Name: Markus Rin
Race: Human
Classes/Levels: Bard 16th
Adventure: Sound of a Thousand Screams
Location: His own bedroom at the kingdom's capital
Catalyst: Killed by his own father
The Gory Details: The party had just returned from defeating the Shrieking Children bloom in the Greenbelt and hoped for a good night's sleep. Unknown from them, the Nights of Dread bloom was already in force and Markus was its first victim. Waking up from his nightmare, the bard critically failed on his save and transformed, body and mind, into a shrew. Hearing terrifying animal squeals from the room next door, his paladin father Yendeyr Rin went in, crashing the door in the process.
Investigating the apparently empty room with closed windows, Yendeyr finally finds the potential culprit for his son's disappearance : a suspicious little animal hiding beneath a closet. Calling Erastil's help, the paladin manages to speak with the shrew and begins its interrogation. The little beast remembers nothing of his life before this morning and only speaks about the terrifying big Raven that haunted him in the woods. One failed intelligence check and paranoia problems come into play. Yendeyr is now convinced that the shrew is lying to him, maybe sent by his enemies to capture Markus and bring him who-knows-where. Quick check to his spells, he has no dispel magic at hand, nor even detect magic. So the paladin does what any paladin does when being lied to : he draws his sword and intimidates the stupid animal so as to change his mind. The intimidation roll is a success, the shrew is now very afraid of the paladin and acts as any shrew would in such a situation. A few rounds later, Yendeyr holds the tiny animal impaled at the top of his sword... it will flee no more.
My player looks at me, waiting for me to tell him the shrew transforms back into a human being, probably hoping to revivify him (that spell he has). I tell him it doesn't. The party searches for Markus the whole day, flying above the capital and the Greenbelt. After a time, the ranger finally uses locate creature in the castle and finally finds out the shrew was indeed his companion. One dispel magic later, the Council remorsefully burns the body of the bard.
I second this question : My players just reached Tome 6 of the Kingmaker campaign and obtained Briar. I would like to adapt its stats to DnD 5E (as we play with those rules since the beginning).
I am DM-ing S&S as a solo campaign for my wife. She just had a blast winning the regatta and had some kind of revelation : "I get it!", she said, "Harrigan is the spy from Cheliax!". As I put on my best poker face, she continued : "I know how Paizo works. That's why I had to sail over the whole Shackles following that trail of a spy network: Harrigan will come with a chellish army and attack the Shackles in the end of the campaign".
Meanwhile, when she first heard of Arronax Endymion's origin as a Chellish exile, she quite fast set aside the idea that he would work for his previous homeland (would be too obvious) and jumped to the conclusion that the guy would probably hate it instead.
I swear I did not try to help her linking all that together and I gave her no clue of it. While I am quite happy she's thinking so accurately far into the campaign and sees Harrigan as the BBEG that he is, I have some fears this mindset might scramble a little bit some Tome 4 events. Indeed, at several points of 'Ilse of the Empty Eye', the book assumes the PCs should "have some suspicions about Endymion's loyalty" and that "While Endymion is occupied with defending himself against the PCs' accusations, Harrigan will be free to carry out his own betrayal". Those assumptions look compromised to me.
Can anybody tell whether this could become a problem campaign-wise or narratively speaking ? Should I change parts of the story to adapt them in accordance to the clever girl I have in front of me and to my expectation that she will not take seriously to claims that Endymion is the culprit in any of the events that mention his name ?
I am DMing Skull and Shackles for my wife who is playing the campaign in solo. She plays a dhampir coming from Cheliax. Her father is a vampire and she knows he is a renowed pirate captain of the Shackles, although she never crossed path with him. Because she barely knows her fathers name, he could end up being a foe, any ally, or a neutral figure. Anything is possible.
She started Tempest Rising tome and just got her Letter of Marque from Kerdak Bonefist.
I would like to plan an encounter/meeting with her dad at some point of the campaign, but I don't know when to do that. I am in no rush for that, it could happend in the later tomes of the campaign, but I don't want to miss a good occasion. Of course, her father only shows himself at night and his boat is filled with ghouls and other kind of 'smart' undead creatures.
Is there any good point where this character could be included ?
Could you explain the presence of those mono-colored hexes all over the Stolen Lands? They are selectable but I can't delete them (read-only access), they hide most of the map and I don't see any use to them.
My players are currently going through big V tomb and I am quite puzzled by some parts of the dungeon.
First, the secret door between areas W16 and W18. Nothing avoids the PCs from safely going through the Vestibule from W16 to W17, then going from W17 to W18 using standard doors. What is the point in having a secret door here ?
Second, the secret door between area W24 and W26. Same story. Nothing mentions any difficulty to pass the doors between areas W24 and W25 or between W25 and W26. Area W25 seems to be an important unguarded room in the dungeon, there is not reward for the party to find the secret door and avoid the Oculus Chamber. I would have expected the doors to be the other way around, with two secret doors going to area W25 and a normal door from W24 to W26.
I already saw a post from Bobson describing what he considered as a fix to some anomalies in the dungeon, but I don't feel like it actually solves my issues.
I am interested, Touc, about that Nelson's tournament supplement. I never heard of it. Unless I am mistaken and you are talking about war of the river kingdoms.
Could you give any reference to the supplements you are talking about?
EDIT: oh! I think I found it. Is that 'Royal Tournaments' by Nelson and Welham?
In my campaign, I introduced them at the beginning of volume one, as they received a charter similar to the one from the players. They came back between volume 1 and 2 as I played the non official module 'venture capital', that I recommend and available on this forum.
I played Varn as a sympathic guy that had a good opinion on my pcs beforehand, because he knew the father of one of them. Varn has a grown up daughter for any wishing pc to marry if it goes well.
Drelev is nothing without his wife, who decides everything for him. They both despise the pcs.
I told my players that those 'rivals' played with the same rules as they do. Whenever my players worry that life near the Greenbelt is harsh and may put them in a weakened position with regards to the other nations, I remind them that they have their own difficulties. The marshes west are deadly and Varn complains about centaurs regularly.
I introduced another 'new nation' between the pcs and varnhold. My players care much more about that one and about trolls than they care about varn and drelev.
Name: Gremash
Race: Human
Classes/Levels: Fighter 4th
Adventure: Rivers Run Red
Location: Isle of the Lizard King
Catalyst: Scout leaving invisibility inside the opponent's huts
The Gory Details: The group had succesfully built a harbor on the shores of the Tuskwater lake, bordering their capital and the Stag Lord's fort. The ruler then decided the lake should be claimed within the realm's boundaries and launched a naval expedition to explore its waters. After enough warnings and failed wisdom checks, the group avoided the Candlemere's Tower before detecting the lizardmen's village.
As they approached, they starting hearing a boy screaming through the gates. The slightly too rough diplomatic ways of the strangers convinced the lizardfolks they better keep their gates closed and regroup at the center of the village. The bard ruler made the fighter invisible while the rest of the party was trying to open the gates by brute force. After a while, the scout fighter and the others entered the village approximately at the same time.
As the bard was gaining time negociating with the lizard King, Gremash sneaked into the main hut where he heard the boy screaming for the last time. When he found him, the boy had stopped making any noise and, still invisible, the fighter started to talk with him: "I came to save you, don't worry!". Screaming anew, the boy answered : "No! Stop that! I already asked you to stop doing that!". Afraid that the boy could reveal its presence, Gremash hit him on the neck with his bare hands, thus leaving invisibility. He then carried the kid in his arms, confident that he would be able to run away from the village and probable mock all the lizardmen by the way. This gave the opportunity to the always invisible will-o'-wisp to attack the fighter with his mighty thunder, once during the surprise round and a second time before Gremash managed to espace from the hut.
When the human and the kid still in his arms went out to run accross the crowd of lizardfolks, all negociations stopped immediately. Literally surrounded by the whole tribe, Gremash barely managed to run up to the crushed gates. He would go no further, although the boy made it in the arms of the wizard and in the bark of the outnumbered fleeing adventurers. Two days later, Lordaeron (the group's realm) launched a new expidition and razed the Ilse of the Lizard King in retaliation, only to discover the will-o'-wisp had temporarily replaced the boy by a full grown victim, that he killed right before leaving the lizardfolks to their inescapable death.
I have another question regarding the carnival. The more I look at it, the more I wonder about the link between Quinn and the Lumber Consortium.
The carnival is presented as an itinerary one but about half the attractions are intimately linked to those evil lumberjacks. Why is that?
I plan on running the scenario in my pcs capital and the Consortium is highly unwanted by the rulers. I can add some npcs in but I don't see how entire attractions would pop out of nowhere nor why would Quinn initially deal with such evil associates. I understand he is not very concerned since his wife's death but that's a step further...
Good question... I personally completely overlooked that aspect and focused on the 'tried to resurrect her with black magic' part.
If I had to provide an explanation, I would make it coincide with what can be found in the real world. After all, the priests of the Latin Church also made vow of celibacy and it did not stop that religion from becoming of paramount importance. Type vow of celibacy on Wikipedia and see what you get.
Definitely, this limitation would apply only to a portion of the followers, probably the most important ones. Those men should be considered above others in terms of influence in the clergy. The vow of celibacy would probably bring them away from potential scandals that could hit the church and insure they spend more time studying and applying their rituals. It would avoid exactly the kind of story that happened to Nugrah... or Darth Vador btw...
That is what I would expect. Maybe someone has a better explanation.
I handled this the lazy way, a bit like in the video game. The AP mentions a monster sending blurry visions of the future, don't remember the make but it looks like a slug with big eyes. I decided in my campaign they would send dreams of the past instead, when players sleep in the Greenbelt, and gave the players all the nice backstories that they might not discover otherwise day by day. That includes the death of Nettle, the one from Tartuk when he was still a gnome, the death of nugra s wife, the stag Lord s childhood, some backstory I made about akiros' childhood and maybe some other I don't even recall.
Because all those memories are quite shocking, I made Oleg kill the slug every morning that his children would cry about doing nightmares at night.
I think I am missing something about those undeals. Are you talking about the fact that Quinn changes side when his love is 'saved' or something directly related to Syntira? I don't see mention of any deal or undeal linked to the point system in the carnival of tears.
Thanks a lot, Touc, and sorry for replying so late ^^' .
I will follow your advice of keeping Syntira and big N distinct of each other. Also, I will gladly steal your idea of the nonsense game that I happen to like a lot.
I will try to link the game to some kind of deal between the PCs and Syntira : their redemption for past wrongdoings (although not technically theirs) if they integrate the Fey's point of view. Initially meant to look unconsequential in the game's context, the deal would take a completely different connotation when the Carnival will take place.
We'll see where this leads us in the end but I hope my players will forgive me.
My 5 players are just starting to build their new kingdom after defeating the Stag Lord and I am definitely tossing the Carnival of Tears to their capital.
For a bit of context, up to now, big N appeared in their dream once and presented herself as an ally. She gave them a blessing to use in the fight against the Stag Lord. I joyfully plagiarized the kingmaker video game for that idea. Now, I was not expecting her to reveal her true intention right after the capital settlement.
I was just wondering whether I would keep Syntira (from Carnival of Tears) as such or replace her by big N. From what my players have seen, they would look a lot alike and they would be wondering why I would send them two separate badass fey queens at the same time.
What do you think of this? Should I just tell them it is just another fey asking for their help or could I merge the two characters ? If I merge them, what would big N intentions be now that the Stag Lord is gone ?
I thought she could simply consider the new nation as promising and would help them grow up to the level of a kingdom, after which she would start showing her true nature. The Witch Queen from the North could be some the Winter court (while big N would be from the Summer court, which would be consistent with her first appearance early in the Spring). The Witch Queen from the North may try to disrupt big N plans by destroying the new nation early on.
If you'll pardon me, I would like to necro this thread once again. I am currently DMing a group playing Kingmaker adapted to DnD 5E edition. My PCs just killed the Stag Lord and I plan on using the Venture Capital stuff found on this forum and combine follow up on the Fate-based realm building rules. I discovered Fate by reading this subject and become more and more fond of it as I read about it.
I pretty much like the initial concept of the aspects and the scaling of the system to bigger realms. However, although Action BP costs do scale with level, the check DCs do not seem to. I fear that any realm big enough would have it easy to reach the DC20 associated with most actions.
Moreover, I don't find anything that penalizes a realm for 'growing too fast'. The bigger you are, the best skills you have and the easier it is to pass checks. I do find a reference to 'Consumption' in the very last page of the document ("Raise / Improve Armies: DC is the new Training DC of the army plus the realm’s Consumption. Success with style grants an army aspect or extra edge."), but it seems it has been removed from the 'core' rules (for simplicity). The only restriction I find to exponentially growing settlement is a mention to "a source of new immigrants". I plan on using this part to partially limit expansion at some point.
Did anybody effectively applied this system to a full-grown kingdom (>50 hexes) ? If so, are you willing to provide some feedback about its balancing ? Should I increase DCs with Kingdom size or is it intended that kingdoms are only afraid of other kingdoms sending big armies ? I don't have the feeling the latter option was in the initial concept.
PS: Big thanks to all the contributors on the forum. This is all great stuff for DMing a great AP and my main problem now is how I will be able to squeeze everything I like into one single campaign.
