Running Kingmaker soon. Any tips / advice? and a few quick questions.


Kingmaker


Thanks for taking the time to read my post.

I will be running Kingmaker soon and have already made a few adjustments here and there. I am looking for any advice you may have about running the adventure path. I actually plan to run it using the Dungeon World rules and keep the maps, plots, etc.

Would love any tips you have if you have experience playing or running this AP.

Questions:
The Bandits in the Narlmarches (The Stag Lord and his men) who do they rob besides Oleg? Surely Oleg's trading post is not the only source of food and loot for them? If so, why would Oleg stay?

The trappers and hunters that trade at Oleg's, where do they live? Only one of them is mentioned, and hes dead under a tree (Breeg). Surely if there are enough trappers and hunters around to keep a trading post alive (even while getting robbed regularly) they would have cabins or places to live in the area?

I guess Oleg ships furs north to Restov in exchange for supplies to trade/sell to the trappers and hunters right? How does he have anything to trade if the bandits are constantly stealing from him?


There are assumed to be cabins and possibly even small hamlets scattered all over the area. Most of them probably think of themselves as Rostlanders but don't really have a government. These are where the majority of the fledgling kingdom's population will come from.

There are also assumed to be traders moving North and South (between the River Kingdoms and Brevoy) but trade has dropped off due to the bandits which is part of the reason for sending the PCs in the first place. The bandits have only quite recently started demanding tribute from Oleg, presumably because there have been less traders to attack.


rootbeergnome wrote:

T

The Bandits in the Narlmarches (The Stag Lord and his men) who do they rob besides Oleg? Surely Oleg's trading post is not the only source of food and loot for them? If so, why would Oleg stay?

I didn't get heavily into this, but a few possibilities:

* Traders running up and down the rivers.

* Merchant caravans braving passage between Brevoy and the River Kingdoms.

* Hunters, trappers and such.

* Mite and kobold war parties.

Quote:
The trappers and hunters that trade at Oleg's, where do they live? Only one of them is mentioned, and hes dead under a tree (Breeg). Surely if there are enough trappers and hunters around to keep a trading post alive (even while getting robbed regularly) they would have cabins or places to live in the area?

You can presume they have cabins and such here and there. Again, I didn't think about it, but I treated hunters and trappers and such as nomadic folk IMC.

Quote:
I guess Oleg ships furs north to Restov in exchange for supplies to trade/sell to the trappers and hunters right? How does he have anything to trade if the bandits are constantly stealing from him?

I don't think they're constantly stealing from him, per se. Rather, they demand protection money from him and rob him only when he doesn't pay his protection money. They're also going to hit his supply caravans heavily.

As far as Oleg's economics goes, I think that by the time the players show up, his place is actually on its last legs. Oleg and Svetlana have been screaming for help from the Swordlords for a while by the time the players show up.

I've given this a little thought after running the SL, and I would run the scenario a little differently if I run the module again.

First, the bandits would be way more active. The Stag Lord probably wouldn't leave his fortress too often (I think he's better offstage), but Dovan and Akiros would be leading fairly frequent raids across the northern Greenbelt.

Second, Staggy would be completely nutsoid. Dovan and Akiros would try to run it like a banditing operation, but the Stag Lord and his herald (an additional lieutenant) would insist that Staggy is a feudal lord. His men aren't bandits. They're the "Stag's Men." He isn't a bandit lord. He's "His Lordship, Protector of the Greenbelt." His men aren't stealing. They're "collecting taxes." His regime isn't a reign of terror. It's "the Stag's Peace."


Pennywit, I really like the idea of making the bandits a lot more active. And making the Stag Lord like a feudal lord.

I was actually thinking of making the Stag Lord a monster as the rumor mentioned. Making it so they have converted the old temple of Erastil to a cult dedicated to Lamashtu. Perhaps they are actively capturing some of the animals in the area to create half man half animal monsters. Perhaps creating an army of beastmen. The former priest of Erastil is the partial bear monster who leads the cult.

Thoughts?


How about Gyronna? That actually ties in well with events in later modules.


Any particular reason?


Per the background, Staggy's fortress is built upon and old temple to Gyronna. Also, an event in RRR involves Gyronna priestesses showing up and making trouble for the PCs. I don't recall beyond those two books, however.


pennywit wrote:
How about Gyronna? That actually ties in well with events in later modules.

Only issue I see here is that the majority of the bandits are male, and the cult of Gyronna has no males. I am not sure I want an all female cast of bandits.


rootbeergnome wrote:
pennywit wrote:
How about Gyronna? That actually ties in well with events in later modules.
Only issue I see here is that the majority of the bandits are male, and the cult of Gyronna has no males. I am not sure I want an all female cast of bandits.

Point taken. Lamashtu could work, then. But I would be tempted to tie things to Nyrissa (at this point, just a mysterious goddess) rather than to Lamashtu. One of the biggest complaints about KM (and one of the biggest sources of revisions here in the boards) is that the AP as written really doesn't foreshadow Nyrissa very well.

If I were to make Staggy a beast, I would consider making him a reskinned minotaur with a battleaxe rather than a ranger. Perhaps Nyrissa converted him to the Elk-man (reskinned minotaur) shape in a mockery of all that Erastil's faithful hold holy?


pennywit wrote:
rootbeergnome wrote:
pennywit wrote:
How about Gyronna? That actually ties in well with events in later modules.
Only issue I see here is that the majority of the bandits are male, and the cult of Gyronna has no males. I am not sure I want an all female cast of bandits.

Point taken. Lamashtu could work, then. But I would be tempted to tie things to Nyrissa (at this point, just a mysterious goddess) rather than to Lamashtu. One of the biggest complaints about KM (and one of the biggest sources of revisions here in the boards) is that the AP as written really doesn't foreshadow Nyrissa very well.

If I were to make Staggy a beast, I would consider making him a reskinned minotaur with a battleaxe rather than a ranger. Perhaps Nyrissa converted him to the Elk-man (reskinned minotaur) shape in a mockery of all that Erastil's faithful hold holy?

Or maybe an elk lycanthrope? Would require some homebrewing though, admittedly.


By the way, if you want great ideas, Orthos, Redcelt, and Dudemeister are some of the most prolific writers on this board, and their stuff is gold.


Ohhh I like the idea of tying it all to Nyrissa. Maybe make it so she is making herself into a goddess that is the antithesis to Erastil. Reskinned minotaur is a GREAT idea.

I have lots of great ideas to chew on now. Thanks a ton Pennywit. If you think of anything else, please feel free to jot it down here.


I agree with the need to make the bandits more active. As it is, they come to Oleg's for their handout right after the PCs arrive, and then don't do much of anything else (aside from potential random encounters).

I prefer keeping the Stag Lord off the field - for one thing, he would demolish the PCs in an ambush with his level advantage - but there are all those tasty lieutenants. After my players hit the Thorn River camp, I created a new lieutenant, a 4th level druid who was the Stag Lord's "huntmaster." He tracked the group down and ambushed them with some bandit support. I also had Dovan and Auchs and some regular bandits attack Oleg's while the party was away. I think next up I will try to introduce them to Akiros in some fashion.

As for tying the Stag Lord to Nyrissa - he already is! But in a way that the players will never find out about, because it's all in his dreams. I've decided to make his magic ring something similar to the one from book 2 - it's made of Nyrissa's hair, and is a token of her favor. When the PCs get their hands on it, she will have her first inkling that someone is working against her (and they will have their first idea that someone is working against them!). I've also given the Stag Lord the +4 bonus to Will saves that one gets when a nymph is one's muse (as per the nymph statblock).

You could also have the Stag Lord's men out looking for the sword from books 5-6.


In my campaign, the bandits stayed more or less quiet after Thorn River while my players dealt with the mites and the kobolds. They had a couple encounters where they put bandits to the sword, then one encounter with a hapless bandit (alone) who saw them and ran away.

Meet the bandits:
I introduced Akiros to my players right after they cleansed the Temple to Erastil. He had a dream about the temple, and he came to it to send the bear to its rest ... only the players got there first.

I felt my players were getting lackadaisical, so I introduced Dovan in a nighttime ambush that a) knocked my players down a peg or two and b) established that Dovan was working with Tartuk, who had become a recurring adversary.

The Tartuk-mite-kobold thread, incidentally, was resolved in a massive siege at Oleg's Rest


Does anyone else feel like Nyrissa is a little bland for a villain? She wants to steal the whole land to win the heart of an Elder? I mean... how does that even work? I guess it just seems she is a very difficult to understand/relate to villain, and I find the more you can humanize villains the better they become. The best villains are the ones we can see ourselves becoming given the right circumstances.

I was thinking about having the background plot be more along the lines that she and this elder were in fact together, but that she took another lover from the lesser courts, and that in his jealousy the elder imprisoned this other fey in the shadow realm and took away Nyrissa's capacity to love. "If you will not love me, then you will not love."

I would rather almost paint her as a tragic figure. Perhaps she needs to consume all the life of the new kingdom in order to have enough power to open the rift and free her lover?

I guess I feel like her general backstory and motivation don't make much sense to me.

Any suggestions there?


There are a lot of suggestions throughout the book. I may revise as my campaign moves along, but I'm playing with the idea that Nyrissa is trying to steal power from Erastil by tapping places of power within the Stolen Lands.


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Mine's on a vengeance kick against the Queens of Summer for stealing her heart and her rank.

Since I'm using the traditional Summer and Winter courts rather than The Eldest, I replaced Ranalc with Oberon. Titania doesn't mind Oberon having other lovers, since fey are okay with looser morality like that and she knows his heart belongs to her; but when Nyrissa - a very minor Summer noble - started taking Oberon spending time with her as an excuse to proclaim herself a member of the queenship the actual queens took exception. So as punishment they took her Love and forged Briar out of it, took her Nobility and scattered it to the winds of the Stolen Lands, booted her out, and severed Thousandbreaths from the Summer realm.

The stolen Nobility infused itself into the Stolen Lands, empowering the region, and of course we all know what happened to Briar; Nyrissa's less interested in giving the bottled Stolen Lands to someone else than stealing it for her own empowering. Once she has both that and Briar back she'll once again be "whole", and have sufficient power - she believes - to challenge the Queens of Summer and get her revenge.

Meanwhile Summer (most of whom, outside Titania, her daughter Cordelia, Oberon, and The Puck Robyn Goodfellow, are not aware of the goings-on of Nyrissa's fall) and Winter have taken note of the large amount of fey power infused in the Stolen Lands and have gone to war over it in the past; Queen Mab of Winter eventually tired of the conflicts and had a sacrificial pawn summon forth the taint of Candlemere to serve as a sort of restraining bolt - while the aberrant taint of Candlemere remained, no one of the Fey could claim the power-drenched region.

But now the PCs have cleared out Candlemere and removed that restraint, allowing Nyrissa to put her plans into motion....


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Due to the 1/day encounters expect for players to catch on and nova. If I run this again I am going to make those fights more difficult.


Double plus to Wraithstrike. My players got used to the 15-minute workday, so I upped difficulty on some of the fights. One of the giant frogs got even bigger and tried to swallow the barbarian. Two spider swarms were hanging out with a giant spider. Tuskgutter got bigger and nastier (though my players got a terrain and planning advantage).


rootbeergnome wrote:
I guess I feel like her general backstory and motivation don't make much sense to me.

Your story, you write it how you see it... :)

Just to point out however that N is Fey...we don't understand them, they
think different to us... If you don't 'get' her motivation...I'd say the
designers have done a good job of portraying her motivation... ;-p

Besides that - there are a few threads on the boards which discuss this.

Scarab Sages

Understanding Nyrissa is a bit tricky if you have not read a lot of books about alien cultures or classic Fey. They don't exactly see things the same way we do on a great many things. The is a more expansive discussion on Fey morality Philip Knowlsely mentioned is found HERE

As far as who the bandits are robbing other than Oleg, if you plan to involve more politics and economics into your world, this is a great time to introduce your players to what trade is like between Brevoy and nearby kingdoms. It is certainly not required, but some groups enjoy a more detailed game with extensive politics and trade.

More detailed breakdown of trade routes:
For instance, IMC Brevoy heavily taxes the main trade route up the East Sellen River thru the Hooktongue because they have to patrol it and also so they can maintain an iron-fisted control over trade in and out of Brevoy. Because of this, it is in their best interest NOT to make any other ways safer or better as alternatives. Because of the high trade tariff cutting into profits, smaller or less risk averse merchants might try overland trade through the Stolen Lands, either directly north from the River Kingdoms (and right past the Staglord) or might try going thru Pitax and then through Numeria and then skirt Lebeda overland to try to get to Brevoy proper with their goods. Yes the taxes IMC are that high, lol.

As an aside, this also might shed some light on why certain factions in Brevoy would oppose any safe trade routes through your PCs new kingdom, because it is cutting into their sweet deal. I explained this all to my players when they asked their NPC builder about putting locks on the Shrike. He had to explain to them why that might provoke an outright war with Brevoy.

As far as making the Staglord a true beast, consider making him cursed by Erastil for some reason, which would use another set encounter at the Lost temple as foreshadowing. Or alternatively, perhaps this is what happens when you survive getting caught up in the Wild Hunt? :)

Good Luck with your campaign, this is a great AP to run!

Scarab Sages

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FYI a few wild encounters in the Witchmarket, where people trade their firstborn, their memories, fears, voices, honor, or joy for magic items may help them understand just how the Fey are different. These things are intangible to humans, but to Fey they are real and as tradeable and usable as coins. My PCs are 8th level and frankly are a bit creeped out by the Fey. They sort of view them as a rainbow train-wreck with point ears that is beautiful, horrifying, and you just cant seem to stop watching.


Redcelt, that's exactly how they should view the fey. Right now, my players (early in book 2) mostly view the fey as minor nuisances that can be bribed with alcohol, thanks to Tyg and Perlivash. Sounds like you've got it about right.


I'll quote something I wrote up in another thread, in response to the question "how do you roleplay the mindset of other, very different, intelligent creatures?":

Orthos wrote:

Well, spinning off my example of Fey since it's currently fresh in my mind.

Fey morality doesn't care about good and evil, for the most part. They care about truth vs. lies, keeping an even score, and honoring deals and contracts - to the letter, not the spirit. They're a lot like Devils that way, but rather than actively malevolent, they're just greedy. Most Fey only care about the self - their own pleasure, their own entertainment, their own profit, their own comfort. Any agreements they make will be because they can get something out of it, either they will get a good laugh at someone's expense, or something of value that they can trade (preferably for something of equal or greater value), or something that tickles another of their fancies (such as revenge). These trades will always be "fair" but they'll be "fair" from the Fey's POV, not the mortal's, and they don't care about money or what something's monetary value is. Value is determined by other factors: age, power, magic, importance, historical relevance, sentimental value, and such like.

They will go to extreme lengths to enforce their contracts and agreements, as if physically forced - by some sort of natural geas - to abide by the letter of their word, but they will scheme and connive and plot for every loophole they can find.

That's a nice start. There's a lot more I could go into but that's basically a good basic mindset for running with Fey.


redcelt32 wrote:

Because of this, it is in their best interest NOT to make any other ways safer or better as alternatives.

As an aside, this also might shed some light on why certain factions in Brevoy would oppose any safe trade routes through your PCs new kingdom

How did you handle this with your players' kingdom in the game? Did they end up having to pay tribute to Brevoy in some way because they made those routes safer?

Scarab Sages

Well not yet. But the PC's kingdom has been on the short end of several vicious plots to take them over via destruction by an outside source and cleanup by one of a few specific NPC Brevoy nobles.

I did mess with their trade and economy some though. Brevic merchant houses refused to sell to them at a time they were in dire straits due to a harsh winter (fey-induced...they don't call it the Court of Winter for nothing) and imminent assault by large bands of Mivonese mercenaries. They also attempted to upset the market by price fixing, messing with supply and demand, etc which caused a painful loss in BP during a couple of crucial months where armies needed the BP to stay in the field.

Luckily for the PCs there is a current state of extreme tension between the Regent Surtova and his allies in a staredown with Orlovsky and his allies in Brevoy. Each side wants to win, but no one wants to be the one to start a Kilkenny cats scenario. Neither side can afford to waste precious resources either helping nor harming the PCs kingdom.

So while there is much complaining from merchant houses, and a recent assault on the PCs economy by price fixing from the outside, no direct action yet. It did make the PCs hire an outside NPC who they previously felt was unscrupulous, untrustworthy and downright devious, but somehow always ended up on the good side of every merchant deal he was involved in. He is now the Lord of Acquisitions and alternately makes the council nervous and elated. He got rid of the price fixing on one hand, but then enraged several of the major mercantile groups of Brevoy by stealing wholesale one of their biggest commodities by making an exclusive, expensive deal with the sheepherders and eel-fishers of Mivon. The fallout remains to be seen, and keeps both the Queen and the Grand Diplomat very very busy... :)

The Grand Diplomat and spymaster have received priority directives from the PC Queen however to do whatever they can to maintain the standoff in Brevoy as long as possible. The NPC advisor and spies they have in Brevoy both tell them that subjugating the new kingdom in the Stolen Lands is #1 on Surtova's "to do" list once he gains the throne.

It remains to be seen how much meddling the PCs do in Brevoy and how much will be tolerated before there are consequences. :)

In general, some options might be:

- Attach a tariff on goods going to or from the PCs kingdom on the Brevoy side.
- Brevoy could also demand they join a merchants guild agreement and follow the guidelines of a group in Brevoy, which would cause them to lose some control over things and could get expensive if "fees" are levied against them for various random things.
- Some more aggressive guildhouses could attempt to set up shop in the PCs kingdom and ignore the kingdom rules, acting as sort of a trade outpost with Brevoy rules and making the PCs make the first move against them.
- Lastly, Brevoy merchant houses could arrange for armed patrols to cause "accidents" to happen to rival shipments, until a protection fee were paid or the pain from loss got too great.

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