So, I'm just as excited as can be to start up this whole Savage Tide adventure (so excited, in fact, I paid $15 to pick up issue #139 again when my original was stolen from my car- you can find yourself in the middle of a whole lot of interesting conversations calling up magazine shops not "in the know", asking if they carry a magazine called Dungeon. *shudder*). My friends have long bemoaned the fact that our dumb DM (me) always seems to stall out adventures some where around 16th or 17th level. My boys say they're going to see this through to the 20th even if it kills me.
A problem I've found as I've read through the first few adventures is I'm terribly unfamiliar with a lot of the organizations mentioned in the STAP. We've spent the past few years lounging around our homebrew world so I have absolutely no idea who the Sea Princes, The Crimson Fleet or the Scarlet Brotherhood are. I don't know if they're tied in to Faerûn or Greyhawk or... well, you can see I'm a little out of touch.
I considered adapting the adventure to our own world, but I don't know if I could readily modify all the important factions quickly enough to stave off my already ravenous, near-zombified players.
So, I guess my question (finally!) would be this: Where would I find more information concerning the aforementioned groups? I just know the second an NPC brings up anything tied to them my players will be awash with questions, and I'd like to say something more than just "Sorry, guys, but it wasn't covered in the manual." Besides, I figure the more I know about the game world before hand, the more realized the world will feel.
Thanks for any help y'all can offer!
As I understand it, they're mostly established organisations in Greyhawk, which is the default setting for the campaign, but if you're unfamiliar with the setting, it's fairly easy to just make stuff up.
If you intend to run the campaign in either Forgotten Realms or Eberron, the conversion notes for the first couple of chapters are finally available, so you can check them out for details of where these organisations fit into those settings. You can find the downloads section here.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that searching for the named organisations in Wikipedia, adding 'greyhawk' as an extra search parameter, tends to yield useful articles describing them.
As I understand it, they're mostly established organisations in Greyhawk, which is the default setting for the campaign, but if you're unfamiliar with the setting, it's fairly easy to just make stuff up.
If you intend to run the campaign in either Forgotten Realms or Eberron, the conversion notes for the first couple of chapters are finally available, so you can check them out for details of where these organisations fit into those settings. You can find the downloads section here.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that searching for the named organisations in Wikipedia, adding 'greyhawk' as an extra search parameter, tends to yield useful articles describing them.
Thank you SO very much, MarkB! I'm never really adverse to making stuff up in our own world (as a matter of fact, I kinda like it), but I was a little worried that I'd start improvising and later on find out that the mad-cap fibs I had created throw the game off entirely later on down the line.
Just knowing they're tied in with Greyhawk is an immense help. Thanks!
Robin! To the Wiki-mobile!
I would recommend the Living Greyhawk Gazateer as a good resource. Also, Dungeon 114 gives a good overview of the non-Mystaran version of the Isle of Dread (you could always get X2 and some Mystaran sourcebooks). Between those two resources, the adventures themselves, wikipedia, and these boards, you should be good to go.
Thanks, Shroomy! You and MarkB have been very helpful. :)
Next time I level I think I'd better put a few more ranks in my Gather Information.