Yeah, if I do ever end up doing WotR, I would definitely look at tweaking the mythic rules. Whether I would go with exactly Legendary's tweaks or not I would decide nearer the time.
I'll agree both that it's a great AP story wise and that the mythic rules don't work. I used a rechargeable pool of Hero Points and that worked great 99% of the time.
I documented the changes I made over on the Wrath thread.
Link if you're curious.
We finished our "Return of the Runelords" campaign after 44 sessions played over 21 months (Aug 23 to May 25) and alternating between our other current campaign, "Age of Worms".
Overall verdict: A fantastic campaign to play in. Good lore and locations as well as lots of callbacks to other campaigns. Some fun twists and reveals along the way.
My only complaint is from my own expectation management. I was told that our Shattered Stars characters would play a part, so I got excited and dusted off my old character for a return. It wasn't nearly as much of a return as I'd thought/hoped. Oh well. If I were to take a shot at running it later...
Spoiler:
I might be tempted to try and set up the last book more like the final dungeon of Final Fantasy VI. Where the players have to send groups of characters after paradoxes two at a time where you get to switch back and forth between characters.
But that's a minor complaint. Overall it's a "recommend."
Brazen question, might your Age of Worms PF conversion be something you're willing to share or do you want to keep it to your own (understandable considering the work it must have taken)?
Absolutely! I have no problem sharing it at all! Mostly, I just used the excellent stat document that Sc8rpi8n_mjd put together and made available on the following thread:
I'll be honest, D&D 3.5 and PF 1 are so close, I made a lot of the changes on the fly that I needed to beyond that document. If you have any specific questions about location changes I made to move things to Golarion, I can certainly start a thread over on AoW subforum. Just lemme know!
This weekend finished up the 3rd (of 4) arcs to my Pathfinder Age of Worms game. Despite several more VERY close calls in "Book 10: King of the Rifts" (Brazz is one tough red dragon! And that was AFTER the Mother of Worms almost got them!) there were no further deaths.
As previously requested (back in... July?? Where does the time go...) I started a lessons learned thread for my Age of Worms in Golarion campaign. Feel free to take a look and ask any questions there if you'd like!
Now I get to enjoy a return to the player's seat for a while and finish up Book 5 & 6 of our "Return of the Runelords" game. I gotta say, ReotRL has been really good! I never heard much about it when it came out. Kinda just slipped by I think. But it's really good! I highly recommend it.
Then it'll be back to finish up Age of Worms in a couple months.
Cheers!
Since it’s been requested, I’ll catalog my own PF conversion notes in this thread. From the start, I’ll say that my table plays the Adventure Paths in a unified campaign Golarion and they really enjoy all the lore. So, one of my goals was to slip the AoW AP in without stepping on any (or at least much) established Golarion/Pathfinder canon.
Characters/Player’s Guide
- The first choice was where to put Diamond Lake. Someone else on the board made note that having it be a vasal of the (previously) Lawful Evil(ish) city of Korvosa made sense. I went with that idea. I placed Diamond Lake on the southern shore of Lake Syrantula. Adding a small town tucked in on the far side of the Fenwall Mountains isn’t lore breaking or anything.
- I intertwined Diamond Lake’s History with that of Korvosa and the surrounding lands of Varisia. Obviously, the below are our results from “Curse of the Crimson Throne” so anyone that wanted to use this history would just have to add in their own results if you wanted.
History of Diamond Lake (spoiler for length)
History:
The town of Diamond Lake is nestled among the Cairn Hills. These foothills run along the northern edge of the Fenwall Mountains, stretching down to the southern shores of Lake Syrantula. The town lies a hard week’s ride northwest from the city of Korvosa to which it is subject. Iron and silver from Diamond Lake’s mines fuel the city’s markets and support its soldiers and nobles with the raw materials necessary for weapons and finery. This trade draws hundreds of skilled and unskilled laborers and artisans all hoping to strike it rich. In ages past, Diamond Lake boasted an export more valuable than metal in the form of treasure liberated from the numerous tombs and burial cairns crowding the hills around the town. These remnants of a half dozen long dead cultures commanded scandalous prices from the Korvosa elite, whose insatiable covetousness once triggered a boom in the local economy. Those days are long gone, though. The last cairns in the region coughed up its treasures decades ago, and few locals pay much mind to the stories and wild rumors of yet undiscovered tombs and unlaundered burial cairns. These days, only a handful of treasure seekers visit the town, and few return to Korvosa with anything more valuable than a wall rubbing or an old tool fragment.
The town’s origins date back to the turn of the century in 4600 AR. Tombs were discovered in the hills along the southern shores of Lake Syrantula. At first it was just an oddity, but as more and more ruins were found, word spread. Explorers of these sites faced terrible danger but gained fabulous wealth. Due to the prevailing currents of the rivers running down from the mountains that feed the lake as well as the shelter of the Fenwall Mountains, the waters along the southern shore of the lake tend to be very still and calm. This made for excellent fishing and a small fishing town was established to support the growing number of explorer camps appearing. This also gave the town its name: Diamond Lake from its smooth and crystal-clear waters. Originally, the town was founded to support and feed the scattered camps of travelers that would arrive to try their luck at exploring the tombs among the Cairn Hills.
All of this changed with the great earthquake that struck southern Varisia in 4611 AR. The earthquake caused widespread damage, hundreds of injuries, and dozens of deaths in the nearby dwarven sky citadel Janderhoff. Engineers and clerics from Korvosa and all its holdings flocked to the dwarven stronghold to render aid. Silver and iron had recently been discovered in the Cairn Hills and hundreds flocked to the small town to mine resources in order to support and fund the rebuilding efforts in the dwarven city.
By the time the significant repairs were made, Diamond Lake had swelled into a full-fledged mining town. Mines had been sunk deep into the Cairn Hills and iron and silver were pouring from the ground. With the growth of the mining town, bandits began infesting the Cairn Hills and the lower Fenwall Mountains. Korvosa had gotten used to the rich minerals being produced from the mining town and they wanted the flow of ore to continue. By 4617 AR, Korvosa claimed the town as a holding and soon after a garrison was established there to protect their resources from the growing bandit threat.
As the years went by, Diamond Lake grew into a prosperous boom town. Prominent mine owners moved into the town and started running things with a brutal and extremely corrupt fist. The once pristine waters of Diamond Lake were poisoned by smelting runoff and the surrounding farmlands were poisoned from rampant mining operations. Korvosa for their part didn’t care as long as the resources continued to flow. The locals started grumbling and ugly talk of revolt started to be whispered. But in 4658 AR the nearby village of Biston attempted to break from Korvosa and was brutally put under harsh martial law. Any talk of rising up against the capital city was quickly silenced in Diamond Lake.
Things continued with the miners getting poorer and the mine owners getting richer. In 4709 AR Korvosa saw Queen Illeosa’s “Reign of Terror” ended by the hero Blackjack and the group known as the “Peoples’ Heroes.” The royal seneschal, Neolandus was put in power to oversee the rebuilding of Korvosa after months of plague and revolt. His administration was so busy, the small town of Diamond Lake was allowed to continue festering under the corrupt mine owners. The continued supply of silver and iron was too badly needed for rebuilding efforts and to continue to sell to the dwarves of Janderhoff for tax money.
Eventually Neolandus brought stability to the city. In 4714 AR, after five years of rule he stepped down and Queen Cressida Kroft was pronounced queen of Korvosa. Those aware of the change of power in Diamond Lake thought that maybe someone would step in to curtail the brutality of the mine owners. They were disappointed as the small mining town on the edge of Korvosa territory continued to be largely forgotten.
So things continued as they always did. In the hills surrounding the town, hundreds of laborers continue to spend weeks at a time underground, breathing recycled air pumped in via systems worth ten times their combined annual salary. The miners are seen as little more than the disposable labor of Diamond Lake. They are also Diamond Lake’s foundation, their weekly pay cycling back into the community via a gaggle of cheap gambling dens, bordellos, ale halls and temples. Because work in the mines is so demanding and dangerous, most folk come to Diamond Lake because they have nowhere else to turn, seeking an honest trade of hard labor for subsistence level pay simply because the system has allowed them no other option. Many are foreigners displaced from native lands by war or famine. Work in Diamond Lake mine is the last honest step before utter destitution or crimes of desperation. For some, it is the first step in the opposite direction: a careful work assignment to ease the burden on debtor filled prisons, one last chance to make it in civil society.
Korvosa’s current representative in the region is Governor-Mayor Lanod Neff, a petty bureaucrat who exerts his will via the brutal Sheriff Cubbin. Cubbin is so renowned for corruption, that many citizens assumed the announcement of his commission was a joke until he started arresting people.
Diamond Lake Geography
Diamond Lake crouches in the lowland between three hills and Lake Syrantula. The town is little more than a splotch of mud, smoke and blood smeared across uneven terrain marked by countless irregular mounds and massive rocks. The oldest buildings pack the lakeshore where fishing vessels once docked and stored their catches long ago. That commerce has abandoned the town entirely, for the shining waters that once gave Diamond Lake its name are now so polluted it makes fishing impossible. The same currents and wind shelter that once left the waters smooth and pristine, now caused a buildup of mine run-off and sludge along the southern shore. Many of the old warehouses have been converted into cheap housing for miners and laborers and no one is safe outdoors after dark. As one walks south along the streets of Diamond Lake, the buildings become sturdier and the spirits of their inhabitants likewise improve. A great earthen road called the Vein bisects the town. With few exceptions, those living south of the Vein enjoy a much better life than the wretches living below it.
All the town’s social classes congregate in the Vein’s central square. Roughly every two weeks, someone in the town upsets someone else so greatly that the only recourse is a duel to the death at the center of a ring of cheering miners. The bookmakers of the Emporium and the Feral Dog do brisk business on such occasions, which tend to draw huge crowds. On less violent nights, the square is still home to a thousand pleasures and poisons; if Diamond Lake was a creature, the Vein’s central square is its excitable, irregular heart.
As far as Campaign Traits went, I know some folks have designed their own. I just let my players pick an extra trait and connect it in some way to why they’re stuck in Diamond Lake.
Then I included a player’s map of Diamond Lake and a slightly sterilized player’s version of the town information from the Backdrop article. I had to make a couple changes…
- Obviously I had to realign the town. The water was now to the north of the town, so I flipped the compass rose.
- Several folks on the boards have done great conversions from Greyhawk gods to Golarion gods. I went with the cult of St Cuthbert now being a crazed cult of Abadar. I had them going around town giving penance to Abadar by whipping themselves in repetitive acts of self-mortification. Since man is incapable of adhering to Abadar’s holy Law, only through self-flagellation can they purify themselves. It seemed strange and cult-y enough to give the impression that Diamond Lake is far from civilization.
- Similar, I kept the Cult of the Green Lady and just changed it from Wee Jaz (the Ruby Lady) to Pharasma (the Gray Lady). Easy switch. And these cultists worship Pharasma from an obscure devotional referring to her appearing to mortals as a green-eyed woman, thus this group worships Pharasma as the Green Lady.
- Obviously Heironeous was an easy switch to Iomedae at the Garrison chapel. Done.
Those were about the only changes I remember from the town itself.
After 43 sessions, we finished running my non-mythic Wrath game.
If I get time, I'll make a "lessons learned" thread about changes I made. But first I've got to finish the players' guide for my next game: Age of Worms, PF1 version.
Hey all!
Just as an FYI, for anyone interested, I did get around to (finally) posting the changes and Lessons Learned for our non-mythic Wrath of the Righteous game. Dropped it as a new thread in the WotR area. Take a look and fire any questions if interested!
Cheers!
Oh wow. I finished this campaign back in Aug of 23 and promised I’d put out a lessons learned. My bad. Got sucked into DMing the next campaign. Anyway, here’s (finally) my lessons learned from my non-mythic Wrath of the Righteous game.
So I finally finished Wrath of the Righteous and I thought I’d share some lessons learned. I really wanted to run this story, but I’d heard repeatedly that the mythic rules were pretty broken. So I searched around and found some good suggestions on how to run this as completely non-mythic game. Here’s some of the changes I made as well as some of the problems/shortcomings I ran into.
Character Creation
- I wanted this adventure to feel really epic, so I bumped the date from AR 4717 to AR 4727 and all my players were given the option to run descendants from our other completed Adventure Paths.
- To reflect their superior heritage (and help offset the non-mythic rules I’d be using) I allowed 25 pt builds and everyone started with 8000 gp worth of gear, no more than 4000 gp on one item.
- I also used “fast track” xp. By using fast track on a table of 5 players and not changing the number of enemies in the book, I was able to keep the party approximately 1 level above the recommended level of the books. This allowed them to better face the challenges coming despite being non-mythic.
- Also due to their superior training and to reflect being infused with wardstone power, when they had an ability increase (at 4th, 8th, 12th, and 16th) they got to add a +1 to TWO different scores.
- The group knew from the start that they would be using Hero Points and I would be using Mythic Points and Mythic Abilities for the bad guys. Everyone was good with this understanding from the start.
One Overall Change
- I changed “DR epic” a bit based on a change suggested on the boards. I had DR epic apply against ALL attacks (even attacks that normally bypass all DR) unless the attacker is a Tier equal to or higher than the defender. I put this rule out at the start and all the group was good with it.
Yeah... I'm not even a PF2 player, but this one might get me to take another look (or convert it to PF1 for my group). Spore War looks really cool. Great job y'all!
Seems I'm in the minority, but I'd much prefer to see Direct Sequels in the future. Not really a surprise, considering I like the 6-part APs better anyway. My players really get attached to their characters and want to play them all the way to the end (eg. 17-20th level).
And when I say Direct Sequel, I'm assuming this is two shorter arcs that could be played separated or linked together. Kind of like how Serpents Skull was kind of two separate APs: "Race to Saventh Yhi" and "Against the Serpentfolk".
There's a bit in the background you should consider as well. The timeline isn't spelled out exactly when it happens, but in Book 2 under "Meanwhile on the front..." it talks about how a scattering of survivors from western Nirmathas have already arrived at Tamran with the initial reports of monster attacks. Tamran sent an exploration force west along the Tamran Highway to investigate. This force ran into an ambush and was handily defeated by a force MUCH bigger than what they were expecting. With this level of defeat, the city of Tamran is panicking about setting up defenses of the city likely expecting an attack on the capital next (not realizing that the Ironfang Legion will be focusing on the west instead).
So, bottom line is that the city is probably going to be far too busy worried about their own defenses than helping those back in occupied territory at first. They've already lost a good chunk of their military power in the initial ambush on the Highway. Anything left they might be very conservative using and likely going to keep it for the capital's defense.
Last week we got to begin book 6 "Gathering of Winds" of my PF conversion of Age of Worms.
Brazen question, might your Age of Worms PF conversion be something you're willing to share or do you want to keep it to your own (understandable considering the work it must have taken)?
Absolutely! I have no problem sharing it at all! Mostly, I just used the excellent stat document that Sc8rpi8n_mjd put together and made available on the following thread:
I'll be honest, D&D 3.5 and PF 1 are so close, I made a lot of the changes on the fly that I needed to beyond that document. If you have any specific questions about location changes I made to move things to Golarion, I can certainly start a thread over on AoW subforum. Just lemme know!
Last week we got to begin book 6 "Gathering of Winds" of my PF conversion of Age of Worms. This is the 2nd time I'm running this campaign (first time got to book 10 playing the original 3.5 version).
Anyway, this was the 2nd time I got to run the "Battle of Diamond Lake" and it went just as great as it did the first time. First group (back in 2006) said it was their favorite part of the campaign and the table this past week really seemed to enjoy it as well. This table isn't *quite* as invested in Diamond Lake as a town, but they still have enough connections that it was a satisfying event.
I'll break it down with I guess slight spoilers for Age of Worms in case anyone else wants to use it.
NOTE: And big thanks to whoever originally threw out the idea of the "Battle of Diamond Lake." It was many moons ago, but it was an awesome addition to the beginning of book 6... both times. So thank you!
Spoiler:
After returning to Diamond Lake from book 5 "Champions Games" (at the Magnimar Serpent's Run arena in my Golarion conversion) they were attacked by a group of ogre-sized, giant blackscaled lizardfolk on the outskirts of town. They scouted out the town and found that the entire town was occupied by giant lizardfolk. They quietly made contact with the townfolk who told the tale of how the black dragon Ilthane arrived 2 or 3 days ago looking for Allustan with an entire force of giant, blackscale lizardfolk in tow. The garrison tried to fight back, but were little challenge to the blackscale lizardfolk (CR3 vs mostly warrior 1 & 2) and they fled back to the garrison.
They also found out that Balabar Smenk (of course) threw in his lot with Ilthane and had been providing her with information. In return, before she left she destroyed the governor-mayor's manor and left Smenk in charge of the town.
This left the PCs to fight their way through town. They got to save their allies and liberate Diamond Lake as they took out the patrols of blackscales and their check points around town watching the approaches. Then they got to storm Smenk's manor and have the final showdown with the corrupt mine owner that they'd wanted to have for the first few books.
If you want, you could level up the lizardfolk and Smenk and make them a bigger threat. I used the standard CR3 blackscales (from the 3.5 MM III and gave 'em breastplates to be a bit harder to hit) and let my PCs have fun slicing through a couple dozen of them. They got to feel like big damn heroes returning to town as 10th level heroes after leaving as young 'uns.
This of course still left Allustan missing and they head out for the showdown with Ilthane (who I bumped up to a huge adult).
All around good time.
First posted in 2006. I'd just started running my first adventure path, "Age of Worms," and was a lurker for a little while before posting. Good times when the Paizo boards seemed very active.
OP, all I can say is -as someone who is still playing PF1- I feel your pain, but I'll say just hold on and enjoy the ride. What do I mean? Well, I'm old enough to have played since 1e and BECMI. Then 2e... and 3e, 4e, PF1, 5e and PF2. Notice something there? All of them have different balances of crunch vs. easy of play. Don't like PF2? There's plenty of PF1 stuff to keep you occupied for YEARS. And I say that as someone who's been playing 3e and PF adventure paths with the same group since 2005... that's almost 20 years. And I bet I've still got another 10 years of stuff to go through at least before I start converting PF2 or 2e stuff to PF1. By then, there may be a PF3 or 6e. You might find those are systems are more similar to what you like. Or it might not be until PF4 when the player base and market want a more rules heavy version of the game. Or heck, there may not even be a Paizo by then. Who knows?
The point is versions change and you can take a look at them and decide if you want to play or not but enjoy the ride. Cheers!
Finished up the first arc of my Age of Worms PF conversion. Usually we break the APs up into three arcs (2 books each) and switch back and forth between DMs. AoW seemed to more naturally fall into 4 arcs though since it is 12 (shorter) adventures.
Slight spoilers for AoW...
Spoiler:
#1 - Book 1-3: Diamond Lake arc
#2 - Book 4-6: Free City and back to Diamond Lake arc
#3 - Book 7-9: Travel arc
#4 - Book 10-12: Rift and finale arc
Anyway! That means it's back to the very excellent "Return of the Runelords" game. Starting book 3 and enjoying the break to be a player again.
I've posted the various fixes I've used in other places, but I'll drop them here again if anyone is interested. This is just what I did/my recommendations. Check 'em out if interested.
Obviously SPOILERS a plenty below and sorry for the length...
My recommendations:
Spoiler:
Book 1
0. Before the adventure, while doing character introductions or something, ask the PCs which animal best describes them. This lets you set up the Dream Quest in Book 2 a little earlier.
1. As others have said, use the diseases carefully. Consider having a timeline built out ahead of time and rolling for which player catches a disease when. This saves you from rolling the 5-15% chance for EVERY player at the table. You know that on Day 6, Nimblefingers has to save against Filth Fever (or whatever).
2. Make the other castaways likeable. Even if they like to hate them, they’re going to be almost the only NPC interaction for the whole first book. Plus if the PCs like the other castaways, it makes pulling them into Book 2 much, much easier.
3. A number of people have pointed out the value of keeping Yarzoth alive as the BBEG of the path. If she’s killed, try to ensure that her body is in some state to be Raised/Resurrected by Agents of the Coil so she can show up later. (I can do a full write up on how I did this if you're interested)
Book 2
4. The PCs will really need to like and link up with one of the expeditions/factions. If they don't, be ready to create a faction they WILL like and link up with someone else. (Example: Say you have a follower of Sarenrae. He goes to the church and asks if they can fund an expedition. Response: "Well we don't really have the funds or logistics to do that. But we do have several followers that are friendly with the Pathfinders. We'll send a small delegation with the Pathfinder expedition.")
5. Consider having Nkechi (and later Athyra) travel with the main expedition and NOT with the PCs as trailblazers. If you have a capable table already (or a large one) having additional NPCs travel with the party really isn’t a requirement and can slow things down/take attention away from the PCs. Have the native porters' spiritual leader was killed in the warehouse fire. The faction leader said they wouldn't be able to set out because the natives thought their expedition was cursed. So the PCs needed to have Nkechi come along to serve as a spiritual leader for all the porters. Worked much better, kept him in the background once the race began (he traveled with the main caravan) and he wasn't slowing down my already large table. Also makes Nkechi kind of the spokesman for the native manual laborers working for the faction expedition. Gave the PCs a "go to" man if they needed some manpower help with something (repairing a bridge to the central island, clearing an area to move the camp, etc) Same with Athyra once she joined. She gave the PCs some pointers on what was ahead in the M'Neri plains then she and Jagi dropped back to guide the main expedition.
6. For the spirit quest, have cards done out beforehand for the PCs in their animal totem form. Moves, attack forms, etc. Consider adding a “mini-quest” that the PCs can do in their animal forms if they appear to like this. Ruins on the Dream Plane that they have to get through before reaching the Dream Serpent.
7. ROLL RANDOM ENCOUNTERS OUT FOR THE JOURNEY BEFOREHAND. I can’t stress this enough and others have said it. That timeline you started on the island to track diseases? Keep using it to track the party's journey and encounters. (I just printed out one of the several available Calendars of Golarion and wrote notes on the days. Worked fine.)
8. Consider having the PC’s expedition start in the middle of the pack. Track where the other expeditions are and have them run into other trailblazers/expeditions as they catch up or fall behind. Make it feel more like a race.
9. Building off 8 above, consider adding in other encounters where the PCs can make up time or slow down the other expeditions to reach Tazion first. I did this and my PCs LOVED it. Said it was the high point of Book 2 and really kept the pressure on and made it feel like a race. (Some examples my PCs used: Sending herds of triceratops stampeding at them. The witch could speak with animals so he had a pride of lions harassing pack animals on the M'Neri plains. They hired thugs of their own in Kalabuto to harass the other groups. Adding in more encounters with locals like Zenj tribesmen or even Bas'O nomads that could show their expedition shortcuts, Setting some creative traps. etc.) (I have a full write up of the encounters I used if you're interested)
10. Starting in Book 2 and all through Book 3, remember the environment of the jungle. Want to explore into the afternoon/evening or early morning? Chances are the jungle is shrouded in a thick mist from the nearly daily rain. This is going to hurt their ranged characters (who can't see far) and greatly increase the likelihood they'll wander into an ambush. Even charging becomes a pain if you can't see what's lurking ahead of you in the thick, jungle mist. Make sure to enforce max encounter distances. Very few places are going to allow them to rain death at the enemy from a distance through the thick trees. Base encounter distance to even get a PER check in dense woods is 2d6x10 feet, if I remember correctly. Remember the increased PER penalties when in the jungle. There's a much better chance of (again) stumbling into an ambush if they can't hear the enemy waiting for them over the noises of all the jungle birds and screeching monkeys. Finally remember to apply the modifiers for the frequent rain. It makes PER checks even more difficult (additional -4 I think) and affects ranged firing like severe winds: additional -4 to hit.
These are going to be especially important through the valley of Saventh-Yhi in Book 3 as well.
11. If you’re using Yarzoth as the BBEG, have Isillar’s notes mention how she came through Tazion on her way to Saventh-Yhi (and possibly how she was raised by the Coil). This lets the PCs be engaged in a race for Saventh-Yhi and a chase for their old nemesis (and also keeps the danger/mystery of the serpentfolk in the adventure)
Book 3
12. Consider adjusting the discovery point system. Instead of requiring 120 points to claim the city, consider 15 pts in each district. This will force the party to scout around and move their camp. (I have a summary of the exploration changes as well.)
13. Have the different mysteries that can be found printed out beforehand on slips of paper to give out. Either pick which mysteries to give out or have a chart to roll on. (I have these done up if you're interested at all)
14. Make some minor changes to make sure the PCs know they're the first ones to find the lost city. A) Move the ghost at area C to outside the valley. Have his diary ranting about how he knows how close he is to the lost city. B) Change the bodies found in Vaults D and F to serpentfolk bodies or locals tribesmen (trogs, boggards, etc). C) Stress that Juliver and Cline came into Ilmurea through the Darklands. They did NOT find Saventh-Yhi. You don't want the PCs to feel even kinda cheated out of being the first ones to the lost city.
15. STRONGLY consider allying other factions with residents of the districts. This will make the race to claim the city a bit more tied into the city itself. Make the city feel DYNAMIC. You have 5 factions and 6 dominant tribes. Really think about who's allying with who, who exploring where and who's attacking who. (Example: If the Pathfinders set up camp next to the Military district, is Olujimi just going to watch them? Is he going to send envoys up there to demand his tribute for an alliance? Is he going to send a chaou-ki warband up there to try and drive them out? Is the Consortium going to approach the charou-ki and try to buy them off and get them to attack the Pathfinders while maybe supplying them masterwork weapons?) Have the other factions moving camps. Have the other city districts launching attacks at the other camps. Let the PCs know that the city is alive. Allow them to ally and interact with the other factions and tribal districts. Each day you have a lot of choices. Think of it more as various powers striving for control of the city instead of just a hackfest. Don't let them fall into the mindset of "we have to kill everything in the city." That will get boring super fast.
Bottom line: avoid City of Seven Spears feeling static. Be dynamic. Really flex your creative muscles and think about what each side is going to do and give the PCs a rundown on what they've seen happening around the rest of the city each day. Then let them decide where they want to focus their efforts on. Really have fun with it!
16. The timeline? Yup, keep running with it. Use it to track daily encounters for the camps (so you know what camps have to make defense rolls when) and to track discovery points for the various camps. This saves SO much time at the table. Also lets you know what camp is exploring what district so the PCs have a chance to run into/stop them if they want.
17. Consider having them find signs of Yarzoth’s interaction with the natives of the city. Being praised as an arriving savior by the degenerate serpentfolk, spotted sneaking towards the First Vault by the Tribe of the Radiant Serpent, etc. The serpentfolk are supposed to be THE bad guys of this AP and its important that you keep throwing little tidbits that they’re up to something big… even if the PCs don’t know WHAT yet.
Book 4
18. Be ready to run this book during the end of Book 3. If the PCs stumble on a Vault during their exploration of the city, let them find it! Just maybe give them a heads up that they MIGHT not be tough enough to explore it yet. This makes finding the mural/locations of the vaults more interesting if they’ve stumbled on one or two already.
19. Don’t be afraid to start this book while the camps are still racing to finish their discovery points and claim the city. Makes it more interesting if the PCs are exploring the vaults and their camps still have something to do (mapping out and cataloging the ruins).
20. Strongly encourage your PCs to build up Prestige Awards with factions here. There’re a lot of insanity checks and having Restorations available from a faction for 2 CPA was a HUGE help for my PCs.
21. Consider having the Gorilla King show up as an additional faction at the end of Book 3/beginning of Book 4. He sets up a huge (three times the size) camp and begins trying to beat the PCs at their own game by racing through the city collecting discovery points. Make him into a real menace that the PCs fear, watching over the ruined city. Only when the PCs are on the verge of claiming the city will he agree to meet with them and launch into the King events. The Gorilla King is one of *the* premiere characters in the Mwangi and should be played up as such. His approach, arrival and (possibly) encampment should be played up to instill sheer terror.
22. Playing off 21 above, consider not letting the PCs fight the Gorilla King. Someone else brought up the GREAT idea (that I used and it went beautiful) that the King sends his eldest son to fight the PCs to the death at the feast. His son has aspirations for the throne and the King uses this as an excuse to get him out of the way. This lets you play up the King as conniving and smart and lets you keep him “above the fray” and maintain him as a semi-legendary figure in the Mwangi.
Book 5
23. I had the ranger/guide make a survival roll to point out that if they could clear out the morlock/old Azlanti garrison portion of Ilmurea, it would make a suitable base camp. This would free up spell slots so they didn't have to teleport back and forth to the surface. This led them to clearing out the cloaker gate and the elementals.
24. While talking to Udarra, I made sure to mention that the urdefhan were very violent and most likely only willing to talk to someone in a position of strength. This led to the PCs assaulting the aerie and probably several other strongholds before walking in and saying "We're the ones who are kicking your butt. Take us to your leader."
25. My players have been big on Prestige Awards and moving up in their factions. The PA suggestions from the adventure didn't really reflect the goals of all the factions, so I modified them some to push for more exploration through Ilmurea. (EXAMPLE: After reporting on the broken stairs in the cloaker gate, the Pathfinders wanted to find an intact gate down to Orv. This will be worth extra PA and will (hopefully) divert them a bit between the urdefhan and Thousand Fangs.)
26. For Thousand Fangs, consider making a quick "cheat sheet" for the fortress with room numbers, occupants present (normal), and occupants present (alerted). It took a long time to flip through the book checking each of the nearby rooms to see who was where when the snake-men sent out a telepathic alarm. I think a table will be much easier. Just my finding.
27. Once PCs finally enter the Thousand Fangs fortress, remember the 100 ft range telepathy of the serpentfolk. If the PCs hit one chamber, they might be "chain pulling" a few rooms depending on how close they are.
28. As written, the fortress has an infinite number of guards. Whether on alert or not -by the book- there's a 30% chance of any barracks containing 2d4 serpentfolk. Consider that once the fortress is on alert, reduce the barracks serpentfolk to 1d4 and instead add a couple other guardposts through the main coil/corridor. Replacement guards at the tail watching the gate, guards manning the murderholes above the main gate and guards watching the broken section. I also put the other guardposts on "alert." They keep the doors open and have pairs of sentries watching the closest main approaches. But due to the "infinite" number of potential guards, I've also decided that when (if?) the PCs kill Sskhavo, the fortress commander, the remaining serpentfolk will essentially abandon Thousand Fangs and fall back to the Sanctum of Ydersius (area R in Ilmurea). This is where they make their stand in Book 6.
Book 6
29. The only major change I made was with the disconnected feel of the Hunter's Maze. It just didn't seem to fit so I decided that, while fleeing from serpentfolk forces, Valgaunt and his urdefhan troops had found a portal called the Eye of Savith. This was a portal that morlock legend said allowed Savith to watch over her ancient enemies the snake-men in Thousand Fangs. In reality it was a route into the upper levels of Savith's Crypt in Saventh-Yhi, a sight where Azlanti warriors would come to pay their respects to the legendary warrior and also served as a training ground for them. The urdefhan were trapped here and it allowed me to reflavor the Hunter's Maze as a winding Azlanti crpyt/training area but keep the encounters as is. Just how I did it.
30. Oh I did also include Yarzoth in the final fight for some closure. I bumped her up to a CR14 cleric 8/mythic tier 4 and had her be the focus of the ritual to raise Ydersius.
This is a summary/adjustments that I had written up for the Exploration rules:
Spoiler:
Exploration: I made a few changes (based on other excellent comments from the boards here) but mostly just wrote down a simpler "flowchart" that I could follow:
- Each District has 15 Discovery Points that can be found. This largely represents surveying and mapping out the lost city of Saventh-Yhi.
- As the PCs are moving through the district "securing it" (eg. taking out the strong points under "victory conditions") the rest of the faction researchers are mapping out the edges of the district. This is the daily Exploration roll. (It's been my experience this usually takes them up to 8 to 10 Discovery points until a district is secure)
- Once area secure, xp awarded to PCs, camp gets its +1 to each stat bonus.
- Once secure, it's now safe enough for the researchers to move in and (instead of a discovery roll) get to automatically get a mystery for the day. Each mystery is also worth 1 Discovery point (and xp!) so this should be the goal of the party as well (unless they want to try for the roll and the chance of getting multiple Discovery points instead of mysteries. But that's their choice).
- Once the researchers move in, the party can spend the day assisting them (making the knowledge roll for an additional mystery). OR the party can move on to securing the next district (start hitting the next set of strong points).
- Depending how you're handling mysteries, consider setting a max of 8 to 10 in a district. I have them on slips of paper and hand them out and think I had about 40 (combined some and added some more foreshadowing for books 4-6)
- Allying with a district: if the PCs move in and ally with a district, it's now secure. Woot! Camp bonuses and xp awarded! Can immediately start searching for mysteries (since again, each mystery is worth a discovery point as well). Allying with a district is the fastest way to explore it since you are assured of one a day (as a mystery) from the researchers and (if you have a knowledge guy in the group) a second mystery from the PCs efforts
Here’s some of what I used/added in Book 2 to make the race feel like a race:
Spoiler:
What I personally did was take the arrival times and back them all up the 54 days of travel time to get their assumed start times. Then assumed the PCs started a couple days ahead of them. Then backed things up a week (because that's how long it takes to get the expedition together). This gives you a good timeline.
Then -because I wanted it to be more of a race- I delayed the PCs start time by 1 day for every square destroyed in the warehouse fire. They ended up losing 5 days and starting in the middle of the pack.
Now this would have made it IMPOSSIBLE as written to arrive first (and that's just cheap and unfair) so I added in a few more opportunities to make up time.
- At Fzumi Salt Mines (area C) they can shave off a day as written in the book
- At the roadside camp at (area D) I had another set of thugs try to sneak in and poison the party’s horses at night. They found out that they’d been hired by the Aspis scouts that had come thru before. They hired the thugs themselves to poison the scouts behind them and get an extra day lead.
- In Kalabuto (area I), the party hired agents of their own to sabotage the caravans behind them to extend their lead by another day.
- At the Lake of Vanishing Armies (area L) the local fishermen were being harassed by the Spawn in the lake. If the PCs took out the Spawn in the lake, the natives would take the expedition up river by barge to the edge of Mzali territory thus cutting off another day.
- At the tomb (area P) I had some local natives show up soon after the battle. My PCs were careful to reconsecrate the grave site and turned over Amghawe's spear to the natives. As thanks, they showed the PC's expedition a shortcut through the jungle cutting off several bends in the river they were following and shorting the trip an additional day.
- In the jungle, I had another encounter with (I believe) Bas’O nomads. This was a purely roleplaying encounter and the locals showed them another shortcut if made friendly.
- Along the way they had several random encounters with animals. They used Speak with Animal to make them friendly and sent them ahead to attack the expeditions ahead of them. I slowed the other expeditions down a day per significant attack.
- After taking out the Mzali raiders (area M) they made an agreement with one of the survivors to have his people attack the other expeditions coming through slowing them down.
- At one point they also caught up with Ishirou and the Consortium trailblazers. They took him out in an ambush and I had that slow the Consortium down a day as they had to send more trailblazers ahead.
After all that, they ended up arriving on the same day as the Red Mantis trailblazers. I gave them credit for arriving first (since it was really a tie) and made the prisoners at V4 the Red Mantis scouts.
Overall my players said it really felt like a race with the pressure being on and they played smart to make up time whenever they could.
And here's kind of a run-down of how things started with my group to give some ways of being really dynamic in Book 3. Obviously, this is just how it went with my group:
Spoiler:
- Group arrives guiding the Government faction. Have become more and more dissatisfied with the racism of General Havelar (they all play native Mwangi).
- During the night, a patrol of Sargavan soldiers is killed by the charou-ki in the nearby Military district. General Havelar vows revenge and launches a genocidal campaign to wipe them out!
- Last straw for the PCs. They leave to join another faction. My pirate PC and Pathfinder PC argue over which faction to join. With several good diplomacy rolls and great role playing, they get Kassata and Amivour to join forces forming a joint Pirate/Pathfinder camp.
- PCs set out to secure the Merchant district. Have several run-ins with Ishirou who is also exploring the district for the Consortium. Hostilities avoided… for now.
- The Government starts waging war against the charou-ki slowly forcing their way into the Military district
- Red Mantis remains unseen (they’re quietly scouting out the Artisan and Farming districts to the south)
- PCs finish securing and exploring the Merchant district and decide to set their porters to repairing the bridges to the central islands (Government district)
- One PC (secretly working for the Consortium) tells the Aspis that the Merchant district is secure. The Consortium moves camp into the secured ruins and begin exploring quickly trying to catch up to the PCs
- PCs reach the central island and run afoul of the rakshasa (from previous post: he’s sulking because Yarzoth turns all of his followers against him). PCs get curb stomped and run away, vowing to take care of him later.
- Consortium finishes Merchant district and moves around to the south. Run into the boggards and arrange an alliance with them. Consortium moves camp into Farming district
-PCs continue securing Government district inflicting horrendous losses on the serpentfolk. Finally district secure (with almost half of the snake-men dead)
-Government forces occupy Military district pushing charou-ki back to their two strong points (Spear plaza and plateau fortress). They finish off their discovery points here.
-PCs finish exploring Government district. Rakshasa makes several appearances at PCs camp attempting to charm members of their party and faction but is driven off each time (good saves and good preparations by my PCs). Remaining serpentfolk hide in several outlying buildings and flee in fear from the PCs having been thoroughly beaten down.
-PCs hear about Yarzoth from serpentfolk survivors and set out around to the south side for this “human land” the serpentfolk hated. Met the Tribe of the Sacred Serpent and allied with them (securing the Artisan district and moving their base camp down there)
-Red Mantis moves camp further south and runs afoul of the aboleth. Several assassins dominated as the aboleth tries to figure out what to do about these newcomers.
- Now that the PCs have left, rakshasa sees an opening. Regains the trust of the serpentfolk (“See? Your serpent god is weak! He did nothing to protect you from the humans!”)
-Government slowly starts exploring the Residential district, keeping an eye on the charou-ki to their rear.
- PC Aspis agent tells the Consortium that the central islands are secure. Aspis camp starts making rafts on the shore of the Farming district to explore the central islands. Much hilarity ensues as the PCs repeated sabotage them (including “kiting” the mokele-mbembe and sending it rampaging through the Aspis camp)
-PCs finally discover the Mantis camp. Chivane assures them she’s just looking for the temple. They share information (but secretly hope to find it first to use as leverage against the Mantis and to free Sasha who’s essentially being held as a hostage)
-Aboleth sees an opening and sends his dominated Mantis assassins against the PCs camp trying to break up this new semi-alliance.
-On the far side of the lake, the rakshasa kills General Havelar and impersonates him. Moves the Government camp onto the central island in a “surprise” alliance with the serpentfolk. Jask and Nkechi (who were left behind to keep an eye on things at the Government camp) are captured for causing “trouble” and disappear to become play things back in the rakshasa’s den (and to hopefully be rescued by the PCs later)
-PCs set out into the Temple district to look for the Mantis God temple as their camp races to finish up discovery points in the Artisan district
-Aspis camp reaches the Government district and arranges for a no-hostility agreement with the rakshasa.
-The rakshasa eyes the PCs camp among the Tribe of the Sacred Serpent and plots to send a serpentfolk and Government force to wipe out their camp.
Full disclosure: this was the first AP I ran. I poured my soul into it to make it great and it's my favorite AP for that reason. I also had a fantastic table of players that were very involved and invested.
Now, to answer your question: Where did it go wrong?
Short answer: lots of places. Nearly everywhere.
Book 1: ... except here. This one is nearly a perfect adventure and is still at the top of many peoples' "best start to an AP" list. I've ran it as a standalone and it's great.
Book 2: Needs to be a race to the ruins and fails to feel like a race in almost any way. As written, this is a series of static wilderness encounters.
Book 3: Needs to be an exploration of a lost city and is woefully underdeveloped all around.
Book 4: Is a series of mini dungeons in a woefully underdeveloped lost city.
Book 5: Features a shift to an enemy that comes out of almost nowhere and was not telegraphed to the players very well.
Book 6: An AP advertised as finding and exploring a lost city ends with... two big dungeons. It's... fine.
As a player, the most fun that really stands out for me in a dungeon was probably "The Crow" from Shards of Sin book 1.
-It was an interesting location (a bridge pylon? That's certainly unique).
-It had multiple ways up and down and through the dungeon.
-A decent number of quests and side quests.
-And interesting and interconnected encounters.
We just had a blast trying to navigate and clear that dungeon.
As a DM... I'll have to put some thought into which dungeons I've had the most fun running.
After 43 sessions, we finished running my non-mythic Wrath game.
If I get time, I'll make a "lessons learned" thread about changes I made. But first I've got to finish the players' guide for my next game: Age of Worms, PF1 version.
I am the author of the 7-part review of the two books of Throne of Night and the one currently attempting to write up a detailed "fixed" version of the adventure. As of the time of writing this, I have posted on Reddit fixes on Book 1, mainly adding a mockup army combat system to better represent the PCs fighting to take over two cities. On the Google Drive document, besides all of the material I wrote up so far, I also have a draft ready for most of Book 2.
This is a commenter's link to that document in case anyone wants to either look at it early or leave suggestions on how to improve it. Holiday season is pretty busy for me, so I'm filling it out mostly in what spare time I can find. As I said at the end of the book 1 posts, I will publish parts 6 and onwards either during or after the Xmas period.
Thank you all for your attention.
Hey! Just wanted to say that I haven't gotten to fully read through all your new stuff (e.g. Part 9 and beyond) but what I flipped through looks really cool. Thanks so much for taking a stab at continuing this campaign! Much appreciated!
I've run solo player games before, and I'd also recommend using Hero Points. They go a long way towards solving a single bad save roll vs a "save or die" or even "save or suck" spell ending the entire campaign.
Just my 2 cp.
, so if she recognizes the PCs as being on the run from the Queen, maybe Nurah tries to recruit them? Have her waiting at Valas' Gift or Vilareth Ford, discussing upcoming business with Umestil, the tiefling commander. With her excellent Perception, she might spot the PCs approaching and you could have a fun RP encounter for them. I'm assuming they'll turn down her offer to join but... who knows? Maybe they become Double Agents working against Staunton Vhane as they approach Drezen?
I'll add that all of the Dungeon era APs (Shackled City, Age of Worms and Savage Tide) were all 12-part APs. Now, since they were about 1/3 of a dungeon magazine, I'm not sure how they'd compare to the size today. I've never known anyone to do a full page count or anything comparing pages of adventure in a PF AP vs a Dungeon AP.
I will say that of those, I've done AoW and ST and both of those at least *felt* longer than the APs of today. Could be because they both went to 20th level in the 3.5 days. *shrug*
Fantastic! All very good advice, thank you very much! And I absolutely agree. The ease of swapping from 3.5 to PF1 is great.
We play all of our group's APs and adventures in one common Golarion/timeline, so internal consistency is somewhat important. Thus I was hesitant to just drop mindflayers into the world but your idea to swap him out for an aboleth is great. That will work just fine.
Short answer: Yes I used Yarzoth as one of the big bads.
Longer answer:
spoiler:
In my game, Yarzoth died in Book 1. But! Her body was recovered and she was raised by the Coil (the organization from book 6). She really needs to survive Book 1 to better draw the PCs into Saventh-Yhi (and into Ilmurea below). Essentially, have the PCs encounter some of the degenerate serpentfolk from the Government district soon after arriving (a patrol maybe). Have them ranting about the return of the "chosen one" who will bring about the "Golden Age of the Serpent". If the PCs inquire further (prisoner maybe?) the degenerates can tell of Yarzoth's arrival, how she turned them against their false god (the rakshasa) back to the true path of the Father of Serpents. Then she headed towards the south end of the valley (the Vault with the portal to Ilmurea). Have them describe her distinctive scale pattern so the PCs can recognize her as Ieana/Yarzoth from the Shiv.
NOTE: if Yarzoth is already dead, have the PCs find a location where she was attacked and a few pages were torn from her journal (it's already established that she keeps meticulous notes from her time on Smuggler's Shiv). There they can find that she was Raised by members of something called The Coil (agents sent by Ilmurea so she can assist in the ritual).
I also made some changes to Issilar as well:
spoiler:
In my game, I established (and gave VERY vague hints in the Eleder Colonial Archives for the PCs to tip them off early) that the serpentfolk had a prophesy that a Chosen One would return to restore the head of the Father of Snakes.
In preperation for this, every few generations the degenerate serpentfolk produced a pureblood that was sent to Tazion to serve as the Watcher. He was charged with protecting the Pillars and to send the Chosen One to Saventh-Yhi when they returned. (I wasn't happy with the idea of Issilar being an exile. That just never sat right with me)
So in my scenario, Issilar knows how to operate the Pillars and has given one of the gems to his charou-ki allies/worshippers for safekeeping (he also hid another one in the Temple of Snakes so he only has two. Wanted to make sure the PCs fully explored Tazion.) When Yarzoth arrives, Issilar was going to escort her to Saventh-Yhi but she tells him of the PCs hot on her tail (heh. pun intended), thus the only reason the Watcher is still in Tazion... to destroy the PCs.
Issilar records his joyous meeting with the Chosen One in his journal (for the PCs to find after his defeat and to keep them on the trail. Also had to add where the Chosen One told Issilar how something called "The Coil" had found her body and raised her... the PCs originally killed Ieana in my game but left her body behind.)
So in Saventh-Yhi, Yarzoth finds that since Issilar has left, the serpentfolk turned to worshipping the newly arrived rakshasa. She returns the degenerates to the worship of Ydersius and they turn on Akarundo driving him back into exile in his "pleasure den" where he sulks now.
Yarzoth has been receiving visions of the subterranean city Ilmurea and assumes it's below Saventh-Yhi (something the degenerates know nothing about) so she travels to the Artisan district (assuming the humans there were left to guard it since it was the human Azlanti that drove them from the surface), finds the portal and uses it to return to Ilmurea.
It's actually her return and the celebration that follows that gives the opening for Juniver to escape (destroying the portal on her way back through).
I've added a couple chambers to the rear of the First Vault where Sozothala dwells, an undead exile from Ilmurea below. Several destroyed undead were added to indicate where Yarzoth had to carve her way through the crazed undead necromancer's forces to reach the portal and Ilmurea. This was actually what woke Sozothala up so he was ready to give chase to Juniver when she comes through (and leads to her capture and the Night of Hissing Death event)
So when the PCs arrive in Saventh-Yhi, they find the degenerates they capture ranting about the "Return of the Chosen One destined to bring about the Golden Age of the Serpent!" and can continue following Yarzoth's trail (and help to link the adventures together a little more and keep the serpentfolk -the main badguys- more prominent in the early adventures).
As for Vyr-Azul:
spoiler:
I did keep Vyr-Azul as the high priest (and big bad) at the end of Book 6, but I added Yarzoth in the final encounter. I bumped her up a bit obviously and added some mythic power to her, but mostly she was just a focus for Vyr-Azul to perform the ritual to rase Ydersius and return the serpentfolk to their glory.
I do like giving more clues about Vyr-Azul! I should have done that too. The intellect devourer seems like a very good spot for that.
The idea to have them ally with the serpentfolk in Book 3 is an interesting one. The serpentfolk are pretty darn evil, so a betrayal seems fairly inevitable LOL. But it would certainly give another good RP opportunity in Saventh-Yhi for sure!
Ah Serpent's Skull. My favorite adventure path I've run thus far but also the one I've put the most work into. I tried to compile all the changes I made but -warning!- it's quite a list. Please feel free to use or ignore any of the below.
Spoiler for length.
AP Changes:
Book 1
0. Before the adventure, while doing character introductions or something, ask the PCs which animal best describes them. This lets you set up the Dream Quest in Book 2 a little earlier.
1. As others have said, use the diseases carefully. Consider having a timeline built out ahead of time and rolling for which player catches a disease when. This saves you from rolling the 5-15% chance for EVERY player at the table. You know that on Day 6, Nimblefingers has to save against Filth Fever (or whatever).
2. Make the other castaways likeable. Even if they like to hate them, they’re going to be almost the only NPC interaction for the whole first book. Plus if the PCs like the other castaways, it makes pulling them into Book 2 much, much easier.
3. A number of people have pointed out the value of keeping Yarzoth alive as the BBEG of the path. If she’s killed, try to ensure that her body is in some state to be Raised/Resurrected by Agents of the Coil so she can show up later. (I can do a full write up on how I did this if you're interested)
Book 2
4. The PCs will really need to like and link up with one of the expeditions/factions. If they don't, be ready to create a faction they WILL like and link up with someone else. (Example: Say you have a follower of Sarenrae. He goes to the church and asks if they can fund an expedition. Response: "Well we don't really have the funds or logistics to do that. But we do have several followers that are friendly with the Pathfinders. We'll send a small delegation with the Pathfinder expedition.")
5. Consider having Nkechi (and later Athyra) travel with the main expedition and NOT with the PCs as trailblazers. If you have a capable table already (or a large one) having additional NPCs travel with the party really isn’t a requirement and can slow things down/take attention away from the PCs. Have the native porters' spiritual leader was killed in the warehouse fire. The faction leader said they wouldn't be able to set out because the natives thought their expedition was cursed. So the PCs needed to have Nkechi come along to serve as a spiritual leader for all the porters. Worked much better, kept him in the background once the race began (he traveled with the main caravan) and he wasn't slowing down my already large table. Also makes Nkechi kind of the spokesman for the native manual laborers working for the faction expedition. Gave the PCs a "go to" man if they needed some manpower help with something (repairing a bridge to the central island, clearing an area to move the camp, etc) Same with Athyra once she joined. She gave the PCs some pointers on what was ahead in the M'Neri plains then she and Jagi dropped back to guide the main expedition.
6. For the spirit quest, have cards done out beforehand for the PCs in their animal totem form. Moves, attack forms, etc. Consider adding a “mini-quest” that the PCs can do in their animal forms if they appear to like this. Ruins on the Dream Plane that they have to get through before reaching the Dream Serpent.
7. ROLL RANDOM ENCOUNTERS OUT FOR THE JOURNEY BEFOREHAND. I can’t stress this enough and others have said it. That timeline you started on the island to track diseases? Keep using it to track the party's journey and encounters. (I just printed out one of the several available Calendars of Golarion and wrote notes on the days. Worked fine.)
8. Consider having the PC’s expedition start in the middle of the pack. Track where the other expeditions are and have them run into other trailblazers/expeditions as they catch up or fall behind. Make it feel more like a race.
9. Building off 7 above, consider adding in other encounters where the PCs can make up time or slow down the other expeditions to reach Tazion first. I did this and my PCs LOVED it. Said it was the high point of Book 2 and really kept the pressure on and made it feel like a race. (Some examples my PCs used: Sending herds of triceratops stampeding at them. The witch could speak with animals so he had a pride of lions harassing pack animals on the M'Neri plains. They hired thugs of their own in Kalabuto to harass the other groups. Adding in more encounters with locals like Zenj tribesmen or even Bas'O nomads that could show their expedition shortcuts, Setting some creative traps. etc.) (I have a full write up of the encounters I used if you're interested)
10. Starting in Book 2 and all through Book 3, remember the environment of the jungle. Want to explore into the afternoon/evening or early morning? Chances are the jungle is shrouded in a thick mist from the nearly daily rain. This is going to hurt their ranged characters (who can't see far) and greatly increase the likelihood they'll wander into an ambush. Even charging becomes a pain if you can't see what's lurking ahead of you in the thick, jungle mist. Make sure to enforce max encounter distances. Very few places are going to allow them to rain death at the enemy from a distance through the thick trees. Base encounter distance to even get a PER check in dense woods is 2d6x10 feet, if I remember correctly. Remember the increased PER penalties when in the jungle. There's a much better chance of (again) stumbling into an ambush if they can't hear the enemy waiting for them over the noises of all the jungle birds and screeching monkeys. Finally remember to apply the modifiers for the frequent rain. It makes PER checks even more difficult (additional -4 I think) and affects ranged firing like severe winds: additional -4 to hit.
These are going to be especially important through the valley of Saventh-Yhi in Book 3 as well.
11. If you’re using Yarzoth as the BBEG, have Isillar’s notes mention how she came through Tazion on her way to Saventh-Yhi (and possibly how she was raised by the Coil). This lets the PCs be engaged in a race for Saventh-Yhi and a chase for their old nemesis (and also keeps the danger/mystery of the serpentfolk in the adventure)
Book 3
12. Consider adjusting the discovery point system. Instead of requiring 120 points to claim the city, consider 15 pts in each district. This will force the party to scout around and move their camp. (I have a summary of the exploration changes as well.)
13. Have the different mysteries that can be found printed out beforehand on slips of paper to give out. Either pick which mysteries to give out or have a chart to roll on. (I have these done up if you're interested at all)
14. Make some minor changes to make sure the PCs know they're the first ones to find the lost city. A) Move the ghost at area C to outside the valley. Have his diary ranting about how he knows how close he is to the lost city. B) Change the bodies found in Vaults D and F to serpentfolk bodies or locals tribesmen (trogs, boggards, etc). C) Stress that Juliver and Cline came into Ilmurea through the Darklands. They did NOT find Saventh-Yhi. You don't want the PCs to feel even kinda cheated out of being the first ones to the lost city.
15. STRONGLY consider allying other factions with residents of the districts. This will make the race to claim the city a bit more tied into the city itself. Make the city feel DYNAMIC. You have 5 factions and 6 dominant tribes. Really think about who's allying with who, who exploring where and who's attacking who. (Example: If the Pathfinders set up camp next to the Military district, is Olujimi just going to watch them? Is he going to send envoys up there to demand his tribute for an alliance? Is he going to send a chaou-ki warband up there to try and drive them out? Is the Consortium going to approach the charou-ki and try to buy them off and get them to attack the Pathfinders while maybe supplying them masterwork weapons?) Have the other factions moving camps. Have the other city districts launching attacks at the other camps. Let the PCs know that the city is alive. Allow them to ally and interact with the other factions and tribal districts. Each day you have a lot of choices. Think of it more as various powers striving for control of the city instead of just a hackfest. Don't let them fall into the mindset of "we have to kill everything in the city." That will get boring super fast.
Bottom line: avoid City of Seven Spears feeling static. Be dynamic. Really flex your creative muscles and think about what each side is going to do and give the PCs a rundown on what they've seen happening around the rest of the city each day. Then let them decide where they want to focus their efforts on. Really have fun with it!
16. The timeline? Yup, keep running with it. Use it to track daily encounters for the camps (so you know what camps have to make defense rolls when) and to track discovery points for the various camps. This saves SO much time at the table. Also lets you know what camp is exploring what district so the PCs have a chance to run into/stop them if they want.
17. Consider having them find signs of Yarzoth’s interaction with the natives of the city. Being praised as an arriving savior by the degenerate serpentfolk, spotted sneaking towards the First Vault by the Tribe of the Radiant Serpent, etc. The serpentfolk are supposed to be THE bad guys of this AP and its important that you keep throwing little tidbits that they’re up to something big… even if the PCs don’t know WHAT yet.
Book 4
18. Be ready to run this book during the end of Book 3. If the PCs stumble on a Vault during their exploration of the city, let them find it! Just maybe give them a heads up that they MIGHT not be tough enough to explore it yet. This makes finding the mural/locations of the vaults more interesting if they’ve stumbled on one or two already.
19. Don’t be afraid to start this book while the camps are still racing to finish their discovery points and claim the city. Makes it more interesting if the PCs are exploring the vaults and their camps still have something to do (mapping out and cataloging the ruins).
20. Strongly encourage your PCs to build up Prestige Awards with factions here. There’re a lot of insanity checks and having Restorations available from a faction for 2 CPA was a HUGE help for my PCs.
21. Consider having the Gorilla King show up as an additional faction at the end of Book 3/beginning of Book 4. He sets up a huge (three times the size) camp and begins trying to beat the PCs at their own game by racing through the city collecting discovery points. Make him into a real menace that the PCs fear, watching over the ruined city. Only when the PCs are on the verge of claiming the city will he agree to meet with them and launch into the King events. The Gorilla King is one of *the* premiere characters in the Mwangi and should be played up as such. His approach, arrival and (possibly) encampment should be played up to instill sheer terror.
22. Playing off 17 above, consider not letting the PCs fight the Gorilla King. Someone else brought up the GREAT idea (that I used and it went beautiful) that the King sends his eldest son to fight the PCs to the death at the feast. His son has aspirations for the throne and the King uses this as an excuse to get him out of the way. This lets you play up the King as conniving and smart and lets you keep him “above the fray” and maintain him as a semi-legendary figure in the Mwangi.
Book 5
23. I had the ranger/guide make a survival roll to point out that if they could clear out the morlock/old Azlanti garrison portion of Ilmurea, it would make a suitable base camp. This would free up spell slots so they didn't have to teleport back and forth to the surface. This led them to clearing out the cloaker gate and the elementals.
24. While talking to Udarra, I made sure to mention that the urdefhan were very violent and most likely only willing to talk to someone in a position of strength. This led to the PCs assaulting the aerie and probably several other strongholds before walking in and saying "We're the ones who are kicking your butt. Take us to your leader."
25. My players have been big on Prestige Awards and moving up in their factions. The PA suggestions from the adventure didn't really reflect the goals of all the factions, so I modified them some to push for more exploration through Ilmurea. (EXAMPLE: After reporting on the broken stairs in the cloaker gate, the Pathfinders wanted to find an intact gate down to Orv. This will be worth extra PA and will (hopefully) divert them a bit between the urdefhan and Thousand Fangs.)
26. For Thousand Fangs, consider making a quick "cheat sheet" for the fortress with room numbers, occupants present (normal), and occupants present (alerted). It took a long time to flip through the book checking each of the nearby rooms to see who was where when the snake-men sent out a telepathic alarm. I think a table will be much easier. Just my finding.
27. Once PCs finally enter the Thousand Fangs fortress, remember the 100 ft range telepathy of the serpentfolk. If the PCs hit one chamber, they might be "chain pulling" a few rooms depending on how close they are.
28. As written, the fortress has an infinite number of guards. Whether on alert or not -by the book- there's a 30% chance of any barracks containing 2d4 serpentfolk. Consider that once the fortress is on alert, reduce the barracks serpentfolk to 1d4 and instead add a couple other guardposts through the main coil/corridor. Replacement guards at the tail watching the gate, guards manning the murderholes above the main gate and guards watching the broken section. I also put the other guardposts on "alert." They keep the doors open and have pairs of sentries watching the closest main approaches. But due to the "infinite" number of potential guards, I've also decided that when (if?) the PCs kill Sskhavo, the fortress commander, the remaining serpentfolk will essentially abandon Thousand Fangs and fall back to the Sanctum of Ydersius (area R in Ilmurea). This is where they make their stand in Book 6.
Book 6
29. The only major change I made was with the disconnected feel of the Hunter's Maze. It just didn't seem to fit so I decided that, while fleeing from serpentfolk forces, Valgaunt and his urdefhan troops had found a portal called the Eye of Savith. This was a portal that morlock legend said allowed Savith to watch over her ancient enemies the snake-men in Thousand Fangs. In reality it was a route into the upper levels of Savith's Crypt in Saventh-Yhi, a sight where Azlanti warriors would come to pay their respects to the legendary warrior and also served as a training ground for them. The urdefhan were trapped here and it allowed me to reflavor the Hunter's Maze as a winding Azlanti crpyt/training area but keep the encounters as is. Just how I did it.
Not sure if this is relevant, but for those who want to play a ToN style campaign in D&D 5e, I'd like to mention that I wrote a crunchy rules book about survival in the underworld, with a distinct eye towards hexcrawls in the realms below.
Some concepts in the book were things I had planned writing for ToN, but when Gary took the money and ran, I thought I'd never get to use them.
Fast forward a few years and here's a proper book, with prose by frickin' Doug Niles, bigger and better than anything I initially conceptualized.
I also kept the engines I introduce simple so that e.g. my momentum engine for combat can be translated to other systems...and yes, I've been running modifications of them in PF1 and PF2.
Thank you for your attention. *bows out*
I'll say that the digital version of this book just came out and it's fantastic. I'm still going through much of it, but on just a quick breeze through there's so much cool stuff to use in a heavily underground game.
If you get a chance to get your hands on it, you won't be disappointed at all! Highly recommend.
I've recently started this AP using non-mythic PCs. Instead I'm using the great suggestion someone posted of an increasing and refreshing Hero Point pool that each PC has instead of mythic points and abilities.
Just the same, I'll be posting deaths that needed to be "Hero Point saved" as I still consider those pretty legitimate deaths...
Name: Luther
Race: Half-Elf (Shackles)
Class/Level: Cleric (Sarenrae) 7
Adventure: Sword of Valor
Location: Drezen Cemetery
Catalyst: Soltengrebbe (mythic chimera)
The Gory Details:
spoiler:
The group finished clearing out the haunted mausoleum and the cemetery when they triggered the Beast of Drezen's retaliation. The mythic chimera swooped down, breathing ice over the group and then landed to smash into the slayer with a mythic vital strike that nearly one-shotted him. Luther moved up to channel and bravely heal the group but unfortunately got a bit too close and managed to draw the chimera's attention as well. Soltengrebbe turned and full-attacked Luther hitting with both bites and popping a mythic point to trigger crushing jaws. Then both claws hit leaving the cleric very, very dead. Fortunately Luther had 2 Hero Points to spend to be luckily tossed aside before the last claw swing could decapitate him. A very tough but great fight all around!
I always go with the less-popular "Serpent's Skull". I loved this AP because:
1) I had a fantastic, engaged group of players that were really interested in the game and expanding on it.
and
2) I put in a LOT of work to flesh out all the factions exploring the lost city, the exploration and the lost city itself.
Lots of work but totally worthwhile!
Reading about ramifications of the adventure path on the world at large is one of my favorite parts of the entire AP. I would love it if you guys continued to do something similar. For those of us that play all of the APs in our own campaign worlds, it's fun when the backgrounds for the next set of characters are influenced by those of a previous AP. Just my 2 cp.
Battle of Blood March Hill - which is Book 1 of Giantslayer (not on your list) - all takes place in one town, but there's an investigation, intrigue, a tug of war, and a bunch of combat.
Oh I forgot how much fun Book 1 of Giantslayer was... mostly because the rest of the AP just wasn't great. But you're right, you could easily play book 1 as just an orc attack on the town and have a blast. I might have to do that soon...
I'm about to start a Wrath of the Righteous campaign where everyone starts as a young character - a squire or apprentice to a knight or hero -coming to Kenabres. Hero Points and Mythic Powers will help to balance out the shortcoming of starting young once they find they're among the few survivors of the initial attack.
My friend ran a Reign of Winter campaign with all young characters. He liked the idea of using kid PCs with the "fairy tale" background of the adventure. He just had a group of kids from Heldren out hunting in the forest when the winter portal erupted. They get lost in the blowing snow, find the Black Rider and go from there.
Serpent's Skull could be also run with young characters since you start shipwrecked on an island. Almost a bit of "Lord of the Flies" if you will (well... with cannibals and monsters of course...) They arrive back on the mainland with this knowledge of a lost city and different factions try to recruit them to join their expedition. That could be a fun one too.
And looks like after "No Surrender", they'll be continuing with just a single "Avengers" title.
Just announced today.
They'll be sticking with the ONE title (instead of four) but they'll be having 18 issues per year instead of 12. New team line up looks pretty good too. Glad to see she-hulk (since her book was cancelled) and glad they're continuing to give Robbie Reyes a chance as Ghost Rider on the team.
Well the hut itself was being driven by a familiar with high UMD. It was pretty much guaranteed to snatch and crush one attacker each round (claw-grab-constict-almost dead) as the Cossacks were galloping around lancing and firing pistols at the PCs. It was pretty cool/cinematic with the hut kicking headless Cossacks and sending fiendish mounts smashing through the air. It was a fun fight.
Name: Eirik "Ole' Mik" Olejnik
Race: Human
Classes/Levels: Paladin (Divine Hunter) 10 / Oracle (Life) 3
Adventure: Rasputin Must Die!
Location: Ambush at the Dancing Hut
Catalyst: Animated tanks are tough.
The Gory Details:
spoiler:
I have a very experienced group of players that have been doing very well with this AP. There's been a few (maybe 5 or 6) Breath of Lifes but this is my first death in the AP.
The group had made several surgical strikes into the Akuvskaya Prison Camp and had located and retrieved Viktor Miloslav's body and soul. They were preparing to bring them back to the tombfairy Polina but wanted to return to the Dancing Hut to rest first (it had been a tough battle at the Cossack camp to get the soul from the Lantern Goat).
The group teleported back to the Hut but found an ambush waiting for them outside. After 3 days of launching attacks into the Prison Camp, Polkovnik (Colonel) Lavrenti's troops had located their base and were waiting for them. More mounted Cossacks and one of the animated tank patrols attacked as the group scrambled to get in the hut. Ole Mik never hesitated as he flew on the back of his white dragonkin companion Calissus to block the advance of the tanks in order to give the others time to rally. His plan worked and the animated tanks turned to the flying pair and opened fire on him. The barrage of cannon shells and Maxim machinegun fire proved particularly deadly and knocked the pair from the sky. Calissus crashed unconscious and her rider Ole Mik lay dead, pierced by automatic weapon fire.
Fortunately his sacrifice gave the others time to destroy Lavrenti's troops. Their Kellid priest soon Raised Ole Mik back to the living to continue the good fight.
We're nearing the end of Book 3 and have been doing a similar thing. We initially started with the "1 plunder = 10 tons" but that got very limiting very quickly (we use FaSBs ships as well). So we read again and the DM has quite a lot of leeway on size and weight of plunder. Lots of folks point out Plugg's initial chest of spices containing a point of plunder, for instance (that's one heavy chest if it's 10 tons!)
So our DM started using different levels of plunder as well.
Heavy - 10,000 lb / point
Moderate - 5,000 lb / point
Light - 1,000 lb / point
Valuables - 500 lb / point
It makes the book keeping a little more complex, but it's more interesting and varied.
We also use the Ultimate Campaign downtime system, so he also allows us to directly convert 1 point of Heavy plunder into 50 points of Goods for downtime activity. (1 plunder = about 1000 gp; 1 Goods = 20 gp; 1 plunder = 50 Goods)
This kind of makes sense if you think that Heavy plunder is going to be holds full of lumber, furniture or big crates/barrels of foodstuff. Shrug.
He's also told us that if/when we switch to UCamp Kingdom rules down the road, 1 Heavy plunder will directly convert to 1 Build Point.
Last note on plunder:
I'm not sure if others have been doing it this way, but for each point of plunder our party sells in town, we give one to the crew as payment. That means each day in port TWO points are removed from our hold... one sold and one given as payment.
This was after we looked at the shares numbers. Take a typical 8-4-1 arrangement (captain - officers - crew). A captain (8) and 5 PC officers (5x4=20) should get about the same plunder shares as 28 crewmembers.
This is how we've been doing it and we're only slightly behind the wealth by level curve (I also think this is more due to a 6-man table than giving out more plunder to crew). I believe the AP expects the lion's share of PC wealth to come from the party adventuring more so than pillaging ships.
OK I'll join in to say I don't like the fiction in APs. I like the fiction, but that's why I buy the Pathfinder novels. I buy the APs for the adventure material.
BUT - as far as the new format goes - this is much closer to actual usable content for the adventure itself. I could see me using this as a backdrop/side adventure for the AP.
So bottom line: big improvement. I would actually stop to read this now that it could be directly used as a location in the AP.
The only limitation in the entry was range, so I said nothing blocked it. Thousand Fangs is so big that 100 feet was enough of a limiting factor anyway. In practice it really only went 2-3 rooms or so (or the guards had to take time to "chain" telepathy to get ranges beyond that).
Anything that blocks SU abilities would also block telepathy. SUs are blocked by an antimagic field if the sender or receiver are within the field (as long as they are in range, you can still draw line of effect around it).
I didn't want to limit it too much because that was a large part of what made the serpentfolk so scary: their organization. It forced my PCs to learn to hit hard and fast and then move quickly to avoid counterattacks. Made for a fun assault (four assaults actually) through Thousand Fangs.
1. Actually I seem to remember that in the module there's NO limit to the number of discovery points that can be found in a district. This led to a couple tables where players went into one district, secured/conquered it and just sat there earning their 120 points without moving.
That's why several others suggested 15-20 pts max in any one district. That forces the PCs to move around and explore for their camp more. I personally went with 15 myself. That was 15 in each of the seven districts (for 105 discovery points) and then 15 pts that could be accomplished anywhere (for final cross referencing and doubling checking some mapping errors, etc) for a total of 120 discovery points.
2. Despite what the overhead map might look like, the city has a lot of undergrowth. Think of it more as the picture on pg 58. So even though the Seven Spears are clearly visible, not a whole lot else is aside from some of the bigger buildings. Plus with the heat and humidity of the jungle, often there's going to be a thick jungle mist (especially early in the morning or towards evening).
Bottom line is you can feel free to tell the players they see as much or as little as you like. If you want them to spot shadowy shapes of charou-ki running through the streets in the jungle mist below... go for it! Or have most of the jungle natives stay inside during the hottest parts of the day and come out to hunt at night.
As far as audible noises, the city is probably VERY loud. Lots of jungle birds and monkeys. Remember this for Perception checks as well (-1 per 5 ft instead of 10 ft I believe... can't remember exactly)
Well first, good of you to recognize a potential problem spot for your players! I can tell you when I ran S'S, my players couldn't penetrate his DR either and had to run away. They didn't end up with anyone captured, but it did lead to some interesting developments (which I'll go into below).
But first, why only give the PCs one week to rescue any lost companion? I'd give them as much time as they need/want. Akarundo likes to inflict pain, but he also wants to be treated as a god by the degenerate serpentfolk on the island. So he leaves the captured prisoner in his pleasure den to occasionally come back to, but he also recognizes the value of a hostage. I don't think he'd be in any hurry to kill a prisoner that he may need to use in the future (now that he knows other strangers are in Saventh-Yhi).
As for HOW the PCs could free any missing companion, I'd just shift Akarundo's usual location. After defeating the PCs he's seen as even more powerful by the degenerates. Maybe they even make one of the abandoned buildings a temple to Akarundo where he spends more of his time with the adoring snake-men worshipping him. Akarundo couldn't resist that! He just leaves a few degenerate guards by his pleasure den where the prisoner is located. That would allow smart PCs to get their companion back.
Also note that with Akarundo's high social skills and ability to change appearance, he's the perfect foil to kill another faction leader and replace them. That's how I used him in my campaign (my PCs were with a joint Pathfinder/Pirate faction).
- The PCs clashed with Akarundo and had to run away.
- Akarundo, now aware of strangers in the city, spies on the government faction (who were near the island of the government district) and eventually kills General Havelar and replaces him.
- Jask (who was a friend of the PCs but still working with an opposing faction)is captured and locked away in the pleasure den for a future rescue operation by the PCs.
- The PCs get wind of something odd when the government faction moves onto the central island seemingly allied with the serpentfolk.
- Red Mantis spies had spotted Akarundo replacing General Havelar. They're willing to maybe share that information but first there's a matter of a missing sword they're looking for...
- etc etc
Just some rambling thoughts early in the morning.
Hope something in there helped!
I know this is a third party product, but for the dwarf explorers , I wonder where in Golarion on the surface would be a good place to start?
Sorry for the delay but wanted to finish reading the adventure and do some research from "Into the Darklands".
My thought was that the best place to start ToN was from Cheliax's Whisperwood. You've got the known entrances into the Darklands from the Scar Thicket there plus giant insects and vegepygmies for some low level encounters on the surface before jumping into the AP if you want. (ItD pg 6)
Then below the Whisperwood and Scar Thicket you have the Midnight Jungle. This looks to be pretty darn close to the Fungal Jungle in the ToN AP. You could either rename the Fungal Jungle to the Midnight Jungle or have the Fungal Jungle caverns be an off-shoot of the main Midnight Jungle caverns. (ItD pg 29)
Plus not too far from the Midnight Jungle you have the Endless Gulf. The Great Jumping Off Point could easily be a fissure off the main Endless Gulf (since the true Endless Gulf is miles across and drops all the way down to the Midnight Mountains in Orv. I'm guessing the PCs aren't going quite THAT far down next book...). This also allows some inclusion of interesting encounters with the Court of Ether between ToN books 1 & 2 if ya wanted. (ItD pg 25)
All of this is of course largely dependent on where it looks like Dammerhall fits in in later books and where the drow city of Taaryssia can be placed (or replaced with a similar Golarion equivalent.)
Another thing you can do is automatically have one of them (or another of the castaways) make the Knowledge check to remember hearing that an old Chelaxian lighthouse was built on the southern end of the island. This lighthouse would be the best way to signal passing ships for them to be rescued. That should at least get them moving in that direction. From there, have them stumble on Ieana's camp (you can move it to wherever you need it really) and you could always have her (and the captain's) tracks easy to follow from there to the cannibal camp/lighthouse.
As Maplewood said above, just make it a bit more of a railroad for them.
Wrapping up "Souls" and getting ready for "Racing." I just re-read "Sargava: The Lost Colony." Was there a reason that the Ivory Cross, Gold Crown Shipping and Mining Company, and the Rivermen's Guild did not make it into "Serpent's Skull"?
None that I can figure.
Except maybe space in the book.
Those organizations are all big on the coast in Sargava, but if you look at RtR as a whole, you quickly leave Sargava and head out into the wilds of the M'Neri (sp?) Plains and the Mwangi Expanse. Probably didn't want to spend a whole lot of time bogged down in Sargava when the whole adventure had a loooong distance to cover.
Other than that... what Tacticslion said. Really no specific reason you couldn't include them.
I think it would be very doable. In fact, you could actually make the connection between the two APs much stronger with just a few tweeks:
spoiler:
Imagine starting with S&S's then, whenever you want to switch campaigns (when the party goes to sleep for instance, as you suggested) the party awakens on a different pirate ship... the Jennivere. Yup, make the Jennivere a pirate ship carrying a passenger named Ieana. No other changes required for S'S book 1.
Then they get to Eleder, and the rest of the pirates and Captain Kassata arrive and they all become the pirate expedition. You just automatically make them as the Pirate Faction in book 2 and on. The rest of the AP you can run directly as is.
Now as is, I think S'S takes place around 4710/4711 and S&S takes place around 4712... only a couple years between them or so. You can certainly change this up if you want (and have S'S happen a full generation/20 years before S&S) so they can play their ancestors or you could really throw them for a loop...
spoiler:
Imagine if eventually the S'S party meets up with their S&S characters during the expedition. Maybe the other characters arrive at Saventh-Yhi with a resupply caravan. They'll probably be trying to figure out what the heck is going on... especially when they question them and find out they have a COMPLETELY different background than their actual S&S characters.
Then later on (in S'S book 5/beginning of book 6) their S&S characters disappear from the expedition. Have them captured by the serpentfolk down in Ilmurea and - for a REAL twist - at the end of S'S book 6 (as they're going through the Sanctum of Ydersius) have their S'S characters find out that while the serpentfolk are on the ropes, they reincarnated more agents of the Coil. Yup, the party finds out that their S&S characters are actually reincarnated serpentfolk that they've been playing in S&S. The background they thought they had for those characters was just a mental creation from the psychic backlash when Ydersius is killed in S'S, thus they don't even remember they were once serpentfolk.
Your call on whether your players would enjoy a twist like that and how they proceed with their S&S characters.
Oh, just thought of an interesting idea on how you could even tie it into the end of S&S...
spoiler:
When the S'S party finds out that their S&S characters are reincarnated serpentfolk, they also find out that one of the key captains/aides to the Hurricane King is also an agent of the Coil (your choice on exactly who). Once the snake-men realized they were going to be defeated in Ilmurea, they sent out agents to try to save their plan by infiltrating the nearby Shackles to secure a new power base there.
Now, do the S&S PCs decide to help this agent (by overthrowing the Hurricane King and starting a new serpentfolk friendly empire in the Shackles)? Or do they continue to enjoy their new "human" lives and take over the Shackles to live peacefully among the humans? Ydersius has been defeated after all.
Just kinda tossing out ideas but I could see concurrent campaigns being easily run together.
I might be wrong, but I believe it's intended that the earnings you get are what's left AFTER you pay the staff and upkeep on your buildings. I think it's intended that upkeep, salaries, etc are paid first, THEN you get your earnings. Just my guess. Shrug
I'd also highly recommend Fire Mountain Games.
Their "Way of the Wicked" adventure path was a great series for evil PCs.
And they just put out a preview of Book 1 of their new adventure path "Throne of Night", an underground exploration series. Looks like it's going to be great.
