Greystaff's page

If you have any more of these, I would love to see them. Thanks for all the work you put into them :)

The entire file plus LOTS of other aides can be found at http://therpgenius.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder&param=SCAP%20C h%200%20-%20General%20info

Perhaps one of the statues might be an "ex-communicated" Cagewright (similar to Kaurophon) who has that information would be willing to give it up.

I would offer that perhaps you should ask yourself "What information do my players not have that would be helpful in advancing the storyline and how could these stoned adventurers' backstory be written to assist". In the case of the Cagewrights, I would think maybe one of them might have the entire plot line...if that's what you need as a GM at this point.

As I recall, Drakthar has several beings dominated including the goblins and the red-eyed dwarf. If all these have not already been killed or incapacitated, he might order them to remove the bodies. I'm guessing the dwarf might take them to the nearest trash dump or midden pit. The goblins might do the same, or they might even eat the bodies themselves.

I recommend TOS+ at www.theonlysheet.com. It is very affordable, easy to use, allows for custom classes, monsters, races, etc and easily facilitates networked play. The sheet itself is the most detailed I've seen and answers all questions at a glance. I've been using it for over 10 years and all my friends have now started using it as well. In all, a superior product in every way.

I agree with Tyro...they didn't add any value to my story line and I omitted them

Those are all workable options. Another idea I used was to let the party shop from the Bluecrater Academy which has (in my world) a bin of items created by students pursuing magical studies. The items may not work exactly as intended all the time but they are available at reduced rates and generally available if on the lower end of the power spectrum.

I like the concept. I would just be wary of allowing the weapon to become too powerful for the current level of play. I frequently use a system similar to 3.5 weapons of legacy that increase in power as the PC goes up in level, but without the associated penalties.

The siege seemed to early to me to put the party in direct, armed opposition to the city council. I had them go straight from DSL to ToTSE and then come back to find that time on Occipitus flowed at a different rate than on the Prime Material Plane, giving the party time to intercede and quell the attack since Sir Alec was dead.

The goblins could be dominated by Drakthar and make them part of his contingent that vandalizes the neighborhoods of Cauldron

The intellectual property rights for both still belong to Wizards of the Coast, so there is little likelihood either will ever be officially converted. You can find a lot of material on these message boards as well as at http://therpgenius.pbworks.com/w/page/22143327/FrontPage if you're interested in home brew conversion material.

A group of chaotic evil (and insane) fish men, a chaotic evil dragon, and a lawful evil devil could possibly be too diverse to come up with a coordinated plan. A piecemeal attack with each faction attacking on its own timeline and with each having their own motivations, might give the players enough slack to complete the adventure in one sitting.

Mykull, I think that's a great idea. The best aspect of your solution is that it's transparent to the players and allows the GM to use Aushanna's CR as a "rheostat" based on the party's capability. If they're doing really well, leave her at a higher CR; if they're getting a spanking, dial her down.

Perhaps a copy of instructions written in Kuo Toa for how the statue of Blibdoolpoolp works to summon the erinyes and a command word that dismisses her back to the 9 Hells.

Great adventure you've got going. All your listed options could work just fine; I read the thread on #5 and really like it. In case you're still looking for other ideas:

6. Crazy Jared might be an option to show up and help the party out of a tight spot. Assuming you followed the book as written, he knows where they are and knows somewhat of the threats they face.

7. You could re-write the trigger that summons Aushaunna to some event that occurs later so that she would not pose an immediate threat.

Good luck and post your outcomes; this sounds like a great opportunity for you and the PCs (well, maybe not the PCs).

Such flippant arguments don't even deserve a response. Good day.

That's the problem with almost every thread. The original post asks for an opinion; 10% of the respondents provide a reasoned opinion. The rest spend an inordinate amount of time explaining why the responses won't work instead of developing opinions and input of their own.

A house rule increasing the casting time from a standard action to a full round action (or longer) could possibly solve some of your problems in that it allows you to gloss over overland travel but makes teleporting in and out of combat more problematic for casters.

Stebehil....check out this product line: http://paizo.com/companies/steelSqwire

Really nice siege. Would love to see your finished products when you're done.

Paizo sells all 3 major demodands in miniature. I used a plain shaggy demodand w/o the extra head

I wrote it such that Kaurophon was able to manipulate the starry mirror devices to drop the party into a desert on another unspecified plane. When the party druid shapechanged into a raptor and flew around to scout the area, she saw Kaurophon sitting by a fire. The party collectively moved to engage him and he explained that he was going to a location that would allow the party to teleport without error anywhere in the multiverse. He then offered them the opportunity to go with him. I described the Lesser Amulet of the Planes as allowing the bearer to walk through planes such that the changes were subtle (ie Chronicles of Amber)to preclude him seeming false by teleporting to Occipitus.

My party assisted K and followed the TOSE as written but it was obvious to them that I was railroading them to follow Kaurophon.

They returned to Redgorge from Occipitus in time to defuse tensions and stop the invasion. I described time as running slower on Occipitus so that the actual time away from Cauldron was very small.

Yes. The solar's on a 10' base but still smaller than the Foulspawn Hulk, also on a 10' base.

Yes Large. And it is comparatively larger than the Solar

What vendor did you use and how much did it cost?

I used a foulspawn hulk with black pipecleaners glued to his back for the demonic form and a standard solar for the angelic form

Ha! Mine did the same thing. I described the door into the chamber as only 7' tall. They stood in the doorway and shot it with acid splash cantrips until it disintegrated. I gave them extra xp

Hobgoblins have been pretty sparse to this point. And squad-sized sets of each hobgoblins/orcs/bugbears/gnolls would be pretty cool.

That's an interesting idea. Do you tie the Dwarves into the Splintershield Clan and legends of Zenith at all?

Delvesdeep...all the docs are still at the RPGenius (http://therpgenius.pbworks.com/w/page/22143327/FrontPage). Thanks for your contributions to the AP.

I did the same Mykull. Gnomes didn't seem to play much part in the storyline beyond Jzadirune, so I re-wrote Keygan as a dwarf related to the Splintershield clan and made the whole dungeon underneath his shop as part of the Malachite Fortress.

Yes. I modified the "Cauldron and Environs" map to reflect plantation locations. It's not very complicated but it helped me describe what the players saw as they took various trips outside the city. If you have an email address, I'll send it to you for use however you see fit.

I'm not familiar enough with Greyhawk to give recommendations for that setting. Generically you could have them as the routes to the various mines and plantations that are mentioned in the various installments but never specifically placed on the maps.

The wands were stolen by Triel and Tongue Eater for their monetary value; I don't beleive they had a specific intent to flood the city. Based on that assumption, I believe you'd have to come up with an opponent or dire condition to be overcome to make this a memorable event for the players; as Balacertar states: success is inevitable once the wands are secured.

Perhaps using the rising water provides an opportunity for the morkoth to begin attacking residents and flooded buildings along Ash Avenue. Merchants along Ash would need to evacuate merchandise, providing an opportunity for attacks by the Last Laugh or Alleybashers. Either of those would provide the party an opportunity to get involved in a heroic way.

No, I haven't seen it. Is it posted on RPGenius?

Yes. I used it almost verbatim. I converted my material to a Golarion-based campaign so I didn't have to worry about naming a layer of the Abyss; instead only naming the region where Adimarchus, the demon Occipitus, and the chunk of Celestia came to rest. Since Occipitus' skull would be a major landmark, it made sense to Adimarchus to name that area of the Abyss after his dead general.

Possibly some good background for your situation would be the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The citizens with the means and sufficient warning (ie nobles, religious caste members, powerful arcanists) would be able to flee in relative comfort while the average guy on the street would be found encapsulated in ash from the pyroclastic flows at the dockside (or convoy staging yard, etc).

After 3-4 days the party might return to a scene of anarchy as civil authority breaks down, food becomes scarce, and predators from the surrounding jungle begin to scavenge both live and dead citizens.

I think the players might find a hostile scene, particularly if the citizenry already know the PCs' failure put the populace in their predicament; conversely the PCs might be able to establish some sort of order and gain status if their failure is not widely known.

Assuming your Sasserine looks like the city depicted on Greywiki (15+k population, combination of oligarchy/democratic government), I think you can safely justify any solution you present to your players regarding Sasserine's response and outlook on refugees. If you want to present a humanitarian response, the various churches would probably be good catalysts.

Finally, please post how this plays out. I only run this one campaign and am always looking for ways to change it up from iteration to iteration. This is the first time I've read of a full blown eruption in the various posts. I'm interested in how you'll run this.

I used Delvesdeep's dream sequence which tied in nicely with ToTSE and provided the backstory to the whole AP. It's particularly useful if you plan to run your players through the Asylum installment.

I suspect the logistics of moving 5k refugees across hostile terrain would be a pretty formidable challenge. Perhaps the church of ST Cuthbert might push some divine help forward capable of creating food and water to assist.

Likewise, the governance of Sasserine or other settlements might push forces forward to provide physical security.

Brazzemal was the name of the red dragon in G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King. Not sure if there was ever a link between Gseries and AoW

Try this. If you can't access, inbox me at kendall.penn@gmail.com

http://therpgenius.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder&param=SCAP%20C h%200%20-%20General%20info

Delvesdeep published a document on the RPGenius website to make the number of Cagewrights and their interrelationships more manageable.

Farmer Brown Ale from Great River Brewery in Davenport, IA

I had considered incorporating them into Test of the Smoking Eye or Secrets of the Soul Pillars. Based on some of the negative reviews coming out of the Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path on mythic rules, I've decided to forego them for now.

Great stuff here. Thanks for posting!

For those of you interested Alientude has posted a great Pathfinder conversion of Adimarchus on these boards. Provides a good basis for making any changes you need to fit it into your campaign.

Some story threads I used for my 2nd and 3rd iterations of SCAP:

I re-wrote Drakthar's Way so that Polk D. Thar (Drak Thar) was a vampire spawn of Mahd (Lords of Oblivion), whom was smuggled into Cauldron in her coffin on a caravan the party was guarding. Made for interesting role play for the 1/2 Orc whom became a regular feeding stop for Drakthar.

Mahd was initially a guest of Thifirane. Thifirane regularly hosted a "fun day away" for the children of the orphanages in order to allow Mahd to feed. The children all started exhibiting symptoms of light sensitivity, nausea, soreness in joints, weakness, etc. All signs of a viral infection (or a vampire feeding on but not killing its victims)

I also used Paizo's Dawn of the Scarlet Sun module. Instead of Shax, I wrote the succubus as a follower of Adimarchus and developed a demonic unholy symbol which she carried in common with the members of the Cagewrights.

I've got an inquisitor who infiltrated the lower levels of the Last Laugh. I've actually written up the Last Laugh and Alleybashers as 2 competing organized crime families similar to the Godfather movies, with Ankhin Taskerhill as the head of the Last Laugh and Zachary Aslaxin I as head of the Alleybashers. Just like in the movie, neither family head will ever give direct orders to commit crimes. They do it through a series of underlings so that they can never be fingered short of high power divination spells. Inbox me for my simple wiring diagram for each family and associated businesses each family owns or interacts with.

Our inquisitor began by helping one of Fish Weijeron's (Caporegime of the Wererat Regime) low level button men (also an employee of Arlintal Shipping Company's Cauldron warehouses) steal some high dollar wine and sell it on the black market. The inquisitor did this enough that he gained a small amount of trust and was brought in for an interview for a full time job within the regime (most button men in my campaign are hired on a job-by-job basis). They blindfolded him, cast silence on him, darkness, etc and then drove around until he lost his bearings) and brought him to Fish for an interview. Fish was wearing a hat of disguise and looked like a halfling so that he couldn’t be recognized later. Of course while the inquisitor was there, the LL scanned him for alignment, detect thoughts etc and learned that he was good-aligned and wasn't wholly telling the truth about why he wanted to work for the organization. They opted not to make him a full time employee but offered him a part time job smuggling khat (a illegal mild narcotic) into the city. He gets 200 gp per month (per chapter for ease of accounting) for the work. We have since ceased role play on this thread and just let the story work on autopilot in the background of the campaign. Little does the inquisitor know that the Last Laugh now has pictures of him smuggling khat, stealing from Arlintal, etc and plan to publish a story in the newspaper if he or the party ever accuse the LL or related public figures of corruption etc That should be coming out in another week or two.

I also have an email string associated with this role play for anyone who is interested.

Absolutely. Kendall.penn@gmail.com

Celeste is a "hanging chad" as far as the storyline goes. I replaced her with Thifirane Rhiavadi disguised as a beautiful blonde instead which eliminates this particular hole.

The booklet only has those maps which you can download for free from the RPGenius site. If you can't find them, email me at kendall.penn@gmail.com and I'll forward you a copy of my files.

Hey everyone! I'm a DM of about three years experience playing through my first long-term published campaign, and I just wanted to share my experiences with you all. I'm playing Rise of the Runelords using the Anniversary Edition but with D&D 5e rules, which has so far been a blast. Here's the recap of the campaign so far, we're currently halfway through Hook Mountain Massacre:

- Ran through 'Burnt Offerings' with little in the way of changes, it was a big damn hit. One of my players wanted to start the game as a dragonborn fighter, so I ended up inserting the dragonborn as a race into the Cinderlands, co-existing somewhat alongside the Shoanti.

- Characters took to Ameiko in a big way. After all the trouble she goes through with Tsuto, the party went out of its way to make sure that she was doing alright, checking up on her during her sick rest, ex cetera. In return, I had Ameiko help fund their business ventures in Sandpoint, to the point that she is both their friend and business partner.

- I have made Madame Mvashti a more conspicuous character than in the main adventure series, offering help somewhere between a fortune teller and arcane expert. The party has also met her embarrassingly large amount of children, including Kova Mvashti... planning for the good Madame to remain enigmatic about her true powers until the very end.

- Shayliss Vinder has been removed from the game entirely due to my party not being particularly well-suited for that kind of interaction. Instead, Ven Vinder has been aged down and is now nervously hitting on the party's female halfling rogue whenever he gets the chance.

- After Tsuto was captured, I had Erin Habe show up in town to ask specifically to take Tsuto into his custody. The party didn't trust him initially, but eventually agreed - when shit went down at the Sanitarium later, our party's rogue was ready to throttle the beleaguered doctor.

- The party ended up capturing Nualia as well at the end of the whole adventure, sending her to Magnimar to rot in a jail cell. Of course, Justice Ironbriar wasn't willing to play ball.

- I took a different approach to 'Skinsaw Murders' and changed up the entire adventure, namely to make up for the fact that the party didn't react all that strongly to Aldern's character. Tsuto instead became the murderer, becoming Patient Zero in the spread of Vorel's plague, which Aldern helped to facilitate.

- I also decided to switch up many of the future villains in the APs, since I wanted to place the focus more on dragons and dragonborn than the lamia and giants Karzoug has serving him. This makes more sense to me because A) dragons seem more likely to fall victim to the Runelord of Greed and B) dragon fights are iconic to the game. Mokmurian and Lucretia have been changed into dragons for the future adventures, with the blue dragon villain of Shattered Star also making an appearance. Xanesha I removed and Ironbriar was changed from an elf cleric of Norgorber to a dragon-in-hiding serving Karzoug. This also helped me simplify the plot a bit when I thought the mystery was dragging out too long.

- Tsuto ended up killing Jubrayl Vhiski, and captured Ven in an attempt to torture the halfling rogue that had grown attached to him. When the rogue went to investigate Ven's home in the aftermath of the abduction, I had her discover an engagement ring hidden under Ven's pillow.

- In an attempt to defeat the undead Tsuto, the party ended up recruiting the necromancer Caizarlu who... well, was rotting in a jail cell and didn't have much chance to disagree. Caizarlu actually ended up assuming control of Tsuto as a servitor and helped the party defeat Ironbriar, but swiftly disappeared after. If we end up running Curse of the Crimson Throne, I plan to have Caizarlu show up and be in charge of creating the plague, protected by a rabid Tsuto ghoul.

- We're running Hook Mountain Massacre right now, so far it is going well. The party has taken control of Fort Rannick and received orders to raise it back up to full strength from the Lord-Mayor of Magnimar... I plan to switch the climax of the adventure from an invasion of the Kreeg Clanhold to a siege of the Fort by an army of ogres, orcs, goblins, and dragonborn.

- In the future, I'm thinking of playing around with time travel of some kind? Either using the Leng Device or the Cyphergate, the party will get a chance to experience what Thassilon was like under Karzoug's rule... should serve as a good set-up for a desperate battle to stop him from regaining his power.