Ron Lundeen's Skaldwood Blight 1-20 AP is a VIking-themed take on "Against Treerazor," and it's nearly done. That said, this 3-parter sounds good, but I'd want Keftiu's 3 parts to be parts 4-6. I'd probably start the PCs in Jinin where the rise to become that nation's eventual delegation to the wedding. Parts 2-3 would probably hit Shenmen and Kaoling or maybe Wanshou. Maybe one of those would be an infiltration or raid type mission.
I'm getting Blades in the Dark vibes from this! Can't wait!Was waiting for someone else to say it first! Though /this/ does let me play a Cleric of Brigh as the well-meaning soul of a band of outlaws. There's a lot of revenge in this AP, so I'd probably play a warpriest of Calistria who's keeping the team on task.
Although I mentioned it a thread on what themes you want in an AP, I'll say it again here. After the two APs immediately prior to this one, I'm going to want to see some "high culture." By which I mean things like fancy ceremonies with rococo furnishings and finery; the sorts of luxuries that a culture with an economy close to subsistence cannot afford; and manners and customs that a bunch of gun-toting outlaws would ignore. As an example, you could have another courtroom scene like the defense of the Beast from Carrion Crown, but this time, the PCs are the prosecution and the defendant is too powerful to face in a fight, leading to the party pursuing a legal process. The titles look promising for this request, but I thought I'd make it here just in case.
I think I'd want to see Druma take the lead in reorganizing the politics of the Eye of Dread. The PCs would be mercenaries or troubleshooters and go on missions. Kind of like Age of Ashes, but less self-directed. One book with the orcs of Belkzen; one book about covert ops in Ustalav; some missions doing politics in nations far off like how the Mendevian crusaders must of rallied allies when the Worldwound opened; a book not directly tied to Tar-Baphon (perhaps countering a cult of Trelmarixian that is making things worse but not directly allied to T-B); maybe a return to Bloodsworn Vale to firm up ties between Varisia, Oprak, Nirmathas and Molthune; maybe after the success of that, they receive permission to use the stone roads to go someplace weird, like Arcadia, Iobaria, or some shaitan metropolis on the plane of earth. While I'd like the travel of Age of Ashes, I would want the final boss to be something like Tar-Baphon's spymaster, so it's clear that the PCs have helped, but have not resolved or fixed everything. I also want the intermediate bosses to mostly not be the minions of Tar-Baphon, but wicked forces taking advantage of a bad situation. Maybe instead of Kakistocrats as patrons, a trip to Druma is just one of the missions. The campaign could start as captives in Razmir, which they escape by stowing away on a Kakistocrat barge, but are geased to go on these missions as a way of working off what they should have paid to the barge owner.
I wonder what kind of story could get us to tour Southern Garund? That feels to me like one where you'd want the PCs to be Pathfinder Society members, like Serpent's Skull or The Shattered Star, in order to get a full, proper tour. Depending on the nature of the mysterious danger at the heart of Murraseth, possibly it could work as an AP where the PCs are Hellknights or in the Firebrands. Since it has a lot of jungle terrain, I expect it will be some time before we find out. As an evil AP with the PCs as Aspis Consortium agents might be another way to do it, but I don't really like the themes such an AP would have, and I'd rather have a Red Mantis Razmir Must Die AP anyway. Most likely this seems like one for PFS scenarios, like how they explored Tian Xia in season 3.
Seagoing do-gooders on soft exile from Holomog would be my first choice, while another dip of that big Sinbad energy like in the Kakishon portion of Legacy of Fire would be a close second. For Tian Xia, I like the idea of the PCs as courtly band of knights from Jinin who wander from Kurosawa film to film. Second best would be like a spiritual sequel to Carrion Crown, except instead of creature features it's mostly other kinds of horror centered in Shenmen. Running a tea house in Kasai could also be cool.
After Quest for the Frozen Flame and Outlaws of Alkenstar, one theme I'd like to see come up in Blood Lords is refinement. Maybe the PCs need to host a funeral or tea ceremony, or appear at a knightly tournament, or as a reverse on the coutroom drama in Carrion Crown, maybe they need to prosecute and secure the conviction of a more powerful foe as their only hope of beating that foe. I will definitely want something "high culture" by then, though.
That's the way I'm writing it (because that's the way it was in our office campaign), but I suppose that could change in development if someone gets super ornery about it.Is this really for five characters instead of the usual 4?The Dead God’s Hand is a campaign-arc adventure for five 1st-level characters. Throughout the course of play, the player characters should advance to 4th level. Product is not final and subject to change. I wouldn't say to change it, but a cool blog post (or series) would be to show off who played what and post the office characters so a GM could use them as helper NPCs.
With the Kingmaker hardcover coming relatively soon, my most-wanted sequel would be The One About the Divorce. Brevoy breaks up so Rostland and Issia are going their separate ways, and it's all the PCs can do to minimize the harm to the other kids as Mom and Dad fight. Other sequel-ish beats I like to imagine we might see:
Since becoming de-haunted, Brinewall is now an actual port of call for ships going to or coming from points further north, and the PCs have some reason to be there, kind of like the stop in Sandpoint in Return of the Runelords. What with all the churn in the Abyss, it seems like the minions of Abraxus are overdue to put in an appearance. They should be up to something nefarious to take advantage of things like the Gorilla King dying and the events of Wrath of the Righteous. The Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye needs to step up and show it will remain true to its founding mission. Even though they were part of the playtest module for PF2e, I'd like to see them again.
Absolutely. Achaekek revelations are a big part of what I wanna put in such an AP. And now that we're doing 3 parters... doing this as a high level 3 part one might work even better. Although that's already two elements that make it a harder sell to management... and also I'm not really doing "new" adventure paths these days... This has seemed like the way to do a Razmir Must Die AP, to me.
I think we could do with an AP where the stakes, or consequences of failure, are bad, but maybe not immediately obvious. For instance, if the AP was about re-orienting the politics of the EYe of Dread region, helping refugees, setting up a new watch on former Lastwall, and so forth it's clear that the work needs doing, but what happens if it's done poorly will take some time to play out. This might also be a good one for killing Razmir.
This is kind of like Troubles in Otari or somewhat like Agents of Edgewatch. The original Rise of the Runelords also has an approach exactly like Staffan Johansson suggests. One downside from a design standpoint in staying in the same place for a full AP is that other types of campaigns make it easier to scale the difficulty of encounters. For instance, in Kingmaker, it's pretty easy and also plausible for the CR to rise as the party gets farther from their home base. The linearity of Serpent's Skull, Carrion Crown, Reign of Winter, and Age of Ashes tends to make the process of leveling up seem natural, because the characters grow as they go. I'd be worried with a pure sandbox as a designer that it would not be legible to the players which areas are level-appropriate and which are not. That said, I like this theme or idea for a follow-up to Jade Regent. I'd start with the party meeting at a tea house in Kasai, or starting and running such a business, and they would undertake a variety of neighborhood-improvement type projects. In this setup, the gatekeeping to increasing the threat level undertaken might be that as they put on bigger and better special events, they come to meet more powerful potential patrons, who hire them to take up increasingly difficult tasks. As to the point about QFG1, as I remember it, every plot related quest is ultimately about the Baron and his household, since they all go back to Baba Yaga's curse. The succession of elementals in QFG2 keeps that game from being very open-ended too.
The One About Hard Bargains. I realized my cold war espionage vibe request far up thread would work really well with this theme as a revisit to Ravounel or even as an evil AP with tension between Nidal and Cheliax. They are allies, but exactly because they are both evil neither really trusts the other. Also a good theme to visit Rahadoum and see how the Laws of Man are sometimes a high price for freedom. Could also be a good one for a witch with a demanding patron. The One About Difficult Compromises. Druma takes the lead on reorienting the politics of the Eye of Dread region. Or maybe, Qadira and Taldor work to reduce mutual tensions and reconcile in light of the recent regime change from War for the Crown. Maybe Kyonin becomes a little more open to the wider world. Could also be set in Galt, but would require major expectations management, since some of the Galt requesters seem to want an end to the defining violence of the place and some would prefer something about the intrigue and moral grey areas of living under the threat of the politics of the place without actually changing them. It would be tricky like with Council of Thieves. The One About Easy Promises. Rulers and rich folk have an easy time making promises to the less powerful, serene in the belief that they can always easily renege. The PCs will disabuse them of this notion. Maybe they are vigilantes, maybe they were wronged and seek revenge, maybe they are tasked by a higher power in order to set things right. At least once, they themselves will struggle mightily to make good on some commitment they made lightly. The One About Delicate Balances. Sometimes a small change can snowball into a vast avalanche. I kind of liked how Legacy of Fire and I3-5 back in the day handled this with unleashing genies, but the party was mostly off-plane while the consequences played out in LOF. I'd like something similar, but with them present while events are running along. Would be a good theme for plane hopping to liberate another elemental lord, or to destroy some other artifact. At the end of the campaign, the players should realize the world might regard at least some of their characters like Gavrilo Princip: very consequential, but worthy of commemorating with a statue only to relatively few. The accidental release of the balor from the lens of Galundari would be an interesting possibility, as he could go about trying to build a power base while the PCs oppose him.
Not trying to jump in for Ron here, but I'm wondering the same thing from customers. How many ancestries is too many? Since you only pick ancestries once during a character's life (barring things like reincarnation), would folks prefer to see more things like feats and spells and archetypes? Before going whole hog to write mechanics to put out more ancestries, I think the existing ones could get a little more support during the AP, especially by having more higher-level ancestry feats to choose among. Age of Ashes has such a strong theme of an ancestry per book that maybe in book four or five, each ancestry could have gotten one or two feats for the 17th-level slot or 13th-level slot, for instance. Basically, the level 20 alternate capstones are nice, but it might also be nice to try and have an easier, earlier payoff for playing that AP by putting out some ancestry feats somewhere in the middle to enjoy along the rest of the way. Since the higher level books don't sell as well, having unique or [rare] 13th-level ancestry picks would make a nice alternate off-ramp, too. Likewise, if some future AP has an ancestry theme there could be a new weapon for players who picked things like Halfling Weapon Familiarity. Another option could be a downtime activities that use skills like Society or whatever at regular DC, but would reward &ANCESTRY Lore with a lower DC or perhaps earlier access to an advanced option. Like how the AoA castle building had some rebuilding tasks that needed Expert and others that needed Master, you could have something with Expert Society or Trained in Gnomish Lore. I get that some people want a new ancestry to try something different, but I think some of that is people not seeing how to do something different with the ancestries that already exist. I'd say yes to the more mechanics, at least as an experiment, but I'm less interested in another new ancestry, basically. Relatedly, I think the additional archetypes could be decreased to make room for an ancestry experiment, because while happening upon a unique archetype is a cool way to tie a character to the AP. Some players have a set idea of what they want to make and thus an archetype may be of no interest to them, while a few ancestry options might not disrupt their character concept as much and thus be more appealing.
I can't decide whether I should guess "Six Tests of The Strength of Five Kings" or "Six Tests of The Wisdom of Five Kings," but either would be good because the Dwarves are overdue for some screen time, the Eye of Dread region has seen some big changes, and the letters "S" and "W" are popular for AP titles. Considered but rejected as my guesses:
The biggest problem with these is that they're all long for AP titles, as exactly two of twenty-nine (or thirty-seven, county Starfinder) have been as many as five words long in the post-Dungeon Magazine era.
Between the robes and the facial hair, I feel like little Balazar brings big Pai Mei energy, and hence deserves to be at the top of the list. Yoon and Reiko are from the Dragon Empires. For a fourth, I'd want someone with a sword, so Amiri, Oloch, Sajan, Jirelle, or even Ameiko Kaijitsu are all in contention.
Several variants of what AP would you like to see ago, I said something Airship related, like Voyage of the Princess Ark. Glad I'm not the only one who likes a sky-based AP! My real reason for coming back to this thread though, was brought on by thinking about the secret keepers in Harry Potter. I'd like an AP where it's The One About Keeping the Secret. War for the Crown is kind of like this, but there they have a covert agenda. Here the overt agenda would be to keep something covert. Basically, Second Darkness, as if they work for the Lantern Bearers from the beginning.
Still waiting on an actual answer to the (rules) question: "Is it the intent for Sally Guard Neophyte not to have a skill feat? Or just an oversight in the assembly of the player's guide, because the free gear was supposed to be only a replacement for the +1 to Deception, Diplomacy, and Intimidation vs. certain people?"
I think I mentioned it in another of these sorts of threads, but an AP about the personal significance of religion. They have a patron, they make various pilgrimages, they influence what faith the patron eventually adopts. Along the way there's some spiritual growth, perhaps. An AP that's about the immediate impact and response to the return of Tar-Baphon, such as the one where they are in Druma and are forced to take the lead to re-orient and re-align the politics of the Eye of Dread region. I think there's been a little too much enthusiasm for time travel lately, and I'd like an AP to strike a contrast to the time travel AP. I'd like one that is all about permanence and timelessness. They help the dwarves follow their cultural traditions; or help the elves give Telandia Edasseril a proper wedding celebration; the Nidalese pay fealty to Zon-Kuthon; the Grreen Faith sees to it that the proper rituals are done in their proper seasons; the ruler of Kelesh receives his rightful tribute from the westernmost satrapy; the victors of a previous AP seek to leave a lasting monument beyond tales of their heroic deeds; the Red Mantis puts the upstart false god Razmir to the blade; any one of these would do. The feeling at the end should be that however it turns out, it could not have turned out some other way, and all is as it should be. The one about overcoming interior corruption by destroying the sentient magic item frenemy they meet early on, all while resisting its temptations. The one where they help diverse peoples to overcome their differences to survive a Great Famine engineered by Trelmarixian et. al. The one where they investigate mysteries and portents at the behest of the Harrowed Society. The one where they are honored foreign guests and perhaps advisors, eventually well-received and richly rewarded for their services to the local ruler concerning many problems where the ruler would prefer to have easy politically convenient scapegoats if they are not up to snuff after all. The one with an open steppe, a clear day, swift horses under them, and perhaps a falcon on a wrist to start up hares.
I'd like an AP where the PCs' objective is to rise to the top of and run an organization. It could be a guild like was mentioned above, or maybe building up a city, like trying to become new water lords in Ular Kel. They arrive, they find an under-watered neighborhood to be their future power base, and so forth. I'd like an AP where the whole thing is some kind of race. They're being chased, they're chasing the villain who's on a mission to destroy some artifact of good, they have to get in and get out of somewhere before some deadline, whatever. Each adventure should be a struggle to balance doing the job fast vs. well. The final adventure is the one where choices all along the way become consequences. Perhaps something a bit like Carrion Crown, but without the mystery and the antagonists more obvious. Maybe a romp to and from Akiton before the Door to the Red Star closes, whatever. I'd like one kind of like War for the Crown, but with more of a cold war vibe than of a shadow or incipient civil war vibe. Like they are agents of a good dragon tasked with a series of difficult quests, frequently bumping up against the minions of some evil, who happens to be their patron's rival. Perhaps the AP concludes by slaying that rival in revenge for the prior defeat of their old master.
We've only ever spent significant time in the Abyss and the demiplane of dreams. I've always thought a good way to continue the LOF campaign would be to take Xotani's heart to the Plane of Water and feed it to a kraken. Would be a nice way for the Captain of the Sunset Ship and Shazarthared return.
For the benefit of GMs who think to look here rather than in the sticky for book 2: Will there be any specific callbacks to the Player's Guide backgrounds in later adventures, as was sometimes done in 1e with campaign traits in later adventures? Basically want to know how hard I should encourage players to choose backgrounds from the Player's Guide over those in the Core Rulebook.
Mental Blocks
I'd like part of the discussion to key on the success of the Second Darkness AP. Like how has the world reacted to learning about the drow, how is the elf/drow conflict going, has Telandia Edasseril married, what has happened to the Winter Council and the Lanternbears, have the drow reversed engineered the spell from Endless Night and infiltrated the surface further, if so where exactly, did Allevrah Azrinae's failure spark more than the usual political churn in Zirnakaynin, etc. Also, if there was darklands unrest sparked by that AP, how is it related to the Shensen & the other Silver Ravens being out of town in Tomorrow Must Burn? Some minor questions:
Westcrown has seen a lot of unrest; what's Amaya Kaijitsu up to these days? How's Anastasia Romanova working out in Irrisen? Any big developments in the non-Minkai parts of Tian Xia since the last time the setting looked in on it? Assuming the Year of the Stolen Storm happened in the default Golarion, what efforts are underway to free the three still-trapped Elemental Lords of Good? In my head, the guardians of Marudshar were corrupted minions of Ranginori, and that valley might now be ripe for a visit! (That red-toned illustration on p54 of 9020 is still one of my all time favorites for being so evocative.) Since certain of the orbs of dragonkind and runelords' swords and polearms have appeared lately, what other major artifacts have surfaced in the past ten campaign years? In general, do the artifacts of Golarion appear clustered in time, like how it was done in Age of Worms? By the same token, so DMs can avoid homebrewing something that will soon conflict with forthcoming material, are there any heretofore obscure artifacts from Artifacts & Legends that will soon appear in Paizo products?
Three adventures into Age of Ashes, I'm liking it. The exploration so far seems to be a good mix of being about the location, and about the inhabitants. I am also finding it somewhat reminiscent of Reign of Winter, like an echo or reflection. Having a magic transportation mcguffin really takes the travail out of the travel, for better and for worse. From the description of Extinction Curse and Agents of Edgewatch, I want the next AP to be less local and have more of a feel where the voyage is the adventure, like Jade Regent, but warmer, ideally. Some possible road trip suggestions: 1. The change to Taldor's succession law interests Qadira and the Padishah empire decides not to just delegate the diplomacy. The PCs somehow distinguish themselves in the capital of one empire in adventure 1, the middle of the AP is escorting a diplomatic mission with a caravan subsystem, and the final adventure is all about making a good impression on the host nation, and justifying their decisions in the earlier adventures, with consequences like at the end of War for the Crown depending on how they behaved. In particular, adventure 6 is kind of like the now-canon diplomatic outcome of Vault of the Onyx Citadel, but with plenty of expectation management along the way to make clear that the diplomatic outcome is the correct end goal. Don't really care if the trip is east-bound or west-bound. 2. An NPC patron in Azir questions the Laws of Man and decides to go on a spiritual pilgrimage, or maybe has been a heretic for some time and is found out. Maybe they have to disguise themselves as merchants until clear of Rahadoum, or maybe they are the chosen family of an NPC cast out for theism. The adventures are as much about an arduous journey as they are about an interior striving for a connection to the divine. Don't really care if the final scene is attending the patron's joymaking in Pangolais, lighting candles at Iomedae's temple in Absalom after seeing the sites of all the Acts, donating Zen and the Art of Broomstick Maintenance to a grand temple to Nethys, or drinking in a random tavern where they all kick back and celebrate hitting the best Caydenite bars in the Inner Sea. 3. Somewhat less like Jade Regent and more like Age of Ashes but an inversion of Skull & Shackles. In adventure 1, the PCs are clutch help in a relatively cosmopolitan port such as Absalom, Katapesh, Niswan, Quantium, or Mechitar. Convinced they are just the freaks the ship needs, they join on to a ship that looks like a sailing vessel, but once out of sight of land is revealed actually to be an airship. The plan is to explore places like the Impossible Lands, Holomog, Murraseth, and other parts of southern Garund. In any case, the PCs are always the A-Team Away Team. Don't really care if the PCs return to their point of origin or make Anthusis or Senghor their destination, but at the end of the AP, I'm left with a feeling like I was just part of a blend of something new, Sinbad, Dragon Magazine's The Voyage of the Princess Ark, and Gail Carriger's The Custard Protocol.
I was using Google and paizo.com search feature to try and find out if the three new classes' iconics had been previewed yet, and that fragment turned up identically under both Tags / Witchwarpers and Tags / Zemir in the Paizo search. Now that I try another tab to repeat the technique, I suspect Barsala is the biohacker. Vanguard is too common a word for it to pop out.
From Thursday, September 26, 2019: Iconic Encounter: The Scientific Method ... Thursday, September 26, 2019 ... It was well after midnight when Barsala had her breakthrough. ... She was in the temporary laboratory structure built for her by Iratha Incorporated deep in the swamps of Zulypsindo, a Near Space world known for its extensive marshlands and the site of the latest episode of “Dr. B’s Science Jubilee.” The windowless,...
Somehow, I found this evidence in support of this thread title.: Pushing aside his fear, Zemir leaned back in his chair and cleared his mind. In an instant he sorted through a thousand iterations of this crash landing and clung to just one—the one where everyone survived. ... “Hard to starboard!” Zemir boomed. “Aim for that plateau—it’s our only shot!” ... “You heard him!” Navasi shouted, cutting in the ship’s retro-thrusters to try to slow its
So when do we get to read the iconic encounter with this tag? And what theme is Zemir, the iconic witchwarper? Ar the three new classes going to use up the themes in the core rulebook? What alignments are they? What are their names? Will they be added to the pregens pdf?
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