reganator5000's page

I suspect the actual issue with Council of Thieves is that it came out long before Hells Rebels, so the people who wanted to be playing Hells Rebels ended up playing council of thieves, an AP that is definitely not about people rebelling against the hellish rule of Chelliax, and definitely is about... well, a council made up of thieves. Whilst this is blindingly obvious (see previous sentence) now you can choose between the two, I suspect a lot of the people dissappointed in playing CoT were so not because it broadly preserves the rule of central government in Chelliax, but because they didn't, at the time, have the option to play an adventure which wasn't actually about the shady underworld of the nation's former capital. Though I also think it might be that some of the older APs are a bit less committed to the PCs having 'good' alignment (which is somewhat ironic given that the newest ones are in an edition with no alignments at all, they're just less likely to give you an intro where you're probably playing a low-grade criminal in a real dump of a city).

I think I lean more to non-narritive sequels - unconnected sequels seems like it might be the best option, but as a GM I think it'd make my life easier if, at the brainstorming ideas stage, the simple caveat of 'we're setting it in the same country as a 1-10AP' was a thing. Think following up Quest for the Frozen Flame or Outlaws of Alkenstar doesn't need to follow on the story of the Broken Tusks or the themes of Outlaws. But it conceivably happening within a few weeks ride of the conclusion might make it a bit easier to have a 'you hear rumours that something big is happening to the east' as the plot hook between the two. I think this would also stop some of these regions feeling a bit one note.

After all Varisia features heavily in a full 7 adventure paths, and has ended up feeling like a well developed place where many things can and have happened. Cheliax/Ravounel is the setting for 4 adventures, and Kortos is in the same. I think the perfect example of how to do this are the 3 AP in a row runs for Varisia and Kortos - Rise of the Runelord, Curse of the Crimson Thrown and Second Darkness aren't sequels to each other narritively, and the tie-ins to each other are more easter eggs than actual connections. The same goes for Extinction Curse, Agents of Edgewatch and Abomination Vaults. So you definitely can have different, separate adventures with very little narrative overlap that are in places that the party that finished a 1-10 AP might concievably go to without being kidnapped by a teleporting wizard. Follow on Outlaws with a unique threat rising in the mana wastes, or Quest with an investigation of a demonic plot springing from the Mendev border or whatever.

The difference between that and an actual sequel is that it could also easily feature a fresh party (scholars from Nex in the Mana wastes, or Mendevian crusaders pursuing foes into the Realm of the Mammoth Lords), or be a sequel to any other 1-10 AP with the current method of 'somehow you get involved'. Admittedly it'd probably be a bit easier if the 1-10APs weren't pinging around the entire inner sea, but I think this might just be a product of the freedom of starting to do 1-10 APs to do the 'we've always wanted to write an adventure about X, but it wasn't a big enough idea for a full AP', and the first 3 1-10APs being written at a point where they were still putting out 1-20APs (at which point a party wanting a bigger adventure would probably just have bought a bigger adventure).

Part of it is that whilst Geb was an evil man, he's also a lot more complicated than Tar Baphon's endless hunger (probably quite literally, in this case- Tar Baphon's knowledge of necromancy comes from Zutha's Cenotaph, and therefore is sin magic, attuned to gluttony, at least until he surpassed Zutha).

Geb was ammoral, and he did do evil things. But Geb as an undead nation isn't entirely his fault- it was a joint effort. Nex was the one who started the war (he cut off Geb, the country,'s access to northern trade). Geb certainly raised the undead who populate the place, which made him alignment-chart-evil, but notably, Nex was the one who killed those who were raised. Geb raising the undead saved both nations from starvation (ironically, the Nexians in particular, as Geb had wish-crafted their nation into a barren desert, so they couldn't survive without the combination of Geb's cheap labour and hunger-free work force providing free food).

Then with Nex vanished after an attack, Geb was depressed enough to kill himself. But his soul couldn't pass on without knowing what happened to Nex, even though he very much does know what happened to Nex- he attacked quantium with poisonous fog, and Nex managed to stumble through a portal before promptly keeling over and dying. It's a mystery who's solution was obvious within a few weeks. As a result, there are two effects on his current state- firstly, he's harder to kill than Tar Baphon, because whilst the Tyrant theoretically has a phylactery somewhere, there likely isn't any proof in existence that would get Geb to accept he won. But secondly, and this is the bit people seem to overlook, Geb's isolationism isn't a product of choice. He's still a ghost- he might be able to move about more than some, but it's pretty obvious that he can't leave Geb (not least because he really, really, really wants to go north to quantium and find out what happened to Nex).