Saturday Night Pathfinder: The WTF Episode

This post was made by an omniscient observer:

So the party of 3, Pleon, Crayla, and Kooper, dragged the goblin in manacles back to the Sandpoint jail.  They healed him with a potion and gave him a thorough questioning.  Really all they found out was that he was from Thistletop (clan of goblins?  a mountain name?) and who his chief was.  Kooper went psycho when he mentioned the word clan and nearly killed the goblin.  They left the goblin in bad shape, unconscious and nearly dead.

Crayla asked uncaringly for gold from the sheriff as the party was leaving the jail.  He brushed her off, telling her he was talk to them later, choosing to instead focus on his duties to calm the hysterical wife of the man the goblin killed.

The party gathered and went on to the glass factory, trying to break in.  No such luck on Crayla popping the door locks.  Kooper tried setting the door on fire and breaking it down, but was too drunk to do any good.  They headed back to the Rusty Dragon.

At breakfast, the sheriff reappeared with 1000 gold in hand, payment for the goblin captured and something more.  He wanted them to chat with Shalelu, an elven ranger and trader who knew of the goblin tribes.  They showed up at the town hall and made a typical clumsy impression with the mayor.  Kooper was a bit of a disruption and didn't really want to listen to all the talk anyway, so he left.  Crayla and Pleon got a lot of information about happenings.  The sheriff was going out of town to get more guards, Shelalu was going to keep track of the goblins, and in the mean time, the party was going to protect the town and keep the townsfolk feeling safe.

Crayla, Pleon, and Shelalu went back to the Rusty dragon and talked with Kooper eventually joining them.

Crayla takes leave to rest so she is ready for another assault that eve on the glass factory.  Pleon is out and about researching and gathering items.  Kooper is in for another adventure entirely.

Kooper, drunk and disorderly, finds his way to the Kujitsu estate and eventually to an herbalist with a cure for his drunken state.  Unfortunately, with his sobriety, he forgets the last many years of his drunken life, and starts wandering the streets as Sergeant Jason Henson who has no idea where he is, why he looks so old, or what is going on.  He runs into Pleon and Pleon assumes his amnesia is a side effect of a drinking binge.  Crayla and Pleon eventually go to the glass works as planned with Kooper nowhere to be found.  (Kooper has checked into another hotel, has gotten a shave and haircut, and is trying to figure out his life.)

Kooper comes upon Crayla and Pleon trying to break into the glass works and jumps in to stop them.  Crayla spars with him in words, also assuming he is terribly drunk.  Eventually Pleon is able to get a Charm Person spell to take hold of him as to avoid an armed conflict.  Kooper / Henson rambles on about missing his friends, so Crayla suggests he visit the stable where is pet grizzly bear is kept.  After all, that seemed to be his friend when they arrived.

This is where it all takes an odd turn.  Since Henson is looking for his fellow soldiers and knows nothing of the bear, a trip to the stable isn't what he needs.  He finds the bear there, covered in 4 day old blood from the goblin attack and somehow assumes this creature (who is stabled and presumably tied up) killed his soldier friends.  He attacks the bear, the bear attacks back, and Kooper/Henson ends up dead.

Crayla and Pleon don't even know what happened yet.
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As a player I was pretty well shocked at this outcome.  It seemed like there were several other options besides attacking the bear, though we all play our characters to our own choosing.  

The replacement character as it was left at the end of the session was going to be the goblin left locked in the Sandpoint jail.  I am afraid this is only going to end badly too, for the following reasons:

• The goblin is evil and has killed a man in Sandpoint already.
• The entire town and party is anti-goblin after the first goblin attack.
• Crayla will blame Kooper's death on the goblins and their manipulative unknown master.
• Crayla has been trained by druids / rangers that goblins are a chaotic blight on the land and they should be killed.
• The goblin doesn't have anything that the party needs, since they already have a guide to where his tribe is (and a map!), they know who is in charge of his tribe, and he doesn't know who the unknown manipulator is.
• Crayla may even be desperate enough to try to get additional help from her organization.
• As things now stand, Crayla would attack goblins on sight.

So how could the goblin become part of the party?  The only thing I can assume is that an external happening would force it -- aka. railroaded.  What if our guide to the goblins was killed off or disappeared (we still have a map!) ?  What if our party's bosses told his to take him?  

I get this strange vision of Frodo, Samwise, and Gollum on a rope, venturing through the crags of Mordor, only instead with Crayla and Pleon instead dragging a goblin on a leash.  Where is the equivalent of the ring to tie the second group together?

I could see a different possibility if the goblin weren't already introduced as a bad guy (remember Deekin in Neverwinter Nights?).  Even if there were some fundamental change of heart in the goblin, I don't see anyway that Crayla would accept it, especially since Kooper's death is going to be looming over her.

Next Saturday is going to be tough on Crayla.  I need to figure out how she will react to Kooper's death -- that seems like the key.