Does anyone else use a side quest or two with SCAP?
At the start of the campaign, I used The Legend of Garthulga adventure from Dungeon #91 and placed it in the Lucky Monkey on their journey to Cauldon.
Now, after they've made friends with the owner, it's going to really matter when they walk in during Flood Season and find their former friend murdered. I can't wait for the party to take their vengeance on Tongueater!
Any other ideas for tie-ins adventures?
Believe it or not, I'm actually using SCAP as a side quest!! Holy de-railments! My group are now mayor of a small village about a week away east of Cauldron which at one point was taken over by a fire giant and his goons, but has been freed by the efforts of the group.
The capital city in my realm (about a week away west of Cauldron) was under siege since the beginning of the campaign. Cauldron was right smack in the neutral zone, which explains the multiple visits. I've used most, but not all of the adventures in the arc.
My players' main goal was to help free the capital... Which they've done in a Lord of the Rings 3ish battle which took four sessions. Now they think the threat is over, but their trusty rich friend Vhalantru is actually controlling their village (because he needed the raw silver from a nearby mine to make the soul cages). They will slowly realize this in our next session.
Ultradan
I started to play with the magazines one year ago and Drakthar's way (sp) wasn't released. So I included a few side quests too. I used my own material mostly and stressed the FR flavour as it's the setting I'm using. In the first side quest, I wrote a story where an undercover assassin of the Rundeen contacts the PCs to locate a guy he wants to kidnap(he heard about their success in Life Bazaar). The guy in question is the son of a wealthy merchant in Tashluta (my Sasserine) who did not pay protection from the Rundeen. The assassin tells the PC that their target is dangerous and that he wants them just to locate him, not to make contact. Once the target is located, he abducts the guy who was living in a manor on Obsidian, protected by the Kormallis guild from Waterdeep (who will later provide Lord Valanthru with mercenaries thanks to the PCs lol). Kormallis is outraged and has the PCs busted. Once it is clear they have been manipulated, they have 24h to find where the young man has been hidden. After a short investigation work they find him in a rented house. Some clues lead to Rundeen and to a mysterious yuan-ti clan. (Se'sehen tribe)
My second side-quest was a sequel of Flood Season. The PCs let Skaven escape. IMC, he's a worshipper of Shar and one of my PC is a priestess of Selune. They found some clues he has used the services of a half-orc as a messenger to Hollowsky. They had clues too that he was in contact with the headpriestess of Shar cult in the region. In fact, when they arrived they found Hollowsky under the sharean cult rule. Six month ago, the yuan-ti Se'sehen clan began to organize slave raids. In order to counter them, the inhabitants begged the cult for help through Skaven's cousin, Cal, who lives in Hollowsky. Now, they live in terror of the next sacrifice. A secret temple has been established. Cal, Skaven and Methild -Shar's priestess- are in charge with the help of Gardrid Kraghammer, the evil dwarven baillif. PCs arrived in the region, heard about yuan ti raids and sudden disappearances (sacrifices). They also heard that more and more tabaxis are now enslaved in the nearby coffee plantations. They met Cal and Gardridat the inn, then avoided an assassination attempt led by Skaven. They freed the village, asked for the temple and raided it. There, they discovered a portal that lead to Chult next to tabaxis' villages.
Bran.
I don't use EL experience system. I try to keep my five players one level higher than the suggested level. To do this I use a lot of extra adventures between the main campaign. They will get more equipment and contacts. But it will last much longer, and they get to know their character before they gain another level.
Level Adventure Notes
1 Precampaign for each character
Joining the Watchers (opposing thieves guild in Cauldron)
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1 Thieves in the forest (placed a hamlet west of Cauldron)
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2 Life's Bazaar
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3 The Forge of Fury, located between Cauldron and Redgorge
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5 Challenge of Champions, dungeon magazine #108
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5 Flood Season
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6 Racing the snake, hired by Maavu, Dungeon magazine #105
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6 Wizard's Challenge (old Ad&d adventure)
Cleric's Challenge (old ad&d adventure)
Periapt of Femion
Fighter's Challenge
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8 Zenith Trajectory
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9 The Styles, Dungeon #121
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9 Cleric's Challenge II
A thief among us
Private sidequests for the other characters
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11 Demonskar Legacy
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12 Test of the Smoking Eye
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13 Secrets of the Soulpillars
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14 Lords of Oblivion
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15 Foundation of Flame
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17 Thirteen Cages
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18 Strike on Shatterhorn
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19 Unknown sidequest... not yet decided
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20 The Asylum
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There are rumblings in my group from some of the players (who tend to be the more charismatic members of the group and therefor most the other players follow them) that Jzadirune and the Malachite Fortress together are just too long of a dungeon crawl. At this point they have moved down to the Malachite Fortress and are not likely to explore all of Jzadirune.
This leaves me a couple of choices for the future:
A) Leave the adventures as written, several of the players ARE enjoying the dungeon crawl nature of things and they will be taking backstage during any of the many RP interludes that we have.
B) Remove Drakthar's Way and perhaps even Flood Season and insert other adventures (likely taken from Dungeon) that are modified to fit into the story and drop the same hints as these two adventures. These adventures would likely be city based or wilderness to remove the PCs from the Dungeon for a while.
C) Modify all upcoming adventures in the Shackled City adventure path, taking out those encounters that are just adding to the size of the dungeon crawl but not as important to the story. For instance many of the plain goblin encounters could be removed from Drakthar's Way and the dungeon itself shrunk down. This would then mean I would need filler adventures in between SC adventures to keep the PCs on track.
I am currently leaning toward option C (though recently I was thinking of going with B). I am in the process of more thoroughly going through Drakthar's Way right now to see how plausible this is.
Once I do this, I will be looking at this thread and any others like it for good ideas on which adventures to run as side quests... though loose ends from adventures they have already done will often lend themselves nicely to the side-quests.
Sean Mahoney
I was thinking of using Devil Box from Dungeon #109 and pieces of the published adventure Speaker In Dreams as part of the Flood Festival.
By doing this, I'm hoping to throw my players off the scent of the whole "Shackled City" idea (ie, marriage shackles instead of slavery shackles). I'm thinking of explaining the mad cultists in the Speaker In Dreams as being influenced by the insanity of Adimarchus.
Not to mention that the entire adventure takes place in a city during a festival. It sounds like a(n almost) perfect match!
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16
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I was thinking of using Devil Box from Dungeon #109 and pieces of the published adventure Speaker In Dreams as part of the Flood Festival.
That's an interesting idea I'm going to have to pull out Speaker in Dreams and take another look at the Flood Festival.
-Legend Of Gurthulga
-Life's Bazaar
-Small Sidequest (Old Wizard's Tower Full with Bugbear's)
-Flood Season
-Vanity
-Tammeraut's Fate
-Zenith's Trajectory.
We are currently in Zenith, don't know when or wich adventure's will come in the future!