The tale of one party's playthrough of the adventure Marauders of Nibenay.
Sister, curious events recently befell the city of Nibenay, and, as I know you enjoy an interesting tale, I have composed this missive for your enjoyment. I think you’ll agree that the developments are most intriguing. - Nashwa
Fascinating discussion of your play-through of this adventure, Mr. Poláček. I have long thought the DS community neglects too many and too much of these classic 1st boxed set era adventures, and it is nice to read how it went.
With this particular adventure, I was always struck by how cataclysmic and impactful it was, at least for the city-state of Nibenay. If you go strictly by the adventure, the damage to the Nibenese templarate alone is profound, and even existential. If you accept these events in your campaign, it would seem to me to leave Nibenay at a very hard disadvantage for many years… and probably for generations.
It is interesting to read how Mr. Poláček developed the consequences of the devastation of the Nibenese templary into significant set-backs for the Nibenese state. Advantages it seems were seized upon by the Gulgans, and it seemed that the Nibenese Army took more of a role in the policing powers previously exercised by the templarate.
If we accept the events of Marauders of Nibenay into our campaign settings, the long term effects upon the city would be dramatic indeed. It is hard to imagine just how certain elements of the city would recover. I much enjoy the rather dark and vile harem-templarate that the Shadow King had obviously cultivated for centuries, but to me this adventure might spell the end of that tradition. Or if the templar-wives corps survived, it would be fascinating to see how junior templars might find themselves placed into positions for beyond their previous experience, as junior templars become senior officers, and with surviving middling templars finding themselves as new high templars. Perhaps the Shadow King would demand a great harvesting of the city’s virgins to replenish the ranks of his magic wielding wives-militant.
As Mr. Poláček’s play-through suggests, the destruction of so much of the city and its people might literally reshape the nature of government throughout the city. Nibenay himself might have had to take a more active role, and the in absence or at least great weakness of the templarate, King Nibenay might have had to rely upon other power-bases, such as the Royal Army, the nobility, or even the Veiled Alliance to help fill the gap. It would be interesting to explore.
I would be pleased with a fuller boxed set product on the city-state of Nibenay itself. It is something I have loosely explored producing, much as I have done for Balic and Tyr. But the devastation of the Nibenese templarate, at least as described, is so great that it might change the fundamental political realities of the city, if not permanently, then at least for generations to come. It would be akin to Stalin suddenly losing 90%+ of his NKVD, including the senior leadership it seems. Such losses, especially if Nibenay beds them all, cannot simply be “replaced.” The more sophisticated functions of the templarate, such as money coinage, engineering works, noble-relations, and his secret arcane studies presumably cannot simply be replaced by a range of teenage new-wives. If even the DM ruled they could be empowered beyond their due with templar magic, they would not have the wisdom and life experience required to manage a great many of these and other roles, and the king would have to look elsewhere to see these affairs handled. The consequences of such realignments might bring about tremendous change in the city and beyond. Anyhow, fascinating to contemplate…