Ha-klek wrote:

Thank you all for the advice! 
After last nights session, we had a group discussion as to how to proceed. Coincidently, both of nDervish's suggestions came up. The party conflict came to a head, and the Paladin nearly cholked the Warlock to death over an escaped slave's execution (some great roleplaying).

Having this party conflict has had interesting consequences, but the group seems to feel that its run its course, so the player of the Paladin has put his character at a moral crossroad: either renounce his faith to travel with these despots (essentially becoming a fighter or cataphract) damning his soul but possibly gaining him enough loot to rebuild his temple in Khromarium (ends justify means style). Or, leave the character in Khromarium penniless but morally intact and make a new character to travel with the party (or adopt an NPC).
The latter option makes more sense from a narritive perspective and it also opens up the possibility of having the Paladin form a Goodish anti-party to stop those voracious vikings, an idea the players seem to like.
Either way I'm excited to see how this plays out, and thank you again for all the responses.
 

Sounds like a great game! I look forward to hearing more about your campaign. If you type up a more lengthy description of what is going on in your campaing, please post it in the "campaign" thread. It would be a welcome addition there!

Cheers,
Jeff T.
 

Blackadder23 wrote:

If the PCs don't cooperate, I kill them.

Its a self-fulfilling prophesy.  Lack of cohesiveness means you die.  They kill themselves.
 

Blackadder23 wrote:

If the PCs are bickering, that means extra wandering monster checks.

Obligatory story time:

Once upon a time (well, ok, last summer), I was GMing for a group of PCs who were clearing a rather large nest of ghouls out of the ruins of a small farming village.  They discovered a house with some interesting alchemical apparatus inside and got into a big discussion about whether to fully explore and inventory the house immediately or to continue around the village and come back to it.  While they were still standing in front of the house.

I waited for them to finish, rolling a random encounter die every couple minutes.  The players didn't notice.

When it came up with an encounter, I rolled for how many ghouls had come by.  The players didn't notice.

I grabbed a stack of poker chips (which we'd been using as minis for the ghouls), considered whether I should modify the number of ghouls, and pulled a couple more.  I walked all the way around the table, reaching between the players to set the chips in a loose circle surrounding the PCs' minis.  The players didn't notice.

I waited a minute, then walked around the table a second time, moving the chips in closer to the PCs.  The players didn't notice.

I rolled a stealth check for the ghouls, which they failed, so I cleared my throat and told everyone to roll initiative.  They looked up at me, completely confused, then looked down at the table and had a collective "Oh, s***!" moment.

There are few pleasures in life so satisfying as seeing your players (not their characters!) completely fail a surprise check.

I can vouch that recovering from surprise from a bunch of ghouls is difficult....