Help With The Marsh Bell

[thegiffman]

OK guys, I need a little help with the Marsh Bell adventure. I'm new to loremastering, so I'm not as good at improvising as some might be (though hopefully will get better at time).

Anyway, my crew has been lead to Balin's campsite, have discovered that the Dwarves didn't sleep there, found the hidden box, and even killed the Troll in the stinking pool in a fierce battle that left one of them with some broken ribs. They found an axe wound on the Troll's body. This is leading them to believe that the Dwarves were killed and eaten by the troll.

And now that it comes to it, that really is a pretty reasonable thing to conclude. I'm having a tough time myself, even looking over the story with my superior LM knowledge, of coming up with a more reasonable thing for them to conclude. Why didn't the Dwarves sleep there after they had chased off the Troll? Why did they go off and leave the treasure behind. And how would my adventuring crew be able to tell?

[zedturtle]

Have them Search for clues and find footsteps leading off southward, or other indications that the dwarves survived the encounter. Alternately, Galion could approach them and report to the heroes that he knows that they survived meeting the Troll.

And, of course, doing an autopsy on the Troll should reveal no dwarf bones in its belly. (It's tempting to be cute and make it so that the heroes can't tell, but that way leads to more frustration for everyone.)

[thegiffman]

Have them Search for clues and find footsteps leading off southward, or other indications that the dwarves survived the encounter. Alternately, Galion could approach them and report to the heroes that he knows that they survived meeting the Troll.

And, of course, doing an autopsy on the Troll should reveal no dwarf bones in its belly. (It's tempting to be cute and make it so that the heroes can't tell, but that way leads to more frustration for everyone.)

Right - but what I need is a credible story to inform all this. Why would the dwarves leave the box behind? It's their entire mission. Why would they leave in the middle of the night, not sleep at the campsite, etc.

As I think about it, the troll attack could explain things in part - they were attacked at night, and had to flee in haste in the boat, with no time to retrieve the box. But they probably wouldn't have gone far without doubling back and trying to get it. It's really really important, and without the gift the dwarves would return to lake town, and not try continuing south. They would have had to be captured by the mewlips almost immediately for any of this to make an ounce of sense.

If I have a logical back story, I can leave clues. But if I don't understand it, than the Valar help my players!

[Dunkelbrink]

The Dwarves fought the troll, had to flee and wandered out in the marsh. They heard the bell toll and was put under its spell, moving towards it when the marsh dwellers, who were out hunting, caught them. That's what I remember happened at least, and I don't recall my players questioning it.

[Deadmanwalking]

Yeah, it seems a fair assessment that the Dwarves were driven off from their camp by the troll (they wounded it, but it hurt them too and they weren't at all sure they could best it, so they fled), then caught by the magic of the bell and captured before they could return to camp and retrieve their possessions (which they could've easily done without risk during the next day, since trolls can't be out in the sunlight...making going back to retrieve their stuff before dawn pretty stupid, and giving up their mission completely idiotic).

Heck, when I played through this our LM left out the troll and the story still made sense with them simply being lured away from their camp by the bell.

The easiest way to indicate some of this to the players is simply to have them find tracks of the Dwarves going away from the area where the fight with the troll clearly occurred. Why didn't they come back? Let the players wonder until they run into the bell. Search and Hunting rolls should both work for this, as might a few other things.

[thegiffman]

That all makes sense. My problem is that, as I read it, the campsite is on the north side of the rotting river and the marsh bell is all the way down where the old forest road meets the marshes, a good ten miles away or more. Sure, if it's just a mile away it makes sense, but I had read it like you needed a prolonged action over days to find the bell area.

[Arkat]

I had the exact same difficulty with The Marsh Bell. I honestly don't understand the chain of events that is the foundations of the adventure.

What makes it even harder to understand is that Balin's boat is found even further south and is used as a clue to find the marsh ruins. So it would seem that Balin made camp and hid the box, and escapted the troll by using the boat. But how does this make any sense? If they did manage to get into the boat, why did they go so far south?

When I ran it, the pcs found the sunken boat by the camp. This served to emphasis that this was as far as they got by boat. So the chain of events in my game was like this: Blain and Oin make camp on the island and they hide the jewels. Later they are attacked by the troll and are forced to flee into the swamp in the dark. While stumbling through the marsh they are captured by the marsh dwellers and brought back to the ruined city.

[thegiffman]

I had the exact same difficulty with The Marsh Bell. I honestly don't understand the chain of events that is the foundations of the adventure.

What makes it even harder to understand is that Balin's boat is found even further south and is used as a clue to find the marsh ruins. So it would seem that Balin made camp and hid the box, and escapted the troll by using the boat. But how does this make any sense? If they did manage to get into the boat, why did they go so far south?

When I ran it, the pcs found the sunken boat by the camp. This served to emphasis that this was as far as they got by boat. So the chain of events in my game was like this: Blain and Oin make camp on the island and they hide the jewels. Later they are attacked by the troll and are forced to flee into the swamp in the dark. While stumbling through the marsh they are captured by the marsh dwellers and brought back to the ruined city.

Well, if we can have them carried off by the mewlips all the way to the city, then it makes more sense for the boat to be further on. They have to get across the rotting river, after all. It would make sense for them to flee a little way away by boat.

But having them carried off presents its own problems. What about the footprints near the bell? And how could they escape in the mewlip's lair if they were detained en route?

I suppose the best I can do is that the mewlips attacked the dwarves' boat, damaged and sunk it, but were driven off. They wandered off a bit, lost in the dark, and then heard the bell. It's still a stretch - the distance and all - but it's the best I can do.

[Indur Dawndeath]

What about this scenario:

The Troll was wounded by the Dwarves and fled from their deadly axes!
Balin after having spotted the Elves stalking him decided to hide the treasure, because of a bad experience earlier and because of paranoia gained with the Shadow points he was sure to accumulate in the area.
He tried to shake the elves off his tail, but unfortunately the boat was wrecked. His intent was to double back and reclaim the treasure as soon as he was sure the elves were not around.
After searching for safe paths they came to an area that showed signs of habitation, thinking that there might be a boat, they investigated. And then the Bell Rung and their fate was sealed.

[Corvo]

To the OP:

one way to salvage the adventure is to have a wounded, starving, Oin stumble on the camp. He narrowly escaped the sunken city, and beg the heroes to save Balin. So the PCs know that Balin is alive and somewhere in a ruined city.
Oin raves incoherently about bells, and gold, and pale eyes in the darkness...

I did something similar in my campaign.