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I've already run this encounter (and am starting on VV today), but I really like the idea. One of my players is a cthulhu-phile and wants to make the island into his wizard's tower. He would be disappointed if I didn't make that a very BAD idea. Anyway, since I've already run the encounter from RRR, I was going to take ideas from here and add them later.
The PCs have awoken a greater evil. It crouches on the island, uncoiling itself. It pulls in the will o wisps and devours them. (there's some easy xp for the party deleted). Eventually its blasphemous desire mists over the island and perhaps beyond...
It will start to grow while they are away at Varnhold. When they return...well, nothing more to say than DM's evil laugh!

So finally had the first session of KM last night. The game started on 26 Calistril 4710, two days after the charter was signed. Future posts will include characters, adventures, and any thing else I think interesting.

Thanks for putting in all this work Alex, so us lazy DMs don't have to. My group for Stolen Lands is only four, but I expect to add one or two more for RRR. I'd be interested in a conversion for that one. Oh, and I am willing to help if you would like. Let me know.

Turin- I'm generally more or a "Hey, what the frack? Stop being so stingy and get me a second glass!" kinda guy :P

The Campaign Setting Appendix B (pg246 & 247) says its pronounced pih-TAHKS.

I completely agree with Alex. I will be running 4 to start, but one or two players might be joining later (RL prohibits them now). I will definitely be all up in your stuff when that happens, if just to see how another DM did it.
I'll also add another argument for tweaking the encounters vs just letting the PCs lag behind: it forces the DM into the dirty engine room of the encounter, readjusting gears and playing with power levels. He gets to know the encounters SO much better as a result.

So, is there a list of collected errata for the building stats?

We've used the ol' greased paladin trick too. I have to agree with Grease being one of the spells that's the most open to player ingenuity.

I LOVE the idea of a very stylized mass combat. My player ALWAYS beat me at risk, etc... so I might actually have a chance.
As long as it resolves the battle while giving some flavor of the experience, I'm down.
And yes, my players are already looking at things like Craft: Armorsmith, Weaponsmith, Handle Animal, etc to have the best outfitted army on Golarion.

Cool. Your right, most just forget coin names, but I'm going to try to remember it.
Thanks

James, you're right. Sorry we took the spotlight off of you, where it rightfully belongs. ;)
I just wanted to make the point that characters are exactly as creative and cunning as their players. To Sean: Disarm the badguy of the +3 Unholy, Vorpal Battle-axe that's killing his friends, Protect his beleaguered spellcaster buddies (Stand Still Feat), harry enemy caster (Disruptive Feat), clear the exit for a tactical retreat (Impr. Overrun or Bull-rush), etc...It basically amounts to the tactical oportunities you choose to recognize and use.
Fighting uber-monsters (like with high AC) just means that the players have to work together better, be smarter, and use more tactics. And Blammo! Were back on topic. And I'll hush.

Is there any official nomenclature for the coinage of Brevoy? many of the other Companions mention this but I didn't notice it for Brevoy. I really like using actual names for the coins instead of just gold, silver, etc... If not I'll just go with my own (Scales, Wings, Drakes, and the rarer Crowns (cp, sp, gp, pp respectively).
Same question for the River Kingdoms. Discovering an assassin has a pouchful of say River Kingdom "Marks" for example gives a clue about who hired him. Although the nature of the land probably means no codified minting system.

I would suggest that a boring high level fighter is the player's fault, or maybe the DM's for only letting the fighter be a tank. In either case not the fault of the rules themselves. This is especially true in PFRPG, where fighters have enough feats to take "flavor feats" and not just the required ones (Eocus, Specialization, etc...)
Aout Bot9S: I like it, but think that like so many late 3.5 stuff, its better in games that focus on it.

About the owlbear. Don't think about it so much as repetition; the fact that the 2nd module's owlbear is oversized will contrast the normal one in the first. With out the normal one the PCs might not appreciate the oddity of the big one.

Don't forget Spoiler, the Ship Sinks and Spoiler, I'm Your Father

They could take the Heirloom Weapon trait, also in the Adventurer's Armory.

Ars Magicka: Covenants might have some good inspiration.

I'm actually considering introducing Varnhold in the 2nd module. The leaders of that community are going to want to open communications with their sister settlement and will open with sending resources (which establishes them as friendly and more advanced than the PCs). Hopefully that will make it more interesting when the PCs need to investigate.

I plan on introducing an NPC, prob at start, to help them with this. The guy (Alfred Pennyworth + Balwer from tWoT) would be start as a liaison to Restov and a competent major-domo. He can give the PC's a "Kingdom Ruling for Dummies" class and advise them on what might be a good idea. I do like the idea of the NPC rulers being like the advisors from Civ tho.

N'wah: I can offer to help as well. I'm a word man, not an art man so...
I also have no job, no life, and only one class so plenty of free time.
E-mail is in profile.

You people and your "being good at math" nonsense.

I'm not moving Oleg one bit, hasn't the man moved far enough? My PCs can get over it.
I've been considering numerous options. I like the players doing the cartography themselves, but its gonna get REALLY annoying to explain to them how to draw it ("No, the forest comes up from the bottom-left corner of the hex and tapers off just a bit towards the center, but it has a little curly thingy at the tip; and the river kinda dips in from the north, flows to the woods and then turns back...No no NO! More like a loopy thing... JUST LET ME DO IT!"). I've considered as some suggested printing out the map, cutting it up and letting the players glue them to a grid (that way all I have to do is hand them the appropriate hex piece and get on with my life). OR (just thought of this) They can use tracing paper to make the map and I can cut out a blind so that they only see the section of the map that they are going to trace. Hmmm, interesting.

Alignment in DnD has always been a bit wonky. You can have evil characters that work for or build a basically good government (dude from Elizabeth?), vice versa, a group of good characters can end up establishing what is essentially an "evil" society if they aren't careful. Best laid plans and all that...
Also, the PCs aren't so much conquering (which implies taking over from another kingdom, usually violently) as they are "expanding" into a vacuum. Granted the Stolen Lands has its own stuff going on, but it is basically unclaimed land. I keep visualizing a cross between Lewis and Clark and the Westward Expansion of the US as a thematic template. Definitely not Rome. At last not yet...
Hope none of the worms from that can I just opened crawl away... :)

The Core rules talks about scaling in i think the section on encounter design (I don't have my Core Rules handy), In general, tho, I'd say either increase the number of creatures by one or two, or use the advancement rules for monsters in the Bestiary. I'd add two more bandits to the first encounter, for example, and advance the tazylwyrm. Maybe add a level or two to the npcs.
Err on the side of caution until you get a handle on the math behind crs and stuff.

Just a reminder, favored enemy doesn't imply hatred. You're just well trained of very familiar with a certain type of creature. Usually this means fighting them, but you also get various social bonuses. So Favored Enemy: Fey will help you fight the "bad ones" and RP with the "good ones."

Sunderstone, et al: ever play Caesar 2?
"Plebe's are needed!"

Thanks. I wanted to nail down a RL analogy so that i could model the weather on last year's almanac etc.

One of my players suggested a Ren Faire trip to kick off the AP.
Otherwise, we might do a pseudo-LARP intro to each game. The Sandbox nature implies that rarely will the session end in the middle of a dungeon, so he PCs could be around the campfire or at Oleg's having a pint.
You could also start the game outside with tiki torches or something for the "When last we left our heroes..."" part.

Graveyards often attract tourists to a city, so maybe that is a rationale? Of course usually those are either big (New Orleans), unique (Rome), or contain a celeb (Boston, Graceland). Maybe the bonus applies if 4+ are built together. OR the bonus only applies if a hero is interred there (ie a PC or well known NPC).

Question: any thoughts about temples to specific deities? Obviously each one would be devoted to a specific deity, but would that choice change the mechanics. For example a temple to Erastil might also function as a town hall while one to Callistria would serve double duty as a brothel. Maybe to offset the cost, an RP need might need to be met; PC or allied NPC cleric, a quest, etc. Seems like something more than a royal decree would be required to make a building into a Temple to Desna.

So I think this was the thread that was discussing climate and where in on Earth to use as a template for the Stolen Lands. I did some comparing between maps and want to get opinions from maybe more map-adept folks. The region of Poland between Radom and Szydlowiec seems about right. If Inner Sea=Mediterranean Sea and Lake of Mists=Baltic Sea. Seems like the right kind of terrain, to affect weather patterns.
Opinons?

I would so buy these to use as my official DM dice for KM.

And my vote is green and purple. I know it sounds weird but I did mock-up on Paint and the colors do well together and the Km scheme seems to be green and then purple. (?) That and purple/gold remind me of Mage.

My CoT game is using 25 point buy. I'm already on my 3rd character by 5th level, and they've all been warriors (fighter, paladin, and now another fighter). So I'd certainly use the epic point buy if you choose that option. The APs are pretty harsh, and my group is pretty sure the word Paizo means death in some language. Your PCs need all the edges they can get.

I agree, those books (and the Wiki) should give you everything you need. There are some forums that discuss the climate of the area to give you a good idea of that. It has also been stated (in another thread) that George R.R. Martin's Westeros was a prime inspiration for Brevoy so if you've read them you can use alot of the atmosphere and spirit of the game. If you haven't, you should. SO good.

Keep in mind that there is evil and then there's EVIL. Demons are EVIL. Kobolds are just evil. Would the PCs be as cool with slaughter if is were a tribe of evil humans?

Yeah, this would have been great when my group played through Savage Tides. I imagine a lot of "borrowing" from that set of rules for Farshore.

Not sure exactly how stylized the rules are gonna be. The previews of the kingdom ruling mechanics seem pretty stylized, but that's cool with me. I actually hope that any mass combat rules are the same; enough realism to get the flavor yet abstract enough to play quickly and easily. Too much realism and we might as well play Civ or Warhammer (which is fine if that's your bag, baby.)

Since there seems to be some openings for political intrigue and such, have one of the NPC support folks be a spy. This will hit the PCs hard when it gets revealed that their favorite alchemist/groom/sage/whatever has betrayed them.

This will be the first game that I haven't actively discouraged mounted combat. In fact one of my players took a second look at the cavalier at my suggestion and discovered that it was a better class than he had first thought. I still gave him the caveat that mounted combat feats still won't be as useful as other feats (you rarely have to leave behind a Weapon Focus after all). Still, KM seems the most allowing of mounted combat; definitely more than RotRL or CoT. Course now I have to know THOSE rules.

I have considered doing this as well. My thought was some sort of envoy to Restov, so I can easily include news from home, the promotion thing in at Stolen Land's conclusion etc. was considering a female for possible romantic ties later. Also I usually add an NPC or at least a connection to some sort of church based group (usually Sarenrae) for the party to sell evil items to. Most good parties would have issues with selling, say, an unholy sword or evil holy object back into circulation. The church group buys these items to destroy them, thus giving my PCs a morality friendly way to profit from such things. any way...
I agree that a good NPC tie can help anchor the party to the real world.

Maybe she's doing the opposite; trying to pull the First World (or a part of it)to Golarion. Just like the PCs are doing she's trying to build a kingdom (queendom?). If your players start to anticipate too much it could throw them. Just a thought for ya, Sebastian.

Similar to the treant idea...a well known petrified tree in the woods is a Petrified (capital "P") treant. The PCs would have to come back later when they are powerful enough to reverse it which could keep the immediate area from getting "used up." I like the idea of new surprises and treasures popping up in familiar territory. Maybe the nymph did it; another tie in.

Advantage of having everybody roll: Characters can enjoy being the one to find something cool, instead of the same person always getting the credit. I know my group likes to keep track of that kinda stuff and incorporate it into the role-play. This also lets you add racial predilections (ie an elf might be more apt to notice something in the trees than a dwarf).
I also like to use Perception rolls like a sorta "awareness initiative". Everyone might beat the DC, but the highest roller saw it first. Again, stuff like that is important to my group.

IMO weather is important for verisimilitude (fav word). It provides a dramatic backdrop for the scenes, and possible strategic use as well. In KM promises Lewis and Clark style exploration and weather is a BIG part of that. Unprepared adventurers can get totally boned with a sudden rainstorm, especially if something decides to attack them. To say nothing of a freak blizzard. Those who are forward thinking enough can bring proper supplies or just wait for the weather to clear, adding some extra downtime.
Two of my players are totally psyched about the opportunities KM presents and would be upset at me for NOT including weather.
I've thought about pre-generating stuff like the weather and even moon-phase etc on a calender like was suggested.

I agree with the plot breaking potential of this spell, but it can also be a plot starter. Ideas for change:
1: require a connection to the place in question. Thus the PCs have to track down and verify the relic from Ancient City X.
2: Change the mechanics to allow the caster to use Spellcraft in place of Survival to "follow the tracks" the spell leaves. This this will let the GM modify the difficulty based on how esoteric the location is. It also lets the caster be more active in the party and get in on some "ranger action."