Gnutten's page

I originally planned to run all the three Runelords adventure paths as a trilogy, and even though I like a lot of the things Shattered Star does it surely feels lacking in plot and roleplay possibilities. Even if you try to make social encounters of the different opponents in these dungeons you will end up in a fight anyway since they will not simply give away the shards or surrender and go away even if you’re really nice.

I have seen several comment of GM:s combining Shattered Star (SS) with Pathfinder Society season 4 (PFS4) , the Year of the Risen Rune but I haven’t been able to find good walkthrough to implement this.

Does anyone have good notes on expanding SS with PFS4? I start by getting some thoughts in print here below. I haven’t a finished all the plot points yet so this is some thoughts of the different chapters and what might be done.

The benefits of implementing PFS4 into SS is that PFS4 have some new locations to travel to, some more characters to interact with, a cult that might act as an opposition and give a sense of urgency and finally the possibility to include the death of The Runelord of Sloth. To run the full saga as a trilogy it felt weird of letting one of the Runelords get defeated out of camera. The adventure path have already a LOT of dungeon encounters, so the aim is not to add to many additional encounters but perhaps get rid of some fights in order to make space for additional locations to visit and explore.

To have the cult of Lissala search for the Shard of Sins would increase the stakes of SS, but to get the feeling of competition the cult of Lissala should seem to be a step ahead and possibly get control or to be close of getting some of the shards themselves. If this would be the case, there must be some way to guide the PCs to the next chapter without the vision granted by the shards.

I also don’t like the idea that each shard simply points to the next one, it feels a bit lazy. It would be more fun if the PCs would have to investigate where the next chard could be by examining clues from the cult.

Characters that could be recurring villains of the story could be:

• Vandiana, a priestess of Lissala also known as the Lashmistress (from PFS4-26 The Waking Rune). She could be integrated into the story from the start and be the clock that the PCs race against.

• Jordimandus, the obese wizard of Sloth from the Runeforge in Rise of the Runelords. In my campaign he survived and would be a great villain in this chapter.

• Runelord Krune, a possibility is actually to let the cult of Lissala succeed and the Krune be the threat in the later chapters.

Introduction
A lot of spoilers for chapter 5 here… ok you have been warned.

This might be a bunch of posts for the same subject, so I make a separate thread of this instead of putting it into the “Sins of the Saviours (GM Reference)” thread.

When I stated to run chapter 5 I had two major issues with the adventure.

• There’s a lack of NPC to talk and interact with

• The different areas that connected to Runeforge didn’t look especially functional. I knew this was supposed to be a mix of research centre and diplomatic middle ground between the Runelords domains. The different wings look a bit small with no place for staff or mages do their research.

This is my notes where I expand the areas in my game.

• Each wing from the central Runeforge connects so a sphere for each Runelord Domain. The Spheres can be described like a floating island with about 2000 feet in diameter levitating in cosmic nothingness. The connection to the Runeforge hub is a portal of stone on the side of the island. The islands are actually the inside of a sphere, that is that if you leave at the eastern side of the island, you enter the western side of the same island. What you observe as an island is the minds attempt to make sense of an impossible geometry. If you jump just up high enough, you flip and land on the same spot you started from and if you shoot an arrow straight up you will hit yourself in the head. Have fun harassing your players with messed up physics.

• Each area has slowly decayed and been consumed by the sins that each area represent. The feeling I was going for here is slightly inspired of Dante’s Inferno, how would the world look like if the Runelord and their sins run rampart for thousands of years.

• Each of the halls in the adventure is represented by a building or spot in theses Spheres. The heroes must just find their way through each Sphere and hopefully get the locals help to navigate to the right spot. Run the different halls as described when you reach them.

• The idea of each Sphere is that they should not include extra combat encounters. The Spheres got some NPC:s that might need some help or might cause some problems for the heroes. The lord of each area is in their respective wing, and they sort of lost interest of the Spheres around them.

• Each Sphere have a demon that overlooks the areas and tries to further enhance the sins dominating each Sphere. They are optional and can act as the villain of the different spheres if you want to play around with the sphere and help the NPC:s.

• All these areas follow the same pattern, so use them as you want. They can cause a lot of playtime if used fully, so some of them might be the scenery the characters walk through and some of them might be fully elaborated subplots.
I plan to do some maps of the different areas but can’t promise when they will be done.

Hello all!

Tried to find a illustration to show a total view over Kaer Maga while playing Shattered Star, but had a hard time to find what I was looking for.

So I made a picture myself...

Might be of interest so I just post it here. =)

[img]http://i.imgur.com/h0p7qTD.jpg[/img]

Best regards
/Gnutten

Hello all!
I made a series of Powerpoint presentations to run with Rise of The Runelords and was now planning to set up the next campaign in the saga.

I run them on a big screen behind me during play, I think the help to set up the mood rather nicely.

Lets start with Chapter 1.

Shards of Sin

Best regards
/Gnutten

Hello all!

Just wanted to share a fun little miniature project:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/aLJpW1O.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/zS1fcBe.jpg[/img]

Put in a nice little water cave:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/cu50qdf.jpg[/img]

A rather simple build actually. Take two plastic toys:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/9vZ7OJf.jpg[/img]

and mash them together:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/Er7Z8TJ.jpg[/img]

My players won't have this encounter for a while, but I make sure to add some action photos when the occasion arrives =)

Best regards
/Gnutten