Because this is a party that has mixed familiarity with the adventure and with Sandpoint in particular, I wanted to use a mix of information from the AP itself, the Sandpoint: Light of the Lost Coast Setting Guide, fan-created resources, and original content to make sure that things stayed interesting for the experienced players and to make sure that the new player wasn’t at a disadvantage due to a lack of meta-knowledge. To keep from bombarding readers with my changes to the campaign, I’ll detail the changes I made as they come up, in appendices between my journal entries. They should be mostly supplementary information and can be skipped, but people curious about NPC motivations or setting intricacies (especially about Thassilon) may find them interesting.
Belor Hemlock:
Sheriff Hemlock, according to the Sandpoint Setting guide, was a town guard promoted from the rank-and-file after being the one to discover the bodies of former Sheriff Casp Avertin and the Chopper’s penultimate victim due to a wave of popularity for finally discovering The Chopper’s identity. As a result, my Sheriff Hemlock at the start of the game is still getting used to being a public figure, and he is especially unused to being treated as a diplomat in any regard, because he feels he hasn’t earned the opportunity to fill Sheriff Avertin’s shoes.
Prior to meeting with the party, he was tasked with sizing the adventurers up by his men and by the city council, but he has not been given free reign on how to do that. He was given a list of questions to pose to them to get a handle on their allegiances and willingness to become guardians of the town, but he detests doing other people’s small talk for them and quickly gave up on reading from the list as he got to know the party.
Over time, I intend for Belor to become more accustomed to taking diplomatically-focused leadership positions, though this may change depending on some party actions (like how they handle the opening to Book 2, for example).
Prior to meeting with the party, he was tasked with sizing the adventurers up by his men and by the city council, but he has not been given free reign on how to do that. He was given a list of questions to pose to them to get a handle on their allegiances and willingness to become guardians of the town, but he detests doing other people’s small talk for them and quickly gave up on reading from the list as he got to know the party.
Over time, I intend for Belor to become more accustomed to taking diplomatically-focused leadership positions, though this may change depending on some party actions (like how they handle the opening to Book 2, for example).
Shayliss Vinder:
Shayliss was a well-liked figure in my first campaign (the one run by Askar Avari, where she was a changeling and a vigilante), and Anore’s player, Lucy’s player, and I resultantly have a great deal of familiarity with her. That’s why I want to mess her up a bit. Her first encounter with Anore was intending to be overtly a seduction attempt, which was really cover for an attempted theft. Shayliss lost confidence quickly in light of Anore’s inability to read a room, however, and gave up (for now).
Shayliss in my game is older than Katrine, and she feels a little uncomfortable about her kid sister dating grade-A age-inappropriate douchebag Banny Hosk, and after having seen the differences in her sister’s and father’s faces when Banny brought up the idea of engagement, she felt a level of obligation to get as in the way of that relationship progressing as she could manage. She is doing this largely by getting in as much trouble as she can as fast as she can, so her family is too busy putting out her fires to pressure the seventeen year-old Katrine into marriage.
I don’t have plans to work in the new information about Shroud, but I am likely still going to be transitioning Shayliss’ gender and having them pick up a class.
Shayliss in my game is older than Katrine, and she feels a little uncomfortable about her kid sister dating grade-A age-inappropriate douchebag Banny Hosk, and after having seen the differences in her sister’s and father’s faces when Banny brought up the idea of engagement, she felt a level of obligation to get as in the way of that relationship progressing as she could manage. She is doing this largely by getting in as much trouble as she can as fast as she can, so her family is too busy putting out her fires to pressure the seventeen year-old Katrine into marriage.
I don’t have plans to work in the new information about Shroud, but I am likely still going to be transitioning Shayliss’ gender and having them pick up a class.
Sisters Giulia and Celia, clerics of Gozreh and Shelyn:
One of my party members, Wither, has been rooming in the Cathedral for about a week, offering groundskeeping labor in exchange for board. As a result, I fleshed out a few of the acolytes, since I thought they were cute and wanted Wither to have people to talk to. I found their descriptions in Yossarian’s Sandpoint Gamemaster Notes (2013) and built off of that.
Sister Giulia is a relatively soft-spoken acolyte who makes bird shelters as a hobby. She is generally reserved, but she has a (mild) sadistic streak: she likes watching anxious people stumble over themselves when she flirts with them. She is the one who gifted Wither the birdcage, as she has become a rather big fan of the party after watching the tail end of their fight with the goblin commando on the night of the festival. Giulia came to Sandpoint Cathedral about two years ago, during the reconstruction, from the Storval Plateau. She has a pet song thrush, Whiskers, who was injured by goblins during the raid and hasn’t been seen since (I plan to have the party find his body later).
Sister Celia is a priestess of Shelyn and Sister Giulia’s best friend. She has a habit of climbing to remote locations to play her lyre, which puts anyone looking for her in a bind, as she is quite a good climber. She’s also an incorrigible gossip: though she doesn’t relish spreading rumors, she looooves collecting them. She’s also partial to sweets, particularly fruit pastries. She has been at the Cathedral since before the fire, and as such she’s been privy to quite a bit about the church’s dirty laundry (see Appendix 2). She feels deep shame about her prior refusal to acknowledge Nualia’s mistreatment (which she only suspects, and does not know the nature of) and is reluctant to talk about Father Tobyn’s parenting of Nualia, emphasizing that she and the other acolytes didn’t realize anything was amiss until after Ezakien lost his divine powers (see Appendix 2).
Sister Giulia is a relatively soft-spoken acolyte who makes bird shelters as a hobby. She is generally reserved, but she has a (mild) sadistic streak: she likes watching anxious people stumble over themselves when she flirts with them. She is the one who gifted Wither the birdcage, as she has become a rather big fan of the party after watching the tail end of their fight with the goblin commando on the night of the festival. Giulia came to Sandpoint Cathedral about two years ago, during the reconstruction, from the Storval Plateau. She has a pet song thrush, Whiskers, who was injured by goblins during the raid and hasn’t been seen since (I plan to have the party find his body later).
Sister Celia is a priestess of Shelyn and Sister Giulia’s best friend. She has a habit of climbing to remote locations to play her lyre, which puts anyone looking for her in a bind, as she is quite a good climber. She’s also an incorrigible gossip: though she doesn’t relish spreading rumors, she looooves collecting them. She’s also partial to sweets, particularly fruit pastries. She has been at the Cathedral since before the fire, and as such she’s been privy to quite a bit about the church’s dirty laundry (see Appendix 2). She feels deep shame about her prior refusal to acknowledge Nualia’s mistreatment (which she only suspects, and does not know the nature of) and is reluctant to talk about Father Tobyn’s parenting of Nualia, emphasizing that she and the other acolytes didn’t realize anything was amiss until after Ezakien lost his divine powers (see Appendix 2).
Nephila Murakumo and Vernah’s Fine Clothing:
Nephila is a seamstress who has taken the place of Rynshynn Povalli as proprietress of Vernah’s Fine Clothing, while Rynshynn is studying textiles in Magnimar. Having apprenticed under Vernah after immigrating from Minkai, Nephila has worked alongside Rynshynn to keep the store open in the years since Vernah’s passing.
Nephila has made a name for herself as a fine clothier around town. She is a talented weaver, having made much of the store’s fabric herself. She and Rynshynn have worked together to make the items available at Vernah’s accessible to people with tails, unusual proportions, and other anatomical oddities, making them a popular choice with Sandpoint’s small but growing nonhuman population.
Aldern Foxglove had been a fan of Vernah’s Fine Clothing since before Nephila and Rynshynn took over, and now that Nephila has come into her own as a seamstress he is trying to drum up business for her among Magnimar’s well-to-do (doing this largely by tricking nobles into thinking he is keeping her designs to himself and letting them snoop on him until they find her information). Aldern’s invitation to the party to buy their clothes was made in part to spend more time with them, but it also was calculated: if the new heroes of Sandpoint are wearing Nephila’s designs, people are sure to take notice.
Nephila has a vested interest in increasing the ease of non-human assimilation into Sandpoint. While she lives full-time as a human, she is an Anadi, and she has sympathy for the monstrous humanoids, outsiders, and especially goblinoids who have tried and failed to settle here.
Nephila and Rynshynn are part of a larger plan I have involving The Veil and the smuggler’s tunnels, but I’m going to avoid detailing the Veil’s history until they’re more robustly featured in the game. More than that though I wanted to make a spider lady based off of a children's folktale I liked as a kid, and so here she is.
Nephila has made a name for herself as a fine clothier around town. She is a talented weaver, having made much of the store’s fabric herself. She and Rynshynn have worked together to make the items available at Vernah’s accessible to people with tails, unusual proportions, and other anatomical oddities, making them a popular choice with Sandpoint’s small but growing nonhuman population.
Aldern Foxglove had been a fan of Vernah’s Fine Clothing since before Nephila and Rynshynn took over, and now that Nephila has come into her own as a seamstress he is trying to drum up business for her among Magnimar’s well-to-do (doing this largely by tricking nobles into thinking he is keeping her designs to himself and letting them snoop on him until they find her information). Aldern’s invitation to the party to buy their clothes was made in part to spend more time with them, but it also was calculated: if the new heroes of Sandpoint are wearing Nephila’s designs, people are sure to take notice.
Nephila has a vested interest in increasing the ease of non-human assimilation into Sandpoint. While she lives full-time as a human, she is an Anadi, and she has sympathy for the monstrous humanoids, outsiders, and especially goblinoids who have tried and failed to settle here.
Nephila and Rynshynn are part of a larger plan I have involving The Veil and the smuggler’s tunnels, but I’m going to avoid detailing the Veil’s history until they’re more robustly featured in the game. More than that though I wanted to make a spider lady based off of a children's folktale I liked as a kid, and so here she is.
My current plan is to make an appendix or two like this as information becomes relevant in-game, but if any of you have questions about how I am handling something specific, feel free to let me know and I’ll add it to the next appendix! ┏(･o･)┛