Hi. I've seen threads that propose to adapt X Adventure Path to the Eberron setting. There's still not one of these for this particular AP, and I thought I could start one, as this is what I'd like to do. A friend lend me his copy of this AP's first part, and it seems that it may not be that hard to convert to Eberron. What do you think? Have you done this, or something similar?
Thanks!
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I found a map online where someone had taken Eberron, Inner Sea/Golarion, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms and I'm pretty sure Greyhawk and scaled them all to fit on one world. So I adapted that and put Eberron on Golarion since those are the two settings I prefer to play in.
I just use Khovaire and Xen'drik and placed them on the other side of the world. It is a fantasy world and so I just said that magic is a little more plentiful on the Eberron side of the world, which explains the differences. I also make it difficult to get from one side to the other because of the difference in magical properties, which is why they don't interact much. That way if I need to I can find an exception to get PC's from Eberron to any part of the Golarion setting I want.
I found a map online where someone had taken Eberron, Inner Sea/Golarion, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms and I'm pretty sure Greyhawk and scaled them all to fit on one world. So I adapted that and put Eberron on Golarion since those are the two settings I prefer to play in.
It's a good idea, but as I don't have the PF setting available (I only have the basic manual and the bestiary), I want to use only Eberron.
The changes I've come up so far are:
- The Jenivere is a Lyrandar House ship traveling to Stormreach.
- Smuggler's Shiv is located north of Xen'drik.
- The Varisian Scholar = A Morgrave Uiversity Scholar
- The Chupacabra and the Tengu are replaced with some creatures more Eberron-ish (although conceptually they remain the same).
- The cannibals are Drow (not sure about this one yet.
What do you think so far?
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No reason to make the cannibals drow. That really takes something away from it, because as is they are people who were once in your own shoes (shipwrecked on this same island) and you see how terribly degenerate they have become. In the same situation the PCs are going to triumph like the heroes they are.
No reason to make the cannibals drow. That really takes something away from it, because as is they are people who were once in your own shoes (shipwrecked on this same island) and you see how terribly degenerate they have become. In the same situation the PCs are going to triumph like the heroes they are.
Yes, you are right. I had that idea when I first read mention of the cannibals, but after reading their backstory I realize its just ruining it.
I have finalized reading the first book, and I have found some thoughts.
First, about adapting all the island's backstory into Eberron. For now, it has occurred to me to keep the Lizardfolk as a race that used to be enslaved by the Giants in Xen'drik, and replace the Azlati with the Giant Civilization of Xen'drik. I think it can work fine on this first chapter, but as I don't really know the Azlati and their importance later on, I have no idea how this may affect later books.
What do you think about this?
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Off the top of my head it means the Azlanti ruins and such will be incredibly old. Maybe 40,000 years since the giants of Eberron last had a civilization? You might need to rescale the maps to make structures appropriately giant sized.
I'm interested in this and mostly just marked it to remember the thread. At some point when I have more time I'll crack a book and come up with some more ideas.
Off the top of my head it means the Azlanti ruins and such will be incredibly old. Maybe 40,000 years since the giants of Eberron last had a civilization? You might need to rescale the maps to make structures appropriately giant sized.
Yes, I've consider that. Just now, I thought I could replace the Azlanti with the first attempt of the elves/drows to build a civilization after the fall of the Giants. The ruins will still be old, but I wouldn't have to change the sizes of them. What do you think?
I'm interested in this and mostly just marked it to remember the thread. At some point when I have more time I'll crack a book and come up with some more ideas.
I'm glad you like this thread ^_^
And now, the NPCs:
Aerys and Jask: No problem with this, remain as written.
Gelik: Replace bad standing with the Pathfinder Society with the Wayfinder Foundation.
Ishirou: As the Oriental flavour does not fit Eberron, Ishirou becomes now a Changeling Rogue, currently disguised as a Human. I will use Jona Clay's name and image for this assumed persona, from the NPC Guide. Backstory is maintained.
Sasha: Order of the Emerald Claw replaces Red Mantis.
I think that the Oriental flavor fits fine as a hobgoblin in Eberron, so Ishirou became Shiruu, and maintained his backstory.
I replaced with a Changeling posing as a Human, keeping the backstory.
I'm also pretty sure I will replace the Kenku with a Warforged with a new backstory. But my players have not run into him yet, and for the road they are taking I'm quite certain they will not encounter him.
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Ishirou: As the Oriental flavour does not fit Eberron, Ishirou becomes now a Changeling Rogue, currently disguised as a Human. I will use Jona Clay's name and image for this assumed persona, from the NPC Guide. Backstory is maintained.Sasha: Order of the Emerald Claw replaces Red Mantis.
I've always adapted Oriental flavor in Eberron to Sarlona, so Ishirou became Reidran. This worked out well for me as one of my players is a kalashtar.
I changed the Red Mantis into House Thuranni's Shadow Network. Just change all Mantis humans into elves, and you've got it.
I changed the Red Mantis into House Thuranni's Shadow Network. Just change all Mantis humans into elves, and you've got it.
Uh, that would've been great, but I've already "made up" the Mantis as a sub-order inside the Emerald Claw (as I wanted to keep using Sasha's pic).
I am currently starting to work on "Racing to Ruin".
As for Eleder, the obvious choice seems Stormreach.
What factions did you use? I was thinking of:
Aspis Consortium > The Aurum
Payhfinders > Wayfinders
Sargavan Government > The Storm Lords
Free Captains > Not replaced, but inserted into the setting.
What do you think?
I started running Savage Tides a couple years ago. When this AP came out, I really wanted to switch, but didn't want to start over.
Once they get to the settlement on the Island of Dread, there will be an abbreviated Racing to Ruin, including some but not all of the encounters, but they will choose their factions.
Aspis Consortium is going to be the Aurum, Pathfinders are either going to be the Wayfinders or Morgrave University, Sargavan Govornment is going to be the ruling body of the settlement, Free Captains are going to be a collection of Lhazaar Princes, Red Mantis is going to be House Thuranni Shadow Network. I like the idea of the Emerald Claw, but the party has history with them and they would most likely attack them on sight.
I just lost a massive post to a browser crash, so I am going to do this with a series of short posts to hedge my bets this time. I am preparing to run Serpent's Skull in Eberron and want to share my ideas with the community and ask for feedback. I will start with the things that I am pretty confident that are set.
The Jenivere is a privately owned Lhaazarite vessel. I will be using the route and calendar in Khasmo's link above. I have decided not to make it a Lyrandar vessel because House Lyrandar does not frequent the Lhaazar Principalities.
Smuggler's Shiv is located within Shargon's Teeth, and is notorious because even the Sahuagin avoid the island and the waters around it.
Savith Yhi will be replaced by Qabalrin, an acient elven city-state on Xen'Drik that was destroyed during the Age of Giants (Secrets of Xen'Drik page 52). This works nicely because Qabalrin may have created the first vampires, so I can simply make the ruins on Smuggler's Shiv an outpost of refugees fleeing Qabalrin's ruin.
Ysiderius is a Rakshasha Raja and Ilmuera is the fortress that he was imprisoned in during the Age of Demons. Qabalrin became corrupt due to his influence. I can add to the legend that he was decapitated during the Age of Demons, but even that was not enough to slay a powerful Raja.
The Serpentfolk will fill the niche of the Yuan-ti in Eberron with no mechanical changes. When they first found Ilmurea they mistakenly beleived that Ysiderius was an aspect of the Devourer and were slowly corrupted until they became a large independent sect of the Lords of Dust.
That's the basic outline that I am working off of. I think that the only other things that I need to work out before starting on SfSS is the factions I will be using and how that will impact the Castaway NPCs. But that will be a seperate post that I will put up in a day or so.
In the meantime, feel free to provide feedback on these ideas and offer any suggestions you have to build on them.
It has taken me longer than I expected to make this update, but I haven't been idle on this project either. When working out what to do with the NPC Castaways, I decided that I wanted to do as little mechanical conversion as possible and focus on their backgrounds and faction affiliations. But before I could figure that out, I needed to settle on which power groups in Eberron would be joining the quest to Qabalrin.
Instead of trying to translate the Golarion factions over to their closest Eberron counterparts, I feel like it will increase the Eberron feel of the campaign if I start by asking which Eberron factions would interested in finding and exploring Qabalrin, then mapping those over to the published factions based on tactics, general attitude, and my own ability to link the NPC Castaways to them. Here is what I have come up with:
Aurum: The Aurum, or at least members of it, are always looking for ways to increase their wealth and power in Khorvaire; and the ancient artifacts and possible lost knowledge in Qabalrin are sure ways to obtain both. The Aurum translates cleanly over to the Aspis Consortium in both motive and tactics, making it one of the two factions that convert overly with little effort.
Wayfinder Foundation: Founded specifically to explore Xen'Drik and bring the secrets of the Lost Continent to light, the Wayfinder Foundation is an obvious choice for the expedition Qabalrin. As a clean translation to the Pathfinder Society, they are easy to translate over to Eberron.
Order of the Emerald Claw: This one took a long look into the background of Eberron to put in here. The brief write-up of Qabalrin in Secrets of Xen'Drik mentions that the first vampires on Eberron were possibly created by the Elves of Qabalrin. Since Vol was turned into a lich against her will, and (I believe according to Keith Baker's website) has actively sought ways to end her condition in the past, word of a possible location of Qabalrin would be enough for her to send an expedition of her elite soldiers into the jungles of Xen'Drik. Based off of their ruthless approach to the expedition, the Order will fill the place of the Shackles Pirates on the expedition. (There was some additional difficulties with the associated NPC, but more on that below.)
House Thuranni: Since their founding following the Shadow Schism, House Thuranni has held a deep interest in Elven history, so an expedition to find the ancient Elven city of Qabalrin is right in their wheelhouse. Their small expedition size and focus on stealth make them an easy parallel to the Red Mantis Assassins.
House Tharashk: Legend has it that Qabalrin was destroyed in a rain of Siberys dragonshards. As the source of the majority of Khorvaire's dragonshards, House Tharashk is not going to sit still and let a potentially massive source of rare Siberys dragonshard fall into the hands of another organization. Even though it is not a particularly good match of theme or motive, there is nothing in their tactics that makes it an unbelievable stretch to match them to the Sargavan Government faction.
Now that I have settled on the factions, it is time to work out the NPC Castaways. I will make that a new post because I need to move to my tablet so my wife can nap.
I surprisingly managed to find a way to make zero changes to the NPC Castaways' character sheets, but I did have to make significant changes to some of their backgrounds.
Aerys (Mavato) Thuranni: The child of a scion of House Thuranni, Aerys was born as the result of an affair between her mother and a Lazaarite captain based in Regalport. Due to her half-elf heritage, she has never been fully accepted by House Thuranni, and that rejection has filled her with rage that is constantly waiting a chance to get out. The most common trigger for her temper tends to be the romantic advances of men who are attracted to her exotic beauty. Her love of the sea and poetry remain unchanged from her bio in the AP, as will her scrap with the crewman when she boarded the Jenivere.
She is also the first Castaway whose faction affiliation I have changed. According to my faction listing, House Thuranni replaces the Red Mantis Assassins, but Aerys is written to be affiliated with the Order of the Emerald Claw. The problem that I kept coming back to is that I wanted to write the misogyny parts out of her background since Eberron is written to be very gender equal (so is Golarian in many ways, and that aspect of her story doesn't make much sense in light of that). The solution that I kept coming back to was to simply change her faction of House Thuranni and make her a bastard child to give her the rage issues.
Aerys boarded the Jenivere in Regalport.
Gelik Aberhinge: No real changes to him at all. I simply changed "Pathfinder Society" to "Wayfinder Foundation" and had him board in Trollanport.
Ishirou: Another castaway with no changes to his background. I changed him to a human of Reidran descent and changed the Aspis Consortium to the Aurum. Ishirou boarded in Sharn.
Jask (Derindi) Tharashk: Jask is a human member of House Tharashk cleric of the Sovereign Host (versitile enough that I don't have to change his domains) who once worked in the Stormreach enclave. He uncovered unsanctioned side deals involving one he enclave higher ups selling dragonshards through a Lhazaarite captain to cut the House out of the transactions and pocket the difference. After being framed for those betrayals, he fled as far Q'barra before being hunted down by Tharashk agents and sent back to Stormreach for punishment. He was handed over to the captain of the Jenivere in Adderport.
Sasha Nevah: I simply changed Red Mantis to Order of the Emerald Claw in her background and the rest worked out perfectly. I did have to change her faction (according to a direct port she would have been a member of House Thuranni), but the violent exile from her Order made more sense for the Emerald Claw than for House Thuranni.
Sasha boarded the Jenivere in Port Krev.
I have also, borrowing heavily from Khasmo's Obsidian Portal page (link in his post above) created handouts to serve as a Player's Guide for this campaign. The handouts are available here.
So, other than a few minor changes that I will be able to implement on the fly, I feel like I am ready to roll with this campaign. I hope that talking through my thought processes and decisions here helps someone down the road, or at least makes an interesting read.
I will most likely make similar updates as I convert Book 2. In the meantime, feel free to post any questions or comments that you have about my work here.
Since I have apparently hijacked this thread and turned it into my personal conversion diary, I may as well keep putting my thoughts here.
After further thought, I have decided to make a few changes to Jask's backstory to make it less of a stretch for him to work of House Tharashk in later chapters.
He will no longer be member of House Tharashk; instead he is a Stormreach native that was framed by a government bureacrat for doing some side business in such a way to cut the Storm Lords out (much like his written story). When he went on the lamb, the Storm Lords sent a Tharashk bounty hunter after him. The bounty hunter eventually caught up with him in Q'barra and put him in the care of the Jenivere's captain for the trip to Stormreach. Since the bounty hunter treated him respectfully, Jack will be open to assisting them on their mission to Qabalrin after getting off of the Shiv.
I ended up putting this game on hold for about a year shortly after starting it due to having a baby and dealing with the lifestyle changes that came with it. But we are back at it now, and the PCs have just taken over the cannibal camp. They still have the Caves of the Mother to explore, then the Temple of Blood; so I expect them to finish book one in one or two more sessions depending on how focused we can stay.
Looking ahead to Racing for Ruin, I see a lot of work in my future. I can keep the city encounters with some appropriate flavor changes (I haven't settled on all of them yet, but the city will certainly be Stormreach).
I will also keep Tazion, but it will be populated with Drow to make it more Xen'drik feeling. That should be a simple matter of building a few stat blocks to replace the ones in the book, but that part is easy.
However, I will have to rework the entire journey portion. Not only is it too focused on dealing with the locals for Xen'drik, but the encounters are just too random and there is not enough interaction and actual racing with the other factions for my taste. I will take a hard look at the salt mines to see if they can be salvaged somehow, because I hate to let a good dungeon map go to waste. I will also try to work in the meeting the contact and being spied on by the other factions in to Last Rest (I think that is name of the Inn south of Stormreach).
At that point I will see how much experience and treasure we are leaving on the table with the remaining encounters and take it from there.
We have reached an interesting impasse in exploring the Shiv. My intrepid heroes have explored the Caves of the Mother and taken care of the Lacedon problem down there, and we left the session with them standing at the (un-activated) Tide Stone after having just defeated the Red Mountain Devil.
The problem is, they failed all of the relevant knowledge checks in the Temple to Yedersius in the Caves (with no INT based characters in the party, Knowledge checks may be their Achilles Heel until the Bard gets enough levels to consistently pass is Bardic Knowledge checks); and have convinced themselves that the Tide Stones are actually a weapon and aren't even trying to activate it.
Since the rest of the campaign relies heavily on them exploring the Temple of Blood and getting their hands on Yarzoth's research there, this is obviously an issue that I need to have a plan for before our next session (which will probably not be until May).
The ideas I have so far are:
Exploring the area around the Tide Stone
I will give the Ranger a survival test to notice Yarzoth's footprints leaving the Tide Stone and leading into the sea near one of the bridges. The know that she was already there and activated the Stone once, so maybe they will get the picture that it opened something up and that they should follow her based on that.
I will also give them a (relatively easy) Perception test to notice that the bridges lead down into nothing and that the slope of the last ledge leads gently down into the sea.
The problem here is that it relies on skill checks that they may not pass (especially the Survival check--it has been at least 2 days since Yarzoth passed this way, and with rain every afternoon that makes finding tracks difficult).
Yarzoth emerges
If they still don't active the Stone, I will have Yarzoth finish her research and emerge from the Temple before their rescue arrives. I will have to make sure that they interact with her in some way on the island to give them a chance to get the information.
If nothing else, she would logically return to the lighthouse to try to use it to get off of the island when she is finished with her work. That could lead to some interesting interactions if Ieana shows back up looking for help after what they have learned about her.
If anyone is still reading this, do you have any other ideas to help nudge my wayward heroes back on the path to their destinies?
It is becoming increasingly obvious that I am talking to myself here, but I will continue to post my thoughts so that if another GM decides to attempt this conversion later they will have the benefit of my notes.
While poking around for ideas on what to do with Racing to Ruin, I stumbled on an article in Dungeon Magazine #122 about the Ring of Storms in Xen'Drik. The article specifically discusses the Qabalrin Elves, including their history a little bit of their culture, and the current state of the mountain valley that their city was in.
I won't be able to use all of it without changes, but it does give me a lot more background to play around with to make things fit more cleanly into Eberron. The biggest thing that I won't be able to keep is that the area can't be as utterly destroyed as written, because I need a city to explore.
The Heart of Siberys
I haven't decided if I want Saventh-Yhi to be the central city of Qabalrin and integrate the Heart of Siberys into the ruins somewhere, or if I want to ignore it and just move on. Luckily, I have some time to make this decision.
The Halls of Ice and Marble
I will use this encounter area to replace some of the encounters from Racing to Ruin that just don't work in Xen'Drik. I will probably place it after Tazion, between books 2 and 3. Hopefully that doesn't make my party underleveled for Tazion, but there are 5 of them so they will probably be okay.
I will also use the encounter tables in the article for Saventh-Yhi and Illmurea, which should be a lot of fun.
More pressingly, the Temple of Blood on the Shiv (which we should explore in our next session) will be a Temple of members of the Unnamed faction of old Qabalrin that escaped and sought to follow their elders into discovering vampirism and seek out revenge on their enemies. They eventually did manage to turn themselves into vampires, and navigated the Halls of Ice and Marble to Qabalrin just in time to be destroyed by the rain of Siberys dragonshards.
Some of the other information in the article will also inform some of the changes that I plan to make to the inhabitants of the districts of Saventh-Yhi, but that will have to wait until I get all of that figured out and there are more pressing decisions to make first.
Not sure about what characters are in your party, but if any of them have a halfway decent Use Magic Device score, they might be able to at least figure out that the stone can be activated (even if they can't activate it themselves).
Oh, they know that it can be activated. They just refuse to activate it because they are convinced that it is some sort of weapon that will blow up Sharn or Stormreach if they activate it. I have no idea how they came to that conclusion, but players tend to do that sometimes.
Edit: By the way, thank you for posting. It is soothing to the ego to know that someone is at least reading my ramblings here.