What comes after Book 6?

[redcelt32]

I thought I would start a thread for GMs to share what their plans are after Nyrissa is defeated. There are several options suggested in Book 6, but I wanted to find out if anyone had any other plans or had more fully fleshed out a book plan.

I introduced a couple of Thassilonian ruins in my game for the players to find early on (level 5) with no other particular plan in mind other than injecting a like RotRL flavor into Kingmaker, since my group loves all the ancient Thassilonian lore. I was perusing Lost Kingdoms the other day, and got a little brainstorm and decided to expand this flavor into a full blown post book 6 adventure.

The basic premise is that the series of Thassilonian ruins in the Stolen Lands were placed there thousands of years ago by Karzoug as one of many contingency options. There is a hidden library, a secret hideout, a magical armament depot, and a secret secret tomb with a clone of Karzoug in suspended animation. My party has found the first location, and as their kingdom expands they are likely to find the others. The goal of this is to plant a seed for later use after Book 6, should they wish to continue.

If my players want to keep progressing, we will have a Runelord war in Brevoy and the Stolen lands. Turns out Choral was actually a favorite general of Alaznist, who also placed a contingency here, specifically to go after Karzoug again if he returned. He woke up from suspended animation by mistake and since he could not wake his mistress, set about to forge a kingdom for himself. He freed some of her red dragon servants (also suspended) and went to town on poor Rostland and Issia, making himself the ruler for a fat and happy few years. Alaznist woke up, realized all the danger had not passed yet (Nyrissa) and put Choral and his family back in sleep mode to await the passing of the final danger. Once Nyrissa is defeated, it will be safe for the Runelords to awaken and begin their ascendancy once more.

Post Book 6, Alaznist will reinstate Choral on the throne of Brevoy, and attempt to conquer the player's kingdom, before going after Karzoug. Karzoug comes back with similar ideas, grabbing a chunk of the PC's kingdom near Pitax and moving into Numeria, hoping to ally with and then conquer the Technic League and Numeria, harnessing they technology for his use against Alaznist. The idea is each Runelord is after a different half of the player's kingdom, but could care less about the PCs. They just want fodder for their eternal struggle against one another. The PCs will probably have to choose which half of their kingdom they want to focus on saving (also choosing which Runelord to go after first). Once they recover that half of their kingdom and defeat the first one, the second one will have risen to power and built a strong kingdom on the bones of half the old kingdom of the PCs.

One last thing, the Observatory in Brevoy is actually a dormant gateway to very scary parts of the Dark Tapestry that was originally built by the Cyclops settlement here. Alaznist will activate this gateway and bring things from HP Lovecraft's worst nightmares down upon the party's kingdom. Karzoug on the other hand, is likely to unleash a Mech men army upon them or worse.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be welcome, since right now this is all the idea is, a premise.

Also, I would love to hear about anyone else's plans for after Kingmaker as well. Where are you taking your players after Nyrissa?

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

I honestly think after Nyrissa I'm going to let the players enjoy their retirement. I'll have each of them write an epilogue and I'll describe their kingdom's 100 years of peace and prosperity. Then take a break from GMing. Maybe take a nap.

Then when I get the itch again launch a massive urban campaign.

[redcelt32]

LOL, it is a lot when you have to figure out what everyone is doing no just in one kingdom, but many kingdoms over that long a timespan!

I am looking forward to putting little easter eggs from the PC kingdom in other adventures we play after KM though, like the new PCs drinking wine from their kingdom, etc.

[Lt. John Holder]

My players are in RRR still and have already said they want their next campaign set in their kingdom 100 years from now as adventurers hailing from the now tamed stolen lands. Not as rulers but citizens.

[thenovalord]

we are thinking at some point Kingmaker: the next generation

so mostly set in the pcs kingdom 50-100 years later, with pcs having a trait that links them to a previous PC

be quite nice to take what they have built and stroll around in it at 1st level!

playing at 15th level is becoming a bit hard work and im not sure how many of us would want to push on to 20th!!

[Orthos]

I am putting a retooled Choral the Conqueror plot* between WotRK and So1kS, so by the time my players deal with Nyrissa they should be pretty close to if not at 20. So unless they say they want to keep running at that level, as the Mythic rules should be available by then (I'm only just now nearing the end of Stolen Land, having started back in May) we'll probably end there and run something different.

There's a general plan in my group to take turns running KM retools, with one guy changing the Stolen Lands into an undiscovered island while another goes a different route, etc. Changeups in the story, of course, but the basic premise - infiltrate, conquer, stabilize a wild land and build up a kingdom from it - remaining the same.

* In my game, since I'm not running this in Golarion, I'm having him be a draconic overlord unifying some of the barbarian tribes of the northern territories rather than the fractured kingdom that sponsored the players' charter, and his attempt to sweep down and claim control of the lands encompasses both Olorunium (my equivalent to Brevoy), which is fractured due to internal politics and a recent war prior to the charters being issued, and the not-so-fledgling kingdom of the PCs. The players are going to likely have to beat back the barbarian invaders (which will include several different tribes, some of differing races), find/make allies within the Northlands, and work their way north into the wild barbarian lands to find and face the dragon in his lair, then return to their homeland just in time to find Nyrissa's attacks either beginning or already in play.

[John Benbo]

One idea I'm currently pondering is to use Astropus from the 3.5 book, "Elder Evils." Astropus is basically an undead creature the size of a small moon that sucks the life out of planets, turning everything into undead. Using the notes from the book, in my campaign, Vordakai's goal is to regain his power and prepare a large enough sacrifice that draws Astropus's attention. As the PCs have been exploring Vordakai's Tower, they've seen strange carvings of a moon-like object and have slowly pieced together Vordakai's scheme. Even though he will be defeated, others will carry on his dream. We still have well over a year to go before we get to that point, so by then, I might change my mind completely, especially if something new and shiny comes along.

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

DAMN YOU ASTROPUS!

[Scott Andrews]

I ended my last 3.5 campaign with Astropus arriving and the 40th level pcs scrambling to assemble a dragon forged artifact comet killer to stop it.

[Orthos]

I would recommend if you're going to go that route, to focus more on that sort of thing in the later chapters and less on Nyrissa and the fey, but that's just me. =) It also would require more work from the PCs.

There's a lot of critters in the Elder Evils book I keep around for occasional use. My PbP players (different group from my KM game, only one player overlap) will be dealing with Leviathan eventually.

[Michael Cummings]

I plan to expand on the daemonic hints in Book 3 and incorporate the return of Choral the Conqueror to have an epic Apocalypse ending where the PCs stave off the end of the world fighting against minions of the Four Horsemen and draconic hordes of Choral. Looking to take the campaign to level 22-23. When PCs uproot The House on the Edge of Time to the Material Plane, it will become a planar portal that other factions will try to use to open gate to Outer Planes. PCs are going to be from Cheliax, so they may look to use House to open gate to Hell.

[Caimbuel]

I love the idea of running this to take over the kingdom they just made

[CaspianM]

Perhaps interestingly I don't see the Nyrissa plot in book 6 to be something I really want to happen, especially since my game is mostly focused on the kingdom. I'm mixing Nyrissa into a Stolen Lands/Brevoy war of succession with a hint of the Dragon Reborn from a famous fantasy series to hint at Chorral's return.

[thenovalord]

im pretty minded for Nyrissa to offer a peace after the party beat both the big I and the big J (both of which could happen next session). Party have made allies and peace with nearly everyone so I could see peace breaking out, and Nyrissa finding an alternate prize to seek favour of the elders....

[Orthos]

Somewhat anticlimactic but if that's what your players are gunning for then more power to them. Just remember that Nyrissa is not exactly sane, even for a fey... though again, if you want to change that, it's your game. =)

[thenovalord]

been driven mad by love and lose, so its something to play with

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

In my game Nyrissa's love was stolen by Zon Kuthon, and transformed into a weapon to use against her. Hidden in Scarwall (the material equivalent of The House at the Edge of Time), which I moved to the "Castle of Knives" on the Hex Map.
Rhoswyn of Realm of the Fellnight Queen was the product of their union and banished from the First World because she's a reminder of Nyrissa's past. My players will be able to learn the history of Nyrissa and even undo the damage done by Zon Kuthon. Nyrissa's plan is to catch the Stolen Lands as a gift to the Prince of Darkness. So he might give back her love. (Which she doesn't know is locked in the sword).

Irovetti discovered this tragic history in Scarwall and realised the Stolen Lands were in danger. Being the megalomaniacal steampunk villain he is, he keeps clockwork guardians in Scarwall and builds a mechanical army with which to invade Thousandbreaths. The one problem? The PCs control the only Elfgate in the Stolen Lands. That's why the War of the River Kings will happen.

Now if you wanted to continue that story, Nyrissa has spent thousands of years as a heartless monster. The road to redemption isn't easy. Especially when the shadow court of Nidal joins forces with Brevoy to crush the PCs kingdom. Because when their Kingdom is but forgotten ruins it becomes the property of the Shadow Plane.

[hargoyle]

Dotted. For the unforseeable future.

[thenovalord]

redcelt32 wrote:

I thought I would start a thread for GMs to share what their plans are after Nyrissa is defeated.

still wondering what to do next after Nyrissa won during book 6!!

my thought is that a group of new heroes, from all over the river kingdom are pushed to investigate the great 'gap' in the land now it has been taken away.....perhaps find some Numerian tech to counter the first world

but i think the players want to return to their level 15 pcs.....I am in no hurry to return to 7 arrows a round territory!!

[Orthos]

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

Irovetti discovered this tragic history in Scarwall and realised the Stolen Lands were in danger. Being the megalomaniacal steampunk villain he is, he keeps clockwork guardians in Scarwall and builds a mechanical army with which to invade Thousandbreaths. The one problem? The PCs control the only Elfgate in the Stolen Lands. That's why the War of the River Kings will happen.

I wish I wasn't running Kingmaker so far back in my setting's history so that I could swipe this. Sadly that game is several centuries away from steampunk - they don't have gunslingers or artificers yet and only just managed alchemists.

My PbP on the other hand is over a millennia in the future from Kingmaker and is neck-deep in steampunk. They even have cars, Legend of Korra style, except steam-powered rather than combustion. But that's neither here nor there. =)

Keep up the brilliant ideas Dudemeister.

[CalebTGordan]

Because I am only in Book 2 right now, and have no idea what would work well that far out, I will dot this for future ideas.

Right now, I am tempted to do something with the first world. The group isn't into the politics and more into the fairy tale side of things.

[Ahkmed]

I love the fact that so many different groups went so many different ways, so much to choose from. I like the ideas presented for continuing the conflict in the Kingdom, I had already been working on a couple different end game scenarios, and am going to try and work as much in as I can for as long as they want to continue. Personally I had incorporated an opening for the underdark to come into play (side trek I made where they discovered an underground passage filled with nasties that they had to deal with, They found that the passage continued down and instead of exploring they stone shaped it closed), they encountered two brother black dragons, and only managed to kill one as the other flew away plotting revenge

:

(and then come to find out that there is a big black dragon in the last module)

. They really like the mass combat, but in my opinion it is too "short and sweet" to really make too much out of, but will have to deal with it again as I think they are planning on assaulting the "motherland".

They also have made contact with a silver dragon and his "great" father, they have pretty much incorporated all living beings into the kingdom in one way or another that they have encountered, and are now working on diplomatic relations with surrounding kingdoms for trade purposes as they get ready to start on the final chapter. They finally found a use for all the extra consumption they had.

[Bobson]

I'm kindof inclined to go with the Choral plot myself. I'd probably do it as less of an outright "Dragon attacks!" plot, though. After all, this is a centuries-old uber-intelligent uber-cunning magical creature. One of his mates might be leading an army, but Choral himself might just be the general of the army hired to fight against her...

I've already started off one campaign with a one-shot with disguised gold dragon as the "evil" emperor who needed to be brought down, though, so I might not repeat the dragon-in-disguise plot. (That particular campaign started with 8 20th level PCs against the dragon emperor, his non-dragon heir, and a lot of high-level guards. The next session was 500 years later with 4 1st level PCs, on the fringes of what used to be a great empire.)

[Mark Aaron]

For my group, the first step was attempting to rebuild after several of Nyrissa's Blooms wrecked some of our major cities. The 'human' capital of the time, Narland (the Staglord's re-purposed fort), and Fort Numesti (the renamed Fort Drelev) both fell to the ravages of the Blooms. Thankfully, the two other PC nations (long story) came together and formed Greater Argoth, a collection of city-states reminiscent of Ancient Greece and my players' new nation was able to survive. As soon as a new capital city was built for the conglomerate nation (on the isle in the Candlemere), Brevoy sent Choral after us.

We knew of his coming due to our advanced network of informants and we met him on the battlefield, prepared for his assault. To my utter astonishment, Choral fell within two rounds. I was flabbergasted and my PC's were giddy as hell. Then we looted Choral's lair.

From there, seeing as Brevoy launched Choral after us (nevermind his complete ineffectiveness), we retaliated. Thus began a months long war with Brevoy which saw intrigue and alliances with the Numerian Techniq League (a highly advanced society of Gnomes in our realm due to a hilarious misreading of information) and some of the nearer River Kingdoms.

The war was the most difficult thing my PC's had dealt with to date, spanning no less than 3 full game sessions of several hours each. We had something like 12 cities by then and only three remained unscathed. Most were looted and burned, as was Restov for its betrayal in joining us.

Still, in the end, Brevoy was the kingdom on its knees. We subjugated all the northern houses (except for house Labeda of Silverhall, who joined us in our plight). Pitax, who rebelled against our rule during the war, were completely crushed and subjugated as well.

Now, with the war over, I will be throwing the threat of the First World back at my PCs. As I doubt that they will simply acquiesce and apologise for killing Nyrissa, I need to whip up encounters with the powerful denizens of the First World for my players to face.

[Janack42]

Necroing this old thread. I'm leaning on using a bit of the Old Cults and ancient gods on Candlemere Island. The set up is an ancient labyrinth that was home to an ancient and secret cult of Yog-Sothoth that was supposed to awaken their master to return him to Golarion when Stars Are Right for this world.

This sets up perfectly for higher end encounters and also allows for the Beast 4 to be heavily used as well as the adventure path Carrion Crown - Wake of the Watcher to be used. You'll have to build the labyrinth yourself or use a premade one up scaled to APL. I was thinking of a multilevel, deep into the earth, dungeon crawl. Culminating in facing a coven of witches that became liches to server their master.

If my group doesn't go that route there is the matter of Brevoy's Civil War. Do they side with Rostland who help fund there adventure to begin, or do they side with Issia. Does Choral the Conqueror return?

Then what about the River Kingdoms, they already dealt with Pitax but who is to say that the rest of the River Kingdoms see this fledgling nation become a grave threat to their way of life. Political intrigue and possible war for control of the River Kingdoms its self. In their kingdom they have written into their laws that they do not recognize the River Kingdoms as kingdoms at all as they are brigands and bandits.

So here are my thoughts on what to do post War of the First World. The sandbox nature of Kingmaker helps with continuation of the adventure should the group wish it.

[aiglos]

Personally, Book 6 is a waste of time unless you heavily forshadow it with more Fey stuff. War with Brevoy would be far more in keeping for the Book 6. Perhaps Choral (Dragon or otherwise) comes back with the rest of House Rogarvia to lay claim to everything. Multiple red dragons should cause PC's an inordinate amount of trouble and destruction.

However, by the end of Book 4, the PC's kingdom should be well over a 100 hexs in size, bigger than Pitax, Mivon and most of the Brevoy Houses. They should be going to the Outlaw Council in Daggermark every year by now, and not just as an observer, and so be exposed to the politics of the River Kingdoms. They should already have met Irrovetti by now, possibly several time before Book 5 gets started.

Once the PC's have taken Pitax more possibilities arise. All of this can be surmised from Paizo publications.

The Blood Gars from Numeria take over the Protectorate of the Black Marquis and piracy on the rivers of the River Kingdoms reaches epidemic proportions, and perhaps Mormouth in Pitax gets sacked by the barbarians. Possible war with Numeria? Hajoth Hakaidos joins the PC kingdom? The PC's perhaps annex the Protectorate?

Razmiran attacks Tymon, Lambreth etc in a mass invasion of conquest. The PC kingdom gets drawn in to a large war in the River Kingdoms, perhaps just as Choral is retaking Brevoy and eyeing up the Stolen Lands.

Perhaps raids from Gralton piss off Galt one too many times, or perhaps the misrulers of Galt cannot stave off famine from ravaging it. Again ravening armies, bigger than Razmirans, invade the River Kingdoms looking for revenge on Gralton and /or regular sources of food. If the latter the PC's kingdom should be a major target.

Basically power politics on a major scale!

On a more PC scale, dead towns like Heibarr, Mosswater or Nystra could provide really interesting problems for PC's where armies would be of little or any use at all. At least two of them have valuable resources as well, Nystra particularly!

[pennywit]

I've been building things up to a big ol' fey blowout. The last couple months have been a little dull, perhaps, from my players' perspective, but I've been putting pieces in place for the big finish.

Also, we're looking forward to planning Skull & Shackles. So, my general plan is to let my players each give an epilogue for their characters after we finish. The queen's player has said, generally, that she thinks her character will leave the kingdom to another and ride off into the sunset. I actually said, "That's a perfectly valid ending."

[tonyz]

I did a "next generation" plot with the PCs being the children of their previous PCs. Worked pretty well, though I had to keep reining in the tendencies of PCs to run off to Mommy/Daddy for help when they thought things were over their heads. Sometimes it was the in-game appropriate thing to do, but it made some types of adventures much more difficult to design/GM -- e.g., an upcoming invasion gets handled by the King calling in the army.

And then did a third campaign later, exploring through the gate in Candlemere (which I decided could lead to Akiton so we had a Barsoomian-type adventure that went pretty well and got up to about 9th level before I moved and that ended the campaign).

All in all, I think everyone had a blast, multiple times. I agree that one needs to foreshadow Book 6 much more heavily than the AP does, or than I did, if you're running the original Kingmaker. But there are quite a few options (war with Brevoy, the return of Choral, something else very-high-level.)