Okay, so I have taken it upon myself as a challenge to combine the three campaigns (Rise of the Runelords, Shattered Star, and Return of the Runelords) into a single campaign and have it make sense. I've read through all 18 books, some more than others. There will be fewer Shattered Star encounters used and I really consider this a combination of Rise and Return of the Runelords, with a few Shattered Star plots thrown in. If anyone has any thoughts on what I've done here, I’d love to hear them. Specifically if anyone can see in plot holes in this plan.
There will be spoilers for all three Adventure Paths in this very, very long post, fair warning!!!!
1) I want the PCs meet/fight all seven Runelords in one campaign (this includes Krune by using bits and pieces of the Year of the Rune Society Modules). The events of Awakened Rune have not happened yet, but I think the book where Zutha came back is fine to leave in the story.
2) I will be converting the campaign to the 2nd edition. Converting to 2nd ed is fairly easy; I've run a few modules from 1e for my group and converting to 2e was very simple. Hardest part will be the unique NPCs that don't have an exact version for 2e. I'm hoping these boards will catch up eventually and have some 2e stats for those unique NPCs sooner or later, but if not, easy enough to make a character. Treasure is super easy too, basically 1/10th of the value of the treasure in the books is what it is converted to. Magic items are trickier since magic really got an overhaul, and that honestly might be the part that takes longest for me as the GM.
I also realize that the leveling may be off from what is written in a few of the books. That is fine since I am converting to 2e anyway and it's not going to be a huge jump in levels either.
3) I want to complete the campaign in around 18-24 months or so real time (running once a week for 6 hours). As much as I want to run all three campaigns in their full glory and in order, I get one shot to run a full length campaign with my current group.
4) I plan on cutting a number of the encounters and even whole acts from the adventures that don't specifically advance the plot or weave in the PCs backgrounds. So it could be that what’s left over from the book might take up one level’s worth of encounters and that's it.
5) I'd like to keep Nualia alive for as long as possible, I know my group and they will eat her back story up; she's definitely the type of antagonist they love to face. But if she dies, it won't ruin the campaign, they can relish in their victory and move on.
6) Sandpoint should be the PCs home town with a home base of some sort.
7) I’m removing the whole ‘you get a vision to where the next shard is located’ plot. Instead, the shards are owned by various bosses throughout the campaign. I’ll convert their powers to 2e, still keep a curse based upon their sin, but make them intriguing enough for the players to want to keep them or at least take them when they find them and store them somewhere.
It could be that the inclusion of the shards is unnecessary and I would agree, except I like the idea of the sihedron being a tool to use against a fully awakened runelord, and it is an important plot tool in Rise of New Thassilon, a book I'm definitely utilizing.
Also, no Sihedron Council, it’ll just be the Pathfinder Society, but Sheila Heidmarch is still going to be their ‘quest giver’. The trick here is that once the players find out that a reforged star can help them defeat Runelords, they might avoid the rest of the campaign and try to spend all their effort trying to find the rest of the shards. In which case I probably will devise some kind of method for them to find them other than the ‘vision quest’ method and run the other plots parallel to it. It might be too cheesy that they miraculously happened to find all the shards just from defeating a few bosses here and there, so I’m still chewing on this subplot.
8) The ‘Sihedron Heroes’ as mentioned in Return, are actually a few of the Pathfinder iconics that figured out what Alaznist was doing, they don’t have the sihedron, they were defeated by Alaznist and frozen in time in Crystalin. Basically a way to show the players that the Pathfinder Society actually tried to send its greatest heroes to stop Alaznist already and failed. Because my players get super annoyed at NPCs and ‘friendly’ organizations that don’t try to help them out in some crazy OP way when they have that capability.
9) Alaznist has been manipulating time as written in Return, except for the Cyphergate. I think the Cyphergate is a good device that protects Karzoug from the manipulations of time and therefore it protects itself too. So there are only 6 temporal wounds, not 7. It’ll help explain why Alaznist isn’t going after Karzoug with the scepter of ages, cause she tried but couldn’t.
10) I would like to avoid creating as much new content as possible outside of the Adventure Paths. Moving scenes around or coming up with information to connect the books together, I will need to come up with. And, yes, players often go off and do unexpected things, and that stuff I can account for, but for my initial outline, I’d like to stay within the confines of the three Adventure Paths (plus three PS modules).
11) The hardest part is mashing up the two BBEGs from Rise and Return and figure out how they react to each other. I am finding it difficult to figure out why, after she kills Xanderghul, Alaznist simply doesn’t go and kill Karzoug since he’s not fully awake yet, and even if she can’t because of the Cyphergate protections (my addition, not cannon I think), why those two don’t start some kind of proxy war between the two - or maybe they do. I find that to be the most logical course for those two to take. Alaznist could be helping the Lissalan cult to wake up Krune (the events of the Waking Rune have not happened), or maybe even resurrect Zutha, so they can help her out, as well as trying to find Sorshen. She is quite happy to keep Belimarius where she’s at.
Karzoug will stir first, as written, 5 years prior, but not really awaken and start gathering forces to him. Sorshen wakes up a year before the adventure starts (I’m reworking the cannon timeline, the events of the Crimson Throne have already happened). Alaznist will wake up shortly after the goblin raid on Sandpoint, an event along with the defeat of the Castellan in Hollow Mnt that sends enough souls her way, and then do her thing as per in Return (kill Xanderghul, find the scepter, try to stop Karzoug from becoming a runelord in the first place but can’t because of the Cyphergate, ect.) Most of the campaign Karzoug is trying to gather enough souls to wake up fully, no change from Rise, but I think a lot of his attention is spent trying to foil Alaznist.
12) Here’s what I’m doing as far as which books I’ll be using and what changes I’m making:
Burnt Offerings - 1st -4th levels, Using all of it, but I am giving Erylium the shard of pride for the players to find, but if they don’t find the Catacombs for some reason, then it’ll be in Thistletop with Nualia.
Skinsaw Murders - 4th-6th levels, Remove scarecrow farms & Foxglove townhouse, all of the information will be in the manor house. I want to introduce the Peacock Cult as well, so I’m putting the encounter with Viralane & Corla when they travel between Sandpoint and Magnimar; she’ll be wanting the shard of pride. Now I’ll most likely rename the Cult of the Peacock Spirit to the Order of Resplendence, I don’t think they would consider themselves a cult.
Curse of the Lady’s Light - 6th-7th level, Prior to starting this book, I think there would be alot of exposition from Sheila Heidmarch and this’ll be the part when the PCs start to realize what’s going on. I plan on Sheila already having Baraket in her possession and she witnessed the blade awaken and go dormant herself. Sheila will explain the Shattered Star, just as she does in Shards of Sin. I think she’ll suspect something happened to Xanderghul. I don’t know if I want Sheila to ask the PCs to start finding all the pieces of the star, otherwise that’s what they would focus on. Either way, she’s heard rumors that the shard of lust is in the Lady’s Light and asks the players to get it, either to assist in research to determine if the Runelords are waking up or to start reforging the Star. I’m getting rid of the boggard/xulgath encounters except for maybe one encounter, and the Light will have fewer encounters; the succubus has the shard of lust.
The Runecarved Key - 7th-8th level, Using all of it. I can’t remember if this was already the case, but I am going to have the Apsis Consortium representative also be members of the Cult of Lissala. The note they find on the cultist will clearly indicate that the cults are working together to wake up Krune. I think I may also have the note say something about how Alaznist is supporting them to wake up Krune, giving the players a reason to do the next book.
It Came from Hollow Mountain - 8th-9th level, They go to Hollow Mountain for the same reason as in Return - evidence that Alaznist has fully awakened and they might find the shard of wrath there. There will be fewer dungeon encounters, and I’m removing the hunt for the ranger, & move first act’s Viralane encounter to before Curse of Lady’s Light. I’m also removing the Cult of Yamasoth (see below) and replacing them with vampires who work for Xanesha (maybe the same vampires that once protected Sorshen's tomb but were dismissed when she became good). Xanesha rose as an undead creature the very next night after the player’s kill her. The vampires are trying to release a plague in Magnimar, but that’s all the players will know for now. They still get their vision from Sorshen.
Runeplague - 9th, 10th,or 11th level, Just like in the Runeplague book, the players will have options on which is the most important for them to tackle. Either hunt down the vampires before they release the plague, visit Sorshen in Korvosa, or stop the cult of Lissala from getting the words needed to unlock Krune’s tomb. This is also the book that I will probably change up the most. They still get the visit from the Time Steward here and from here on all Society, Religion, and Lore checks that involve Thassilon, Varisia, or any of its cities have increased DCs. But I’m removing the need to go to Riddleport from Runeplague (or I might keep this in, but instead of the cult of Yamasoth, it's the Cult of Lissala and they are after something that leads them to waking up Krune). I’m also changing it from the Polymorph Plague to the Runeplague - instead of morphing the victims, the plague is going to cause an open sore in the shape of the sihedron and then cause death shortly afterwards. Basically, undead Xanesha is continuing her quest for Karzoug and it ties the campaign to the events at the beginning. But now Xanesha has found the shard of wrath in the Irespan and is quite eager to get revenge on her most hated rivals, the PCs who killed her. I’ll run Kaer Maga as written with Ergantius having the Bone Grimoire and the shard of gluttony (the two items needed to summon forth Zutha at full power). I might run a bit of the Asylum Stone here as well, have them help the Augers so that the trolls will reveal the location of Ergantius, and replacing the Seal of the Brotherhood in Kaer Maga with the Dark Keep (but make it Ergantius’ secret demiplane instead of the Dark Rider).
Words of the Ancients - 9th, 10th,or 11th level, Using all of it, I think I may have it so that the Cult of Lissala is unsuccessful in getting the plates if the players get there first. They are just going to feed incorrect information so that the players think they need to go to Krune’s final location, but are really just opening the tomb up for the cultists. That’s just a thought for now though.
Awakened Rune - 11th level, Using all of this but removing the requirement to gather tokens, just need the plates from the previous adventure. I think Krune would have taken the shard of sloth with him when he went to sleep.
Fortress of the Stone Giants - 12th-13th level, Running the attack on Sandpoint as written. Replacing Black Tower with a stone giant encampment players will need to infiltrate (I’m looking at Skirgaard from Giantslayer as a model). This is because the players will be going to actual Black Tower later on to research the viridian ritual, and I don’t really want them going to the same dungeon twice. Conna the Wise will still help them here. But Mokmurian still discovered all his information at the Black Tower. Mokmurian has the shard of greed.
Beyond the Doomsday Door - 14th level, fewer encounters, remove the upper encounters of the abbey. Instead of Ardathanatus' reason for attacking the abbey as written, I am changing it so that he not only converted to the demon lord Yamasoth while in Hollow Mountain, he also has met Alaznist and agreed to serve her. Thus he has come to the abbey to open the door and speak with Yamasoth on Alaznist’s behalf to secure a demonic weapon for her use in her upcoming war with Karzoug. Most of the creatures in the abbey’s dungeons will have the rune of wrath upon them. Ardathanatus still has the shard of envy. Alternatively, if Nualia is still alive, and I hope she is, she will replace Ardanthanatus as a general in Alaznist’s army. It’s this encounter I expect her to make her final stand.
Sins of the Saviors - 15th level, I’d probably give the information about Runeforge to Mokmurian, Ardathanatus, or Nualia instead of the Scribbler and run the white dragon encounter before Runeforge. However, I think campaign-wise, the Runeforge weapons are redundant with the shattered star if both are meant to defeat runelords. I think instead, maybe they need to take the pieces of the star here and ‘recharge’ them so that they can be reforged in Magnimar. Maybe each of the runelords helped create Runeforge exactly as in Sins of the Saviors, but they also all were trying to scheme and secretly reforge the star for themselves once one of them got all seven shards. I do think that by recharging the shards here, they can also create a Runeforged weapon (stats TBD). I’m still working out the exacts here. Basically, they wouldn’t need either the Sihedron or Runeforged weapons to defeat Krune or Zutha, because Krune hadn’t quite woken up and was extremely weakened and Zutha wasn’t wholly Zutha either. The other 5 Runelords though, will need Runeforged weapons and/or the sihedron to defeat them.
Temple of the Peacock Spirit - 16th level, I think here, I’ll have Sheila start the ritual to reforge the star, but it’ll take a while as it requires a specialist of each school of magic to participate in the ritual that takes up to 7 days. In the meantime, Sorshen will come to them about Xanderghul and the book moves on as written, mostly. This means that they will have Runeforged weapons, but not the shards with them. Will keep the time dragon encounter when they visit the Black Tower to find the ritual to get to the Temple and remove most of the other encounters from here. I’ll probably keep the cultists in the Temple, but get rid of alot of the rivalries going on there since I plan on this all occurring during a single character level for the players. So far fewer temple encounters. But otherwise keep it the same.
The Dead Heart of Xin - 17th level, the reforging will be much less celebrated, more secret, it’ll cause some flooding, but not a whole tsunami so I won’t be running any tsunami encounters. I guess it’s possible the players could ignore the risen palace and head straight to Xin-Shalast, especially after the events of Sins of the Saviors where his statue comes alive to try to kill them, in which case, I think a wave of clockwork soldiers appear in Magnimar and start attacking which will give the players a sense of urgency to head to the island to stop the source of the clockwork army. Overall, there will be very few combat encounters I put here, and the only rooms they can really access are just the rooms that grant them visions and the star vault rooms, maybe enough encounters to get them up half a level. I think during the vision that shows Xin creating the sihedron, the vision gets all blurry and changes to show Alaznist arriving to interrupt him, but the vision ends before they see her destroying the star. In addition, in the assassination vision, the rune giant will flicker in and out of existence, replaced by Alaznist.
The City Outside of Time - 17th - 18th level, I’m removing the Timeworn Tunnel, but keeping a very small portion of the Shadow Plane. Fewer encounters, but keep the city events that help them figure out what in history is off. The Sihedron Heroes are some of the Pathfinder Iconics and they don’t have the sihedron. Also, once they emerge from Crystalin, Varisia is still somewhat what they remember. I’m tinkering with the idea that instead, Varisia is in ruins and Sorshen is gone due to Alaznist at this point, but they know that Karzoug has the means to stop her and has not been affected by her manipulations, but if they allow him to stop her alone, he’ll just make it worse if he’s the one in charge. So this could give them urgency to get to Xin-Shalast to stop Karzoug and to find out what he knows about time travel (the Cyphergate).
Spires of Xin Shalast - 18th- 19th level, TBH I haven’t read this adventure in a really long time so I’m mostly going off of memory here. But I think they will have to use the sihedron to show them how to get to Xin-Shalast instead of trying to find the ghost dwarves. It’ll be fewer city encounters and getting to Karzoug quicker.
Rise of New Thassilon - 19th -20th level, Like Spires, I really need to sit down and read this book again, it’s probably one of the most complicated adventure path books I’ve ever read. I’ll have to cut a few encounters, and remove the Cyphergate temporal anomaly, but overall I think I’ll run it mostly the same. There’s the part about finding Karzoug’s old master and finding Karzoug’s spirit in the Boneyard that is really cool, but players might get annoyed having to hunt down the spirit of the guy they just killed cause he has information they suddenly need. A couple of workarounds: Move the submerged dungeon to before they go to Xin-Shalast, get the skull, and negotiate with Karzoug when they reach him for the information before he ultimately attacks them anyway. Or maybe Alaznist finally reaches Karzoug before the PCs do and she manages to kill him since he’s still not quite at full power, the players arrive just in time to see her finish him off and then dimension doors away, with the final encounter here being Khalib the apprentice, who takes the burning glaive and declares himself the Runelord of Greed when he sees Karzoug’s dead form in the Eye. When they get to the Boneyard, it can be played as written, but its much easier to get him to talk since Alaznist was the one who killed him.
These are just a couple of options, I’m still figuring this part out and who knows how much will change throughout the campaign tbh.
