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Hi,
I'm about the start a KM campaign and I'm hoping to get some advice and input from the Pathfinder crowd on ways I can spice up the campaign to add a few elements that my players are asking for and which may not be in the KM modules as written. I'm mostly familiar with Stolen Lands, with vague ideas about what happens in the later chapters. I'm happy to steal from any and all available source material. <grin>
The elements:
1) Dragons: my players love dragons and want them to be a major element of the campaign. One of the characters' backgrounds is that he's a cavalier from a minor noble house that were dragon riders before Choral the Conquerer came, killed his family's dragon mounts and outlawed metallic dragons from Brevoy.
It looks like KM as written has a couple of dragons or dragon-like creatures - any thoughts on ways to add a true dragon or two that fits organically with the greater story? I'm a fan of scholar green dragons (menacing, but can be dealt with diplomatically) and was thinking I could add one who knows a lot of the local history, and who is eager to have agents who can explore areas it can't get to.
2) Connected Ruins: One of my players is a wizard and wants to have ancient, arcane secrets to discover in the sandbox. I know there are a few ruins to explore, and maybe I've been reading too much Serpent's Skull, but I'd love to add a plot thread and/or mystery element involving several ruins. I know KM 3 has the cyclops lich, but I haven't been able to find much information on the ancient cyclops culture. Alternatively I was thinking that I could maybe port some elements from Rise of the Runelords into KM?
Thanks for the help!
Both good points actually... Dragons, and Ruins/Cyclops... you are right on the money... First of all read the guide to the river kingdomes and the last couple of modules on kingmaker, that should help you with ideas.... Last couple of Modules will help you with some Ideas for Dragons as well. Up in Issia, on the mountaintop there are ruins that date back to the ancient Cyclops Empire. And to the East and North of the Mountains you will find archaeological fun as well...
There are lots of forrested areas up there for Dragons to hide in. And Green Dragons would be fun to have around. As well as Fire and Cold Drakes and Wyverns would be found in the mountain areas. There is plenty of areas for buried ruins from the ancient Iobarian empire let alone the Ancient Cyclopsian Empire to be found up in such a place...
History: Iobaria was originally settled by Ulfen explorers from Avistan around 752 AR, who followed the southernmost polar ice caps eastward. It soon grew into an empire with colonies as far afield as Issia, (now Brevoy), and Mendev, in Avistan. The empire was brought down by a series of plagues, the worst of which was the Choking Death of 2742 AR. These diseases killed three quarters of the population, and even today a host of illnesses keeps the population low. Thus weakened, Iobaria lost control of its vassal states, which rebelled against its control, only to collapse themselves once they were cut off from central support.
Thus just like Europe. The Vikings went east and the Rus tribe of Vikings settled and founded Russia :)
Ulfen people go out alone and Kill the great Linnorm pre cursor Dragons and bring back their heads to become the great Linnorm Kings(Queens). So their Ex Vassal States could start riding Dragons... at least in some noble families... The Families that have Clerics of Bahamut(the Platnum Dragon) perhaps for Good Dragons... As per the Dragons Revisited Book from Pathfinder...
So your Druzhina ride the Drakhaon into fierce battle leading your Bogatyr against enemy Bogatyr and their Drakhaon and their Druzhina...
in epic battles across the Taiga...
Anyhow the Fierce Ulfen Barbarians worship a Deitie named Erastil... he is a Lawful Good Hunter who has Druids and Clerics and rumor has it had a great sisterhood of priesteses in the ancinet past. You could dig up evidence of this to prove it... You do find a temple to old Deadeye the Stag Lord in the first module... ;) Paladins of Old Deadeye favor the Longbow, so to does Druids, and Clerics :)
Your group could find a nest of baby silver dragons, or better yet a young Silver Dragon comes to the Party in the Shape of a Human... She claims to be a ... and joins the group or helps the group now and then... as they get more experienced the young Cavalier meets a Silver Dragon and befriends it and becomes a Dragon Rider... meanwhile the young lady becomes the indespensable lady in the Kingdome that the party goes to for Advise...
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There is an island in book 2 just south of the stag lord's keep with a ruin on it. Many have seen this area to be anti-climactic and it is a great place to insert something arcane.
You could add some simple, yet engaging creepy crawly ruins to the blank hexes anywhere in the green belt. With our version of Kingmaker I've tried to express the idea that the Stolen Lands have resisted settlement and shrugged off many a previous inhabitant. Ruins are a great and relatively easy thing to add in for flavor to keep your party engaged. Especially if they like ruins. Dragons are a bit more of an investment for me and I hadn't really considered plopping them around, but what better way to give away snippets and snappits of campaign background to your players than to interact with creatures that could have been alive for great spans of time.
I personally added a really ancient bad-news-bears ruined city (the description of which I pretty much stole from Queen of the Black Coast) that the Tatzlworms lived in rather than their published wooded glade. You could easily have the dragon-kin being controlled by or replaced by a real dragon there.
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2) Connected Ruins: One of my players is a wizard and wants to have ancient, arcane secrets to discover in the sandbox. I know there are a few ruins to explore, and maybe I've been reading too much Serpent's Skull, but I'd love to add a plot thread and/or mystery element involving several ruins.
I am working on a mini-scenario for KM 1 tentatively called "Thawn of the Dead".
It involves a small set of ruins which tie into KM 3 rather easily and could also be a good launching point for expanded ruin exploration for KM 1.Going to be set at around 3rd level from the looks of it, I am going to be finishing it up and posting it here in the next week or so.
I don't have a problem posting the whole scenario in a thread, I just need to figure out a hosting/link site to put up the maps.
Your group could find a nest of baby silver dragons, or better yet a young Silver Dragon comes to the Party in the Shape of a Human... She claims to be a ... and joins the group or helps the group now and then... as they get more experienced the young Cavalier meets a Silver Dragon and befriends it and becomes a Dragon Rider... meanwhile the young lady becomes the indespensable lady in the Kingdome that the party goes to for Advise...
Svetlana would be an excellent choice. Middle aged Oleg protective of his young wife. No children. The party will almost certainly put Svetlana in a leadership position.
IIRC, there are rumors of a silver in the area, but he's actually dead by the time the AP starts. I also think there is a black in #5 or #6 that has gone over to the bad queen.
The Black Dragon is in book #6 I believe.
The silver dragon is indeed dead, but her skeletal remains are still in her lair (aside from the skull). I'd suggest sending the PCs on a quest to have the dragon resurrected.
You could even find a Dragon Orb in one of the ruins... Have it tied to whitch ever Dragon you find suitable. Perhaps it could be found in the place where the Carcas of the Silver Dragon Lies...
Perhaps you could find a clutch of Kobold eggs and rais them to be your helpers :)
As a GM, I feel like one of the major weaknesses of kingmaker was a lack of story with the main villain. You could really flesh out the story of the barbarians that are in KM 4, Blood for Blood. Use the ruins to paint a picture of what happened to the previous barbarians that inhabited the stolen lands. That way you dont have to add too much xp and gold to the campaign.
I'd recommend looking into Eranex from Dragons Unleashed. She's a fey silver dragon that's got some pretty interesting plot hooks attached to her.
Though, Chromatic dragons being involved could be just as interesting, with Brevoy being associated with Red Dragons.
For great ideas, check out anything by Dudemeister, Caleb T. Gordon, Redcelt, or Orthos. I've contributed a couple things, too.
pennywit undersells himself. He has contributed a number of good things across these boards :)
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In the GM reference for Chapter 1 RobRendell posted a ruin quest he designed. I implemented it into my campaign without too much planning and it still worked very nicely. I removed the link to Svetlana he used and just used it as a plug in ruin. As written it adds to the fey plot line, but with a few very minor adjustments it could work you aswell.
Here are the links:
Description of the ruins
Map of the ruins
You can find the original posts and discussion by searching for 'New Sehir' in the forum.
In the GM reference for Chapter 1 RobRendell posted a ruin quest he designed. I implemented it into my campaign without too much planning and it still worked very nicely. I removed the link to Svetlana he used and just used it as a plug in ruin. As written it adds to the fey plot line, but with a few very minor adjustments it could work you aswell.
Here are the links:
Description of the ruins
Map of the ruinsYou can find the original posts and discussion by searching for 'New Sehir' in the forum.
Alas, the links do not work.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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I'm just gonna leave this right here, with a ton of great stuff written by many of the same authors who wrote the original AP.
Okay so Green Dragon, I have an idea.
Maybe Narissa blinded her or something similarly dramitic and she's been looking for vengeance the entire time. Our heroes making the perfect Catspaw
Kingmaker is very amenable to swapping extra elements in (or out, if you want to replace some of the sidequests.) And one thing it needs is a bit more overall connection and recurring villains/elements. I'd say you have plenty of good opprotunities here.
Green and black dragons would be very thematic through much of the AP; you could have some of them be descendants of Iluthiak, the big black dragon in book 6. (I ended up using the half-dragon template a lot for "Iluthiak-spawn" -- pretty fun.)
In book 4, you could have a dragon or two allied with Baron Drelev, either in addition to, or replacing, his court wizard Imeckus Stroon. There's a (false) rumor of a black dragon in the swamp, which you could turn into a real one (maybe the boggards' god-figure?)
One or more dragons could be guests at the Rushlight Tournament in book 5, or participants in the armies. (There's a sad lack of airpower in the War of the River Kings. Give the enemies some advantages there, and something for the PCs to fight while the armies battle below.)
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I have quite a few dragons in our Kingmaker game. Major NPC monsters like hag covens, dragons, liches, etc I map out way early at the beginning of a campaign, because like mountains, rivers, and such, they affect how everything around them evolves. We have:
- black dragon group, mostly females that live in the swamp, led by a very old female. The party tangled with a young male that was kicked out and told to go prove himself worthy by gaining a horde... from the PCs kingdom.
- there is an adult blue dragon that is part of a dragon rider/dragon pairing that the party tangled with during a siege of a town they were defending. They fought them to a standstill, but lost two wyvern riders and 12 elven giant owl riders in the process.
- The major dragon in their plans is a very old green dragon living in the ruins of an ancient elven city in the Narlmarches. I made her a cleric and she has strewn statues of herself all over her "territory", 3 hexes, so she can interact with the party and not give away her location. She kidnapped the PCs kingdom dragon sage to give herself an advantage against other dragons in the region, and when the party stalked her to demand his release, she offered them a fey/elven history sage in return. Since she threw in a few choice lore items, they relented. She later however hired rogues to break into the PCs castle and steal a dragon spellbook the party wizard was jerkishly (in her mind) demanding far to much in exchange. So she is an adversary that is occasionally useful.
- There is a strong dragon in the mountains to the east of the PC kingdom, what sort the party isn't sure. They have twice seen adult black dragons flying back battered and defeated from the mountains to the swamp, but have no idea what type of dragon is doing it. It is a silver dragon offspring of the original silver dragon who created Silver Lake. The party already discovered huge Koi living in the lake who were magical. The silver dragon would baleful polymorph evil creatures he defeated into Koi and place them in his dragon made "Koi pond".
Alas, the links do not work.
I still have the image file:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7DApMOH4jNKM0hoenEzejIyZFE
Perhaps I'll be able to find the explanation file as well at home, but it doesn't seem to be in my drive anymore. I may have removed it when we finished the dungeon. I'll look later.
Again all credit goes to RobRendell.
Alas, the links do not work.
The Dropbox policy change strikes again!
Here's a link from which you should be able to grab the New Sehir adventure and map, plus my other Kingmaker stuff.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xcjj8wcjntrkvz1/AAAlCeNYcAGNFPqoiZsibdCPa?dl=0