I'm doing a pre-written module and an NPC just tried to kill my party. My players want to figure out why, but the mod doesn't give any reasoning as to why! Help, I need to come up with something!
EDIT: I think I got my answer! Turns out, sea hags (which is what the sea witch NPC is) are just fucking assholes! And I think if I lean into that and truly revel in her assholery, it won't feel lame and bad and dumb that she did all this just for the sake of being evil. Thanks for the help, everyone!
I'm doing a pre-written module named "Call from the Deep" and this is everything that has happened so far.
My players have sailed from the mainland to an island to help the people there deal with a ship that crash landed on the far side of the island.
While sailing, they randomly encountered a bunch of different NPCs and enemies. One was a mermaid who gave them some jewelry. At another point, they fought some sahuagins and ended up with a locked treasure chest. They could sense something magical inside the chest, but they decided not to open it.
They arrive on the island and try to sell the jewelry. They ask the jeweler if they know anyone who could maybe help them figure out if the chest is safe to open. The jeweler directs them to a sea witch that lives nearby.
The sea witch is this sweet old lady who asks the adventuring party to collect some special seaweed for her. They go to a nearby sea cave and find the seaweed.
While in the cave, they also find a hidden door, which they open to reveal a room that has two treasure chests in it. When they touch one of them, a bunch of ropes that were lying around the room suddenly come to life and attack my players.
They defeat all the ropes and open the chests. Inside one chest is some gold and spell scrolls, but the other chest has a bunch of dolls that all look like my players. At random moments, they spring to life and mimic the movements and noises of my players, before flopping over and going lifeless again. My players do an arcana check on the dolls and determine that if something bad happens to the dolls, something bad will happen to the players.
When the players leave the room, there's a giant sea lion waiting for them in the cave. It attacks, but then one of my players uses Speaks with Animals, rolls a Nat 20 on animal handling, and gets the sea lion to stop fighting them. The sea lion tells my players that he was instructed by the sea witch to kill them, if the ropes failed to.
And, I dunno, when I read this in the mod, I was like, "Oh, this seems like a fun little side quest," not thinking AT ALL about how my players might have a lot of questions about it! Cuz now they, understandably, want to try to capture the sea witch to see if they can get answers from her. They've been on the island for less than 24 hours, why is she trying to kill them? Why does she have these weird dolls of my players? Why do they jump up and randomly mimic my players? They're also CONVINCED that she's the BBEG, and she's not even close! She's just a random sea witch!
And the mod gives NO explanation or motivations to the sea witch. And I can't come up with anything myself, besides she just wanted to be evil for evil's sake. Which is so dumb and lame and bad! Especially when it comes to the weird dolls!
Any help would be really appreciated!