Woohoo! My long-awaited campaign has finally begun. Back in '05, I ran Shackled City to completion, and a while ago I decided I wanted to run it again. However, my old gaming group is scattered all over now, so that was easier said than done.

We decided to use maptools, and thanks to all the fine folks in the community, I managed to find a bunch of cool maps, side trek ideas, etc., so I know this time around will be even more fun than the first. Of course, it still took months before we finally got around to starting this bad boy.

The best part of maptools, imo, is that it can be saved for posterity. I decided to share our first session here.

If you see a map you made, then know that you have my sincerest gratitude for your fine work!

There are only two players in this campaign, and one of them wasn't available for the first session. However, I'm letting them fill out their party with iconics (they chose Lini and Seoni). I gave Lini and Seoni slightly different attitudes than prescribed in their pregen stats, but I guess that's the GM's prerogative. ;)

The player's character is a human swashbuckler (from Tome of Secrets), and he was a pirate until he was caught by authorities near Sasserine (I transplanted all of the necessary locations from Shackled City, Age of Worms, and Savage Tide into Golarion). After torture and watching his captain hanged, he decided to head inland for a time. After arriving in Cauldron, he met Lini and Seoni, who were on a mission to get to the bottom of the mysterious kidnappings...

Second Session.

Had to insert Lini's hawk all "Order of the Stick"-style, since I had completely forgotten about it last time. The second player couldn't make it again, but he should be joining next time. In the meantime, Shackled City is proving to be just as deadly as I remember...

Third Session.

Had to alter Orbius & Kazmojen's relationship to avoid a TPK (though in truth no one actually died, mostly thanks to the new Pathfinder rule of allowing characters to live until negative Con). Second player manage to show up halfway through the session. We finished Chapter One, and they've already cleared out the first level of Drakthar's lair.

Also, one of the players truly learned to hate Valeros, since I played him like someone who has a Wisdom of 8. He traded him out for Lini once he had enough gold to raise her, vowing to never allow the boorish and foolishly impetuous fighter adventure with them again.

In addition, I instituted Fate Points, altered slightly from the Conan D20 system. Gaining 1 per session, a Fate Point can be spent as a free action to auto confirm a crit, do max dmg for a successful hit, or immediately grant 25 hps. (One of the player's character would have died at the claws of a worg in Drakthar's Way had he not spent a Fate Point.)

Session Four!

Cool! I am glad to see that you all are having fun with this.

That fate point is pretty interesting. I have Conan d20 buyt have never read through it maybe I should take a look.

Cool! I am glad to see that you all are having fun with this.

@Fate Points: Yeah, my group really needs them. I tend to run dynamic dungeons, so once they start making a lot of noise (easy to do, since one of the PCs has a frickin' gun), it ends up being one massive battle.

Session Five!

Got through the Demonskar Ball, though I changed it a bit. Not so much a "ball" as a gathering before the Flood Festival began. Just a chance to meet all the nobles and named NPCs, really. Also, I threw in a bunch of the Shackleborn, because I like to set things up like that. ;)

They also played some poker, so I've included some quick rules I made to handle that (it went over pretty well).

Next session isn't until the 13th, but we might be getting another player or two...