Ideas for giving the AP a more rebel feel (e.g. han solo vs the empire)


Skull & Shackles


So in my last post (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2p685?Enemy-Race-or-Empire-in-the-shackles) we discussed having the player pirates have an enemy empire that they can be pirates against. I thought a good idea was using Cheliax, and modifying the setting a bit so that they held Port Peril as well were encouraging pilgrimage in small towns on the island. I don't see my players burning towns, raiding merchant ships and so on without an "evil enemy race", Cheliax serves well for that. I have also added in that in that the players small hometown was razed by the evil Chiliaxian empire. This should serve as a sufficient back story for the AP.

Some things need to be modified in the AP to do this. For example:

The first adventure worm wood mutiny makes a little less sense in this idea, I want pirates to be good rebels, not evil slavers. So instead my players were escaping their recently razed village by overcoming a merchant ship. They had a little diversion being stranded on an island (I used Souls from Smugglers Shiv) and they are now sailing to "rickety squibs" to get the merchant ship cleaned and painted so that it does not match a chelixian stolen ship to draw attention (they also brought a helpful former pirate with them).

The second adventure (raiders of the fever sea) works quite well. I will run it mostly as is. The part where they invade a fortress will be turned into a Cheliaxian fortress, and theres even a gem of an encounter where they have to avoid a cheliaxian warship.

Adventures 3 & 4 don't really seem to fit however (I only skimmed em). I don't know why my players would want to race in a "regatta" in, and I don't like the idea of a hurricane king so much as I want the focus to be on Cheliax.

Adventures 5 & 6 seem to fit right in though. Recruiting other pirates to there cause to defend against a looming invasion.

Anyone else modifying the AP like this. Got ideas on how to modify and any possible alternative adventures that might take the place of the Regatta?


Don't forget that Han Solo ran afoul of both the empire AND nastier scoundrels. Its a long AP there is room for raiding Chelish settlements and crossing paths with Jabba the Hutt types.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Why would The Wormwood Mutiny not make sense in your scenario? I'm just going from memory here, but whether Harrigan is secretly a traitor or openly a collaborator shouldn't make any real difference to how things pan out.

And the Regatta should work if you make the Master of the Gales powerful enough that Cheliax is a bit hesitant to directly attack him.

Remember, it would be entirely within his nature to treat a Chelaxian conquest as just another trial for the Shackles to overcome rather than something he needs to personally oppose, but at the same time he's enough of a traditionalist to demand that whatever puppet government Cheliax creates holds the Regatta.

In fact, Cheliax should see holding the Regatta as a win/win/win situation. A bunch of potential problems will be sailing together through a massively dangerous stretch of water, the Master of the Gales will be exposed and vulnerable to assassination, and they can cheat as outrageously as they want to kill off the other contestants and thus make their own candidate the victor.


Yeah i would leave harrigan and the wormwood in too. You would need to change him slightly but you could still use him as a major villan and a puppet for the empire... He could also serve as you're jabba type of villan. Part 5 would be pretty much intact then.


All good points. Han Solo did run afoul of other scoundrels (like Jabba) so certainly there should be time for that too. I've only read the campaign outline, and the adventuress completely till the end of book 3, but right now it seems like the majority of the AP is spent dealing with "Jabbas" and only the occasional sidequest on the empire.

I'd like to flip that ratio a bit. I find my players are fickle, have short term memories, and if the "theme" isn't clear they often lose interest.


Well part 4 is all centered on the island they won after the regatta so no sandbox there. Part 5 is harrigan attacking them and them going after harrigan in his stronghold and part 6 is the cheliax invasion and ousting bonefist from port peril. I'd suggest reading all of it before running as I think you will need to change a lot of it to fit first


Remember that at one point multiple empires had outposts in the same archepegio as pirates in the Caribbean.

Sczarni

There's some cool stuff in Isles of the Shackles that you could use to spice things up, especially Hell's Harbor and Little Oppara.


Also I recommend watching as much Firefly as possible. Great series. It is a space western but the feel of the characters is exactly what you are hunting for.

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