The Falcon's Hollow Campaign (spoilers)

I have been the DM of a campaign running the module series set in Falcon's Hollow, namely Hollow's Last Hope, Crown of the Kobold King, Carnival of Tears, Revenge of the Kobold King, and Hungry are the Dead.

Spoilers will follow, so if you don't want to see those, turn back now.
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:

I have been the DM of a campaign running the module series set in Falcon's Hollow, namely Hollow's Last Hope, Crown of the Kobold King, Carnival of Tears, Revenge of the Kobold King, and Hungry are the Dead.

Sounds cool! Planning the same thing too, only

Looking forward to seeing what your players do and sharing best practices on running the modules. Good luck.

BTW there are some custom traits for Darkmoon Vale in the forums. Check them out!

Ok, sorry about the delay.

The introduction was set at the onset of winter, with four unhappy, drenched wanderers seeking refuge from the cold, rain and darkness behind the wall of Falcon's Hollow. They were all running from something, none of them had a mission to accomplish in the Hollow. They were also very poor, since I let them keep nothing beyond their initial gear. In such a place as the Hollow, poverty and mounting desperation put them all at the level of the other inhabitants, enforcing the idea that the suffering and despair of the Hollow could just as well have happened to them.

They each found someone in the Hollow to relate to, including Lauren the alchemist, Ralla Hebbradan the prostitute and her little brother Hollin, lady Cirthana of Iomedae, magistrate Vamros Harg and Sharvaros Vade and his son Savram. The focus in the campaign must lie on interaction, both with each other and with NPCs, to balance the massive amounts of dungeon crawling involved.

The morning after, Lauren asks one of them to set up a poster in the town square, offering a reward for a cure for the disease. This drew them all to her shop, and when she asked for their help in finding the ingredients, they agreed.

The first order of business is to track down the oldest tree in the forest, this is done by visiting one of the woodcutters in a logging camp nearby. Even so, it's the camp that's important, showing off the workers desperately struggling and risking serious injury in their daily work in the frozen environment.

Having very little food, the journey through the wood is harsh and dangerous. Winter means a biting cold, and very little light beyond a gloom seen through the treetops. They had a few non-combat encounters, spooky signs and bad omens like staring crows. To foreshadow the woodcutter-fey conflict, they find a sprite corpse nailed to a tree trunk. I also decided to make the tone grittier than normal; every magically healed wound still left a scar. They find the oldest tree, and battle the tatzlwyrm there, a fight that leaves them marked but alive.

When they reach the hut, the absolute dark of the hut entrance stands out against the murk around it, and small totems near the hut hold various bones. Eventually they find what they need here too, and move on north.

The PCs find their way to the monastery after struggling in near-total darkness through a rocky path of the road. They find a kobold skeleton with a wooden sign saying "shaman" in draconic, showing the thread of macabre, absurd humour the series holds.

Finally, the monastery. The heroes fight through every inch of it, but what remains with me is the fight against darkmantles, where one strikes unseen and envelops the sorcerer's head in its leathery wings. She falls unconscious several times from strangulation, turning her throat into a mass of scars that she then keeps covered by a wide choker through the rest of the campaign. The final fight was desperate for the heroes, and when they just after finding the mushrooms hear a number of wolves howling, they run. They are stalked by Graypelt's widows to the point where they cross the forest river.

Shaken and wounded, they stumble into Lauren's shop and give her the ingredients. Sadly, even with their utmost efforts, a good number of people had died waiting for the remedy, and while nobody blames them openly, it's clear that their victory was two-edged. Lauren, however, decides that the PCs are good for the Hollow, and the money she gives them helps keep the darkness at bay for a while. One of the PCs finds that Ralla Hebbradan is regularly beaten at the Rouge Lady, where she works, but doesn't see much chance of setting this right.

Thus ends the story of Hollow's Last Hope. Next: A harrowing tale of innocence lost, dark tunnels and ancient curses, and tiny horrors!

Awesome recounting! Very gripping and gritty. You captured it perfectly IMO. How did the kobold rogue do? Did he go down like a chump or leave the party bleeding and scared?

I run HLH tomorrow. Wish me luck. I'm going for more of an H. P. Lovecraft feeling where I'll be using descriptors like "latent dread", "blasphemous geometry" and "pallid, grasping, furtive things".

To account for my more experienced party, I'm replacing Greypelt with a

Off to find more disturbing metaphors...>:D

The kobold rogue made a successful sneak attack on, if I recall, the gnome bard. He hamstringed him, giving him a hard time to move. After this, the kobold managed to escape through the wall, only to run into the paladin outside. This effectively ended his struggle through a massive power attack crit.

A week after the heroes saved the town of Falcon's Hollow from the Blackscour Taint, and their resources are running dry, the talk of the town is that five children have disappeared without a trace. These children, Hollin, Mikra, Jurin, Kimi and Savram, formed a gang, and nobody among the adults of town seem to know where they went. Asking around, the heroes take some time to ask the other children in town, baring another segment of life in the Hollow to them. The children are afraid of the coming winter, because many of them will starve since the Lumber Consortium doesn't pay woodcutters during the unworkable winter months, and certainly doesn't pay enough the rest of the year to make saving up possible. The children sometimes eat rats or rummage through the trash to supplement their diets. This makes the town split up into sharply defended territories held by different gangs of children. Talking to one such group, the heroes find out that the missing children had been dared by them to spend a night at the burnt-out ruin of Elara's Halfway House.

The weather was cold and bleak, and the ruins stood like burnt fingers against the black forest behind them. The place was silent, a touch of grief in the air. They sought through the ruins, and the marks of the children's camp. They found the trapdoor to the cellar, where they found spiders inhabiting the corpse of Elara herself, her throat torn out. They also found shackles adapted in height to that of a child, and a whip and silver knives. Suspicious of a werewolf, not an unknown problem in Darkmoon Vale, they reacted with caution when they met the single survivor Jeva. A little girl, having lived about a month (since the last full moon) since the fire on her own, she told them to seek the children to the north. Jeva wore the remains of a dress, and they saw the cruel whip-marks on her back. "It was... for my own good."

Following a set of kobold tracks through Darkmoon Wood, they met a drunken giant who they helped find his lost wedding ring, they were attacked by a cockatrice, they fought a troll... in short, it seemed the forest itself didn't want them there.

Finally back at the monastery, they made camp under the almost full moon and the cold, uncaring stars.

The kobold rogue made a successful sneak attack on, if I recall, the gnome bard. He hamstringed him, giving him a hard time to move. After this, the kobold managed to escape through the wall, only to run into the paladin outside. This effectively ended his struggle through a massive power attack crit.

Always nice to hear about a kobold maiming a gnome! There's several famous kobold comedies centred on that theme. :) I'm certain the paladin got a sense of grim satisfaction too. Sounds like you and your players are having a great time.

Ok, so Jeva and the heroes awake at dawn in their camp on the monastery courtyard. They mount the first foray into the darkness, and about the first thing they encounter is a hovering, empty full plate armour with a glinting axe in its nonexistent hands. One of them manages to spot something odd about the wall, and they attack the gelatinous cube efficiently, with only one hero paralyzed. The armour is a good gift for the paladin. They find a headless corpse with a letter beside it, the bizarre musings of a man falling into insanity. His head later attacks them in a pitched battle as a vargouille. They found the old, accursed priest of the dwarf enclave, or rather his skeleton, his head crushed by a massive hammer, apparently built for that very purpose.

They find Kimi and her protector, a courageous halfling who rescued the children from kobold captivity and likely sacrifice. Sadly, he was killed by the kobolds in protecting Kimi. They found a further two children, one hemmed in by skeletons and more or less catatonic. By an old forge, they found a horror unlike any they ever saw, a dwarven undead, chained and doomed to forge links in that chain. One of their number died quickly, skull split in half by the vicious slash of the chain, but they managed to rescue the child it was preparing to kill.

After a short return to the courtyard and their first funeral, they found that Jeva had disappeared. Unwilling to leave the children they had rescued alone in the courtyard, an even smaller gang had to go on their next foray.

They entered the caverns beneath the dwarven complex, and found kobolds ready to receive them. Every sound of a fight brought new kobolds, some mounted on horrid war frogs called slurks. The tunnels were mostly low of ceiling, and the heroes were always at a disadvantage. They found the hatchery, and when the egg-keeper stood her ground against them despite certain death, they showed mercy and let her go unharmed, even with the eggs.

At one point, they found a passage to a further lower level, but the way was blocked, and they struggled against the deathly touch of three creatures of pure darkness. This fight reinforced the coming struggles against undead, and I made much of it.

When they finally reached the lair of the kobold king Merlokrep, the First of his Name, he gave them a most wonderful offer: that they eat a supper with him, and then sacrificed. Strangely, the heroes reacted by attacking him, and though he wreaked havoc with his mighty axe Manfeller, they destroyed him. A short while later, they found the great altar, where the tribe shaman was just sacrificing an adventurer, the half-elven companion to the halfling they met earlier. The little beast was dancing on his mangled chest, holding his heart aloft in a shower of gore. A very short fight ended the threat to the children, all of which were now safe.

The return trip through the forest was dangerous, but they felt a little more confident in their own abilities. Even though they had lost their barbarian friend, they were stronger, and bonds of loyalty had grown between them. As the last day of fall finally faded, they walked into Falcon's Hollow prepared to face anything.

Alas, while everyone cheered for the heroes that saved the five children, not every parent they left the children to reacted well. Mikra was more than welcome, Hollin had to come back to a beaten and bruised Ralla, Savram was only barely acknowledged by his father Sharvaros, Kimi's mother started flirting with a half-orc among the heroes which made Kimi despise the wicked half-orc mightily. Only Jurin Kreed's father, the incomparably vile Thuldrin Kreed, the ruler of Falcon's Hollow, owner of the town and everything (and everyone) in it, gave them a reward. While this was of several thousand gold pieces, he also made up his mind to destroy them before they focused their attentions on him.

Next: Our heroes find themselves at a fair, a lighthearted romp featuring contests of strength, wonders of modernity, and gut-wrenching slaughter!

Wow! You've been busy. How many sessions did you need to get this far, and how often did you play? Are there any stumbling blocks in the adventure that you can think of, and how did you resolve them?

Just one death, pretty good. I've heard a lot of TPK's come out of that adventure.

PS I like the dark tone of your campaign. Very compelling and plenty scary.

Hmmm. We played every other sunday for quite some while... I think HLH was perhaps three sessions, plus one to create characters. CotKK was a very long adventure, if I remember we did six or seven sessions. It didn't quite hold up that long, in retrospect I should have gotten rid of quite a bit of the fights in the dungeon. Seriously: You don't need all that combat. Keep those things that either show a good amount of Logueness (morbid, quirky humour) such as the slurk with a rider whose head had been crushed when the slurk jumped, and the stuff relating directly to a current or coming storyline, such as the three shadows.

Jeva is a stumbling block. As soon as the heroes find the silver daggers in the cellar of halfway house, they suspect a werewolf will be coming up. Then they count backward a month to the fire. And, how has Jeva survived that long by herself? She can show them the way, but has she really scouted through the entirety of Darkmoon wood all by herself, following the kobolds? I think it's better to find another solution for some of this.

There is another stumbling block: Most of these adventures are very similar in layout. A hook, then a forest trip, usually to the monastery, then dungeon crawl, then back again. Sit down from the start and plot out what you want the heroes to encounter when going through the woods. There are many encounters described, but having a plan will help you immensely.

Finally: It's pretty low on treasure, and the heroes will not be able to buy any sort of magic items in the Hollow. Therefore, be kind when you give out what does exist. If someone needs a particular weapon type, for example, an axe can just as well be a longsword. It is also a problem that a lot is small-sized, so you should take a while to plan treasures as well. Fixes aren't difficult, but you need to be aware of the problems.

Oh, I should also say that I have done away with XP, instead advancing levels when appropriate.

How many rests did your party require for Crown? I ended up killing an 11th level bard, a pseudodragon, 2 warrior 1s, and the crew of kobolds she won over to her side. She didn't rest and she went through the module in the most efficient manner.

I believe they made four forays into the dungeon. It got a bit tedious after a while. Note, however, that the second level was only one foray, it was the first level that took time.

Thanks for all the advice. It'll really help.

I'm running it with a sort of Lovecraftian bent, so the adventure is going to have a lot more time dedicated to setting mood and a sense of dread. Combat is not as important as scaring the pants off of the PC's. Words like "blasphemous", "pallid", "cyclopean" and "furtive" will be uttered many a time by this DM. >:)

I've replaced only 2 encounters is HLH (zombie is now a little girl, BBEG is no longer a worg, it's something...worse).

Based on what you've said, in CotKK I'll probably reduce the number of encounters and just increase their EL, that way they won't get swamped in a grand melee. The kobolds will stick to the shadows and hit and run more (this can make a handful of kobolds seem like a lot). The other option for the melee death match is a swarm/mob of kobolds - it gives you the impression of a million-bazillion enemies without the multiple targets and dice rolls. I'll probably throw in some more properly wicked kobold traps to replace combat encounters too.

Good luck on the rest of the series, and thanks again for the input!

X

As I said, it's not the kobolds that's the problem. It's the vargouilles, allips, skeletons, hell hounds, gelatinous cubes, homonculi, stirges and so on. The monsters on the classic dungeon-styled first level. Quite a few of those will disappear without problems. The massive fight against the kobolds on level two is fine.

I had a blast reading this thread before running unleashing the module on my players.

One thing I noticed was how you mentioned they players were totally suspicious of the orphanage girl surviving a month alone in the woods. I was pondering this too, anyway, the group after finding the evidence in the orphanage ruins then headed after the kobold trail in the forest. Not far in they hear a little girl crying. One of them crept up and then goes, 'Kimi?'.

I was surprised and delighted when he said that because what the girl then said was, 'Yes'. Using her bluff skills she managed to convince them that she was Kimi, all hurt from the Kobold attack and that they dragged the other kids off, hearing them yell about a sacrifice. Convincing the group that they had to hurry to help her friends, rather than having the group take her back to town. I did give the group several motive checks, and I played up how she then took an interest in the group's religious characters, asking them to teach her about their beliefs.

The group later on ran into the kobolds in the dungeon and they told her to stay on the stairs as they moved forth to do battle. After a round, I had them do perception checks, one made it and noticed that 'Kimi' was now a werewolf behind them. The players in the group loved that twist and were then paranoid when the met the real Kimi.

I love what you've done with all this, Sissyl. Especially what happens with Ralla and the PC concern over her fate. Glad to see I'm not the only one who wants to rescue the poor girl.

Found this thread a little late but I am currently running the PFRPG campaign set all in Falcon's Hollow too with similar adventures. It's agood read, I enjoy hearing about how differently (and similarly) some groups tackle problems.

Oh, I should also say that I have done away with XP, instead advancing levels when appropriate.

I've been doing this a lot in my campaigns recently, even before the Beta was released because it was too much trouble for a simple result (ususlly one which I needed for story purposes anyway).

I've decided to use the PF XP system to try it out with this new game, but with XPs spent on nothing these days BUT gaining a level, I might just go back to awarding a level when apropriate. Time shall tell!