| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
All,
My friends and I are starting a new Pathfinder game. We dont know a ton about the setting, but we want to slowly work into it. It is a 5-player game, with shared GMs. I will be one of the main GMs, as will one other guy. Any player CAN be GM if they have story ideas, but mainly two of the five will be primary GMs.
I know that Golarion is more detailed in either adventure paths (I currently have none) and in more broad books. So I am wondering where you might suggest for starting a campaign.
We would like it to be nearest to a small village or two as the game starts out, but to be close enough to other kingdoms and/or dangerous areas of interest that the game could kinda grow in that direction. Kinda like how the old Greyhawk village, Hommlet, was not too terribly far from Veluna, Furyondy (or however it was spelled) etc.
Does anyone have a suggestion for which area or country might have a place like this that we could just create and drop in? Somewhere that a campaign could have lots of adventure and be off the beaten path somewhere, and yet have some of the more interesting sights/cities/kingdoms/ruins within a week or so journey?
I mean I could, and will, make an arbitrary decision, esp if I get few responses. Just wondering if there are any areas that jump out at you. Somewhere that can start slow, but visit big?
Thanks!
There's a few that would fit your bill probably.
Sandpoint - Varisia (this is detailed in Ap 1 and the 1st book of the Jade Regent AP). Its pretty well the classic frontier town for an adventuring party.
Falcon's Hollow - Andoran logging town in Darkmoon Vale a wilderness area replete with old dwarven ruins. Some great adventures were made in 3.5 (Hollow's Last Hope is a free download). The others I recall are Crown of the Kobold King, Carnvial of Tears.
Ravengro - if you're looking for some gothic horror/ghostbusting, Ravengro is in the Carrion Crown AP 1 (haunting of harrowstone). Running this now and it definitely has an old school feel to it. Town next to a prison that is now haunted. Suspicious, supertitious townsfolk. Lots of fun.
Varisis seems like the obvious choice to me. There is stacks of information about sandpoint (as the "starting village" - ithat key location in the first adventure path), korvosa has a sourcebook dedicated to it (plus is the focus of the second adventure path). Magnimar is, I believe, going to receive a full write up in the near future (and there is also information in that first adventure path,too).
Varisia is a frontier region with lots of opportunity for adventure. It also provides access to riddleport (a smuggler/pirate/scumbag port town - the focus of the first couple of instalments of the third adventure path) plus kaer maga (which is a really quite unique city and also has a sourcebook dedicated to it if you wanted something a little quirkier).
About the only thing you'd be missing would be a true "nation". You have to travel a fair way to reach a truly civilized place, if that were important to what you wanted.
I do like the idea of Varisia. I dont know that I would use Sandpoint specifically, only because I dont know that I want to try to buy the PDF of any adventure paths at this stage. I think we will just run our own.
But I suppose that we can just make up our own locale and set it in Varisia.
I actually own a bunch of the Golarion/Pathfinder fluff books, but most of them I havent read yet simply because I have a bad habit of buying stuff I might use from my local gaming shop and/or local chain bookstore, just in case. I got some from Amazon too. So it is possible I have some stuff that could be useful. I am just not sure. I own Guide to Korvosa, Dragon Empires Gazetteer, Faction Guide, Lords of Chaos, Goblins of Golarion, Humans of Golarion, Rival Guide, Dungeons of Golarion, Adventurer's Armory, Undead Revisited, Faiths of Purity, Faiths of Balance, Faiths of Corruption, Lands of the Linnorm Kings, Cities of Golarion, Inner Sea Magic, Lost Cities of Golarion, the new setting book Inner Sea World Guide, and the original Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting.
Would any of those have any small villages or anything in them? I've only skimmed/read through half of them.
I guess I just wish there were a Villages of Golarion book.
I suppose I could actually USE my old Village of Hommlet. :)
Any other suggestions as to good places that are near cool stuff?
Thanks!
Contributor
|
I'll definitely add a vote to Sandpoint, it's just so perfect as a starting point. It's a very well fleshed out village (check out pathfinder #1 or the Rise of the Runelords player guide for details). It is close to Korvosa, which you own the book for, it stands in Varisia, which is the wilderness section of Golarion. Sandpoint is also detailed in the Pathfinder Beginners Box, for hat it's worth.
Falcon's Hollow is also great, being the starting point of te modules Wyrd_Wik mentioned plus Revenge of te Kobold King and Hungry are the Dead. The Tower of the Last Baron and it's sexual are also set nearby.
Thanks. My only issue with using Sandpoint is that our game is tomorrow. Well, wait. Today, because its almost 1 am. :)
I dont mind buying more product, except that I am not sure I want to buy PDF, and if I am not mistaken, I have to get the really old stuff in PDF.
I should probably just get used to the digital age. :)
Thanks!
I checked out the wiki entry. Sandpoint is coastal, and a fair bit larger than I had wanted. I kinda wanted a place land-locked and with 300 or less people. A real back-woods place.
I dunno. Hrm.
I like the Ravengro idea
mybe Ravenmoor
|
This: http://pathfinder.wikia.com/wiki/Sandpoint
That Wiki could fill in any gaps you would need to fill in if you do not want to buy any more products.
thats actually the old wiki.. the updatd one is http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Sandpoint I would also look at Falcon's Hollow
|
Falcon's Hollow is perfect.
+1
Modules set in Falcon's Hollow and the surrounding Darkmoon Vale:
Hollow's Last Hope, 1st level
Crown of the Kobold King, 2nd
Revenge of the Kobold King, 5th (probably easier then Carnival)
Carnival of Tears, 5th
Hungry are the Dead, 6th
Support: Guide to Darkmoon Vale. This is an early guide, and Paizo hadn't yet nailed down what they wanted to do in the Chronicles Guides/Campaign Setting line yet, but it nevertheless is a good overview of the area.
The above modules are 3.5. You can run fine with the stat numbers in the books, you just need to calc the CMB and CMD or to pull from the Bestiary, and to use the fast advancement track.
Well its probably after the fact now but if as you mentioned having the Guide to Korovsa and wanting to use Varisia, it would probably be pretty easy to replace one of the villages outside of Korvosa with Hommlet. That area would have lots of potential for adventuring as your near the Mushfens (swamps with monsters and Thassolinian ruins), the Storval Plateau (shoanti nomad warriors, land of volcanoes), the Dwarven kingdom (can't remember the name) and other parts of varisia north.
Good luck and good gaming.
I do like the more wild aspect of Varisia. Also, Andoran is not my favorite country. Kinda weird/cheesy. So I think what I may do is just use Hommlet or some other small village supplement I have or just wing one, and have Sandpoint be the "big city" that is a few days away. Because at 1200+ people, its bigger than I wanted to start right away.
The whole village near the Mushfens idea is cool too tho. I need to decide soon. I have only 6-7 hours before the game.
Anyway, there will be a ton of winging it on the first day. Lots of the character creation has been done, so I wont get to eat up the whole first session with that. :) Anyway, I am actually prepared for the adventure itself way more than I am prepared for the nearest settlement, in a way.
Wish us luck!
Definitely put Hommelet near Sandpoint or Magnamar. Bigger town and even bigger city for Burne and Rufus to have support of nearby noble house(s). I don't know what history you want to associate with the abandoned moathouse but there was a series of conflicts between the settlers from Cheliax and the Shoanti. "Conquest of Bloodswone Vale" for more info, afaik.
The suggestion of Falcons Hollow is a good one, if you have the Temple of Elemental evil Falcons Hollow does a great job as a replacement for the town of Nulb.
I would also suggest Diamond Lake from the Age of Worms AP. Old school feel for sure.
Falcon's Hollow is perfect.Support: Guide to Darkmoon Vale. This is an early guide, and Paizo hadn't yet nailed down what they wanted to do in the Chronicles Guides/Campaign Setting line yet, but it nevertheless is a good overview of the area.
True, but it remains one of my favorites
Remember that you don't need to be bound by the products. I've put together a series of adventures in Lastwall, simply because it fits the "kingdom fending off invading monstrous army" trope I was aiming for. A feudal monarchy replaced the religious paladin leadership.
I'll throw another vote out for Falcon's Hollow. Andoran doesn't need to be a fledgling democracy. Throw in a weak monarch, and a stronger parliment (think of what England looked like after the Magna Carta was signed, only replace the nobles of the Magna Carta with a citizen parliment). Maybe the King is irrelevant, and the real power lies with these citizen councils. Maybe the guy in charge of Falcon's Hollow is a bailiff or a reeve, collecting taxes for a distant feudal overlord.
Unless all the GMs will be adventuring in the same area, there's no reason to not make Golarion your own.
In my game Greyhawk lives! Use the setting you like, add Golarian were you need it.
There will be a dimensional nexus / taint / teleportation mechanism in place that will "infect" (affect) PCs, allowing them to be ripped to wherever a GM needs an adventure to be. It can also rip someone away at unexpected moments and return them, with apparent gaps in the passage of time.
So basically, any player can miss, or be present. Any GM can run, and any game can switch off at any time. The other GM will probably run old converted 3.x and/or Dungeon magazine modules set in the FR converted on the fly. I will probably be the only GM running any adventures in Golarion.
Anyway, I'm off to the game! :)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Little late now, but for future reference, another good place to start is the village of Kassen, population 750. The Price of Immortality 3 part series begins in Kassen with Crypt of the Everflame and is basically Paizo's starter guide to Pathfinder. It explains lots of changes from 3.5 to Pathfinder and gives variety of scenarios and backgrounds for characters to begin with and flesh out. I've ran Crypt once and my players loved it, but I never got to finish the series as my players then moved on from Crypt and we started Curse of the Crimson Throne.
If you do pick up the Immortality series, a great follow up (and one I hope to eventually run) is The Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale as its set, literally, right next door to Kassen. If you run all 4 modules, your characters should end up around 10th to 12th level I think, did the math a year ago and I think that's where they end up.
Now that it's necro'd,
There's a whole book about Sandpoint
Sandpoint, Light Of The Lost CoastAnd a complete introductory adventure
Seven Dooms For Sandpoint
Not technically correct. Seven Dooms for Sandpoint starts at 4th level, so not quite an "introductory" adventure.
And a lot of history
Meet The DoomvelopersBut 100%
Otari fits the description much better than Sandpoint does.
As to similarities:
* - All three communities have a near-by dungeon that kicks off a bigger story:* - All three communities are intended as starting zones for new player characters.
Creative Director
|
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
The Hommlet model was forefront in my mind when I created Sandpoint and Otari, and is in fact at the forefront whenever I create a location that's meant to serve as an extended home base. I much prefer small towns and villages for starting campaigns over large cities, probably because I grew up in a small town that gave me a lot of real world inspiration for both Sandpoint and Otari.
And yeah, to echo Lord Fyre, "Seven Dooms for Sandpoint" is very much not intended to be an introductory adventure, but a nostalgic one that can be played by newcomers to the region, but is first and foremost a celebration of 200 months of Adventure Path releases and nostalgia for the setting that we've built up over the many years.
That said, the adventure "Rusthenge" IS meant to be an intro adventure, and it also follows a similar model with a small town being next to a big dungeon (an element I drew upon when creating and outlining the story before hiring Vanessa to kick ass at writing it), and is positioned to serve as a perfect "What did you do for 1st to 3rd level" adventure before your group goes on to play Seven Dooms.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
That said, the adventure "Rusthenge" IS meant to be an intro adventure, and it also follows a similar model with a small town being next to a big dungeon (an element I drew upon when creating and outlining the story before hiring Vanessa to kick ass at writing it), and is positioned to serve as a perfect "What did you do for 1st to 3rd level" adventure before your group goes on to play Seven Dooms.
Linked for convenience.