TheKillingJay's page

Hi James!

I'm running Iron Gods and was thinking of spicing up the on-foot trip between

Would you say that there's too few civilization to have well established paths outside of the 1 crusader road and Chesed to Starfall maybe? Or would the nomadic Kellids have formulated some routes similar to Varisians?

Thanks!

For better formatting and faster response, see my Reddit post of the exact same thing. Formatting there is way easier than it is here. Sorry I'm lazy

Players stay out! You have been warned!
Preface: I have run the entirety of book one, and for any of the resources below or any thing else you might want to know, feel free to reply or PM me at any time.

Hey friends! I recently finished Book 1 of Rise of the Runelords. It took 21 4hr sessions over 8 months for them to kill Nualia. Yea, we're slow. We're now on session 27 and working through a book I created(threw together) and dubbed 1.5 Calm Before the Murders(Creative, I know).

I figured I'd take the time to reflect, and give back to the community that's given me so much. This post will be copied and immortalized to the Paizo forums as well.

To the content! In no Particular Order. Links below headings to original posts/sources.

The Lure of Greed Brodert Quink
Wayfinder 7(With the Lure of Greed to be run before the Catacombs), free on Paizo.com

My Original Post on Lucendi Quink

I loved running this module. It was myself and my player's first "dungeon" experience. It also does a great job at introducting the Runelords to the party earlier and more naturally to me then some random scary catacombs underground. Instead, a friendly old man needs some help, and the characters are sent to a scary old ruin that has much more interesting things going on inside of it, with more roleplay opportunities available.

My PCs have latched onto Brodert Quink as a good friend and source of knowledge and advice. As such, when running this module, I found that the lack of backstory for Lucendi was a major issue. Here's what I've written, feel free to use it as you'd like. Ask away for advice on running the module, and my personal experience. I don't want to make this post any longer than it already is.

The Bounty Board
Original Post by me.

Thanks to /u/Stryxin's Notice Board pack released on his Patreon(in collaboration with Elven Tower, I was able to make this nifty board for RotR. The full album. There's a bit of work that can be done on it still, but overall I'm happy with the results. I found the original versions of the notices on the Paizo forums I think.

Note: If you find yourself wanting to add or change things to this board and are lacking the resources, knowhow, or time to do so, feel free to PM me and I can make you one to order!

Bounty Board Writeup and how they worked in my campaign: Can be found on my original post.

Implementing the board: I'm posting 1 whole copy to my Campaign Discord, but as the board changes it will be doing so on Roll20. Upload the pieces seperate, and you can drag around and mix and match the boards how you please, while still maintaining the quality. Pretty neat.

Risa Magravi's Tales
Original Source of all the tales and their writeup.

This is the first time I'm releasing this.

The tales provided in the link above are a great way to get players involved with Golarion's lore if they're into reading. A lot. On the original post, only about a dozen or so were in handout form. So, I painstakingly spent an entire afternoon fixing that. After the first 5 or so I realized how much time consuming it was going to be if I added pictures and different fonts and stuff to each one, so sorry for the monotony.

My implementation: One of my players is Varisian. His parents died to the Sandpoint Devil and he barely escaped alive. Prior to his parents "settling down" with their new son (the PC) in a Varisian caravan, they were adventurers for a long time. They always found their way back to Sandpoint, however, and were good friends with Risa Magravi. Much of the tales written were shared to her by the PCs parents. When the PC started making a name for himself around town (prior to becoming a hero a farm nearby raised him after his parents died), Risa Magravi heard a name she hadn't heard in a very long time. In a very hearfelt scene between Risa, her daughter, and my PC, Risa passed on the book of tales to him, saying that she was returning a favor for an old friend long ago, and telling him to stop by her tavern sometime.

I actually cried as Risa delivered the book to him. It's one of my proudest moments as a GM; and, a secret shame.

Sandpoint Street Encounters
Original Source of all street encounters.

My Homebrewery PDF of the Street Encounters with minor changes.

My Suggestion on implementation: DMing online with this is much easier and less time consuming. I have a Sandpoint map that my players can all see on Downtime/Sandpoint days. I tell them to draw out the route they are taking to their destination, collect the street names, then roll on the table and describe what they see on their journey.

If you are a Roll20 Pro user, I can give you some advice that can let you click on the Street names and it instantly give you the roll results in chat without players seeing. Otherwise, rolling by hand or even digitally without the macros can be a little tedious. Personally I think its worth it, but /shrug.

Maps
I have, a lot of maps. Since I DM on Roll20, I can offer you Roll20 compatible conversions of most (if not all) maps in Book 1. I'm pretty sure I edited them all personally to ensure complete compatibility, it's been a while.

Here are some custom maps I made for Haldir's The Toadstool Goblins module using Forgotten Adventure's assets (Check them out, they're awesome).

If the link to Haldir's Toadstool Goblin ever dies, feel free to PM me at any time.

Implementation: None. I used none of these maps I spent hours creating on. My PCs did not like Shalelu for... various reasons... and still don't. So, they stood her up and she had to deal with the problem on her own. The rest of the book swept through after that, and I just haven't given much thought to going back and running the aftermath.

Prayerbook to Lamashtu
Here is a link to the original ideas/source for the Prayerbook.

The reason I am including this in my OC post is that I added some pages to the book. It took me a while to make the drawings look like drawings, but I like the end result.

Implementation: I gave it to them in infernal from the Catacombs. They gave it to Brodert to translate, and he told them that it was some f*#$ed up shit and he'd see what he could do. I still have not decided on whether or not Brodert would give it back to them, and the PCs seemingly forgot about it. Yay.

Advice
Lastly, feel free to discuss any of the above, or anything regarding to RotR in the comments or the DMs. I have only run book 1, and not fully canonical, with a lot of changes and additions. Like I mentioned before, I am working on running my PCs through 1.5 Calm before the Murders now, and if you aren't afraid of content bloat or the campaign being extended "unnaturally" in your own campaign feel free to ask about that as well. I will likely be posting asking about ideas in the coming weeks. By the end of this campaign, you won't be able to google "Rise of the Runelords Reddit" without seeing my posts, which hopefully is a good thing lol.

Hey all! I'm finally able to give back to the community that's given so much to me. I know this is "small", but I'm sure I'll be contributing more in the years to come whilst I run this campaign.

My group is very RP focused. Much of the plot has been changed because of the details the book leaves out that my group finds important or strange as the day's in Sandpoint go on. As such, I find myself writing up and filling in a lot of backstory for various NPCs and plot points.

One such NPC is Lucendi Quink, from Wayfinder #07. My PCs have latched onto Brodert Quink as a good friend and source of knowledge and advice. As such, when running this module (The Lure of Greed, from Wayfinder) I found that the lack of backstory for Lucendi was a major issue.

For player's, I encourage you stop reading here and recomend the module to your DM. It could essentially be run at any point in the campaign with some tweaks. This way, if your DM uses this, you won't be spoiled :)

Otherwise, please give me feedback on plot holes or things you think could be improved. I used information from the Anniversery book and Wayfinder 07 to write this. It's a bit rushed(I just finished it, and the session is in an hour), yes, but should work well enough.

Without further ado, Lucendi Quink's Backstory:

Lucendi grew up in Magnimar. Born to a common family, she would be the distinguished scholar she is today if it wasn’t for her uncle Brodert. Brodert was a cataloger at the Founder’s Archive in Magnimar for three decades, during which time Lucendi was growing up. Brodert was at odds with Lucendi’s family for quite some time, as he refused to help them with their financial struggles in one of the lower class district, Beacon’s Point.

Brodert was too focused on his job and studies of Thassilonian lore to care much about the family he left behind. Occasionally he would visit, and offer his young niece some gold for sweets and the like. Lucendi at first only spent time with the man at her parent’s behest(they hoped she would tell them something of Brodert that they could use to get money out of him), and for the sweets, but found herself growing appreciative of his ramblings as the years went on. In time, she looked forward to his visits in between hours spent working in her parents bakery. Brodert soon began to teach her to read, assigning her small books and assignments to work on.

When Lucendi was about the age of 16, Brodert began to change. He was growing increasingly upset that his learning and obvious intelligence wasn’t distinguishing him more amongst his peers at the Founder’s Archive. Up until Brodert told her of his plans, Lucendi noticed that he was becoming increasingly eccentric in his research and findings. He would spend most of their time together working on a thesis involving the Old Light and its supposed previous use as a war machine capable of spewing fire to a range of more than a mile, and would ramble on and on about evidence and support he seemed to pull from the smallest of links.

About a week after he finished the thesis (with Lucendi being the one to “peer review” the thesis), Brodert forlornly paid a visit to Lucendi once more. His peers had scoffed at Brodert, or so Lucendi was told the day he came to see her one last time before leaving. He told her what his peers had thought of his findings (or lackthereof), and his decision to move to Sandpoint so that he could study the Old Light more closely, and perhaps find evidence to support his claim and elevate his status as a true Thassilonian scholar.

Before Brodert left, however, he left Lucendi with a gift: a strongbox full of gold. He told her that the money was hers, and hers alone, to be spent on a proper education so that she could contribute the bright mind he knew she had to the scholarly world. She promised that she would do whatever it took to follow in his footsteps, and to become a proper Scholar.

Although Lucendi’s parents could have used the money to invest in the bakery, they were well enough off at this point to allow their daughter to reach out and try to find her own place in the world, an opportunity that they had missed in the past. About the age of 19, when the bakery was stable enough to do without their daughter’s help, they blessed her pursuit of knowledge, and of she went to find her place amongst Acadamia.

What Lucendi did not realize, however, was how boring becoming a learned citizen could be. While she did enjoy reading occasionally, and definitely enjoyed the stories and theories of ancient Thassilon and other interesting entities of old, she did not realize how droll open study could be. Most scholar’s above her insisted that she focus on learning more about the real world and the state of politics before focusing on the past. She found this boring and uninteresting, but trudged through countless treatsies and histories on Avistan and Garund. For a year she studied these boring topics, gradually losing focus on her goals, until one day she met an individual who completely changed her life’s direction.

Charming, knowledgeable, and full of interesting idea’s and theories, Lucendi met Mersoolian Threce by chance in the Archives. She had once more found her way to the Thassilon section of the libraries, and was pouting at the thought of having to read yet another report on the current state of the River Kingdoms when the man approached her. The two hit it off immediately, with Mersoolian utilizing the setting as a way to broach topics he knew Lucendi would be interested in.

A cleric of Nethys, Mersoolian was just the kind of man that could spark Lucendi’s internal thirst for knowledge. Mersoolian began courting her within the month, and by the end of the year the two were toying with the idea of marriage. In between Mersoolian’s work of upkeeping a small shrine to Nethys and sales of scrolls and maps and Lucendi’s studies, the two planned the details of their marriage.

With the left over money from Brodert, and the money Mersoolian had been saving for years, the two planned a joint expedition into Sandpoint’s hinterlands to attempt to locate an Thassilonian structure that Lucendi managed to come up with a vague location for. Upon returning with new Thassilonian artifacts and knowledge, the two would marry in the Archives.

To Lucendi and Mersoolian, this was the most romantic way they could go about officializing their union.

At this point, pick up from the module where things are left off. Mersoolian most likely dies by the PC's hands(As he ended up turning evil), and now Lucendi is left with nothing but injuries, regret, and a dead husband. I'm planning on having her stay with Brodert for a while, and maybe returning to Magnimar if the PCs don't really care for her after.

Thanks for reading!