Grope, it will be noted, has finally made contact with the other trolls in the Mountains of Madness -- not in the "troll homelands" (which are in Veracia and the far north, these trolls are "settlers" as he himself is), but still, trolls. By far the most natural order of events from here is that he hang out with those trolls for a while, then continue on to the troll homelands in search of a new mate -- which, after all, is the "quest" that he's on. If that happens, he will more or less break contact with the humans now engaged with the Malletarian heretics. That's not unnatural by any means; on the contrary, the somewhat contrived nature of the things that have brought him into contact with Jamie, Marcus, etc., is the "unnatural" thing.
So I appear to have some options:
- "Retire" Grope and let him live happily ever after offstage, treating Layla as my main PC in the MoM venue -- this is undesirable because Layla too is seeing her life move in directions incompatible with where most characters are going;
- Let a deus ex machina keep Grope around to interact with the main group;
- Continue to tell Grope's story in the MoM venue even though he's going to be leaving it relatively soon;
- Prepare another venue that in essence becomes the chronicle of the trolls, with other characters to be introduced as players wish, but no expectation that the current set will be active in that venue.
This doesn't have to get answered instantly, but I'd appreciate feedback sooner than later, as Grope's trajectory through the MoM is obviously going to be affected by this decision.