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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)
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.