Getting into the STAP late...

[René Winter]

I currently am concidering of maybe playing a part of the savage tide AP. My group will be at 9th level, once they finished the current plot line, and I would so love to do something involving pirates, dinosaurs, demons... well, I think a lot of stuff thats in this AP :-)

Starting a new campaign is no option. My players would not want it and as important as that, I rarely stay enthuised about themes/stories for more than 4 month. Thus it would be pretty unfair to my players reseting the whole campaign because of me no longer wanting to da a "Queen of Spiders"-like campaign.

The Story so far...(We started at level 6) wrote:

The characters were drawn into the story to end a threat to Cormyr. They were send to kill a Hill Giant leader, who was uniting the giant tribes into a mighty army, that could overrun the kingdom. They were able to slay him, but discovered he was actually possessed by a Vrock demon. At the same time, the kingdom is threatend by civil war, as many nobles refuse to follow the infant king any longer and try to use the giant invasion for their own goals. The invasion started, allthough the players were able to kill the leader of the Hill Giants. There must be someone else behind all this. A mighty divination (Locate Creature) told them, the Vrock teleported to Mirth Galnorn. (The Name is in Drow, meaning refuge of revenge.) As they severly offended Baron Teuselle, a local noble and bastard descendent of the old King of Cormyr who was about to take over the town of Tilverton (The groups "homebase" - the rested 8 times in an inn there) and all of eastern Cormyr, the small group of loyal followers of the crown (The local captain of the purple dragons, some old adventurers/now inn keeper, an elven Magic Item Shop owner, the local high priests of Gond and Sharress and the local sage) decided, it would be the best course of action, to send the Party of Adventurers into the underdark trying to find the Demon and maybe the true head behind the giant invasion, while they try to work on the political floor, weakening the baron in anyway they can. The party started their descent into the underdark (Following a map they got from a lokal priest of gond), so far they passed the Grotto of the Troglodytes, making more enemies, by letting their Mind Flayer "Leader" escape. After that, the players continued their descent and after a long time and some dangerous encounters, they finally arived at Earth' End, a place run by earth creatures, who go there to leave fearun behind, traveling through the local portal into the Elemental Plane of Earth. The players did some information gathering, they discovered the likely location of the drow outpost. They learned, for non earth creatures, to activate the portal a substance called "pure hope" is needed. "Pure Hope" is a very valuable substance, usually a gift from creatures living on the plane of Elysium, but the Kuo-Toa of Bhal-Hamatung trade with it, too. No one knows how these creatures are able to harvest "Pure Hope"... The characters traveled into the direction of the drow outpost, and the next session will probably see a lot of fighting against the inhabitants of the Drow Outpost.

Things to be solved before it is finished: The players need to enter the Drow Outpost and find out why the Drow made the Giants attack Cormyr (it does not even have to be Drow, they did not see any Drow so far)

The "evil" baron trying to seize control in Cormyr should be stoped. Most likely, they will find a hint at the Drow Outpost pointing to his involvement.

After that, I would like to go into the AP, if that is possible. What do you think? Any good ideas how to do that? As of now, I just flipped through some of the adventures, but I like what they provide. I was thinking about starting with Tides of Dread, maybe doing a short best of Sea Wyverns Wake/Here there be Monsters before that.

Is this doable? Or will my players feel like they entered the wrong movie?

[carborundum]

Maybe the hill giant leader wasn't so much building an army as planning an exodus, after something set off a Savage Tide in his lands...

(With a nod to George RR Martin)

[Klamachpin]

If you start with Tides of Dread, add a bit of flavor from the last part of Here there be Monsters and run through Serpents of Scuttlecove, I can see a viable tie in. Also, that run should last just long enough to retain your attention.

Spoiler:

Your baron works under the direction of the Crimson Fleet. He didn't want Cormyr to be among the cities savaged by the Fleet's use of Shadow Pearls (nukes), so he opted to take control of the city for the Fleet instead. The shrine to Demogorgon in the last part of HTBM can point to demonic involvement, and can be included as one of the side quests. Vanthus turns into just a Fleet captain armed with a Shadow Pearl. Your party should become motivated to stop the production of the Shadow Pearls and disband the Crimson Fleet, by defeating Cold Captain Wyther - your BBEG. That's how I see it - fill in the details as necessary.