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My personal thoughts on the tournament: Have Mivon host it first, sometime during Book 2. Then let it rotate through some of the more distant river kingdoms, like Daggermark, with the players maybe just sending representatives or something. (Great way to establish some notable NPCs in the players' kingdom!) Then, for Book 5, it's Pitax's turn to host the tournament, and with it being so close, the players have a good reason to attend again, but now everything gets dialed up to 11 from the first time. The players are more experienced and more likely to win, and maybe some of the competitors can be champions who defeated them back during Book 2 when they were far less capable and just trying to prove they belonged!

Nepotism could also play a big role, but allow it to swing both ways. There should be both advantages and disadvantages. Maybe Perlivash starts delegating work to other faeries so as to have less to get done, but those faeries now own those responsibilities for good or ill. Maybe some Pooka is now the only being who can decide where to place magical academies, and anyone else attempting to do so will curse the land they choose so that foundations crumble and nothing can be built.

Much as I like the Summoner and Witch, I feel that a revamped Investigator would be much more interesting, especially if they dropped the spellcasting mechanic to focus on solving problems and analyzing the weaknesses of monsters. With a bit of effort, this could even work to effectively add in other classes, since an Inquisitor could be represented by an Investigator multiclassed into Cleric.

This same issue was raised by my players sort of out of game, and I explained the lack of expansion as a preference for fighting a war with Pitax with all its opportunity for glory in battle as being preferential to carving out a section of wilderness. Plus the mayor doesn't want expanding houses to have free reign to grow beyond what he already has plans for.

This of course didn't stop Mivon IMC from annexing a bunch of hexes in the southern portion of the players land grant once they had cleared them. To complicate things even more, the mayor issued these as rewards to several different houses, which makes negotiating their return or physically annexing them back more difficult.

The PCs got distracted with other events in Brevoy up north, and lost about 6 cleared hexes to the south to a perfectly timed Mivon expansion when their armies were committed to the north. You have what you hold is the law of the land for the River Kingdoms :)

That's an excellent way to play things, and I think I would do the same thing in reverse if I were running a campaign based out of Mivon, with the Swordlords of Restov snatching up lands in the northern Greenbelt, then handing those lands over to refugees fleeing from the civil war. Or, alternatively, just tossing in a bunch of minor lords similar to Maegar Varn and Hannis Drelev. Let them opportunistically seize on the moment, and the players have all sorts of options available to them. They could recognize those fiefdoms as minor kingdoms and open diplomatic talks, they could demand or negotiate fealty, go to war, or come up with any number of plans that I could never hope to anticipate.

I should think that the threat of war with Brevoy is the main thing keeping Mivon from expanding north, since Brevoy claims that land even though they've done nothing in decades to actually enforce the claim. If not for the civil unrest in Brevoy, such a move would probably be treated as an act of war and you'd have armies marching down through the Greenbelt to lay siege to Mivon.

The lack of loyalty issue could actually be turned around into an opportunity. The houses of Mivon could simply offer to recognize the party as founders of a new major house, complete with the right to compete for a position in the Mivonese government. Whether the party accepts or declines, the nobility of Mivon win, either by being gravely insulted so they have just cause for war against these upstarts, or by making them a pseudo vassal state.

Regarding how Vordakai 'fits', the change I'm making on that front, aside from foreshadowing and stuff, is to have him worship Zon Kuthon instead of having a vague relationship with Abaddon. Your first reaction might be to wonder how that ties him more closely to the campaign, but remember that Nyrissa was in love with Count Ranalc, who like Nyrissa was banished from the First World, and vanished into the Plane of Shadow, which is home to Zon Kuthon.

Basically, the idea is that Count Ranalc fell prey in some way to Zon Kuthon, and Vordakai, as a powerful worshiper, was tasked with keeping an eye on Nyrissa, lest she recover Briar and come looking for her lost love. Except Vordakai has been slumbering and is much weaker than he once was, and is no longer quite a match for Nyrissa, so he needs to re-establish a kingdom of his own to even have a hope of keeping his ancient pledge.

My own plan for Candlemere was to make it into a ruined wizard's tower situated on top of an ancient cyclops library. The upper areas would be mostly deserted aside from perhaps a haunt or a 'trap' (weak floor that gives way under the weight of an adventurer, stuck door that causes a cave-in if forced, etc) and would be clearly built for the comfort of human occupants. The lower floors, however, would be a maze of corridors filled with ancient tablets containing works of writing from thousands of years ago... and would contain the tortured ghost of the wizard who was studying them, who would need help in finally passing along to face Pharasma's judgement.

This would serve to introduce the idea that there was once a cyclopean empire in the region, and provide research material once the characters encounter Vordakai and want to find out more about him.

Much like Canadian Bakka, I've gone the route of just collecting as many portraits as possible, from the entire range of PF products and beyond, and if there's no portrait available or I don't like the one provided, I just go looking through my stash and pick something that fits how I envision that character in my head.

The main problem with fanart is that the vast majority is going to be iconics, PCs, or recurring characters that show up all through the entire adventure path... especially ones that show up in the very first book. A lot of groups never make it more than halfway through an adventure path, or if they do, a lot of storylines get discarded as the GM either condenses things down or rewrites stuff to better fit the interests of the party.

Remember, there is absolutely nothing wrong with tossing out entire plot arcs if they go in directions the party isn't interested in. If your players want to get involved in the Brevic Civil War, then maybe make that the entire focus of books 5 and 6. Sure, it's more work for you, but it will be far more rewarding than railroading them through something that just simply isn't as interesting.

Been working on a massive overhaul of the Kingdom Building rules, and thought I might post my notes here in case anyone else might be interested in it. As soon as I've actually finished it, I'll post a link to a pdf or something in a thread of its own, but since I'm also massively overhauling the campaign itself, that might take me the rest of the year or longer.

Notes

• I am using a base 100 currency system, so 10,000 cp = 100 sp = 1 gp, so that the new silver piece replaces the gold piece from the standard currency system. Among other considerations, this allows the new gold piece to be the standard unit of taxation in my new system, since 100 people earning 10 cp/day for 30 days works out to 3 gp, one third of which is 1 gp.
  
• Also, I am using the automatic bonus progression and scaling item systems from Unchained, so magic items will be a little more important and assumed to stay around from book to book, as any magical item found it book 1 will still be useful and difficult to replace even in book 6.

Major changes

• 12-mile hexes replaced by 2-mile hexes, in a configuration which results in 36 ‘new’ hexes for every 1 ‘old’ hex. This allows more accurate mapping of current party location, since even forested mountain hexes can be traversed in a single day on foot, but also allows for more static locations, more localized terrain (such as the swamp that the Old Beldame lives in), and a faster-paced approach to the Pursuit rules from Ultimate Intrigue. It also makes exploration and travel the same thing, since physically traversing a hex allows it to be counted as ‘explored’, discovers any ‘automatic’ features, and allows discovery of ‘hidden’ features. The party can always ‘see’ adjacent hexes, including any major landmarks (ie, things you could see from 2 miles away, like a massive lone tree atop a hill or a tall tower), and can ‘see’ two hexes away across open terrain (plains, water, or if the distant terrain is at a higher elevation than the adjacent terrain, such as mountains on the other side of a hills hex).
  
• Each hex will have a population of 100 people when settled unless it contains a town or city, with towns consisting of a single 36-acre city district but being able to coexist with a regular hex improvement such as a farm, and cities consisting of up to 56 city districts. (2/6/8/8/8/8/8/6/2 hex configuration, allows adjacent city hexes to merge seamlessly and generally follow the overall shape of the underlying terrain)
  
• A new mechanic for Rank has been added, with a default of Knight (1) -> Baron/Baroness (2) -> Duke/Duchess (3) -> King/Queen (4). Rank is determined solely by vassals sworn to you, requiring a pyramid shape and that rank 4 nobles not be anyone’s vassal. (ie, if you have two knights as vassals, you are now a baron/baroness, otherwise you are the same rank as your highest ranked vassal) Rank affects what sort of events you will get each month, how many court positions need to be filled in order to not take penalties, and gives a bonus on various checks, as well as determining certain upkeep costs.
  
• Control DC is now equal to the total hexes under your control, plus the number of city districts, plus the number of direct vassals sworn to you, and to make the control check, you simply roll a 1d20 + your leadership score, with each member of the court (General, Magister, etc) able to make the same roll against a DC 15 to give a +2 bonus on the control check.
  
• Above two mechanics give an incentive to develop a feudal system of rule, whereby vassals are expected to pass a certain amount of income up to their liege, but are otherwise free to administer the lands granted to them as they see fit. This has two important effects: firstly, it allows each character to be a lord in their own right, such that the party might eventually consist of (for example) a queen, duchess, and two dukes, whilst still maintaining a single cohesive kingdom. Secondly, it allows the party to focus their attentions on whichever aspect of kingdom management they want, handing off responsibility for tasks they are not interested in to vassals who can simply be abstracted by the GM. (ie, Baron George provides X in taxes/tribute each month, and isn’t really an issue unless an event makes him an issue, so the GM doesn’t even have to figure out how exactly George is administering his lands, since the party only cares that he remains loyal to the crown, pays his taxes, and lets them know if orcs invade or something.)
  
• BP mechanic is now split into 3 separate values: BP, GP, and food. BP are generated by quarries and logging camps, and either give a discount on any buildings built that month, or can be saved up in a storehouse for use in future months. Food is now required to meet the Kingdom’s consumption, with specific costs and/or penalties for failing to generate enough food each month to keep everyone fed. GP is generated primarily by population, with more generated by some hex improvements and buildings, and is used to pay soldiers, to pay for the completion of ‘public’ buildings, to promote the construction of private buildings (ie, encouraging people to move to your kingdom by offering to pay x% of the cost of building a new inn for them to run) and to pay the living expenses of the ruler and members of the council.
  
• Several improvements require soldiers in order to get the benefit, with 1 gp paying for 10 soldiers per month (30 cp * 30 days = 9 sp, with a squad leader earning twice as much). This price assumes peacetime employment, and treats soldiers, town guards, and other such positions as effectively interchangeable.
  
• Rulers have monthly upkeep costs which increases their kingdom’s consumption by their current rank (ie, a duke ‘consumes’ 3 additional food each month), as well as a typical standard of living cost, which must also be paid towards their council. While party members are certainly free to refuse this stipend and pay out of pocket for their living expenses, NPC council members will expect an amount equal to twice the standard cost of living for a nobleman one rank below the ruler, unless the ruler is a knight, in which case they expect to be paid a stipend equal to the cost of living for a knight. Paying more than this amount will often foment unrest among the citizenry, whereas paying less will invite disloyalty from council members, who might slack in their duties or even turn traitor!
  
• Hex improvements like roads and aqueducts are now an improvement to a hex boundary. (ie, a road exists connecting hex A to hex B, rather than all of hex A having ‘roads’)
  
• The Farm improvement now generates a default of 2 food, similar to how it normally functions, thus providing 1 excess food after feeding its own hex, but this amount can be increased, allowing larger amounts of food to be generated in order to feed large cities, using a mechanic whereby a Farm that has access to fresh water (via river/lake/canal/aqueduct) and is connected by a road to a Mill in a town/city no more than 2 hexes away will produce 3 food per month.
  
• The Fishery improvement is now a town building rather than a hex improvement, and allows the collection of 1 food for every 2 ‘exclusive’ water hexes within 2 hexes of the hex the Fishery is located in. (exclusive meaning that no other Fishery is benefiting from that hex)
  
• Towns/cities are now more focused on providing services to the inhabitants, with private buildings chosen by the people attracted to the city via promotion edicts. (ie, when you first attract 100 people to your new settlement, they might choose to use the funds to build either an inn, or a general store, or something else, but the Ruler won’t typically have any say unless they take a penalty on their promotion edict, which typically means either spending more or accepting a risk of failing to attract settlers.) Instead of focusing on building shops and such, the focus is instead on attracting settlers and then keeping them happy by building Shrines and Temples dedicated to their preferred deities, Walls and Watchtowers to keep them safe from marauding armies, or Cisterns and Granaries to ensure the stability and health of the settlement. Some buildings, like an Academy or Bardic College, will instead unlock events for the kingdom and allow settlers to choose to construct buildings that give bonuses, such as Exotic Artisans and Theaters.
  
• Events are now focused heavily on party interaction. Even events that ‘simply happen’, like a natural disaster, still give suggestions for how they might be interacted with and resolved. (Perhaps the High Priest could deal with a flood event by researching a ritual that would appease Hanspur, whereas a General might mobilize the kingdom’s soldiers to erect sandbag barriers, and a Councilor might be more focused on how to prevent future floods by constructing dams and levees along the river.) Some events will be easily dealt with by a single member of the council, such as the Marshall conducting a pursuit (Ultimate Intrigue) to track a group of bandits back to their hideout so that the kingdom’s soldiers can prevent the event from becoming a recurring issue that plagues the kingdom for months on end. Other issues will require several members working together, or may even represent a small side adventure that the party needs to go deal with, such as a wyvern preying on livestock. All events will have at least two suggested methods of resolving the event, as well as likely results in case of success/failure. (Yes, the party could simply ride out and deal with undead spewing forth from an ancient tomb on their own and be virtually assured of success, but sending their troops to deal with the problem can have far more beneficial effects if they succeed, since that sort of choice will generate veteran troops and reassure the citizens of the kingdom that the troops can handle problems when the party is all off adventuring in the mountains.)

Working on a variation of Kingmaker that starts in Mivon instead of Restov, and I'm actually planning to use the Sootscales as a replacement for Hargulka and the monster kingdom. Instead of there being just one tribe, there will be several, ruled over by the Sootscales, with the mites having recently been defeated and made into a slave undercaste. I really wanted to play around with the four extremes of alignment, and kobolds seemed a great way to introduce lawful evil's approach to taming the Stolen Lands, and their low CR means that I can either add lots of minions or plenty of class levels to make each encounter unique and challenging, rather than being constrained by the limitations of encounters with trolls that won't wipe a group of level 4-6 characters. It also seems a great way to introduce mass combat, since kobolds just simply aren't going to be as formidable on the battlefield as trolls when present in numbers large enough that the party won't try to kill them all on their own.

(I am still leaving open the possibility of a diplomatic solution, but I wanted to make it clear that the kobolds are evil, and dealing with them is likely to have consequences.)

All the discussion about Mivon got me thinking... wouldn't it be particularly interesting to start a Kingmaker campaign that originated in Mivon rather than in Restov? The Stolen Lands aren't considered 'stolen' at all by the nobles of the River Kingdoms, and Mivon would likely see the territory as rightfully theirs, and the brewing civil war in Brevoy could be just the sort of distraction needed for them to finally press that claim and settle the lands before anyone could stop them.

Alternatively, the GttRK suggests that the Mivonese nobility are already building keeps to guard against Pitax, and the players' kingdom could start out as a small grant of land at the northern edge of Mivon and funds to raise a keep to guard the area against further bandit/monster incursions. This would then allow the party to decide how to deal with the desire to expand further: to just ignore Brevoy's claims, to offer support to Restov in exchange for relinquishing any claim to the land, or perhaps even allying with Regent Surtova. (And hey, they're PCs, I'm sure they could come up with options I'd never even think of.)

Regardless, since none of the Houses of Mivon formally swear fealty to anyone, independence wouldn't be an issue, and mostly you would just need to swap encounters from book 2 down to book 1, re-balance the CR of encounters, and/or encourage players to avoid the Narlmarches initially and stick to the hills of the Kamelands.

I'm going to arbitrarily set the deadline at noon PDT tomorrow (Friday). That way, we can get started on Saturday.

Also, here's the map we'll be using initially: Map I drew up in spare time while working.

I am considering starting up a new Pathfinder Campaign set in Varisia and loosely based on the Rise of the Runelords: Anniversary Edition AP, but run more in the style of Kingmaker. Instead of starting out in Sandpoint in 4707, the campaign would start in Magnimar in 4666, and the party would be adventurers chartered with exploring the Lost Coast, killing the goblins there, and selecting a site for a new colony, in exchange for minor titles as new Magnimarian nobles, so as to run the new town.

Ideally I would like to progress at a rate of at least 10 posts/player/week, so somewhere in between one and two posts every day, though I can certainly post more frequently as my schedule allows. If it looks like there is significant interest for joining this campaign, I will go ahead and post character creation rules, expectations, etc.

(Note: Even if you're already familiar with RotR, I feel I've made enough changes that there should quite a few surprises, especially once the party progresses past the first chapter.)