Sooooo . . . .
Below may contain spoilers for Serpent Skull 3 so if you are holding out the opportunity to play it later don't read further.
I have been running S&S for about a year. We are stuck somewhere between book 2 and 3. I had added a lot to book 1 and 2 tweaked somethings. In particular I added a side quest pertaining to one of the characters back story pulled from Savage Tide (which I have used a lot of). The had a map to the City of Tamoachan I reskinned it as a lost city in the expanse and used the encounters from Savage Tide with a few tweaks. After finding the buried treasure (previous pirates buried treasure at the bottom of a well in the city). I made a passing comment that the ruins they found the treasure in were part of an "expansive collection of ruins." So the got what the came for and proceeded to get more crew from the ship and start to loot the larger city. I had already added a dynamic jungle chase from a horde of veggie pygmies and a pair of Girillons just to play up the jungle flavor. So they wanted to explore more of the city. I though an other encounter at them off the top of my head to burn the rest of the session time went home and tried to figure what to do. First I cut the Saughain dungeon and the encounter with the big plant. I had already thrown the Sargasso from Savage Tide in so no loss. Also I did not want an other under water dungeon so soon after bonewrack isle.
I knew Serpent Skull was sent in the expanse and that it has something to do with exploring jungle ruins. Sure enough part 3 City of 7 Spears. So I looked through it and started figuring out what to cut and so on. So much for pirate sandbox. The are not playing the part of jungle ruin exploring pirates.
I seem to recall one or two people using Serpent Skull and Skull and Shackles content together. I really liked City of 7 Spears because I did not want to find a gigantic jungle dungeon I wanted a ruined city with a few hot spots. If I had made it myself I would have probably gone for fewer hot spots but hey I can always cut content. I can also tweak things because they had already had some similar encounters so some city encounters were already done.
Any advice on dealing with pirates in the jungle exploring game and or using City of 7 Spears as a bridge from level 6 to level 7ish. I want to bring them back on line for the next chapter of S&S. I think I am going to have Isabella (who has already met them) chase them into the jungle. I introduced her earlier in the AP as a conwoman who used the PCs against the Lotus Dragons (part of the Savage Tide AP). I linked the Lotus Dragons to the Red Mantis as sort of an auxiliary front group. So I am going to have Locke who has conned her way back into the good graces or at least not dead by the hand of the Red Mantis chasing down the PCs. This gives room for a her as reoccurring villain while her stats are still viable. Having her find a Red Mantis artifact sword (treasure from City of 7 Spears) might also make for fun.
As an aside for Jungle Ruins, the Forgotten City from 1E is also ruins in the jungle (under the jungle)...but the enemy is yuan-ti and bullywugs, if I remember? Been a long time.
Great map for wandering over.
Of course, Serpent's SKull is effectively 4 huge sandbox modules...2 above and 2 down below, not to mention the factions fighting.
==Aelryinth
Again here be spoilers keep your eyes elsewhere if you wish not to see.
Yeah they have already run a few SS3 "City of 7 Spears" encounters. 3 via retcon, I changed the name of the city to the one I already gave them and crossed of some of the BBGs they will fight as already fought. I already used the City of 7 Spears map so I am partially committed. I am going to cut the number of "conquered" status goals and not have 2 giant underground dungeons beneath it. I dropped the factions from the module mostly however I am keeping the Red Mantis in play lead by Isabella Locke to tie the threads together as well as have an undead team of explorers at a camp just outside the city and move some of the not completely relevant undead to that encounter and reskin them as a lost expedition. I may have to nerf somethings because the party lags the behind the level limit for the adventure (though so far they have done okay).
My secret to "not let it drag on" is the party hunting them Isabella and the Red Mantis they are dealing with other parts of the same city/trying to catch up to and find the party. Second the party brought 8 of the NPC crew on the expedition with them leaving the rest on board the ship. So they have split up into the PCs doing some exploring, a second group of 5 NPC explorers checking things out. This will provide them with a flood of information about the city and cross some encounters off the list. These two things and the fact that at some point they know leaving the rest of the crew on the ship is a liability.