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In my campaign, the PCs have recently taken control of a keep in the middle of a forested region wracked by civil war. they are currently starved for cash (this was their first adventure) and hands (currently, they have around 80 people, mostly noncombatants, under their banner). They have expressed their interest in working their way up to becoming influential in their region, and ultimately founding a kingdom. I am entirely on board with this.
Only...
I'm not entirely certain what I can do to best facilitate that. As such, I'm asking for advice. I'm dividing this into multiple sections, for each of my questions.
-The PCs, who have taken the keep from the Blood Moon Goblins. They are the weakest, with approximately 12 troops to their name and 80 hungry mouths to feed.
-Orcs
-Darakhul (Civilized ghouls which raid every spring through autumn. It is currently late winter.)
-Centaurs
The Church of Pandora (Goddess of nature and chivalry. The church and the PCs are buddies.)
-A warlord bent on killing Darkhul
-A newfound republic.
-The evil king
-His son, leader of the rebellion.
-Where could they get a bunch of miners and still be able to make a profit?
-How could they defend their new holdings from jealous neighbors?
Et final:
-At what level approx. should they become a "real" kingdom?
-What populace is required to found said kingdom?
All help is really appreciated.
You really, really want to pick up a copy of Ultimate Campaign. It has a comprehensive rules system for how to found and run a nation starting with a single 8 by 8 mile hex and working your way up to continent-spanning empires.
The rules can also be found online for free, but they can be a little overwhelming if you're not familiar with them. I'd suggest starting with the Ucamp.
Ultimate Campaign is a great resource, as Kudaku said above, and I second that motion. If you want another few books to look at though I recommend the Kingmaker campaign, as that is essentially the entire premise of the AP. It's not free unfortunately but the pdf's are well priced imo for what you get.
If they are in the Taldor part of the Verduran Forest there are bandits in the water ways, the mostly Gnomish town of Wispil, the druid on the Isle of Arenway. I know the Andoran side has some unpleasant Fey and the Lumber Consortium to deal with. I know nothing about Galt.
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This might sound silly, but check out Neverwinter Nights 2 - I think it's 2nd or 3rd chapter you are given a keep and a lot is planned around upgrading it. Things you can do:
- Fix a tower and invite a resident wizard
- Fix a temple and invite a cleric or a monastic order
- Upgrade the roads in the area
- Upgrade the local defenses
- Train men and start patrols
- Send out tax collectors
- Set training levels (invite all to join your forces, or set the bar higher?)
- fix specific buildings and invite craftsmen (armorsmith, weaponsmith, etc)
There's also subplots around arcane texts in the library, a gnome building a golem in the basement, and a former enemy surrendering and begging for mercy and a job.
All of that might fit in well with your theme
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This is going to be a long post. Hopefully you'll have a nice long campaign though. Maybe some of these ideas could be helpful for running it. On the other hand, even if they're not they've been fun to come up with.
Anyhow, the PC faction is small. Perhaps they’d do best to gain allies. The warlord who wants to kill the Darakhul seems like a potential ally to me. Maybe he wants revenge on the ghouls for eating (or converting!) his wife, child, face, etc. Perhaps the ghouls are led by demons/fey/casters who have DR which can be beaten by the cold iron or adamantine found in the PC’s mine. In exchange for the right weapons to help defeat his hated foes the warlord will join the PC cause and perhaps serve as a government official in their kingdom (General, Warden, etc).
Later on the son of the Evil King might learn the PCs are heroes and seek out their help in deposing his father. The dwarven mines could be of use again if the Evil King uses golems to protect his palace. Perhaps the EK is under control of the Grand Vizier or Diplomat, a Wizard or Summoner of some power. Maybe the King is Evil because of the caster’s magic, or maybe the new Queen is secretly a succubus who controls him. I guess both could be true. After the King is defeated or the Evil influence is removed and the King bravely sacrifices himself in a final battle perhaps the son decides the PCs would be better rulers than he would and cedes the formerly Evil kingdom to them.
As for how to work the mines I can think of at least 3 ingredients which could be mixed to achieve the flavor you’re looking for:
#1 - The dwarves who ran these mines were particularly high tech and crafted constructs who do most of the mining work. This could be one reason why the mines weren’t very heavily staffed with dwarves and therefore fell easily to whatever monsters invaded. The old and possibly malfunctioning machines could help to make certain areas of the mines an active battlefield (moving carts, big belts moving buckets of molten metal, etc)
#2 - There are still some dwarves down in the mines. Maybe the surviving dwarves have been trapped below ground by the monsters for quite a while. Perhaps they’re huddled in and near a shrine where some holy item helps preserve them. On the other hand, maybe some of the dwarves have fallen to dark temptations over the years and become duergar. The PCs might be able to make a mining deal with any surviving goodly dwarves after rescuing them. I guess depending on the party maybe they could make a deal with the duergar if any are present (or help to redeem them somehow, kill them off to free the goodly dwarves from their yoke, etc)
#3 - Profit Sharing - Since the metals in question are pretty expensive the PCs might be able to share some of the profits with any miners who come to help out. Personally I’d worry more about farmers though…
Speaking of farmers, Old McDonald would probably like the PCs to clear out a little space in the forest for some slash and burn agriculture. There’s likely to be a fundamentalist Druid or nature themed Oracle (Lunar mystery maybe) around who won’t take kindly to that. Maybe he or she is even friends with some wereboars, werewolves, etc. If the PCs can enlist the help of a more moderate Druid and promise to use sustainable farming practices maybe they can unite forces to see that the nature terrorist faction is defeated and establish a peaceful forest kingdom. I guess the Church of Pandora could help out a lot here.
One would also expect logging to be a big business in the forest. Even what modern day folks would call sustainable logging practices might not be very satisfactory to treants. Perhaps if the PCs help to stop a fiendish fungal blight which threatens to consume the entire forest the tree lords will be inspired to figure out some kind of magical solution though (as long as the PCs promise to keep those rowdy dwarves with ale and axes out of the peaceful forest). In times of war the treants could be powerful allies. Perhaps the fungal blight itself would provide the base materials to grow crops of “shroomwood”, a darkwood analog harvested from light but strong giant mushrooms tended by forest gnomes. There could also be halflings who grow a hemp-like plant to produce pipeweed along with the fiber for clothing, sails, and rope. That could be important if the PCs want to control lakes or oceans one day or trade with kingdoms which do.
As for the Orcs, they could serve as basic enemies and wandering monsters, teaming up with other Evil factions from time to time. For a change of pace some half-orcs could approach the PCs for help defecting. Later on maybe even a fallen orc chief could come to the PCs with a tale of a new and greater Evil which is organizing the orc clans into a great army, perhaps one marshalled by devils, demons, etc. This could be tied back to the Evil Kingdom storyline, the Fungal Forest storyline, or possibly both.
For NPC stats I think the NPC Gallery on the PRD is a pretty good source. As far as NPCs who live in the town in and around the keep go, I'd be careful not to make them too needy or at least to make them very useful to the PCs (like maybe a dwarven smith who can create and improve magic arms and armor at a slight discount)
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-At what level approx. should they become a "real" kingdom?
They can make a kingdom at lv1 if they believe they have the people (ruling council of 10 to 12 people, including them and npcs).
And if they believe they can make the kingdom checks (usually DC 20+).A kingdom of 1 map hex (12 miles wide) is the smallest possible kingdom, what you could call a "feud", but is the base of everything that happens in the kingdom. If they can make the checks, they can increase their borders every month, recruit people, recruit an army if they can afford it, build mines on mountains and lumberjacks on the forests, and even attack another town if their army is strong enough.
They dont have to handle every problem in the kingdom, thats why they have npcs in the ruling council. Unless you and your players want to roleplay every day of their lives and take all the decisions for their kingdom.
As mentioned above, take a look at the Ultimate Campaign book, all the answers are there. :)