Inneliese's page

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.

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

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!

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!

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.

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.

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?

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.