While the adventure as written kind of assumes that Froglegs will sit and wait for the party to come find her, in our more open game she will likely start pushing back once the party starts interfering. None of her agents will step onto the Magaambya campus, and will tend to give it a bit of a wide berth, but further out into the city is fair game.
Most of her agents have never actually been to Thieves Swamp, and would instead only be able to point to either the Safe House or the Jade Palace gambling den (or potentially both!). The leaders of each team do know the location of Thieves Swamp, but will (with one notable exception) be extremely resistant to sharing this information. The PCs will either have to trick them into revealing things or find an offer too good to pass up, because she has made her minions more afraid of retribution by her than by the relatively lax laws of Nantambu - the worst punishment from the city is exile, but Froglegs brings death. Just like with Abeo, if anyone tells the party anything, they will seek to leave the city ASAP or else will wind up dead in an alley/canal.
In terms of party balance, all of these encounters are designed assuming the party is Level 6, but I've intentionally not built most encounters tougher than Moderate so they should be manageable by a Level 5 party (each encounter is effectively 1 degree tougher, so the Grippli surveillance team would be a Low encounter rather than Trivial, etc. and a Moderate encounter would be Severe). If you have more than 4 party members or want a tougher challenge, feel free to add more enemies to spice up the difficulty a bit!
Froglegs Response Teams
 |
| Kolbo |
Surveillance Team
The first time the party disrupts Froglegs' operations, she will send some Grippli to surveil the party.
2 Grippli Skirmishers (Trivial 6) - they won't interfere directly, but will instead report back to the Safe House. If they report anything that needs an immediate response, the other folks from the safehouse (roll 2d4 to see who) will join them to attack the party directly (Moderate 6).
Kill Team
Once it becomes clear they mean to oppose her, or once they've completed all three missions related to Froglegs (Busker Woes, Suspicious Alchemy, and Ghost Stories), whichever comes first, Froglegs will send a more dedicated response team to take them out. They will strike during the PCs next job, as they want to avoid the Magaambya. If the first fails, she will keep sending more. Eventually, she might just hunt them down herself...
4 Grippli Skirmishers led by Kolbo (Severe 6) - the same folks as in F3 of Thieves Swamp, sent out to put a stop to the PCs meddling. (Don't run this encounter until the PCs are level 6). As there, Kolbo is happy to surrender and even turn on the Grippli if things turn south. He knows he's a goner if he doesn't kill all the PCs anyway, so what's a little more treason sprinkled on top? Any that are killed here are not present at the Swamp later (though Janatimo will likely admonish the PCs for any deaths), nor will any who give information on Froglegs, but any that are captures will almost certainly escape.
If the party attract heavy attention at level 5, or enough time passes after the fight with Kolbo without the party going after Froglegs, they get jumped by 2 Burglars and 4 Ruffians (Moderate 6). They are a local crew called The Undertakers who collect protection money for Froglegs and are looking to get on her good side by taking out the party. If the party still don't move by this point, feel free to send increasing numbers of goons at them, though by this point the war with the serpentfolk will likely be in earnest.
Crooked Cops
Instead of sending a kill team after them (either as an intermediary step before trying that or as a follow up if that didn't work), Froglegs might have some of the Bell Ringers she has paid off try to take them in, either to question them to see what they know, get them locked up or exiled for crimes they've committed (real or fabricated), or even kill them quietly in their cells after stripping them of gear.
Below are 3 encounters of Trivial, Moderate, and Severe difficulty respectively that you can throw at the party, depending on how much resistance they expect, how escalated things are with Froglegs and the party, and how many actual laws the party has broken. Any of these can be used for encounters with normal, non-corrupt Bell-Ringers as well, though keep in mind that they are not cops, and as such will try to avoid direct confrontation wherever possible, and always seek to subdue rather than kill.
- A Watch Officer and 4 Guards (Trivial 6). Feel free to replace any number of guards with Archer Sentries instead, though this might bump the difficult up to Low.
- 2 Watch Officers, 2 Archer Sentries, and a City Guard Squadron (Moderate 6).
- A Captain of the Guard, 2 Archer Sentries, and 2 City Guard Squadrons (Severe 6).
All Bell-Ringers on Froglegs' payroll are trained in Deception in addition to their other skills (2 + lvl + cha). Captain Vassiriki is in charge, but there are several dozen Bell-Ringers on Froglegs' payroll. Any full Squadrons are probably mostly made up of guards who have been told the party are dangerous criminals, rather than die-hards.
Random Crime
To help keep the feeling that Froglegs has her sticky hands all over the city, feel free to roll 1d6 on this chart when you check for random encounters!
- 2 Ruffians shaking down a shopkeeper for protection money
- 1 Burglar jumping through a nearby window as angry voices call out after them from inside
- A commoner who is blackout drunk, dealing with having gambled away all their money
- A passerby has a green, itchy blotches on their skin due to a faulty potion (or some other weird physical transformation, or just a bad injury due to a robbery gone wrong if they've already done Suspicious Alchemy)
- The party find a dead body of a criminal lying dead in an alley, silenced before they could talk
- The party come across a scene of slaughter, with a half dozen criminals (some of them Grippli) all lying dead in the street. Evidence suggests there were more dead, but they were moved... (a skirmish with the Serpentfolk, who didn't want their dead to be discovered)
Froglegs Faction Outposts
Safe Houses
There are several safe houses throughout the city. The map for Reth's shack works fine for this, or feel free to make/find your own.
Creatures: Roll 4d4 to determine who is inside each: 1-2: Grippli Skirmisher, 3: Burglar, 4: 2 Ruffians (Moderate 6).
Questioning the Outlaws: Only one of the Grippli present (if there are any) have actually been to Thieves Swamp, but any of them can potentially direct the party to the Jade Palace. If the party hasn't completed suspicious alchemy, they are holding some of Abeo's low-grade reagents and know how to find him as well.
Treasure: The party find 3d6 gold, 6d6 silver, and 6d6 copper in a lockbox with a simple lock in the main room. If the party succeeds on an DC 20 Perception check (only if they investigate closer) notices that the box is not as deep as it should be based on its size. Anyone who checks for a hidden compartment finds a letter marked "FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY - Do Not Open Otherwise, On Pain of Death" that contains directions to Thieves Swamp (specifically, to a nearby clearing in the swamp that the outlaws check once a day. Finding the camp from this clearing requires a DC 20 Survival Check).
The Jade Palace
This Gambling Den used to be Habu the Cudgel's pride and joy. Since taking it over, Froglegs hasn't spent much time there, but keeps it running mostly out of spite. She put one of her trusted lieutenants, Hrroupo, in charge here. Any bar-fight level confrontation will cause chaos, but not ultimately draw too much attention, but any weapons drawn or offensive magic will sound the alarm (metaphorically). One of the bouncers will try to run upstairs the first round this happens. If stopped, a ruffian from upstairs will check on the third round, and folks in Area 4 will head down on round 4 with the Grippli in Area 5 and Hrroupo either not far behind or waiting for trouble upstairs (Low 6), depending on the nature of the conflict.
Remember: two Trivial encounters combine into one Moderate encounter, and a Low and a Trivial encounter become a Severe one.
Area 1 - Entry: 2 Ruffians act as bouncers outside the front door. They have orders to not let anyone armed in, but won't look too closely.
Area 2 - Gambling Hall: 2 Ruffians are keeping a rather obvious eye out for trouble (one near the front, the other by a door to the back) while 3d6 gamblers (use dockhand stats if necessary) play cards, dice, and roulette at tables all throughout the hall. They will flee at the first sign of armed confrontation, but are extremely down to get in a bar fight (more with each other than the party). The barkeeper keeps a loaded crossbow behind the counter as well. In addition to the front entrance and the door to Area 3, there is a staircase up to Area 4. If the party does end up looting the place, they can find 9 gold, 23 silver, and 51 copper across the various tables. (Trivial 6)
Area 3 - High Rollers Table: Through a door in the main hall guarded by one of the two bouncers, four bigshots of the underworld sit playing poker: Bell-Ringer Captain Vassiriki (on Froglegs' payroll, Deception +11), Doctor Sidra (creator of the low-grade alchemical reagants flooding the market), Brekker (leader of a local gang of Vidrians), and his right hand, a Caldaru woman known only as Ghost (Severe 6). Luckily for the party, unless attacked directly, and commotion will cause this group to flee rather than stand and fight - none of them want any trouble. If looted, the players find 113 gold.
Area 4 - Common Room: 2 Ruffians and 1 Grippli Skirmisher lounge here, off-duty (Trivial 6)
Area 5 - Bedrooms: One for the boss, one for the 2 Grippli (1 Grippli Skirmisher is napping in one of them - will have to spend the first round of combat grabbing gear if unprepared), and a big room with bunk beds for the bouncers.
Area 6 - Hrroupo's Study: Hrroupo most likely waits inside, either going through books or studying the map hidden in his desk. If the players loot this office, they will find a safe with 157 gold and 293 silver as well as a wand of jump. They will also find paperwork tracking most of Froglegs' finances - everything is in a soft code, but it tracks who is paying protection money, who is not or who is behind (and therefore is a target), and expenses and income for the faulty alchemical powders. If the players look through Hrroupo's desk, they can make a DC 20 Secret Perception check to notice the secret compartment (they automatically succeed if they check for one specifically using reasonable methods). Inside, they find a map of Nantambu with physical tokens representing the safe houses, friendly vs. unfriendly businesses, and locations of skirmishes with Serpentfolk agents (though Hrroupo doesn't know that's what they are). It also has "Thieves Swamp" labelled to the east of Nantambu, and both a "Meeting Point" and a "Dead Drop" location marked within that area.
And here's a rad map made by u/ShinyMissingno on reddit! Way cooler than the quick sketch I used, thank you! (for a bigger version, right click and hit "open link in new tab")
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