Zorkinian's page

Everybody, thanks for the feedback. I'm currently working on incorporating it into the campaign.

pennywit, I really liked your point about the noble houses smelling opportunity. I think I'll have the more conservative families looking to start courting the non-royal members of the party, or offering terms of vassalage - knowing that the mortality rate is high in the river kingdoms, they may get an opportunity to step in quite soon.

I think the more ambitious families will try something along the lines that Orthos describes (long time reader - know the Aranea background =] ), where they attempt to offer both a bride and surrogate as a way to get into the direct line of inheritance.

Such excellent opportunities!

In the campaign that I'm running, the party (currently consisting of a human, a half-elf, an elf, and two gnomes) has chosen for the gnome sorcerer to take on the role of Duke/Baron/King.

Some background from the perspective of Brevoy(/Rostland):
Sending out these adventuring parties was a calculated risk. The Swordlords thought that the expenditure of four fully-staffed adventuring parties was too much, so they decided on a few different approaches:
- Expensive: contract the Iron Wolves to head into the area near Pitax.
- Pricey: send a delegation of diplomats and soldiers into the marshes to clear trade routes further south - and if possible, set up some encampments and forts.
- Politically dangerous: charter Maegar Varn, a politically ambitious fellow, with the Nomen heights. If he fails, that's one less rival - but if he succeeds, his prestige will only increase, though he'll probably stay loyal to Rostland.
- Complete Hail Mary: since they already spent so much on the other groups, one way or another, they contracted a ragtag group of misfits with mapping out the area in the 1st adventure path (Gooo PC team!). There's no real hope of success here, but the group cost almost nothing to hire.

As such, they are surprised when the PC group maps the area, defeats the local bandits, and begins stitching together a kingdom. As time has passed, members of the nobility are beginning to think that even if this kingdom may fall to the wilds like so many others, it seems to have some staying power for now. The complication? A gnome king!

My players are eventually going to have the opportunity to meet with a number of the major players (or their proxies) in Brevoy. More than one faction was planning on gaining a measure of control over this new kingdom by marrying off one of their daughters/sons... but I'm not sure how they will handle this development.

I've been playing races fairly straight to source material, and as such, gnomes can only produce children with other gnomes. The various noble factions in Brevoy are very human-dominant.

So, I think my overall question is - how would these noble houses react? Would they still attempt marriage, but with strange legal caveats? Inspire a coup and hope that the next ruler is more vulnerable to their proposals? The more ideas, the better. =]