Inneliese's page

House Rogarvia controlled the lands closest to the free city of Restov, home of the Swordlords. Given that the Swordlords appear to be mostly (if not entirely) landed nobility, it's likely that they collectively control most of the lands held by House Rogarvia as minor barons and such, maintaining both a townhouse in Restov and a small manor central central to their land holdings.

Honestly though, I don't know why Kingmaker gave no attention at all to the feudal system, especially since one hex at the Kingmaker scale is about equal to the land historically controlled by an average English baron.

Personally, my preference would be custom traits that all tie in well with kingdom-building, suggest a role you would be exceptionally good at, etc... but if using the default traits, I personally would let anyone with at least one human parent take the trait. So also aasimars, tieflings, ifrits, etc. The idea of the trait is that you're the illegitimate child of a noble of Brevoy, so, while all the nobles of Brevoy are human, that still only accounts for half of a character's parentage.

It would never even have occurred to me to just split hexes apart like that, and was instead working on a design where each mini-hex clearly mapped to a specific mega-hex. As for my thoughts on acreage and such, that was actually part of my plan for getting players to choose feudalism. It's really simple for me to plug a bunch of numbers into a spreadsheet and manage dozens of little baronies, which in turn minimizes how much of the kingdom the players have to worry about, while creating lots of NPCs they might interact with, and a great way to reward NPCs they like.

There's a couple of ways to subdivide Kingmaker's 12-mile hexes into smaller 1-mile hexes. The problem I have found, however, is that the hexes end up slightly crooked if you try to create a regular hexagon.

A regular hexagon comprised of 7 layers (13 hexagons from point to point, with each edge having 7 hexagons, and containing 127 hexagons total) will actually do the job really well, since if each hexagon is exactly 1 square mile in area, then the distance from the center of one 'mega-hex' to the center of another will be ~12.12 miles. That's almost perfect, but the mega-hex will never be in the same alignment as the new mini-hexes, so that is one thing to keep in mind, but also, because each edge has the same number of hexes, in order to fit each mega-hex together, you will have to offset them slightly, resulting in them being slightly crooked (See picture linked below.)

On the other hand, if you don't want pretty, regular hexagons, there's a simple irregular pattern which, though not as good of a fit, clocking in at either 11.18 miles from center to center for a 108 hex configuration, or 13.04 miles for a larger 147-hex configuration. The benefit yielded, however, is that these irregular hexagons line up perfectly, rather than being offset. (See picture below.)

External Link to Image Example

Personally, I'm not sure which of these is inherently 'superior', or if that's even something to assess them for, since breaking the larger hexes into smaller ones can free you from having to stick to the traditional hexes. Therefore, I feel that if you're going to go for a system like this, you should also institute feudalism as a system. There is an awful lot of math and micromanagement involved in the kingdom building rules, so why not let players parcel out large portions of land to barons, viscounts, earls, etc, and let them manage the land on the players' behalf, in exchange for taxes and a pledge of troops in time of war? A single hex at this scale is large enough for an entire city block, ie, a town, so you can also represent settlements... but then you also get into other interesting stuff, like maybe each farm at this scale feeds a city block worth of people (1 square mile = 640 acres, and it historically took about 2 acres of wheat to feed one adult, so assuming a bit of wasted land and such, this actually computes pretty well.) and that it takes one House to support say... 4 farms/mines/quarries/etc. But... I'm now way off topic from discussing breaking up hexes into smaller units.

Hoping this remains alive, and tagging again to remind myself to check it more often.

I am thinking that Nemiril would likely consider it a matter of pride to make the swim unassisted, even though she really ought to accept aid if she's dragging her equipment along in oilskin bags. That said, however, any spell that helps us get in probably won't be reliable for getting back out, so probably a good idea to have at least someone who can make the swim unassisted.

Crap! I could have sworn I posted... say something in AIM next time!

*pokes head into thread*

The vast amount of downtime in Kingmaker basically assumes that the players will be able to craft any given magical item they want, boosting their WBL significantly. Similarly, there's always time to craft a suit of adamantine full plate or mithral chain, so those can theoretically be acquired at a much lower price too. The tricky part is balance, because if the wealth handed out is enough for a group with no crafters, then a group with all crafters will gain for more wealth than they ought to have and they'll be able to deck themselves out in equipment that makes combat trivial, especially towards the end of the game. What's the fun in finding an artifact that's less powerful than the items you've already crafted for yourself?

Forgive me, but every time I read 'Zool', I imagine you meant 'Zuul' (the Destroyer) and it makes everything infinitely funnier.

Personally, I would love some help mapping out a large area around the Stolen Lands, and absolutely love the work you've done already. Since I'm developing my own mapping tool and graphics, my interest would be in someone mapping 'wide' rather than 'deep', but that's for selfish reasons, and I'd still be using my own map, but with using yours as a guide for where to put everything.

On another note entirely, would it make sense for farms to have a different appearance depending on terrain type? (ie, farms in plains hexes would be represented by fields and barns, but farms in hill hexes would be represented by fenced pastures with sheep/cows.) I've got tiles for forests, swamps, mountains, rivers, lakes, roads, bridges, cities, mines, quarries, ruined towers... and I'm mostly done with icons for forts, lumbermills and watchtowers, I'm just not satisfied with what I have. I -think- all that's left for this particular scale now is aqueducts, farms, fisheries, highways (paved version of the road with a stone bridge icon), and hills. Unfortunately, isometric hills are REALLY hard to draw nicely, and I'm not entirely sure how to draw a fishery that will look right for my rivers. If I can figure out those and get farms done though, I should be basically ready to go, since aqueducts and highways are fairly low priority.

So... I've been focusing mostly on Candlemere, Vordakai, and Irovetti the past couple of weeks, but I returned my attention to Hargulka today and had a thought. What if I rebuild Hargulka as a Skald?

Certainly the oral traditions implied by a skald would fit for trolls, and a charismatic troll who could inspire fellow trolls into a rage would make for a pretty effective warlord... but also one who could be quite eloquent and convincing when needed. Hargulka could therefore engage in actual diplomacy with factions like the kobolds and lizardfolk, rather than relying on the intimidation factor of being, well, a troll.

I've also been considering updating various other characters to APG/ACG classes, such as Auchs as a brawler or Malgorzata as a witch.

There are SO many things here I wish I had thought of... but the cool thing is, the people who did think of them posted the details so others can use those ideas and even build upon them! I'm sure we'd all love to be awesomely imaginative and come up with awesome stories all on our own, but stories get better when we build upon already existing stories. So always share your ideas, because it means others can use them and come up with better ideas... just like you got better ideas simply by reading through the AP!

For my own personal reasons, I've been considering swapping Vordakai and The Wriggling Man, so that Vordakai is now a cyclopean worm that walks and Nyrissa now has an 'ally' who is a Kuthite lich. (Worships Zon Kuthon, still experiences pain as a lich by intentional exposure to positive energy and the like. Is working for Zon Kuthon in attempting to bend Nyrissa towards his master... who is interested in the faerie queen because of her ties to Count Ranalc, who Zon Kuthon had been personally trying to corrupt until Nex threw a monkey wrench into his plans. Also, he'd be all too happy (if a lich could be said to be happy) to turn Ilthuliak into a ravener.)

The reason behind all of this is because I wanted to tie Vordakai in with Candlemere Tower (Which is now a wizard's tower built centuries ago by a mage who discovered an artifact built by Vordakai, thus foreshadowing Vordakai in RRR.) and because I like the idea that the ancient centaurs sealed him away by separating his component worms into a dozen or more sealed canopic jars, rather than with some seal that a powerful lich couldn't figure out how to break after centuries of focused research.

How he ties in with Nyrissa is through the artifact underneath Candlemere Tower. A massive mirror over fourteen feet tall, it can be turned into a portal to other worlds, and Vordakai had been using it to make a survey of the other planets in Golarion's system. Nyrissa, however, could attune the portal to point not just to other worlds but other planes of existence, for multiple purposes, such as transforming it into a faerie gate to easily pass from her realm to the material plane and back... or to go in search of Count Ranalc... or to bypass being banned from the First World by the Eldest. Vordakai has no reason to help her, but defeating him will give the players the only object with which one can easily control the gate: the Eye of Abaddon.

As for the centaurs... Vordakai has every reason to foment war between his foes to keep them weak, and all it would take to frame the centaurs is numerous fake centaur tracks all through the town. The players might not buy it, or might at least attempt a diplomatic solution despite all the evidence, but Restov would be howling for centaur blood if they learned what had 'happened'.

A Scroll of Sending costs 1125 gp, so keep that in mind as an option if you feel NPCs living in the capital would regard a given event as serious enough to warrant such an expenditure to get the PCs to return. If not... just give Malgorzata more levels/cultists and run her as a higher CR event in between RRR and VV?

I definitely want to make the encounter with Ilthuliak to be quite epic, but I would also like to give her a bigger role in the campaign. I'm definitely adding a child of hers to the Hooktongue Slough (running a 6-player campaign, so I have extra xp to work with), possibly even living in his mother's former lair. I've also considered changing her morale away from fighting to the death, so she could return for a later re-match... or even to change the last bloom and have Ilthuliak come through along with the army of fey... and then retreat back to the First World if engaged by the party. (She does have teleport, after all.)

I really do wish I had the time and energy to run enough campaigns for everyone who wants to play. Much as it often feels like I'm always the GM when playing with friends, a large part of that is because I really enjoy GMing, getting to tell a story and then see how random elements (the players) throw a monkey wrench in everything and give me whacky hijinks to bounce new story off of!

Okay, I gave some consideration to just running two groups, but I think I should get a fair bit more experience with running PbPs here at Paizo before taking on a second campaign as GM. Hopefully at worst we don't lose more than two players, and ideally I should hope not to lose any, as everyone selected looks really interesting and I am very much looking forward to running this campaign.

Selected:

Arnulf Juniper the Hunter - Arie IJzer
Ary Bishop the Ranger - Hotaru of the Society
Geligee Geerwander the Wizard - Patrick McDade
Kira Holt the Bard - Pathfinder Zoey
Paza the Druid - Aebliss
Pyotr Orlovsky the Paladin - P33J

Discussion thread will be going up momentarily, and I'll post the recruitment thread when I get home tonight. (Approximately 12 hours from now, due to travel time and such.)

I have the list whittled down to 9 people now, and I'm pretty certain that I'm going to end up selecting 6 altogether, and just need to make the painful decisions on which three characters not to accept. It was really hard just narrowing things down that much, and I've already rejected characters who, in my opinion, were stronger submissions than I have seen accepted into other campaigns.

At any rate, I'm going to sleep on it, and post the final selections in the morning when I'm well-rested and hopefully feeling ruthless enough to get the list down to 6.

(No, I'm not going to say which 9, that would be cruel to the three I don't have room for and will have to not accept.)

I'm about halfway through reviewing all the submissions. So many people and such rich backgrounds! I keep getting ideas for how various characters could fit into the customized background I have set up. I'm heading out to do some late night work for a few hours, but should finish the selection process before noon tomorrow.

Still a couple hours left, and I'll probably be out at lunch when submissions officially close, so no sneaking one in at 12:05 or something. I'm definitely looking forward to looking through all of these, because they're looking quite incredible.

Märche Novak - And also Inner Sea Gods. I can't think of anything relevant from Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition, but that would be a valid source too.

Altain Kerranheart - 29 hours left right now.

Thank you for the list, Lucius, though there is actually one other important attribute worth sorting by: campaign trait! No worries though. When noon on Friday comes around, I'll be compiling everyone into an Excel spreadsheet, so I can rate everyone more effectively. (7 for background, 9 for roleplay, etc)

Samy - as long as the additional traits selected are from an approved source, and from different lists as required by the feat. (ie, no taking two campaign traits, or two religion traits. And as a quick reminder, if taking a religion trait, you only gain the benefit while a member of that faith.)

Mokshai - You can flavour an item as self-created, but I won't let people use item creation to gain additional wealth before the start of the game. After the start of the game, expect plenty of downtime periods, sometimes a year at a time.

Eserelda - The same has happened to me before also, so I now compose everything in Word before posting here, including this post.

P33J - As long as you make it quite clear in your final character submission which character I should ignore. (And yes, I'll be checking it's an alias of the same account.)

If I missed anything needing a response, my apologies, it's been a little hectic at work today and yesterday.

Mokshai - There's still most of three days left in initial recruitment, and nobody is locked in. Submit whatever character you would most enjoy playing as. I'm not going to turn an excellent application down just because it would mean the group having two (or even three) healers. That's why I gave myself the leeway of taking 4-6 characters. I want to make sure the group is somewhat balanced, but at the end of the day, I'd rather take 6 excellent characters of the same class than one excellent character and three good-to-mediocre ones of different classes.

I plan on doing something like this (in tree form, and probably via Wiki) for my own Kingmaker campaign. Some factions I plan to include (and which might be useful to you) include:

City-states in Iobaria - Once the PCs' kingdom expands into the Hills of Nomen during Part 3, overland trade routes with Kridorn and Mirnbay might be a viable option. After all, these are both port cities on the Castrovin Sea, which gives access to the Kelesh Empire.

Minor Houses in Brevoy - I view the great houses of Brevoy as Duchies, and they would therefore have any number of barons and other minor lords serving under them. Similarly, I would break up the Swordlords faction into various families. I don't view them as all being of the same mind, and am sure they quibble and quarrel over all sorts of things.

Numeria - I'm sure the Technic League would be most displeased to learn that their old 'friend' Mandalarucio is still alive and well and going by the name of Castruccio Irovetti. They might even be displeased enough to ally with the PCs' kingdom in order to bring about his downfall as delayed vengeance.

I'm not so sure I really need to worry about kingdoms much further away than that, such as Mendev, Galt, etc... but I definitely intend to occasionally have their advisers bring up current events they've heard about, such as the start of the Fifth Mendevian Crusade in 4713. (The AP canonically starts in 4710, so that would likely be sometime around book 3 or 4 of the AP, depending on pace.) Knowing what's going on in the world at large also gives an opportunity to get more specific with events. Maybe that Diplomatic Overture event is actually because Mendev wants to recruit crusaders from the new kingdom and wants to establish diplomatic ties first...

pinvendor - That's actually something I feel the AP dropped the ball on, since the first book actually played up Brevic politics quite a bit as well. But that's just fine, because the last book has a great section on what to do after the BBEG, and two of the options tie back into the events in Brevoy. Since each GM has plenty of room to customize the AP according to their own tastes, I certainly want to keep Brevoy having an active role in things.

Seth86 - 9/12, but still missing some vital submission components.

Paza - It also helps if you know how things went down when the Targaryens were deposed, which the TV show doesn't go as much in detail with as the books do. House Surtova might superficially look more like the Lannisters, with a brother-sister pair holding the throne and accused by many of preferring each other's company over that of suitors... but House Garess controls all the most valuable mines in Brevoy, making them quite wealthy, and they tend to wait until they're sure who's going to win before throwing in with that side... much like the Lannisters waited until it was clear the Starks and Baratheons would prevail over the Targaryens before marching on King's Landing.

Similarly, the Surtovas are a large family, and have to continue holding their ancestral lands, the capital at New Stetven, and a token effort needs to be made at stewardship over the lands once held by House Rogarvia, though the Swordlords of Restov are also attempting to do that.

And you're probably right that getting involved with any of them isn't going to be a good thing... but by the same token, not getting involved could be even worse. Accepting the Swordlords' charter means you're already all knee-deep in the Brevic political scene whether you want to be or not, and if you form a new kingdom, well... what's your Grand Diplomat going to do if you refuse to have diplomatic ties to the nearest other kingdom? For better or worse, you're stuck with these people, unless you decide to become murder-hobos and kill them all.

Oh, and it occurs to me that I could probably point out a chart comparing various groups in Brevoy to counterparts from A Game of Thrones/A Song of Fire and Ice:

House Garess - The Lannisters.

House Lebeda - The Tyrells.

House Lodovka - The Greyjoys.

House Medvyed - The Starks.

House Orlovsky - The Arryns.

House Rogarvia (missing) - The Targaryens.

House Surtova - The Baratheons.

The Swordlords of Restov are rather interesting, since the Great House they most resemble is the Martells, but they're really more equivalent to Bravos, with the Aldori duelling style equating to the Water Dance. Note that Restov does not have a secret society of shapechanging assassins, and that anyone who claims otherwise is likely to disappear under mysterious circumstances. Also, no Iron Bank, as Restov is too geographically isolated from the rest of Avistan to serve such a purpose.

I like this general idea, but was considering going a slightly different route. My thought was that Irovetti's knowledge would come from a not-iPad. Basically, a magitech artifact which was essentially a children's science/engineering primer. Irovetti figures out how to activate the otherwise worthless-seeming object, uses magic to translate what is written, and realizes that it's more or less priceless... but that he doesn't actually have the funds to take advantage of all the knowledge contained in the primer. Information about chemistry (including how to make gunpowder), information on constructing toy soldiers (which he scales up into large clockwork soldiers), even information on constructing miniature airships. The few trinkets he's able to piece together entirely on his own give him an advantage in taking over Pitax, but even with the resources of an entire River Kingdom at his disposal, it's ruinously expensive to build an army of clockworks, let alone any of the other stuff he's learned about, and he remains loathe to share with others. Pitax, therefore, has entire guilds working to construct components of the clockworks, with each guild knowing how to construct only some of the pieces, and jealously guarding what they know, lest a competing guild undercut them on selling those components to Irovetti.

Crellan - My apologies, but no. I've decided it's not in my best interest to start allowing archetypes from books I don't own. (And which my FLGS doesn't even have in stock.) I agree that it's a very flavourful archetype for this AP, but as I told another player privately, I've seen recruitment threads devolve into goblin kensai submissions once exceptions were made.

And... just perusing some of the entries so far, I'm going to have my work cut out for me it seems.

I'd like to think that's a good thing for everyone. Ideally, even people who don't get selected can improve their characters for the next campaign they submit to.

Ralph Flannigan - The Swordlords are pretty much exactly what it says on the box. They're minor lords who are masters of the Aldori duelling school of swordsmanship.

For a slight history lesson:

The Aldori school of swordfighting dates back to Baron Sirian Aldori, who was famously defeated in a duel against a bandit lord, vanished for several years, and then returned to defeat the same bandit lord handily in a rematch. He then issued a wager of a hundred thousand gold measures to anyone who could defeat him in a duel. Many flocked to Rostland to attempt the challenge, and Restov owes much of its wealth and history to the descendants of those failed challengers, who then apprenticed under Baron Aldori.

Today, the Swordlords continue their heritage of duelling and try to mimic the sophistication of faraway Taldor, preferring to think of themselves as the most civilized part of Brevoy.

So, minor lords who don't care for their liege and think of themselves as more sophisticated than they really are. They're hiring adventurers to explore the Stolen Lands, which they feel rightly belong to them, not to the crown, because they still feel they ought to rule all of Rostland.

Lothar von Juningar - I was confused by this at first, since the trait is in the Player's Guide and the Aldori Dueling Mastery feat is in the hardback Inner Sea World Guide, until I realized you meant an archetype from the Inner Sea Primer... which I don't own. Personally, I think I would tend to build a Swordlord as a Swashbuckler now that the Advanced Class Guide is available, since it seems a perfect fit for a duelling style based on Weapon Finesse.

mathpro18 - Well, taking a look at my hand-dandy Ultimate Campaign book under Moral Conflicts, I can see that a person can be guilty of murder but still be Chaotic Good, so you're fine on that front... but the important question is the rest of Who/Where/When/Why/What/How. What is murder and When is presumably recent, but Who was murdered, Where did it take place, Why did he do it, and How does he feel about the whole situation? If he murdered a minor lordling related to the Surtovas, the Swordlords might actually approve of this and be acting to help him hide out in the Stolen Lands for a while until everything blows over by granting him a charter. Or maybe they don't even know about the murder because it took place up in Port Ice or somewhere similarly distant within Brevoy. Playing a character guilty of murder isn't a problem... playing a character with a weak or inconsistent background is.

Okay, so...

Paza - Yes, that was a wonderful RP sample.

pinvendor - Yeah, none of the softcovers. It's hard enough just keeping track of all the various rules in the core supplements, and I only own a few of the softcovers aside from the Adventure Path books.

Ary - It was actually a sneaky reading comprehension test. Anyone who actually reads all the stipulations and follows them is far more likely to get picked!

It is certainly possible, using the Ultimate Campaign rules, to build a kingdom that adds a new hex every month from the first month until you run out of hexes to claim... but that assumes two things: that you allow farms to share hexes with mines/quarries as per the asterisk, and that you don't get any really bad random events.

For example (assumes that kingdom leaders have an average of +3 bonus in their prime stat):

Month 1 - Claim the hex with the Stag Lord's Fort, build a Farm and Quarry, prepare a site for settlement. (cost: 13 BP, taxes ~9 BP, treasury 46 BP)

Month 2 - Claim the river hex to the northeast, build a Farm and Quarry, begin settlement and build a Castle at reduced price. (cost: 38 BP, taxes ~12 BP, treasury 20 BP)

Month 3 - Claim the hex containing the Sootscale Caverns, build a Farm and Mine, build a Mill in the settlement. (cost: 17 BP, taxes ~15 BP, treasury 18 BP)

Month 4 - Claim the hex containing the Rickety Bridge, build a Farm and Quarry, build a Library in the Settlement. (cost: 17 BP, taxes ~17 BP, treasury 18 BP)

(Notice that, at this point, the kingdom is now breaking even on spending vs taxes when they roll average for their economy check, and have no Consumption.)

Lothar von Juningar - I'm expecting a paragraph of description, two paragraphs of background, and a roleplay sample that represents 1-3 average RP posts. You're certainly allowed to submit more than that, but if it gets to be more than a page, you might want to include a summary.

As for non-Paizo art, of course. Having artwork is always a benefit for giving other players a strong mental image, and there's no reason it should be limited to just Paizo art, since that would mean nobody could draw their own character if artistically inclined!

Quellina Esstanov - There most certainly will be plenty of downtime in this campaign. I expect about a year's worth of downtime in between books one and two of the AP, and after book one, everything is pretty much at whatever pace the party decides. So yes, plenty of time for crafting (magical and mundane), professions, and even buildings/organizations from Ultimate Campaign. After all, it only takes one week each month to attend to all your duties as a kingdom leader.

DM Quoth - I mean ninja and samurai. Unlike those two classes, monks have spread through Avistan alongside faith in Irori.

Aldarion the Sage - I'm looking for at least once per day. The more often everyone can post, however, the more momentum we can build to hopefully keep this campaign going long term and perhaps even finish it some day. (At one post per player per day, it could take a few years to finish.)

How did they grow so fast? The largest a kingdom ought to be after 13 months is only 16 hexes, assuming that for the first ten months you claim the maximum of one hex each month, and then the last three months claim a maximum of two hexes each month.

I am looking for 4-6 players for the Kingmaker Adventure Path. I have several years of experience playing on Roll20 and IRC, as well as free-form RP on various other PbP forums, and the slower pace of PbP is far more in keeping with my schedule these days. Usually I can post several times per day, but I rarely have the several consecutive hours needed for a proper session, either around a table or via a virtual tabletop.

This campaign will have a few modifications to it, but those will mostly be in the later portions of the adventure path, and I want to focus on just making it to the end of the first book without losing anybody. Without further ado:

On the night of the winter solstice just over ten years ago, the entire royal family of Brevoy mysteriously vanished. With not a single member of House Rogarvia to be found anywhere, House Surtova has seized the Dragonscale Throne and placed its scion, Noleski Surtova, on the throne as Regent of Brevoy. Not all of Brevoy look kindly on the Surtovas, as House Rogarvia forged Brevoy from the warring nations of Issia and Rostland some two hundred years ago, and many Rostlanders resent rule by the Issian Surtovas.

You have received one of the charters being distributed by the Swordlords to intrepid adventurers, and have journeyed to the old border fort described in the charter. Abandoned many decades ago, the fort is presently the home of an entrepreneurial couple who have converted it into a trading post, trading supplies from Restov for furs and other goods the local hunters acquire from the wilderness to the south.

Character Creation

Permitted Sourcebooks: Paizo hardbacks and the Kingmaker Player's Guide only. Right now, that's everything in the PRD plus Inner Sea Gods and the Advanced Class Guide.

Ability Scores: 20 point buy, no stat lower than 8 before racial adjustments.

Race: All core races are permitted. You may use alternate racial traits described in the Advanced Race Guide, but no Featured/Uncommon races.

Class: All non-Eastern classes allowed, maximum of one archetype.

Hit Points: Max for first level, half your hit die plus one for each level after first. (For a Fighter with 10 Constitution, this would be 10 hp at level 1, and 6 additional hp each level.)

Equipment: All characters start the game with 150gp to purchase starting equipment.

Alignment: No evil characters.

Traits: Please select two traits, one of which must be a campaign trait from the Kingmaker Player's Guide. No drawbacks for a third trait.

Description: Keep this in third person perspective and try to avoid using relative terms. Remember, to a kobold, the standards of beauty are vastly different, and your character, however comely in the estimation of most humans, may appear quite ugly and undesirable.

Background: Key points this should cover include, but are not limited to the following.

• How did the character become trained in their current class/profession?
• Why did the character choose to become an adventurer?
• What brought the character to Restov?
• Why did the character accept the Swordlords' charter?

Desired Kingdom Role: Somewhat of a long-term thing, since it could take a couple months or more to get through the first book, but what is your first and second choice for your character's position in the kingdom the party will eventually create?

Roleplay Example: Please include a brief example of roleplaying, based upon your character receiving his/her charter from Lord-Mayor Ioseph Sellemius or one of the Swordlords of Restov, such as Lady Jamandi Aldori.

Edit: I'll keep recruitment open until Friday at noon PDT and make my decision on who to include at that point.

Ah well... I'm thinking maybe instead of continually trying to get into a campaign, I should just start up one of my own.

Yes, I was certainly planning to use Eranex, though probably toned down a bit. The PCs could in theory be poking around Lake Silverstep as early as level 7, though more likely around level 8-10, which also means that an ankou with no class levels at all will be quite the challenge. The idea so far is to have Eranex approach the PCs for help against the ankou guarding her father's old lair. She would explain a little bit about Nyrissa, referring to an evil fey cast out by the Eldest who most likely wishes to use the artifact stored in her father's lair to unleash a 'former Eldest' who was banished for his crimes.

This would insert Nyrissa into Book 3, where she's currently missing, provide some background on her (and a name!) that the PCs would be missing up until that point, introduce one of the three dragons, and allow Eranex to soak up the most deadly ability the ankou has (prismatic spray). With Eranex sent to some other plane by the ankou's prismatic spray, the PCs would have to guard the artifact themselves until she could return for it.

This would all tie into Nyrissa's secondary motivations, which the AP really doesn't seem to touch on at all. She wants to bottle the Stolen Lands as a bribe for the Eldest, recover Briar so that it cannot be used to slay her... and also to find Count Ranalc. She no longer loves him, as her love was town away and used to create Briar, but she wants to become an Eldest, and he was the one granting her the power to do so. Also, I rather like to imagine that Zon-Kuthon is also interested in Count Ranalc, and that just introduces a great excuse to add a few kytons as foes.

I do rather like your idea for various kobold tribes, though I'm not sure on the specifics of how I would incorporate them. I do know, however, that I want to replace the forest drake with something more challenging than APL +0/-1. (The PCs should be at least level 5 before reaching that hex, if not level 6.) A young green dragon would be a CR 8, but wouldn't really be old enough to claim the title of King of the Forest yet, unless that instead referred to something else... like perhaps a treant slain by the young dragon.

I've been giving a fair amount of thought as to how to do a better job of tying together all the disparate plot points in this campaign, and perhaps even weave in some of the related content that has since been added in supplementary books when something occurred to me. There are/were three wyrms in the region of Brevoy/The Stolen Lands.

1. Ilthuliak is only a wyrm, and likely the youngest of the three, which explains why she partners with Nyrissa.

2. Choral the Conqueror is an advanced great wyrm, and possibly both the eldest and most powerful of the three.

3. Silverstep is likely a great wyrm as well, going by how old he seems to be, but I suspect he's not as old and powerful as Choral.

Black, red, and silver, each lairing on the borders of Brevoy. Ilthuliak in the swamps to the southwest, Choral in the mountains to the east, and Silverstep to the south. Rostland, and more specifically Restov, would likely have been directly in the middle of a triangle drawn between their three lairs.

Given all of this, here's my thinking:

All three wyrms have laired in the region for countless centuries, and likely fought regularly. Ilthuliak, as a black, would have been just as vicious towards Choral as towards Silverstep, so there would have been no alliance between her and Choral against Silverstep. Choral, despite being a powerful red dragon and the eldest of the three, was unable to overcome both Silverstep and Silverstep's unknown fey mother, and Ilthuliak likely would have avoided direct confrontations. Therefore, Choral hatched a plot to assert dominance by conquering the entire nation of Rostland.

With a powerful red dragon threatening to conquer a nearby nation, Silverstep would have been forced to act, and may even have given aid to the Swordlords, only to suffer such a defeat that he retreated not to his lair but rather to the home of his lover in the First World. That Silverstep has remained among the fey ever since Choral conquered Rostland speaks to how soundly he was defeated, and Ilthuliak would therefore have been cowed into submission, no longer challenging Choral's supremacy... directly.

Thus enters Nyrissa. Ilthuliak would have seen Choral as all but unassailable when Nyrissa approached her, and the power Nyrissa offered would have been near irresistible. However, rather than just the promise of Nyrissa bestowing the powers of the primal linnorms on Ilthuliak after ascending as a proper Eldest, I rather like the idea that Ilthuliak plotted the downfall of Choral and his line of dragonblooded descendants by persuading Nyrissa to test her plan for bottling the Stolen Lands on the royal line of Brevoy first.

Nyrissa, being unaware that Brevoy's first king was a great wyrm who now slumbered in the royal treasury while the descendants of the children he bore to an Issian princess ruled the kingdom as his heirs, was far more drained by the effort of capturing him and his family than she expected. She has therefore taken her time recuperating, and it's not until eleven years later that she begins feeling ready to bottle the Stolen Lands, slaying a unicorn in the Narlmarches and sending Ilthuliak to defeat one of Silverstep's young progeny in the Tors of Levenies. (The unicorn horn and a silver dragon's claw being two of the focus items she collected.)

This brings us to the modern day.

My idea is to go ahead with the idea of making Choral as the BBEG after Nyrissa, and for the players to attack Nyrissa with the dual intentions of saving the Stolen Lands and rescuing the Rogarvias. This of course means the players would have to discover that Nyrissa engineered the Vanishing, which could easily result in them believing her to be an ally of the Surtovas, rather than an ally of an enemy of the Rogarvias. Since the Surtovas would probably view the PCs defeating Pitax as an implicit threat, they would likely begin raising armies between books 5 and 6, presenting a threat to the PCs' kingdom. Rescuing the Rogarvias could seem like a peaceful way to defuse tensions, since the Rogarvias would be indebted to the PCs and be able to broker peace, but in reality it frees Choral, who would simply grant them a short reprieve from death as their 'reward', then would depart to reclaim the Dragonscale Throne from the Surtovas and then declare war on both the rebellious Swordlords of Restov and the PC's nation. This would, I feel, tie the whole campaign together much better, by ending things with the very civil war in Brevoy which had been the start of things at the beginning, and providing a truly epic foe for the PCs to defeat. (An APL +5 encounter is quite a challenge, after all, and Choral is statted as CR 25.)

Any thoughts?

I don't mean the Sellen, East Sellen, West Sellen, or Shrike rivers, I mean all the little ones. It seems implied that there must be a small range of mountains in between Daggermark and Sevenarches, and possibly extending all the way north into Numeria, because otherwise the river which passes through Daggermark would flow east to join up with the Sellen, and the tributary south of Sevenarches wouldn't flow fifty miles east into the Sellen when there's another river less than ten miles west.

While on this topic, I would like to point out how utterly confusing it is that ALL the rivers are called Sellen. Apparently, even the river which flows through Daggermark is called the Sellen River, as the Guide to the River Kingdoms describes Daggermark as sitting on a hill overlooking the Sellen River. Both the West Sellen River (which originates up between Mendev and old Sarkoria) and the Sellen River (which originates in the Lake of Mists and Veils) are 60ish miles from Daggermark. From the top of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the horizon is 64 miles distant. There's no way you can see either the West Sellen or Sellen from Daggermark unless there's a fourth Sellen River.

Looking at a map of Oregon's rivers and comparing it to the rivers of Avistan shows that everything generally checks out. The Columbia River cuts through the Cascade mountains much the way the Sellen cuts through the gap between the Five Kings Mountains and the Fog Peaks. North of the Five Kings Mountains you have rivers flowing north into Lake Encarthan before flowing east to meet up with the Sellen, much the same as the Deschutes River does in Oregon.

The real question, with regard to the River Kingdoms, is how so many major rivers start there when there's no notable mountain ranges, no notable lakes, and it's too far inland to get a lot of rainfall. The mountain ranges of western Avistan should act much the same as the Cascades and Rockies of the western US, which means that the most likely source for rainfall in the River Kingdoms is probably the Castrovin Sea. If the Castrovin is large enough to form a strong current and influence weather patterns, then it would send warm fronts laden with moisture directly towards Brevoy and the River Kingdoms, where cold fronts sweeping down from the Crown of the World would push the weather up and generate rain despite the lack of a mountain range. But if that's the case... then it should be raining a fair bit on the east side of the Tors of Levenies, unless the Castrovin Sea is more than a few thousand feet above sea level for the Inner Sea.

According to this blog post, it's been eleven years since the canonical Vanishing, though GM Angel might be using a different starting year.

Unfortunately I can't share those symbols as it'd be against the licence for Campaign Cartographer. They're a part of the Campaign Cartographer Annual 2012.

As it so happens, I'm working on a hexmapping tool for my own use and have been developing graphics for exactly this reason. Still needs work and I only have one tile per terrain type so far, but I think it's coming along nicely, and will allow plenty of room for features like farms, cities, roads, etc.

Example

So far I have tile-able graphics for forests, swamps, grassland, rivers, lakes/seas, roads, bridges, mines, quarries, and ruined towers.

Next on my list are hills, mountains, and cities.

Note: I rotated the map so that north is up, and flattened the hexes to accommodate an isometric view, as opposed to top-down.

This may not help you, but this is a house rule I am playing with for Iron Gods:

By RAW, one gets an ability score boost at 4, 8, 12 etc. You increase a single stat by one point. This bonus encourages SAD characters to hyper-focus and provides very little help to MAD characters.

My system was designed to undo that.

Instead, at each level, you gain 1 point buy point. You may spent it immediately or save it. For example, if you had an 11 Int at level 1 (not counting magic or racial boosts), upon reaching level 2, you could spend your one point buy point to increase your Int to 12. However, you could not increase your 15 Str to 16 Str because that costs 3 points.

I extended the PB table for people to use when leveling up (I don't let people start with a 19 before racial mods).

Addition to PB table:
19=21 pts
20=26 pts
21= 31pts
22= 37 pts

Basically, you get a lot more boost out of increasing poor stats. You can turn a MAD build like:

14, 14, 13, 12, 10, 10

into

16, 16, 16, 14, 10, 10.

While a very focused point buy like this:

18, 10, 10, 10, 10, 8

can either do this:

22, 10, 10, 10, 10, 8

OR

20, 14, 12, 12, 10, 10.

I absolutely adore this idea, and now plan to steal this concept for use in all of my own future campaigns!

I have a character concept mostly sketched out, but her best stat is Dexterity (18), which tends to favor marshal, royal enforcer, or spymaster, none of which really mesh with the character concept. But a couple points of Loyalty shouldn't really affect the kingdom that much if I aimed for General (CHA 14) instead, should it?

Also, as a question for GM Angel: Are you planning to use the optional Leadership Role Skills from the Optional Kingdom Rules section of UC?