s accompanied by a “sideshow” in the form of a bunch of loyalist dottari and minor devils who arrive more conventionally and try to slaughter the crowd. These keep the rest of the NPC Silver Ravens occupied, and are handled as series of Security checks to prevent civilian deaths.

Thrune remains as hard to kill as ever, but this time the PCs are fully rested and have no other encounters to worry about. And with all those NPCs present, someone is bound to have a handy spell to finish him off if the PCs don’t have one of their own.

Victory Tally

After this fight is over, we finally get to tally the party’s XP award for liberating Kintargo. This depends entirely on how many inhabitants have survived the whole ordeal.

The city starts the game with 11900 inhabitants, according to its stat sheet in the Player’s Guide. The GM is supposed to keep track of this number from the start of the campaign until now. There are several events in the strategic layer (Thrune reprisals, mostly) that kill a number of innocents and reduce this number. Deaths of innocents during the “tactical adventuring” portions also reduce the number - for example, the Ruby Masquerade trap, or if the PCs fail to rescue a sacrifice victim.

If the city has at least 9000 surviving inhabitants at the end of this last party, the game considers the rebellion an Unmitigated Success. 7500 or more survivors makes for a Grim Success, and less than that is a pyrrhic victory marked by Tragic Loss. I think it’s quite hard to end up with less than 9000 citizens unless the group completely fails to prevent the Ruby Masquerade massacre and really slacks off during the “hot war” portion of this adventure.

The Chelish Crux

This device, apparently a Hellraiser-style puzzle box, is also the plot coupon I mentioned earlier. It sits inside Barzilai Thrune’s chest cavity - he replaced his heart with it back during adventure 2. The book mentions that retrieving this thing from Thrune’s corpse and opening it up are vital steps to proceed with the remaining two adventures in the campaign.

Concluding the Adventure, and What Happens Next

First of all, nothing has to happen from this point on. This is an excellent stopping point for the campaign if the GM doesn’t feel like spending money on the last two volumes. Just remove the Crux, and say that Barzilai has lost his chance to become a genius loci by dying. He’s in Hell forever. Campaign complete, mission accomplished, let’s leave nation-building to the government and retire as glorious heroes.

If you do want to continue playing Hell’s Rebels, though, then the Crux still exists and the situation is the following:

Kintargo is free for now, and Cheliax is busy fighting the Glorious Reclamation in its heartland, but that situation won’t last much longer. Cheliax will eventually send an army to retake the city, which won’t be able to hold against an all-out military assault. The key to solving that problem happens to be inside the Chelish Crux, and we’ll deal with that in the next adventure.

Barzilai himself isn’t exactly out of the picture either. Even dead, he’s still on track to become a genius loci, and solving the Cheliax issue will actually make that process much faster. Dealing with him once and for all is the subject of the last adventure in the campaign.