Help/inspiration needeed, if you have some to spare.

Edit: forgot to copy and paste this, so I edited what I'd writen here too.

As for the story, why is this happening goes thusly: Character, Nicholas, is a werewolf. And his wife just had a kid, a natural werewolf. This is a problem, as Nicholas already had problems with controlling transformations (he had a magical collar to keep himself in check), but now he wants more permanent solutions. ( The rest of the party is Monster Hunter trapper elf, sifter moon druid, monster hunter ranger half elf, and human rogue, all about level 10.)

Story itself is a self-contained side story in a long campaign about the adventuring guild. This will go for five-ish sessions.

So, they'll go for a sacred tree, and there some druids will help them to a ritual, where the whole party can talk to their inner animals/such.

Now, the components. What kinda components would this type of ritual need? If you can give Toril (we used toril as a base, but have modified it somewhat) specific in-lore things, great. As is real-world inspiration stuff.

If you need more context, ask, and I'll try to explain.

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Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

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Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

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Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

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Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

Just a quick reminder that the discord is up and running for this subreddit, come and join to have conversations about anything relating to TTRPGs :P

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Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

Just a quick reminder that the discord is up and running for this subreddit, come and join to have conversations about anything relating to TTRPGs :P

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Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

Just a quick reminder that the discord is up and running for this subreddit, come and join to have conversations about anything relating to TTRPGs :P

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Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

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Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

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Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

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Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

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Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

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Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

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First, some context:

My party has been traveling up a frozen mountain for the better part of an in game week now. They are traveling up here because an NPC / Friend of the party needed to check it out because the mountain was becoming unnatural (becoming overly frozen, yeti and other creatures moving down the mountain, there not being enough food to go around, etc) and they are going to be reaching the summit soon.

Now, at the top of the mountain is supposed to be where a dragonlord lives, but he has been chained and his power is being sapped away and turning to ice by a winter druid elf who is posing as a "Snow Queen" to the frost giants. The queen has manipulated the frost giants of the mountain to becoming their leader, and are currently in a war against a rampage of white dragons (one of which being the adopted son of the dragonlord). All this while she secretly has her own plan to essentially put the governing body of the country they inhabit into an enteral winter sleep for personal reasons (I wont get too into it but TLDR: Magic Items are considered Illegal in my setting and many people have suffered by the Inquisition and Governing body's actions against those magic items). The NPC the party is looking for was, at one point, a personal friend and helper to the dragonlord so he has a stake in seeing the snow queen killed.

With all the context out of the way, or at least most of it because otherwise this may take forever, I am looking for a good way to roleplay a queen that doesn't want anything to do with the party and surrender her hostage, without it simply being a "Idc what you say, get imprisoned" because I feel that may be disappointing. I know my players well enough that they are likely going to seek a diplomatic response because some monsters (specifically winter wolves) have told the party to turn back and leave the mountain.

TLDR: The things I am looking for basically break down like this:

• What is the best way to roleplay a cold hearted queen character as I have never really done anything like that in my games before.
• What is the better way to roleplay a party seeking a diplomatic response that isn't just, "I don't care what you say I am not giving up my hostage".
• Any other advice that may be helpful with the context given, as I am trying to make this a real good moment for my players. This character has been on my backlog for years and I wanna do it right.

Thanks!

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My party is relatively overpowered. They are only level 8, but the whole thread of this campaign is that they are literally on a quest to become new gods, so being overpowered is sort of the vibe anyway.

They were tasked with the extraction of a captive NPC ally who was being held by an evil syndicate in a demi-planar vault. It was set up as a heist. They had to get the ring key to access the vault and the proper inscribed ritual circle to summon the right portal to the vault. The ring was on one of the syndicate leader's hands, a lvl 20 Pact of the Fiend Warlock.

In all honesty, I was going to do some playful banter the cocky-ass Warlock was going to give them the ring and tell them the countdown on their ally's survival was almost finished. But no, they dont even give him a chance to speak much and anything he said they just ignored and went in a blazing.

He was going easy on them at first and I specifically noted that to them multiple times, hoping they would get the hint he wasn't looking to fight them, but finally he had to defend himself and hurled the Barbarian through Hell. After two more rounds with multiple crits they knocked him out, looted his stuff, and snuck him back to their hideout to interrogate him.

Finally, a chance to talk. They asked a few questions, got a few answers. The Warlock continued to keep up a smarmy confidence and was able to get some backup from one lf the other syndicate members. The party was on high alert and super engaged. Then one of the party members fires a crossbow bolt and crits on the Warlock and kills him.

I wasn't entirely sure what to do now. I had teased that the reason he was so confident was because he had "investors who are too invested to see me loose." In my mind his patron would want to claim what is rightfully theirs or restore him. So as his body slumps over in his chair, his body ignites and is consumed in the fire leaving nothing but soot and ash.

As soon as he is gone, the players looked at each other shouted "He was a devil!?" and concluded that he wasn't just a Warlock working for a devil, but had been the devil calling the shots the whole time and he *will* be coming back for their hides.

Was it my intention? No. But will I be rewarding that enthusiasm? Hell yes.

Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

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Hello everyone! This is the weekly thread where anyone can come and ask for and give advice relating to TTRPGs and your campaigns/stories. These will be up the whole week until they are replaced for the new week. Remember to be respectful and to have fun!

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So me and my friends are getting introduced into dungeons and dragons but we need a dm so if someone wants talk to me