Wyrin's page

In the campaign I'm running, the party are coming close to the showdown with Vanthus in Divided's Ire, and I'm looking ahead to the segue into the next chapter.

I'm wondering how much benefit there is from having the party travel to meet Red Shroud and get information, versus having Orgosh be the source of that information. Did people find a benefit from introducing more about the planar politics, succubi relations and providing Shadowfire as a planar guide? Or can this be done a little less heavy-handedly?

IMC, I replaced Melcanthet with Talitha (in Mystara), and through a random roll on a drug effect, the Wizard PC ended up married to Tyrlandi, who is a worshipper of Talitha. She would seem a better substitute for Red Shroud. Plus, if Lynarra gets her way to escape Divided's Ire with the PCs, she could replace Shadowfire..

These seem more natural connections in the campaign I'm running, but I wanted to hear from people that have run Wells of Darkness to get their views of the pro's/con's

I'm in the midst of CoBI at the moment, and looking ahead to the next phase in the adventure path. The players have felt a little bit rushed in the last few adventures, with various time deadlines and pressure to move on, and not having time to explore their own objectives. So what I want to do is break up the pace between CoBI and SoS.

I always felt Lavinia's kidnap was a bit hackneyed, and as the party have had enough clues about Scuttlecove from pirates in ToD and soon from Thorogriff in CoBI, chances are they may have it on their list to visit sooner or later anyway. So what I was thinking is to pause and let them do whatever they want for a few months after CoBI, and maybe spring the Lavinia kidnap during their exploration of Scuttlecove, rather than being the impetus to drive them there. Whilst killing pirates, they find clues about the the kidnap plot, maybe get a chance to save her, and then hunt Vanthus to the prison.

Any thoughts on things to be aware of with this? Knowing my players, there'll be a lot of groaning and rolling of eyes if I play things as written, so keen to make it feel a little more natural

Also, in the 'downtime' adventures, I'd like to foreshadow the involvement of later key players in Enemies fo my Enemies, so they don;t seem too sprung out of the blue. Any ideas for bringing in the involvement of Iggwilv, Melcanthet etc in some sidequests?

So the party I'm running through STAP have been pretty much non-stop since crashing on the Isle of Dread, and I'm a little worried as we gear up for CoBI that there won't be many chances for breathers, downtime, and following PC-related goals outisde the main campaign if I stick too closely to the path as written.

I'm encouraging a bit of downtime after Golismorga before heading to the plateau, but I think they feel that things are pressing (well, they kinda are) and that bad stuff will happen if they take too long before finding the source of the shadow pearl production. I'm worried that the set up to head to Scuttlecove won;t give them much chance for a rest either

What have other people done to allow their parties to explore more of the world outside the campaign, and work in interludes between steps i nthe adventure path? I'm guessing the trigger for Serpents of Scuttlecove can happen at any time after CoBI, and I'm wondering about the party doing some globe trotting to head to different major cities and find Demogorgon cultist cabals that are guarding their shaodw pearls and awaiting the trigger - alllowing them to head to different terratories and explore their own PC paths, motivations and backgrounds for a bit. But any other thoughts on this? Whilst i like the helter-skelter we're on, a pause for toilet breaks and refreshments might be nice!

Has anybody made an attempt at condensing the Totemic Demonslayer PrC to five levels, without overloading the levels with abilities?
I'm wondering about dropping the spell casting to make up for increased abilities per level, but would loosing bless weapon etc make this a lot weaker for what it's designed to do?

Just wondering how other DMs ran the whole exploration of Golismorga part of The Lightless Depths.

My players will arrive at the start of the next session, and I was thinking of putting the map of the cavern (maybe with a fog-of-war to limit vision) up on a TV screen, and then answering any questions they had based on search checks to determine how well the PCs examine the landscape. But it seems the ziggurat and the crater will be readily apparent from a position 70 ft up where the party enters the cavern...

I want to have some exploration and investigation aspects to this, but not sure how best to handle this - and I dont want it to turn into a bland "You're wondering around an alien landscape and *blam* hey, there's a stone building that looks out of place over there. oh, and it's covered in kopru...."

I'm in the midst of the Tides of Dread at the moment - the arrival of the Crimson Fleet is two weeks of game time away.

The party have clued in on the fact that the only real leak about the location of Farshore outside the colony that could have fed back to the pirates is Vanthus. And with his abysmal Will save, they have managed to scry him. Rewarding ingenuity, they have also used the scrying to get a feel for where the sun is in the sky compared to them and try and find possible locations for Scuttlecove.

With the battle coming up, I strongly suspect the party will capture some pirates and question them more about the location of Scuttlecove. What i'm wondering then, is why they wouldn't seek to head there themselves. I'm trying to keep things open and not on a railroad for the players, so do other people have ideas for how to handle this eventuality should it happen? Any adventure ideas to flesh out Scuttlecove having bypassed TLD and COBI?

I'm about to kick off a Savage Tide campaign, and one thing that's been bugging me is a bit of history that might never come up (unless I work it in as a subplot) - why was Sasserine the cleric sent to that spot?

I'm running the STAP in Mystara, so Nyx is replacing WeeJas. So why would Nyx/WeeJas send one of her faithful to this location? What are the goals here?

Some ideas for now
- Nyx/WeeJas is acutally sponsoring Zelkarune (the dragon that kills Sasserine) on the path to immortality/godhood, and this is actually a challenege for the dragon, and Sasserine is a pawn
- There are ancient secrets to be found in the untamed land where the city is founded - perhaps relating to an undead race that Nyx/WeeJas wants discovered, or general necromancy
- It's just a remote location where they can do their necromantic research undisturbed

what are other people's thoughts?