Tabletop Discussion – And This is the Story of Alma, Who knew how to Receive and to Give

Rather than discuss any specific thing about a Tabletop Game, I figured I'd use this to share a story of a Pathfinder game I once ran. The story centers on a successful port town and the woman who was held as responsible for helping to make this port such a success and her name was Alma.

To set this all up, my players had been 'marked' after getting their hands on a certain idol that was tainted with the energy of Dagon. His Cult seeks to recover the artifact from their possession, but the mark they have on them is viewable not only by any of the demons who work with Dagon, but also a group of demon hunters in possession of their own artifact allowing them to see those marked by Dagon. Because they had been in possession of the relic for so long, they are viewed by enemies by these hunters and are, typically, assumed to belong to the Cult of Dagon.

At this point in the campaign, for one reason or another my party needs to get on a boat and cross the ocean and they arrive at this well off port town. Almost immediately Alma makes her presence known to them and pretty much spells out to the party that she is, in fact, a Succubus, and it's easy for the party to put together Alma is currently on the side of Dagon.

Asking around town and learning what's going on, Alma is considered largely responsible for the success of the town, turning it from a bit of a rundown fishing port to a hub of trade with other continents. Typically a Succubus is only able to charm a dominate a handful of people, far fewer than would be required to dominate even a small port, especially not a town of this size. The reason this is important is that it means the people of this town don't love Alma because of her magic, but because they were genuinely impressed with what she did for the town, as well as enjoying Alma's natural charms.

She basically gave away she was a Succubus to the players as a way to toy with them, letting them know what situation they were in when the stepped foot in this town. Because of her position in the local government, and the few people she actually is dominating, the players knew before ever making it to the Harbor itself they were never going to be granted access to a boat and time was not on their side to hoof it to the next harbor. Furthermore, at their level and group size even if they were to go at the Succubus with full strength, the odds were not in their favor. It wouldn't be an impossible battle, but certainly not one they would want to risk getting involved in.

The situation was made this way in order to put the odds, at least on the surface, against my players. It appeared as though they stepped into a hopeless situation. But all was not lost, as I had a few other plans afoot to give my players the edge they needed to tackle the problem in front of them, for I am a fair and kind DM. This took the form of two ways the party could weaken the succubus.

Remember the group of Demon Hunters I mentioned earlier? Well, the players discover someone who wore their mark, a specific necklace, had been seeing in town gathering materials and staking out the mayors home, where Alma generally works as the mayors assistant. After some digging, the discovered he had also been found going into the sewers of town, and following his tracks, they discover a ritual that had been set up beneath the manor. All signs pointed to the Demon Hunter, who they presumed had been disposed of, set this up. The players hadn't quite figured out why, but his plan was to basically use this ritual to lock Alma down and weaken her, lowering her overall power a bit as well as preventing the ability of all demons to teleport while in, or in this case even leave, the area of the ritual.

Considering the hunters didn't know where the players would be at any given time, even if they were identifiable on site, it's clear the hunter wasn't there in relation to them as he was already disposed of before their arrival in town. Given that and some other clues, it was pretty obvious he was after Alma. The thing is, by players are generally pretty intelligent, but this is a case where their paranoia about anything occult related due to previous encounters had overcome their rational mind. As soon as they realized there was some kind of a supernatural ritual the very first thing they did before discovering what exactly it was for they destroyed everything that was set up. For the record, yes, they had already determined the Hunter was the one who set up the ritual.

Well, option one was now out the window. Don't get me wrong, I am a bit proud the paranoia I had instilled in my players was effective, but I was a bit worried. At the same time, there was another thing I had in mind to help out my players, and that was the Cult of Dagon. Tracking down the Cultists in town, they discovered Alma was chosen to run this town in particular in order to allow safe harbor for Cultists of Dagon to travel across the see undocumented, making them hard to track. That said, she leads the town to flourish for her own selfish desires. Alma is a Succubus with standards and only wanted to drain the life force of the richest and most powerful people she could. A more lively town meant more people to choose from for Alma but also makes it harder to ensure the movement of people without groups like The Hunters catching notice. Cultists in town want to remove her, whereas Alma is also wondering if she should even continue to help Dagon's plans, since if Dagon Succeeds we see the end of the Material world and an end to Alma's own fun.

A second way was devised by these Cultists to cut down Alma's Power in case they felt the need to remove her themselves, as well as setting up the potential of the players to, if they were inclined, to cut a deal with Alma to advance without the need to confront her. I had already planned to allow this method of fighting Alma to lock out her teleportation abilities as well, since characters at this level had no reliable way of dealing with that, as well as me ruling the effects of this vial of, effectively, demon poison, to stack with the effects of the Ritual (Had they not destroyed it) had my players did everything they could, the odds of success in the chance of a direct fight with the Succubus they would have the advantage.

And to my players' credit, they planned on something I had not set up and acquired a scroll of Dispel Magic. The plan was, push come to shove, they would be able to break the Disguise Self spell that Alma was using to appear human, and reveal her lies to the folks of the town. Also to their credit, they almost thought to do this immediately but realized something, the town wasn't necessarily going to side with them. Remember, this town was run down before Alma made them thrive, Demon or not she was responsible for their happiness. And considering the natural skills of a Succubus, this really would be a last-ditch effort as they very well may not convince the citizens to side with them. This never came up, but it could have been interesting to see how that played out. I definitely think I would have prolonged this segment of the campaign rather than simply move on, but I guess we'll never know now what would have been.

They end up finally confronting Alma and managed to dose her with the vial they obtained to weaken her, and the fight ensued. With just that, the odds were about 60/40 in favor of the players, but that changed because of a few less than desirable decisions made by one of my players which got them taken out early in the fight. And as a result.... my party lost.

But all was not lost, as Alma and they shared similar goals of not wanting the world to end. I mean yes, she just wanted to continue to have her pick of important individuals to feed on, but they both wanted to stop Dagon. That said, she had the leverage here and she knows it. For passage through the port, as well as their lives, she forces the party to choose one of their own to leave in her care to do with what she will. And while shaken, they agree on who will be the sacrifice before finally setting off once again on their journey.

This was a lot of fun for me to run. My players, while overall being great players, made several missteps hear leading to their downfall. Even during the actual fight, were it not for my players making a few really bad decisions leading to their loss they had the fight won. The sorcerer was granted the Profane Gift of the succubus, granting him an additional two charisma, as a bit of assurance they would never deviate from the plan. If she chooses to take it away, the Sorcerer would also suffer a 2D6 ability drain, effectively gimping his character. So the campaign went on, but now at least one of my characters was effectively made the servant of a demon as cost of their failure, as well as being forced to sell off one of their allies to try and accomplish their goals.

I think it's a good way to show that even in a loss, the game isn't necessarily going to end. I didn't go into this rigging the game against the players, and there were more options at their disposal that they didn't take advantage of. The players got to continue on with the campaign while not being able to escape the consequences of their failure.

If there is a tip for Dming in here somewhere, make sure you're players have an out if you know there is going to be a rough patch ahead for them. I put them up against a foe out of their power level, and despite having multiple ways to even the odds in the fight I had a way for them to get out of it should that fail or somehow do something dumb like destroying their means of fighting their enemy. Even if defeat, a game doesn't need to end.

Something else to bring up, I am shocked that the entire game there wasn't one time any one of my players suggested trying to stow away on a boat and bypass having to confront Alma entirely. Everyone was immediately on board with taking care of her before advancing.

On one last note, where the title of this piece not a giveaway, yes. I named her Alma specifically because of this Tom Lehrer song.