Thorne Stryke's page

Your party doesn't have any reason, for the moment to cross the Crown of the World ? So, is it really a problem ?

Now, you are in Kalsgard to find the ancestral swork of your friend Ameiko, perfect, focus on it. Up to your DM to adjust the story for that and ensure to add good reasons to push you to travel to the Minkai...

He will probably have to rewrite some of the investigation and the different events that will happen, but I can see many option for him to ensure that Ameiko and your party will want to continue her trip... I won't spoil here as you are not the DM, but an easy way could be for your ennemies to kill some of your friends in the caravan and to run away to the North...

This is a very basic reason, but with if your DM wants some help, maybe he should come here and we can share many ideas.

On my side, I made some adjustments in the campaign to ensure that as much as possible of the party as good reasons (personnal or not) to continue to the North, this way, I avoid this issue.

Another solution can also be that some of the party give up the campaign and new characters to join the caravan... In the Jade district, it looks easy to find people with good reason to go back to the Mnkai once they discover that Ameiko can claim for the throne...

I think there was some discussion on that earlier in this thread if you want to comb through it, and there are some other threads with suggestions like this one. You might also be able to crowdsource from the Obituaries thread. Sadly we don't have much official to go on.

Thanks BoscoDM, it is helping.

Maybe Paizo should think to share in a dedicated blog the additionnal background developped by authors but not published... I read on this forum that for many other campaign they had to make some cuts to fit with the books sizes...

Hello,

I started to go through this campaign and I wonder if there is, somewhere, an exhaustive list of NPCs belonging to the circus of Wayward Wonders.

I found difficult to imagine the family it should be for its members if I have no idea about who is part of it...

Thanks for your help !

The ship idea is out of question (simply as it would break the AP^^).

This is an option my group thought about, but the cost itself was very high, in addition to travel during winter period. Anyway, it was an option and, in this case, they would have probably suffer some attack from a lesser oni or a blizzard that would have push them to berth close to Aamniut.

And suuplies?
In a world where food and water can be summoned by appropriate level casters, supplies aren't really a reason for a "travelling with a caravan".

Food and drink is not the only issue they can face during travel. They can be stuck during days in a blizzard, for example and eating same magic food during months is not that great and you need also to change and clean clothes from time to time, as wearing wet clothes is clearly not good for your health. Last point, traveling with a caravan also provide some security from wild enemies, as it is more risky to attack a larger group than only 5 to 6 humans...

The fact is that in most campaigns, the characters are directly concerned by the story, through campaign traits. In this Jade Regent, it is not the case.
But, I am probaly "a jerk", as John Mechalas said... So, well, I will let more experienced people explaining how you have to play and drive your campaign...

Bjorn is right, in this campaign, the characters are not the "heroes".

In any cases, suggest to enrich the story with events directly linked to the PCs.

On my side, I am not using Relationship System neither the caravan rules. I prefer to manage encounters as any other ones, even if I understand that the idea behind these rules was to accelerate the travels. But travels are the heart of this campagn, it is important to prepare them, ensuring that encounters are interesting, potentially linked to PCs or the story.

1) Shinju-no-Ie encounter with the Shadow mage:
I agree with you and I will increase the size of the room, once I will play this scenario (we are just starting book 3). I think that it is the laboratory has the same kind of problem... It is supposed to contain a table in the middle of the room and shelves, alambics... Clearly, it is too small also.

Even no encounter is expected here, the room size have to be coherent. So here also, I will increase the size of the room.

2) The siege of Seinaru Heikiko:
I am planning as you to add additionnal troops to PCs' ennemies. Maybe I will add 50 to 70 simple soldiers (I have a table with 7 PCs... So probably, I will have to plan some magical support also), as my idea is more to add volume to occupy PCs' allies. These troops will flee if Nigankona or the two atamahutas die.

My players face similar issue during the travel to Brinewalls, but it was not yet the fullmoon.

One of them, a witch, succeed in a Knowledge (Nature) check and remembered that a plant called Wolfsbane can heal lycanthropy. So, they search for it and prepare a potion to cure the "potentialy infected" PCs (I made the saves behind my screen)...

It was a very pretty scene, all the caravan waiting the fullmoon to raise and see if the potion will cure them... (Finally, it cured :) )

For the 2nd book, I used the musics below :
- background : Zergna - The path to valhalla viking song
- fights : Danheim - Berserkir

For 3rd book, I plan tu use : The Uh - Wolf Totem

I have not started to think about other books yet.

Instead of "giving" them an automatic increase of their attrbutes, I would suggest to plan some dedicated events in your campaign for each character (related to their background or their actions) and to link these increases to these events.

You have also Higashiyama's daikyu which is under Harabashi Jiro’s hands.

I didn't find any information related to the last 2...

On my side, we are in the middle of Book 2 and I solved such kind of question by simply not giving XP at all. I just inform the group when they achieve a new level. All rewards related to good RP or ideas are manage in game instead of using XP.

The advantage is that it allowed me to add encounters related to the campaign or to PC's background, without taking care of possible impact on their level.

One last point, as the travel is long and is central to first 3 books, I decided to really play the travel, adding events and describing cities they are visiting. Adding also some events related to religious holidays, after all, we are playing in a polythesit world.

On suggestion is to prepare travels. More or less, this aspect of the campaign hasn't been treated in book 1.
On my side, it was an important moment which allow good moment of roleplay and to ring the characters together.

Regarding the seal itself, I think it would be interesting to adapt visions to each characters. On my side, I plan to have a common vision, plus a specific scene for each of them.

Apart from that, I don't know exactly what you are planning for next steps, but I tried to plan specific event for each characters in next books.