Darkstrom's page

Well currently through Judge Daramid. She knew the Judge and she knew that the PCs were going to Lepidstadt to see her. So her initial letter (and the only one sent so far)was actually sent to the Judge's address. The Judge had the letter forwarded to the inn the PCs are staying at: The Brazen Skull (Rule of Fear source book).

Like I said, the Judge has played a much larger patron role in my game than as originally written (partially because I ran Feast of Ravenmoor with her as the contact and the party also likes her no-nonsense, stern contenance and attitude).

They are in Schloss Caromarc right now and as of now the player has only responded to the letter (not gotten another reply - I will be keeping the letter writing as realistic as possible in time frame as possible).

One thing I am doing is slowing down the events in the path. It makes me a little insane to imagine players going from 1 to 16 in a handful of months so I've been adding downtime for crafting and other threads (Feast of Ravenmoor, probably Carrion Hill)

The player is invested in continuing his contacts with Kendra and so my hope is that with the extra downtime he will either write her when he gets a chance or establish a place she can contact him at.

Like I said, I'm still just starting this letter writing chain. I'm trying to make sure that characters met in various of the books don't stay one shots but continue to guide and influence the story and provide additional background.

Oh god. This became a giant post. I'm done now.

Using the great ideas in this thread I'm building up Caromarc and his wife. However, instead of a wand of speak with dead I'm going to be setting up the glass bell jar as being partially mechanized with strange knobs and pressurized, fluid-filled tubes. When used correctly, wires send stimulate Ceryse's brain and it answer questions through an audio box that transmits the answers she makes.

The guy is a hugely accomplished scientist, why should he necessarily have to rely on wands?

So I actually just finished the Ravenmoor portion and it went over pretty well. I think I may have to let the Carrion Hill go for now though, it's too far away and I do want to keep the main story line rolling.

How it went:

I introduced the plot through Judge Daramid because it felt a bit weak for a woman of her obvious intelligence to rely on untested individuals for something "important" like defending the beast. After all, killing ghosts doesn't mean you are investigators.

The group arrived into a unworked up Lepidstadt and got to explore the city some (which is so flavorful that I wanted to showcase it some more) before they finally turned in their books. They met the Judge and a new PC who was the Judge's assistant and she asked them if they were interested in more work.

She explained the tax collector situation and while the party was confused as to why she was paying them so much gold (per the module) to track him down they basically chalked it down to "She's wealthy, respected, and focused on trying to keep the county together given the disfunction of the local council.

Edit: She explained the situation as: "I recently found out about a missing tax collector, the guards and the Council don't seem interested in finding him, I've done my own research (give details on his past, etc.) and I want you to determine if he ran off with the money so I can alert the other authorities of our neighboring counties to be on the look out.

It worked really well. I situated Ravenmoor on the edge of the Dipplemere and ran the module as is.

Now the group has a history with the Judge and it felt natural that when the Beast was captured a week later she would trust them to investigate for her.

Note:

One thing that one of my players mentioned was that there wasn't the same "gothic feel" to the adventure, that it felt different than Harrowstone. But IMO that was A) me not gothicizing it and B) the party knowing it was a module I was inserting (though nothing else).

It was a really good scenario though. Unfortunately the blightspawn survived and flew into the swamp. Maybe instead of a Manticore I'll have the blightspawn hiding on the graveyard island near Morast.

As I mentioned in another thread I am inserting the Feast of Ravenmoor into the game to give the party some cool down before the race continues and I'm downplaying some of the timing for Trial of the Beast so that the party can get to explore a very interesting location (Lepidstadt) before being dragged off.

The party returns from Ravengro (and splits up, some returning to their work at the Lepidstadt University and others continuing on) and returns the Manual of the Palatine Eye to Judge Daramid. Using some of the background information from the Rule of Fear (about how dysfunctional the Vieland Council is) I'm portraying her as a canny old woman who is sick of how poorly the county is being run and, as someone who has amassed a personal fortune, who is willing to work around the system to get things done.

Needing useful assistants and having heard about the events at Ravengro, she asks them to search for a missing tax collector (The Feast of Ravenmoor)and has already already collected a lot of background on the man. She is concerned he has absconded with the tax money but wants to be certain before she alerts County and regional authorities.

The group heads to Ravenmoor and I will run things there exactly as written in the module (Location: the village is in the Dipplemere).

Their success with this mission is what then prompts her to hire them to assist the defense.

Kerney wrote:

Yes, I know he's not a god, but his 'clerics' seem to have one in order to do the whole fake god thing.

Can't find it anywhere.

It would have to be something *anyone* can use, so probably quarterstaff or dagger. (And if anyone has the stones to point out that anyone can use quarterstaves and daggers, and that it's pretty suspicious that his favored weapon is something like that, he can point and Nethys and Pharasma and say, 'Your point?')

If he ever became a real god, with his focus on luxury, a rapier might be an appropriate choice. Even a whip, perhaps, with the 'law and obedience' thing he's got going on.

Unsurprisngly, staff, dagger, rapier or whip, his favored weapon will be something a bard can use, as his best 'priests' are bards. :)

I vote cudgel. It's a club. But its a club used to beat people into submission!

I updated my blog post with what I changed about Adivion Adrissant and the plot of Shadows of Gallowspire.

It seemed better to put it there than here since it's all kind of a blog post anyways.

Nice work. You really put some thought into it. :)

So far in my campaign: They met him briefly when he stopped by (he rode in on a black carriage) to offer his sympathies to Kendra and visit Lorrimor's grave. I ended up making his ties to Ravengro stronger than I originally intended when the players wanted to know who owned the crypts at the top of the Restlands. Put on the spot I listed off one as a small Pharasman chapel, four as belonging to the families of the Council, and one that was very old and whose family name had worn away. They checked into it and found it belonged to the Adrissant family.

I think I am going to make his family the feudal owners of the village that became Ravengro before Canterwall became a Palatinate.

Given that an idealized colonial America is one of the basis for Andoran it might be worth doing some Google-Fu to find the rank structure and disposition of the U.S. military during, say, the War of 1812.

Seconded. Also the various citizen-militias used during the revolution.

The entire idea behind archetypes in my mind is an attempt to enhance "modularity" (if this isn't a real word it's being used as one anyway) and allow players more flexibility in building the specific character they desire regardless. I applaud any changes to the game that increase player choices and the ability to pick and choose abilities and be rid of extraneous or uninteresting ones.

So I guess what I'm saying is I don't think there are/should be any sacred cows. In the end I think archetypes are simply easier to develop and publish (less space used) than entirely new classes. It allows people to develop their characters in a modular way and I think that sacred cows should all be put in the slaughter house. :)

Soapbox: If Paizo does put out a Pathfinder 2.0 I'd love if they'd do away with the 3.5 class system altogether and implement a completely modular system!