So what's some fun stuff to do in Keoland, besides antiquing in Saltmarsh?
There are loads of commoners for you to kill!
Do they congregate in pitchfork-wielding crowds, or what do they do?
I am going to direct you to this thread
Do they congregate in pitchfork-wielding crowds, or what do they do?I am going to direct you to this thread
I do believe that there was loads of information regarding keoland at Wizards' living greyhawk site. But Keoland is very lawful and organized so I found it a bit dull.
Yah but what if you thrown in a cult of demon worshippers who perform sex rituals.
I don't know where I narfed these from, but there was other stuff on Saltmarsh there.
BTW, if you d/l from picasa don't save picture as; go to the menu on the right and download the pic in full res.
You could try a little hunting in the Dreadwood? Or when you're done in Saltmarsh, you could head into the Hool Marshes and seek out Baltron's Beacon?
I always chuckled about Keoland when I traveled to see my Grandparents in Canton, SD--Keloland is a local affiliate in nearby Sioux Falls.
http://www.keloland.com/
This morning I find myself at http://keoland.sheldomar-valley.org/index.php?location=map and the South Dakota hits keep coming: Rushmoors and Dreadwood pop out and I'm sure there are others. Are the Bad Lands the Good Hills? God Bless Gygax and his love for the Midwest.
Cheers
Do any of the nobles reside in a Xorn Palace?
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There are tons of things to do in Keoland.
1. Vecna
From Vecna ruins in the Rushmoors to relics from the Insurrection of the Yaheetes in the south, to casual Vecna cultists, the evil of Vecna looms.
2. Alienists
The Malhel opened a gate to elsewhere in the Dreadwood, and evil continues to afflict the area. Nothing says fun like getting your head eaten by a tentacled horror.
3. Politics
Keoland has two ruling houses, the Rhola and the Neheli. Of course the current king is from neither. And then there are the other noble families, particularly those of Oeridian descent.
Oh, and the King has no son, just an ambitious brother and a more ambitious court wizard.
4. Enemies
Keoland seized Westkeep a few years ago. It is an outpost at the end of a tenuous supply line in a country that is wracked by civil war among evil factions. Keoland can conquer the Hold of the Sea Princes, abandon Westkeep, or something else.
5. Allies
Keoland has close connections to Geoff and Sterich. Sterich is free of giants, but has lost its ruler. Geoff still needs to be liberated.
6. Imperialism
Keoland has connections to Bissel, which is still partially occupied by Ket, and the Principality of Ulek, which is partially occupied by Turrosh Mak. Either can be a source of resurgent imperial activity.
The real problem with Keoland is not that it has too few exciting possibilities, but that it has too many. The only thing it is really missing is a desert. Otherwise every terrain type is either fully within its borders or close enough that you can adapt virtually any adventure to be set in it. (Mountains are close enough in the Jotens, glaciers in the Crystalmists beyond them, and full jungle in the Amedio which has links to Keoland.)
What other adventure opportunities are you looking for in Keoland?
This was bad form for me to use a pun for a minor tourist trap. I was born in Mitchell, SD which is the home of the Corn Palace. Indian or colored corn is used to decorate the exterior with different pictures and themes each year. Xorns would probably eat the whole thing in 5 minutes.
I wonder what the D&D equivalent would be for Wall Drug. Or the Harley Davidson Rally in Sturgis.
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What other adventure opportunities are you looking for in Keoland?
I'm just chumming the waters; I have a nice feeding frenzy of ideas going. ;)
I'm starting with U1 Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, and I'll see where it goes from there.
I'm thinking the Kingdom is on the brink of Civil War, and I'm thinking about developing the reasons behind that a bit.
Also, I want some moorlands with megaliths, I'd like to have an idea of who built them and why.
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Yah but what if you thrown in a cult of demon worshippers who perform sex rituals.
I don't know where I narfed these from, but there was other stuff on Saltmarsh there.
BTW, if you d/l from picasa don't save picture as; go to the menu on the right and download the pic in full res.
That's really really sweet, dude.
I might stick with Saltmarsh from the DMG II, but those maps are lovely.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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Dear Heathansson,
Thank you for expressing interest in our organization. The Edgewood Protectors patrol a road that runs from Millen to Woodsage in order to facilitate trade between these two cities. Frequent attacks by bandits, usually goblinoid, and various monsters that lurk in the Dreadwood, the large forest on the southern side of Edgewood Road, have necessitated the establishment of a small keep and several watchtowers. We work with but are not directly affiliated with the Dreadwalkers.
As you may be aware, we have recently engaged in a two year long battle against a mysterious organization known as 'The Slumbering Guard' an army of undead lead by 13 Death Knights. We have succeeded in slaying 7 of these Death Knights but the remaining 6 have either fled Keoland or are hidden too deeply within the Dreadwood.
Yours Sincerely,
Retep Ominod, Lord of Edgewood
Remnant of an old poem
Forgotten in the forest of dread
an army mindless but for anger and hate
no rest for those dedicated dead
the slumbering guard lies in wait
The table at Niole Dra shall be broken
the whispering wind will then call
the slumbering guard will be woken
and the jewel known as Greyhill will fall
Yah but what if you thrown in a cult of demon worshippers who perform sex rituals.
I don't know where I narfed these from, but there was other stuff on Saltmarsh there.
BTW, if you d/l from picasa don't save picture as; go to the menu on the right and download the pic in full res.
That's really really sweet, dude.
I might stick with Saltmarsh from the DMG II, but those maps are lovely.
There ya. You've got Saltmarsh comin out your orifices.
Canonfire is good, as is the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer (if you can find it) or just have the Greyhawk info mod jacked into your brain, as Sam appears to have done.
...can I get that mod somewhere? Anywhere?
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Wow, Sam, you really know your stuff. Can I ask what your sources for all of this information are? I'd like to really get caught up in the details and political machinations of Greyhawk, but I'm honestly not sure where to turn for that kind of thing.
[/threadjack]
Don't consider this a threadjack for a second. I think I work best in a stream-of-consciousness state. This is just another wall to bounce the racquetball off of to see what happens.
Director of Narrative
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Actually for most Greyhawk questions and research, Canonfire! does the tirck. It is sometimes hard to search for specific information, but there is a nice Greyhawk Wiki to help that. Oerth Journals are helpful as well, and on Thursday nights, this chat, run by Gary Holian, is all 'Hawk!
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Wow, Sam, you really know your stuff. Can I ask what your sources for all of this information are? I'd like to really get caught up in the details and political machinations of Greyhawk, but I'm honestly not sure where to turn for that kind of thing.
[/threadjack]
*coughs*
Me.
:-P
I was one of the Keoland LG admins at the start of the campaign through to 2002, and a good number of the articles being cited were written by me.
As for a chatroom, try #oerthjournal on the same server and poke at Samwise until I remember to check the room. ;)
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I'm just chumming the waters; I have a nice feeding frenzy of ideas going. ;)
I'm starting with U1 Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, and I'll see where it goes from there.
I'm thinking the Kingdom is on the brink of Civil War, and I'm thinking about developing the reasons behind that a bit.
Also, I want some moorlands with megaliths, I'd like to have an idea of who built them and why.
The Rushmoors is called a moor, but it is really more of a marsh.
It would however have megaliths built by the Old Faith before the war with Vecna.In fact, I expect you would find Old Faith megaliths throughout most of the Sheldomar, except for the Yeomanry and Hold of the Sea Princes.
There are almost too many reasons for a nice civil war in Keoland, although external ones are fun too.
LG included a number of ideas originating with Saltmarsh, as well as the Lizardking adventure and Baltron's Beacon. (I forget their numbers, I something for both of them.) The originator of some of those concepts (Jason Verbitsky, he shared a lot of his ideas about southern Keoland) also linked in the Monstrous Arcana Sahuagin adventures. (Again, I would have to go digging for names and numbers.)
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Thanks!!!
I skimmed some stuff in Oerth Journal; some was by you with the knowledge checks, and I think there were others by other authors; it's kinda getting blurred together.
I think I saw something on the LG Keoland webpage about King Skotti getting killed by Blackrazor and coming back a year later....
(mwa ha ha ha)!
Don't forget your neighbors to the west, Sterich and Geoff, fending off the giants. Your group could graduate up to joining the fight against the giants. Or you could have them overrun and move into Keoland. You could run either the 1st and 2nd edition stuff or the miniarc that was in Dungeon a while back.
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Thanks!!!
I skimmed some stuff in Oerth Journal; some was by you with the knowledge checks, and I think there were others by other authors; it's kinda getting blurred together.I think I saw something on the LG Keoland webpage about King Skotti getting killed by Blackrazor and coming back a year later....
(mwa ha ha ha)!
That was an article by Kirt Wackford.
He had been working on it for some time, and we discussed Sheldomar things a few times. Our versions are rather divergent because of source material, but I mentioned that Knowledge check thing, which I had originally started working on while doing LG. It was never developed as I wanted to there, and I sent a copy to Kirt as a reference. He really liked it. ;)Yes, LG has Kimbertos getting killed by Blackrazor and coming back. I prefer the Dreadwood-Hool Marsh Mythos storyline more. :D
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Don't forget your neighbors to the west, Sterich and Geoff, fending off the giants. Your group could graduate up to joining the fight against the giants. Or you could have them overrun and move into Keoland. You could run either the 1st and 2nd edition stuff or the miniarc that was in Dungeon a while back.
Yeah, I'm thinking about that a little bit; I like the idea of "a noble in Sterich is often a commoner that is extremely good at his job," with all the made up nobility...
Yah but what if you thrown in a cult of demon worshippers who perform sex rituals.
I don't know where I narfed these from, but there was other stuff on Saltmarsh there.
BTW, if you d/l from picasa don't save picture as; go to the menu on the right and download the pic in full res.
Kruelaid your maps are awesome, whatcha using to make those?
BTW Do you have a area map of Greyhawk area?Graz'zt cult is in Saltmarsh and Graz'zt is as kinky with sex as Prince!
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Where's that storyline?
In a variety of LG Keoland adventures, which can not be distributed.
However, the general concept, without the various side treks and compromises necessitated by the RPGA is still active within my home campaigns.
Either stop by the #oerthjournal room (the same server the Paizo chat used to use), email me (do I need to put a link here?), or harangue me at the Paizo chat Tuesday (if I get there on time).
If you have players that don’t know the 1E classics (which my players don’t, fortunately for me), here are some more options from my Saltmarsh campaign:
- UK2 and UK3, The Sentinel and The Gauntlet. They’re not too far away in the Hold of the Sea Princes, and they fit pretty well after the third Saltmarsh module.
- Although it’s a bit farther away, I found it pretty easy to run Scourge of the Slave Lords after The Gauntlet. I changed Dame Gold’s place from Safeton to Seaton and relocated the Broken Rudder to Jetsom Isle, among many other changes. (Like many people, I always heavily modify modules, especially when converting editions).
- I’m currently running UK6, All That Glitters… through the Amedio Jungle, and soon, the Hellfurnaces. I threw in a brief stop in Sasserine and a side quest in Cauldron thanks to Paizo’s wonderful background material.
- Desert of Desolation is up next in the Sea of Dust, although with much of the Egyptian-specific content modified to suit Greyhawk.
- Eventually, on to the giants, of course!
I’m not sure how much use this will be to you, given all the things you’ve got in mind within Keoland already, but it’s been fun for us.
Also, those maps are great. I wish I had them earlier, but better late than never. Thanks for posting them!
Doug
Yah but what if you thrown in a cult of demon worshippers who perform sex rituals.
I don't know where I narfed these from, but there was other stuff on Saltmarsh there.
BTW, if you d/l from picasa don't save picture as; go to the menu on the right and download the pic in full res.
Kruelaid your maps are awesome, whatcha using to make those?
BTW Do you have a area map of Greyhawk area?Graz'zt cult is in Saltmarsh and Graz'zt is as kinky with sex as Prince!
The Keoland and Saltmarsh maps are not mine. I narfed them from the LG Keoland site last year I think... I am cartophile and I keep s+*@ like that. I just posted them so Heathansson could take a look.
The other maps I posted on Picasa are mine (Port Toli, Island, Sothis...] and I use Adobe Illustrator. To be honest I can do better but I dont have time for all the extra work involved in using a lot of texturing, so they don't have that aerial photo look.
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If you have players that don’t know the 1E classics (which my players don’t, fortunately for me), here are some more options from my Saltmarsh campaign:
- UK2 and UK3, The Sentinel and The Gauntlet. They’re not too far away in the Hold of the Sea Princes, and they fit pretty well after the third Saltmarsh module.
- Although it’s a bit farther away, I found it pretty easy to run Scourge of the Slave Lords after The Gauntlet. I changed Dame Gold’s place from Safeton to Seaton and relocated the Broken Rudder to Jetsom Isle, among many other changes. (Like many people, I always heavily modify modules, especially when converting editions).
- I’m currently running UK6, All That Glitters… through the Amedio Jungle, and soon, the Hellfurnaces. I threw in a brief stop in Sasserine and a side quest in Cauldron thanks to Paizo’s wonderful background material.
- Desert of Desolation is up next in the Sea of Dust, although with much of the Egyptian-specific content modified to suit Greyhawk.
- Eventually, on to the giants, of course!I’m not sure how much use this will be to you, given all the things you’ve got in mind within Keoland already, but it’s been fun for us.
Also, those maps are great. I wish I had them earlier, but better late than never. Thanks for posting them!
Doug
Naah, believe me it's useful. Don't know how much I'd parallel your campaign, but it's nice to see where people's thinking takes them.
Cool! Then I’ll throw one more out there, although it’s more work to convert and less canonical for Greyhawk. I started the campaign with a heavily-modified module N4, “Treasure Hunt.” For those unfamiliar with it: the players start out as ordinary people off the street (I had them be 1st level commoners) who get captured by slavers. Their slave galley gets into a terrible storm which finishes off most of the slavers and slaves, then runs aground on an island and the players have to escape.
It’s definitely some work to convert. I came up with an elaborate background story for why you could only find the magical island under certain conditions, so it wasn’t on the charts. Also for who the Sea King was (a refugee adventurer from Onnwal carrying on a guerrilla war against the Scarlet Brotherhood, but they eventually found his island and wiped out his people), and the pirate orcs and goblins found their way to the island from the Pomarj. Not strictly canonical, but it worked for us.
I really liked the benefits from this, though:
- The players and I both thought it was a kick to start off as ordinary people with even less power than 1st level characters. (They became 1st level PCs when they got back, but got to keep the experience they earned, of course.)
- It made it easy to integrate any background story the players wanted. All they needed was a reason to be in the Saltmarsh area to get kidnapped by the slavers.
- The slavers, of course, were part of the Slave Lords’ organization, so the players already had a grudge against the Slave Lords when they cropped up a few levels later.
- I loved the scene in Scourge of the Slave Lords where the slave captain humiliates the captured characters, but getting captured felt like heavy railroading for mid-level PCs. It worked very well for 1st level commoners when the players knew up front they were going to be captured.
Happy gaming!
Doug