My group will soon start the last part of the adventure. Half the group might not be able to play until the end for family/work reasons.
Do you have any idea on how to make the last part shorter ?
Things that can be skipped ?
Thanks for the help.
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You're in luck, because most of the book is a big ol' sandbox of optional encounters.
First up, to save time, hand-wave a lot of travel. Just a "Cool, you know where you're going and how to get there? Ok, X days pass. Now you're there."
I would keep the Vekker cabin stuff. It's a REALLY cool adventure, and should only eat up 1 session as written. It's also a refreshing breather from Thassilonian dungeons, after going through the runeforge, which is lengthy.
You can skip the "Queen of the Icemists". I would keep the measures they have to go through to get to Xin-Shalast (following the ghost river, fasting), just don't do this mechanically, just describe what's going on and move on.
Once you're in Xin-Shalast, you are in a big sandbox. Now you have some options:
A. Skip Xin Shalast and go straight to the Pinnacle of Avarice. Maybe some rune giant random encounters on the streets or something. Ignore the "occluding field" stuff.
I don't really recommend that since that can come off as anticlimactic, but if you're really in that time-crunch, it's a possibility.
or
B. Run some of Xin Shalast so they still explore the city.
Instead, I'd reduce all of Xin Shalast to 1-3 encounters. I recommend keeping the Gamigin, Ghlorofaex, and Hidden Beast encounters. You will need to decide how you deal with the Occluding Field.
As written, the group needs 3 rings to get through the field, and then they have to use their imaginations to figure out how to get the additional party members/cohorts through. You can reduce this to one "tuning fork" that the whole party can use together, or you can split the fork into 3 component parts (one on Hidden Beast, one on Gamigin, one on Ghlorofaex)
First, I'd alert the group to the fact that they need a key in the first place. Gyukuk or Morigiv both work for this. I'd go with Morigiv and run through the Hidden Beast encounter. It's pretty fast, and also your PCs get to be the saviors of a whole underground race of morlock-esque people, pretty cool! Then you can inform the players they need to hunt down Gamigin and Ghlorofaex in the Heptaric Locus and his Ghlorofaex' lair, respectively....or just go straight through the occluding field (depends on how many encounters you want in the Lower City)
I would probably handwave all the travel up Mhar Massif to the Pinnacle. Keep the encounter with the Leng Spiders, its kind of important. The rest is not important.
You can slim the Pinnacle down by getting rid of a lot of the extra giants. I would keep at least: Viorian Dekanti (because Chelian is a cool intelligent weapon), Khalib, Ceoptra, the Leng Device. Accompany each encounter with a rune giant, or a few cloud/storm giants.
The Shemhazian Demon and Ayruzi are also interesting but can be skipped, depending on time.
Then run Karzoug. The end!
Hope this helps!