u/BlackWaltz47

I plan on running chapter 2 before chapter 1, starting my players as prisoners of "bandits," having Leosin help them escape after they find out the information he needs. Once they escape, he'd take them to Greenest to inform the town and rest up but before they can rest, the cult would attack, realizing their prisoners are gone, and I'd go into chapter 1 basically as written.

My question is, what's the best way to run chapter 2 in this situation? I wouldn't have to worry about them going into the cave early. The camp is full of bandits (cultists) so the cave would be too well guarded. Should the cultists put them to work and do the thing where they absentmindedly talk in front of the PCs? I'm open to suggestions and ideas.

I have a player who's PC is a kobold who's clan has sworn allegiance to the Cult. He wants to break free from the cult's control because of their treatment of the kobolds. My main question is, how much would a kobold grunt know? Obviously not too much since they're at the bottom of the pecking order but I'm not sure of the specifics. Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi. You're my only hope.

Cults typically don't refer to themselves as cults. So how would they refer to themselves?

So my party of 4 fought Qunbraxl last night. It was a tough fight as it should’ve been, and our rogue ended up dying to Qunbraxl’s brain extraction. It was shocking and emotional, especially since the mind flayer only had 13 more hit points. The one thing to note is that I believe the rogue was not incapacitated, only grappled, which was a mistake on my part. Though I didn’t say anything about it.

I messaged the rogue player after the game to check in on him because obviously we were all attached to his character. He said he was fine but wasn’t super happy about building a new character this late into the campaign and was hoping I’d let the party find some way to bring him back. Then today I was messaged separately by our bard saying that I got the ruling on Brain Extraction wrong and that he felt given that, he felt we could come up with a creative way to bring the rogue back. This wasn’t said accusatorily or judgmentally, but it still frustrated me.

I see where they’re both coming from, and obviously, I made a mistake with the mechanic, but I also don’t like being pressured into reversing something like this. Should I just stick to my guns on this, or should I let them find a way to bring the rogue back? If so, how?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.