Ok, so my team makes it to Kracken Cove to find the burning ships and the beach in chaos filled with Savage pirates. What I've done with the Savage Pirates is to change them from what the modual had into something more akin to Reavers from Firefly and Serenity. All my players have seen the movies and were viewing the Reavers as they know them by with a great deal of fear and dread. I also wrote a lead in story setting up the area and a creepy folk tale passed along by sailors about Reavers and Reaver raids. Upon first seeing them on the beach and still alive even on the ships that were on fire *Evil Grin* their response was "F**K this! We're leaving!" It actually took me telling them that they better get use to fighting them now otherwise it's going to be a short campaign. The players engaged them in a fight, but their fighting style was way different than they normaly fight, using way more caution and a whole lot less bravado.
My wife told me after we broke for the evening, that I had almost done too good of a job setting the mood. This made me laugh and I had to share.
great job i was thinking of useing the reavers myself...thanks for shareing
Curious--is this just a descriptive switch--i.e. using the "savage creature" template and describing them as reavers, or are you using a different stat template?
Well mainly it is a descripting switch (though I did boost up their hit points a bit and made sure they had some low level elemental resistance.) I just couldn't get the image of Davy Jones' crew from POTC: Dead mans chest out of my head when I was reading the savage transformation. Six months ago when I first heard of STAP my first thought was of Reavers, and I was a little disappointed when I realized I was off the mark. I made the change because Reavers have two things that make them scary: 1. Is the idea that they really aren't monsters, but humans driven to the point of ultimate savagery. Way more scary than any space monster. 2. is the fact that even with the level of madness the Reavers reached, they still maintained their intelligence and their cunning. THey had their own society that allowed these savage cannibals to raid and work as a cohesive unit maybe even more effectivly than the creatures they were raiding, because they didn't experience fear. When ever I get the chance, I like to make humans the scariest monsters in the realms.