Kingmaker: Legacies (Inactive)

Game Master Wolfspirit

Kingmaker: Legacies Frequently Asked Questions
Here are responses to several frequently asked questions for the Recruitment:

When will the campaign start? What is the Timeline?:

The initial Recruitment window will last until December 8th at Midnight CST

The selection process will likely take several days, depending on the number of applicants. There currently is not a set date for the final selection.

Following the selection of the group, there will likely be a period of time as character backgrounds and final details are hashed out

The actual campaign will likely start at the beginning of next year, depending on the availability the group. The Holidays are coming up and I don't want to lose momentum and have massive breaks right when stuff gets rolling!

Depending on the availability of the group, there may be some initial RP earlier before the actual start of the campaign.

I have previous Kingmaker Experience. Is that ok?:

"My previous Kingmaker experience is <blank>. Can I still be eligible for the campaign?"

Absolutely! Please note that there are several major departures from the original Kingmaker AP, so using metagame knowledge may actively hurt you!

Do you allow retraining?:

I allow retraining, depending on the reasoning. I usually give people a free pass during level 1 to retrain if they decide a feat or class feature isn't fitting, as long as it doesn't significantly change the character. Beyond that, retraining will be allowed either using the rules from UC (retraining a feat that's no longer useful) or for free (changing deities after an in-game conversion.)

Teasers
The following are teasers for the campaign world and gameplay I posted previously:

Æther:

Beyond the Material Plane of Golarion lies a shifting realm of magic, dreams, and nightmares known as the Æther. This “World Between” is a never-ending collection of planes tied together by Ways, paths through the shifting planescape.

Travel to the Æther is often very difficult and dangerous for non-natives as unprepared visitors get lost in the strange landscape or slain by its otherworldly inhabitants. Even accessing the Æther typically requires potent magic or the willing aid of a native creature. For most inhabitants of Golarion, contact with the Æther is as rare as a Haunt manifesting or a wizard’s summoning.

There are, however, locations where the Veil between the Aether and Material world is thin. These Ways allow the influence of the Aether to bleed through into the Material plane and grants easier access to Fey and other Aetherial natives. Some notable examples are the Worldwound (where a gaping fester allows beings from the darkest Hells to boil into our world) the Land of the Linorm Kings (where ancient unworldly behemoths cross over into the frigid North) and the Darklands (where the sunless caverns plunge into some of the darkest reaches of the Aether.)

The Stolen Lands are one other unique example of Æther phenomena and is a host of a remarkable concentration of Ways to the point that some ancient studies by Ætherial scholars even refer to the Stolen Lands instead by the name of "Æther Vale." The unusual connection to the Æther is widely considered to be the explanation to the exceptional frequency of encounters with the fae within the Stolen Lands.

Æther Denizens: The Æther is home to a varied collection of otherworldly beings including outsiders, elementals, and fae.
Fey: The Æther is the native home of the fey. Hidden within the depths of the Æther, the two Fae courts of Summer and Winter are rumored to be ruled by Nobility that hold near godlike powers within their domain. The unaligned Wild Fae are also notoriously known as tricksters that might aid or doom travelers.

Other outsiders: All manner of outsiders from elementals to celestial and infernal beings can be found within the Æther. Ancient bindings and spells may be used to bring these beings forth to the Material world, but otherwise all outsiders require the magic of the Æther to survive.

Spirits: The spirits of the departed that haven’t been drawn to into the Boneyard can be found within the Æther.
Elves and Gnomes: Although distantly related to Fae, Gnomes and Elves have been reported to be viewed by the Fey similar to the way a human would view an ape. Some humans enjoy apes as pets and can even be trained to do tricks, but not the sort to bring to a Courtly function.

Gnomes: Gnomes were once residents of the Æther before some calamity or mass migration has drawn them into the Material plane. They still bear the shock of this departure in the form of the Bleaching, an affliction that affects the race and slowly ages them.

Elves / Drow: Elves and Drow are also distant relatives of the Summer and Winter fae (respectively) though they have adapted to the Material more effectively than the Gnomes. Often their dreams offer glimpses of walks through the Æther that were experienced by their ancestors. Their long past tie to the Æther is rumored to be the origin to their immunity to Sleep effects.

Æther and Magical transport:
Any Magical means of transport such as Plane Shift or Teleport are reflavored to interact with the Æther. This is largely for flavor and doesn’t have a large impact on actual gameplay, though a mishap might result in the unlucky mage getting misdirected in the Æther!

Other crunch changes:
Fae are treated as Outsiders and follow Outsider rules for spells and effects. Some Fae have existed on Golarion long enough to be considered Native Outsiders, though they require some contact with the Æther to survive.

Knowledge: Planes is replaced by Knowledge: Æther. Knowledge Æther identifies Fae, as opposed to Knowledge: Nature (although there’s enough Nature in the Stolen Lands that it’s still a valid skill to have.)

The Æther has variable planar effects (time, elemental, etc.) Legends abound of mortals trapped for centuries that seemed like days or realms that sapped the strength of those that venture into them.

Campaign Duration, Aging, Legacies:

Aging usually isn't something that actually gets tracked in a campaign. Campaigns tend to last around 5 years in game (if that) and the passage of time is often just hand-waved. For Kingmaker, it is possible to have the campaign run to completion in around 5 in-game years, though it just feels weird. Realistically, though, Castles themselves could take nearly a decade to build (although clearly magical aids would speed that up.) In general it just doesn't seem right to go from an unsettled land to a backwater nation to a thriving metropolis in a matter of a few years.

The plan I have for the campaign is for it to last at least 20 years in-game, with 40-50 years probably the max. It all really depends on player actions and what *feels* right for the pace of the narrative. That length of campaign, however, would typically mean that some of the shorter-lived races would start incurring age penalties. I do have an in-game way to avoid that for characters that feel tied to their human or half-orc melee characters, but it could be an opportunity to actually get to use age penalties for people that appeals to. One final alternative would be to retire your PC and continue on adventuring as your character's child (depending on what point in the campaign we're at.)

Having children / families is one part of the "Legacy" in my Kingmaker: Legacies game that would be possible to explore. It's not something that is going to be forced on anyone (with the possible exception of the Ruler, who probably is going to have in-game pressure from the populace to have a consort and heir... or at least an adopted heir.) I'll work with the final group to feel out what sort of plan everyone would have for their character; it's not something that needs to be figured out in advance and I really don't want to get into family planning with the entire Recruitment pool.

I do hope that the players in the campaign have some idea of what they want for their character beyond feat / ability selection. I want people to figure out what kind of legacy they want their character to leave, so I can work to build that into the campaign.

Hexploration:

The map of the Stolen Lands is divided into a grid of hexes that represent areas to be explored, claimed, and settled. These hexes come in several different types of terrain including plains, forest, hill, mountain, and swamps. At the beginning of the game, the party will have only a few hexes already known and explored; these are areas that have already been mapped and tamed, such as the South Restov Road and Oleg’s Trading Post. They’ll also know a few things about the area surrounding them, including the type of terrain in neighboring unexplored hexes and the presence of bodies of water. All other information about the Stolen Lands is shrouded by the “Fog of War.” Strangely, few maps of the area exist…

Moving into and exploring areas costs resources: time and Provisions. Rations, water, and other supplies needed for adventuring are combined into a single resource of Provisions, which have an equivalent cost and weight to normal rations / water skins. Provisions help provide a bit of realism, reduce some bookkeeping (who all has waterskins?) and provide a “soft limit” to the amount of exploring the group can do before needing to return to town and resupply. Provisions can also be reclaimed by successful Survival checks while exploring, though this may increase the time it takes to explore!

Different terrain types take different amounts of time to explore and traverse; the final amount of time is further determined by the the slowest movement speed in the group. Plains are generally the easiest to move through and explore, while it can take up to 4 days for a group with a 20’ movement speed character to explore a hex of hills! Exploration time is further rounded to the nearest day.

During exploration, I will have random encounters pre-rolled, so it’s possible to resolve several exploration attempts in a row before hitting an encounter, depending where the group is going. I’ll also provide the details of the surrounding hexes (although some may require a successful Perception check.)

Campaign Management, Magic Items, Leveling, Posting Frequency:

Magic Items. Magic Items are intrinsic to game balance in Pathfinder, especially for Martial characters. Not having access to upgrades can be a significant drawback whether it be magic weapons or Spellbooks.

I often tweak loot to suit the party; I personally find that wresting the Greatsword of Awesomeness from the Evil Badguy of Evil to be more exciting than going down the Ye Olde Magic Shoppe. I also ask the party for a Wish List of stuff they'd like to see and pay close attention to WBL guidelines. I've occasionally hit the Reboot button and had people restock to their WBL level if things get too far out of whack (to high or too low Wealth.)

Early game, if someone wants to buy a specific magic item, it'll really vary depending on the item's rarity on how hard it is to purchase it. The way I ran specific item purchases previously in Kingmaker, if there was an item that wasn't available with local merchants (I created a random "merchant inventory"), it could be commissioned to be purchased from Brevoy with half the price down as a deposit, with a variable amount of time it would take to be available. There might be some items that are unavailable (Intelligent Evil swords?) but a +1 Keen Frost Scimitar would probably be doable. Later, you have more control over minor magical items that might be available, but high level gear is still a pretty niche market.

Retraining. I allow retraining, depending on the reasoning. I usually give people a free pass during level 1 to retrain if they decide a feat or class feature isn't fitting, as long as it doesn't significantly change the character. Beyond that, retraining will be allowed either using the rules from UC (retraining a feat that's no longer useful) or for free (changing deities after an in-game conversion.)

Leveling. Leveling will occur at a "speed of plot" basis. It can be fun to scrape together every XP from exploring and questing, but for Kingmaker especially it relies on random encounters to make XP budgets per level. I prefer to tie leveling to significant accomplishments rather than grubbing over "10 more kobolds til we level!"

Posting Frequency Expectations. This campaign will be a Marathon rather than a Sprint and I expect people to post at least once a day. Sometimes a simple OOC "<Knock>" to signify that you don't have anything to add but agree with the way things are going is good to make sure it doesn't feel like the thread is deserted. However, RL happens and takes precedence over gaming; it's quite allright to say "I'll be unable to post for the weekend, will be back on X day." When needed (combat) otherwise you'll be on auto-delay or put under the control of the kind and benevolent GM. If multiple people are going to be unavailable, we'll take a brief break (Valentines day?)

The key things are Communication and Momentum. As long as the group commits to openly communicating, frequently updating, and keeping the momentum of the game going, it should hopefully be a fun campaign!

Rule of Two For decisions that come up in the course of gameplay such as "What hex should we explore next?", "Should we double the time to use Survival to get more Provisions?", or "Do we attempt to negotiate?" I tend to rely on the Rule of Two. If at least two people post to a specific action, that's what happens. We'll revisit it if it seems like specific individuals are controling gameplay, but this does help keep up momentum instead of decision paralysis.

Homebrew Elements:

There are two main schools of thought when it comes to Kingmaker:

Stay as close as possible to the AP as written.

Use the AP as a framework and build on it heavily.

The first has some merit. Running the AP as written is certainly easier to GM in some ways, as the stats for everything are already provided for you. No need to mess with alternate systems! It also puts the PCs and their Kingdom as the clear focus of the game. All the enemies faced throughout the campaign, including the final BBEG, are almost treated like Disasters in a Sim game. They’re there to shake things up, but they almost feel like a diversion from the real stars, the PCs!

I personally gravitate to the second camp. I enjoy plot arcs and prophesy, villains you really hate and allies you really love. Generally speaking my intent is that the changes I make create an overall more cohesive and immersive storyline. The general plot-line for Kingmaker will stay the same and the vast majority of the campaign will remain in the same 3’x12’ hex map that anyone familiar with the AP knows and loves. Some names, places, and NPCs may be changed to protect the innocent make things interesting and I tend to liberally re-work the “quests”, random encounters, and “events” to the point that it’s difficult know which were semi-random rolls and what was the original content.

There are a few large deviations from the AP and the Golarion setting. The previously mentioned the Æther is probably one of the largest, as I basically retool the planes, the First World, fey and outsiders. It comes up infrequently (for reasons made clear over time) and there is a reason for it existing in the narrative. I’ll devote a topic of its own to go over it soon. Beyond that, the rest of Golarion is relatively untouched, though mostly because the campaign basically never leaves the River Kingdoms.

For deviations from the AP, I plan to incorporate a large number of good ideas I’ve seen on the forums over the years especially Monster Kingdoms. A lot of the Kingmaker content feels incredibly static just waiting for the party to bumble into them; I intend to breathe some life into them. I also plan on incorporating content from a module or two (I can discuss module specifics if needed.)

On the other hand, something has to give to keep the pacing, and the plot and encounters of Varnhold Vanishing will have some significant changes.

I felt like this was important to go into in order to manage expectations. I really don’t want to get the hopes up for anyone or ruin the content for someone that’s really looking for a “vanilla” run. If that’s what you’re looking for, this sadly will not be that game. On the other hand, hopefully this interests others even more!

Kings of Dust:

The uncharted wilds known as the Stolen lands hold an almost irresistible allure that ignites ambitions to build and rule. Something about this stretch of wilderness drives bandits to become Barons and makes Merchants trade empires of coin to become Emperors of man. Even the most monstrous of humanoids have been known to forge alliances and band together under the rule of brutal warlords. Yet, without fail, these fledgling nations are brought to ruin by internal power struggles or external foes eager to claim the region for themselves. The landscape of the Stolen Lands is dotted with crumbling reminders of fallen kingdoms as the unforgiving land reclaims the very wood and stone that was taken from it.

So often have parcels of the Stolen Lands changed hands that a name has been created for these doomed rulers: the Kings of Dust. This mocking insult serves as a grim warning of the true price paid by those whose ambitions have betrayed them: their lives, their land, their legacy. The enormity of their failure seems to devour even written works as historical records or maps of their kingdoms crumble and fade with alarming speed.

In fact, there are some that believe that the name "The Stolen Lands" may be a haunting reference to all that the Kings of Dust have had stolen from them over the course of centuries. If so, this may be the only legacy those nameless souls can claim…