| pennywit |
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm in a second gaming group now, and they're looking at having me run a new round of Kingmaker. I'm pondering the first book, and I'm choosing between possibilities.
I'm playing with the Bloody Huntsman scenario for the Stag Lord. But I keep coming back to one idea: building a kingdom.
The first book is about exploring wilderness, not building a kingdom, and rightfully so.
Stolen Lands envisages a Greenbelt that contains three unified political entities: the Sycamore Mites, the Sootscale Kobolds, and the Stag Lord's bandits.
Beyond these, the Greenbelt's inhabitants are a rather disparate lot. You have a number of hunters and trappers who wander in and out of Oleg's. There's a crazy hermit (Bokken). You have Oleg and his wife Svetlana. Later in the adventure, the players will meet Kesten Garess and his soldiers as well as the priest Jhod Khavken.
And of course, you have various low-level fey hanging around, and the occasional wandering troll.
Vanilla Stolen Lands anticipates that the players, explore the Northern Greenbelt, then invade the Stag Lord's fortress by force or by subterfuge and take it down by themselves. Actually, if we go by the book, the players do everything by themselves.
That doesn't seem very kingdom-y to me.
What is a kingdom, exactly? A kingdom is the people in it. The nobles. The knights. The guards. The peasants and the beggars, the scholars and the thieves. The village idiot and the mayor. They may not even like each other, but they're all part of something bigger than themselves.
But something, some person, at the start, steps up to lead these people, to bring them together.
What if the true goal to Stolen Lands is to kindle the first embers of a nation? What if the players actually make a kingdom?
I'm going to post more in this thread as I think about this. My goal is to take the bones of Stolen Lands and introduce my players to the idea of forging a nation, from the very start of the game.
| pennywit |
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Opening thoughts -- adventure structure
I think I would preserve most of the module's structure, but I like having the bandits as a more active force. The Stag Lord's officers need to be out and about in the Stolen Lands, rather than holed up at Stag Central waiting for the players to come get them.
And these aren't just going to be mere bandits. They are the soldiers (well, tax collectors) and heralds of the Stag Lord himself, attempting to assert the Stag's Peace in the Greenbelt! Too bad nobody wants to pay their taxes.
The initial encounter's not going to feature Happs Bydon. Instead, I'll probably have a low-level bard lead these bandits. They're really there for the players to slaughter, and I like the idea of a "herald" leading them rather than a higher-level officer of the Stag Lord. In fact, these guys aren't even from the Stag Lord! They represent "Thorn River Barony."
I like the idea of the PCs' exploring a little bit, perhaps meet a few of the Northern Greenbelt's more colorful denizens, and generally have low-level adventures. They'll encounter Happs or Kressle with bandits a couple times as random encounters -- typically demands that they turn over their loot as taxes.
This may go well, or it may go poorly. Who knows?
I'd like for the Thorn River Bandits, led by "Baron" Happs Bydon and "Baroness" Kressle, to be a thorn in my players' side in their early adventures.
But eventually, the baron and baroness will get tired of them ... especially as Oleg's Rest grows stronger and further resists the rightful tax collectors. Kressle and Happs aren't willing to call in Staggy on this, though. If they do that, he'll see them as weak, and they'll go back to being ordinary bandits. Hence, they will try to take care of the PCs themselves.
I'm going to beef up the Thorn River Camp with more dangers and more bandits. I think that the baron and baroness have a force of around 15-20 bandits who answer to them, and they typically send a share of the tribute on up to Staggy. At any given time, there are probably about 8 to 10 bandits in Thorn River Camp along with either Haps or Kressle. If the players assault it early, the remaining bandits (along with the surviving "noble") will be out for revenge. If the players whittle away bandits in encounters, Bydon and Kressle may get desperate and try to attack Oleg's Rest directly with whoever they have left.
Either way, I want finally defeating these northern bandits to be a major plot point.
Interspersed with this will be my players' first forays into Greenbelt politics, as they deal with the ongoing war between kobolds and mites and possibly meddle in the kobolds' internal politics. And yes, Tartuk will be a summoner. Sharptooth will be his eidolon.
Now, on to the rest of the module.
Once the Thorn River Barony falls, Staggy's chief lieutenants -- his "high council" will compete with each other to see who can take control of the old barony. These lieutenants include Akiros Ismort, Dovan of Nisroch, and another NPC (probably Falgrim Sneag). Each has his own subgroup of about 10-12 bandits loyal to him. Additionally, Dovan has the loyalty of Auchs, who helps "win" disputes that occur during "council meetings."
In addition to Davik Nettles, I may incorporate a little bit of the Bloody Huntsman story, and place somewhere in the Greenbelt an abandoned village (now home to beasts and the ghost of a huldra, once Staggy's lover) that was the victim of Staggy's early depredations. If the players search the village, they'll find the scraps of a diary (written by Staggy) narrating an affair with the huldra ... and simple handwriting at the end (by the huldra) that says, "I pray the Lady of Dreams punishes mortals who cast off lovers like so much trash."
And somewhere in all this, I want the players to encounter all of Staggy's lieutenants. They may kill some of them, they may not, or they may get to know a couple of them and try to turn them. Isn't this fun?
Staggy himself I'm going to change significantly. Rather than an alcoholic the players might kill in his sleep, I want him to be a dangerous combatant, someone who can really put the hurt on 3rd level PCs. His fort itself will be home to the owlbear and a group of elite bandits who form the Stag Lord's "honor guard." Also, getting to his home is nearly impossible without getting mobbed by zombies. If anybody wants to get in to see Staggy or his honor guard, they have to be escorted by the Confessor or one of his apprentices.
I'm also going to replace Staggy's dad -- the gibbering, half-mad, anticlimactic druid -- with "the Confessor," a priestess of Urgathoa who is building up an army of undead under the Stag Lord's fort and eventually hopes to use it to take over and despoil the fallen temple of Erastil. The confessor likely has one or two apprentices (lower level clerics or adepts) who help pacify zombies and keep the rest of the bandit troupe in line.
I also kind of like turning the Stag Lord's fort into a small tent town of around 100 or so people scattered around the edge of the zombie field. Bandits pass in and out of the place, and there are others -- who exist on the edge of the zombie field. (In this version of the module, the zombies do not leave the immediate area around Staggy's fort). There would be traders, slavers, slaves, your basic hive of scum and villainy. And a picture of the sort of kingdom Staggy will create if he isn't checked.
Assaulting the Stag Lord's castle is going to be complicated. It could go as an infiltration adventure. But if the players aren't 100 percent careful with it, they're going to just kick over the bees' nest. And there's still the question of dealing with the tent village and whichever of Staggy's lieutenants is away from the fort for the day.
So how does this adventure get won?
That's the fun part. As my players defeat the Thorn River Barony and move more deeply into pacifying and and civilizing the land, more people are going to arrive around Oleg's Rest. Kesten Garess's little force of soldiers will grow. Jhod Kavken will get a flock. Traders and others will set up shop at Oleg's Rest and Oleg and Svetlana welcome them in. And I will put my thumb on the scale and tilt more of the encounters toward "friendly" -- trappers, hunters, fishers, and others who are coming down to try their luck in this new frontier.
There are people here.
And if my players are resourceful, they can persuade members of this community to aid them in taking down Staggy and his Village of Bad-dom -- a feat which I will allow them to accomplish, or fail, without the kingdom-building rules. And if they're creative, perhaps they can enlist Perlivash and Tyg-Titter-Tut as scouts. And maybe the kobolds could be footsoldiers! Or maybe the mites!!
My point is that there's a kingdom to be forged here, the beginnings of a nation, if my players take the time and energy. This finale could be infiltration and a dungeon crawl. Or it could be a glorious, first clash of good and bad ... the initial making of a kingdom.
In further posts in this thread, I'll try to add some meat to this skeleton.
| aiglos |
This sounds brilliant! I really wish I was part of your gaming group, Pennywit. A few things come to mind however.
1. As Olegs draws in "settlers" it seems to me that enterprising players are going to want to set up establishments (read taverns, inns and shops in Downtime terms) to cater for said "settlers". How are you going to sort that out when the players take over Olegs in Book 2 in Kingdom Building terms?
2. Are you going to go down the "Venture Capital" route between Books 1 & 2 and are you going to change the BP on offer as the players will already have the beginnings of a ready made kingdom? And how are you going to incorporate that in terms of Kingdom building rules?
3. I would make Staggy the "Bloody Huntsman"
4. The Mites will have to be very much stronger, as they are comparatively weak compared with the Kobolds. That way they become a power in the Greenbelt rather than just cannon fodder for the PC's
| pennywit |
1. As Olegs draws in "settlers" it seems to me that enterprising players are going to want to set up establishments (read taverns, inns and shops in Downtime terms) to cater for said "settlers". How are you going to sort that out when the players take over Olegs in Book 2 in Kingdom Building terms?
That's a very good question, and I haven't thought about it. I think I might graft the Downtime Capital rules onto it -- that is, if the players open up these little businesses, they can continue to run these businesses as their sidelines as the game progresses.
Are you going to go down the "Venture Capital" route between Books 1 & 2 and are you going to change the BP on offer as the players will already have the beginnings of a ready made kingdom? And how are you going to incorporate that in terms of Kingdom building rules?
Another good question. I think that if they have a ready-made kingdom there, they could choose to adopt Oleg's Rest as their first town (probably treat it as a converted Fort) or if they establish their capital elsewhere, Oleg's Rest would be a Free City until the PCs try to claim it.
3. I would make Staggy the "Bloody Huntsman"
I seriously thought about this. But as I teased out this scenario, I decided that I'd rather have the Confessor be the undead factor. The Confessor also becomes a backup BBEG if something happens to Staggy before the end of the module.
4. The Mites will have to be very much stronger, as they are comparatively weak compared with the Kobolds. That way they become a power in the Greenbelt rather than just cannon fodder for the PC's
A very good point there.
| aiglos |
1. You might want to look at the Kobolds from the Falcons Hollow scenarios as they are very much more interesting than the Sootscales and also potentially that much tougher, although still rated for 2nd level PC's.
2. Personally I would lose the Mites altogether, except as possible encounters, and have two warring Kobold tribes. with the Sootscales getting the worst of it.
| aiglos |
I would actually move the Sootscale complex from the Silver Mine hex and put it under the Sycamore, instead of the Mites. The Silver Mine can be the Droskar Mine complex, including Merlokrep's Kobolds, from the Crown of the Kobold King scenario. The silver mine used to be the Sootscales home until they were kicked out by the other Kobolds.