Snake Oil Sailsmen's page

So the Big Bad Evil Guy of the campaign is a Familial Lich from Horror Adventures p.g. 251, the basic description is as follows

Familial Lich
A familial lich does not have a physical body or standard
phylactery. Instead, it possesses its own kin.

I was thinking of having this character be the boss of a transportation business (not sure what type), I was thinking Psychic for class, the BBEG has used their business as a way to set "emergency fall backs" (spread the family links) around the West. At the moment, I have no idea how to set up the conflict with players.

Raven's Shadow, huh? I like it.

Thematically fitting would be a Raven Master Ranger, level 7-8, probably. Their Raven companion literally takes on a silvery appearance. Lol.

If you had said Raven Master Ranger be a Grippli, the frog could ride the Raven. And, the Grippli FCB for Ranger gives it a swim speed if selected 8 times... having a racial swim speed removes the weakness vampires have for running water. And vampire frogs are hilarious.

It's a 2' tall, 30lb frog... in a cowboy hat and duster/trenchcoat... riding a big, silver Raven. And the frog is a vampire. Lol.

Could reskin the Grippli as a desert toad, or whatever. Give it the Jumper and Glider alternative racial features since swamp stuff is useless in the desert. Then have the Grippli Vampire jump off its Raven companion to attack from above, silently gliding in for the kill.

I like the template, but I am trying to keep any races that cannot pass as human to a very limited number, that being said, if you are ok with it, I am so saving that idea for another campaign. Vampire frog riding a raven is gold.

How is this for an intro?

You approach the town, even in the middle of the day the town is covered in a layer of twilight. The Town of Raven's Shadow. It is easy to see why it is called that now. The butte stretching over head looks like a Raven swooping down as if to pluck the town itself from the canyon floor. Entering the town you are struck with an odd sensation, unease.
(Roll perception) As you look around you notice that the townsfolk seem nervous, if not outright timid, glancing at you before quickly looking away.

(Sheriff's description) Even in a town covered in shadow, the Shariff looks white as a sheet, and gaunt as the ill.
(Roll sense motive) in spite of how he looks, he gives off the air of a man that could go a dozen to one and win.

My two big encounters I have to prepare at the moment. The first is a silver mining town at the bottom of a gorge that is ran by half a dozen vampires. The leader of the group is the owner of the mine and the mayor of the town. He became a vampire when he was betrayed and murdered in the silver mine by a business partner. Do to the nature of his death he and the vampires he made have DR magic/copper because he was killed with a copper knife while in a silver mine. The other vampires hold the position of sheriff, deputy, banker, doctor, mine forman, and saloon keeper. The human population knows something is not quite right, but they do not know the truth. The whole town carries an under current of unease as they go about their day to day lives.

How does this sound over all?

PS. With the number 4 part, yer players ain't gonna join up with Cthulhu [or the supernatural BBEG equivalent in dat western campaign], are they? ;p

I completely forgot about Cthulha. I do not know if they will want to join the BBEG in the Western, but I would not put it past them. As things currently stand my BBEG will be a Familial Lich (p.g 251 of Horror Adventures) that runs a business.

Now that I'd like to see. Except what's Pail Vector?

Pail Vector is a magical disease that can be carried in powder form. When exposed to this disease you gain the Pallid Vector template from Villain Codex p.g 68. The big advantage to having the Pallid Vector template is that if you die while being infected with the disease/template, you rise as an undead, with what type of undead depending on your HD.

Just outta curiosity, what was yer guidelines for character creation?

There is some back ground context reasons for why, but this is what I told them.

"1. You run your character idea past everyone first to make sure the group is ok with it
2. What ever supernatural nonsense you play as, must be able to BLEND IN!
3. Make sure your characters are able to mesh with each other. I do not want to deal with characters dancing around each other trying to avoid smashing into each other
4. No Lichs, Graveknights, or Mummy Lords at start. You want one of those templates you earn it in game
5. No Pail Vector at start. You want that you make it in game
6. Unless the group is ok with you playing from the future or from some technically advanced realm, do not get any bright ideas about revolutionizing the West in a week. Inventing new stuff will take time, months of it. Nothing was invented and implement in a few days
7. If you want any weapons that are not in the books I have access to, you either get the book that does or homebrew it
8. All homebrew must be agreed upon be the group and if is based off something, links must be given."

Let me start by saying thank you all for the number of replies, this is way more advice then I could have hoped for and I will definitely take all of it into consideration. That being said, a main theme I had hoped to include into this campaign was the a sense of mystery and to a small degree fear, as magic and the supernatural is generally seen a superstition. It was this mind set I was using when setting the outline for the encounters in my earlier post. The problem is that I gave my players rather loose guidelines for their characters, so now I have to rethink how the encounters could unfold. Examples of what my players are considering are, a Diminutive Fey Witch with a monkey familiar, and a Jiangshi Vampire Monk. Any ideas on how I can keep a sense of mystery while allowing the players to keep going with their character concepts?

So this is a Weird West sort of thing on Earth in the Pathfinder Setting. Magic is a thing, but it is viewed the same way as it would have been back then. I plan for it to at first be standard Western, slowly leading up to the Weird part. The only big hiccup in this is my players of course, but that is to be expected. Primarily open world. I have a few encounter ideas outlined.

A silver mine town in at the bottom a gorge that is ran by Vampires.
Hunting an animal, that is more then a mere animal.
Alien encounters over a local farm.
A swamp ran by a trapped Fairy Lord.
Bigfoot.
Bandits that got their hands on some magic gear
An undead gunslinger out for revenge.
An undead gunslinger cursed to walk the earth until someone can beat him in a shoot out or a drink off.
Supernatural murderer on a train.

Any suggestions or critiques of any sort are welcome.