Grey Maiden

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Organized Play Member. 43 posts. 3 reviews. No lists. 2 wishlists. 3 Organized Play characters.



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Wow, this brings back memories... I have DM'd six AP's and this is the only one that I've played to the end, so I have a bunch of memorable additions I made.

Spoiler:

[-- During pt 4 in the Cinderlands, I had Cinnabar and the Cinderlander part of a group that was hunting them which also included Roth (who had escaped death twice from them) and a crazed fighter who was the vengeful brother-in-law of one of the PC's who he blamed for his sisters death. I read cut scenes throughout the adventure of that group hunting for them and actually had them play as them for a couple of encounters where they questioned and tortured townspeople in Harse, and combat encounters with the Shoanti in the Cinderlands. When they showed up at the Shoanti camp at the end for the showdown, it was a huge climactic battle against these characters who the players ended up being very familiar with.

-- Throughout their time out of Korvosa (adventures 4 & 5), I did short scenarios where they played as NPC's in Korvosa (Vencarlo, Grau, Ishani, and another NPC guard I created) so they would still feel connected to the city and know what's going on there in their absence. They had the help of a mysterious inside informant throughout these scenarios who they find out in adventure 6 when the PC's return to Korvosa is Sabina. Made that reveal a lot more meaningful than the AP makes it out to be.

-- One of the PC's becomes romantically involved with Laori Vauss. Throughout the AP, that PC starts to slowly shift alignment and is seduced by Zon Kuthon. Laori leaves the party when they return to Korvosa, but returns for the final encounter with Ileossa and tries to convince the PC to turn on the party and return to Nidal with her with the Crown of Fangs. I had no idea which way the PC would decide and kind of secretly hoped she would side with Laori, but alas, she chose to remain on the light side and stay with the party and kill Laori in the end.

-- I also made the ending battle within Korvosa a lot more dramatic than it was in the book, with the PC's returning to Korvosa and uniting the resistance for a climactic attack against Castle Korvosa, and had them switching back and forth between the PC's infiltrating the castle while the NPC's they were playing battled the Gray Maidens and summoned Devils outside. Vencarlo ends up perishing in that battle and I kept the part where Ishani is found dead in the Castle which was also a hard hit for the group as he was part of the group for those side scenarios.

All in all, I LOVED this AP. Out of all the AP's I've dm'd if I could only have chosen one to complete, I would have picked this one. I'm so glad that I actually did, and it's probably my greatest achievement as a DM!


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I had him appear early in the AP with as a sort of respectful adversary of Petros (they had sort of a professor X/Magneto relationship). He was present in Ravengro for the funeral, but kind of in the background. He ends up having some brief face to face time with a couple of the characters, but they just see him as some mysterious aristocrat who's there paying his respects. They end up randomly running into him again in Lepistadt for the next adventure, and by that time, he starts to see them as a threat to his plans and starts watching them more closely. He also poses as a friend and tries to give them a friendly warning, before straight up threatening them to get off the trail. When they realized that Adivion was the mastermind behind the events of the AP, it was a pretty big reveal, and I think had a more effective impact.


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Wrath- 3
Mask- 4
Iron Gods- 4

I also just have to say that reading these posts really reaffirms why Paizo is so great. They REALLY do offer something for everyone. And sure not every AP concept is going to fly with every customer, but there's almost guaranteed to be one around the corner that's going get SOMEONE excited.

Keep it up Paizo!!!! :D


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Wooooow, this is tremendous. It's usually a hard decision for me on what AP's to run, but 2 of my players are huge Dr Who fans and I think this seals it! The Dancing Hut = Tardis connection just hit me like a ton of bricks!