This was discussed in another thread not to long ago.
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well, if you're starting from the beginning now, it's easy to do this.
first thing, make sure to introduce Lavinia and Vanthus to the party quite throoughly. this connection will be your prime motivation.
(and trust me, when Vanthus pulls his crap later on, the party will really hate him)
With this in mind, you can then run TinH as written. no demogorgon or other extraneous tie-ins there.
Next, bullywug gambit. they won't know what caused the savage creatures, and that's ok. if they do find the broken pearl (my crew never did) and get it identified, it's an unknown new magical weapon thing, that changes those it touches. everything else can go as written, although i might think of excluding Harliss, or replacing her with a sightly less overpowered character. Of course, this could be your primary tie-in to the crimson fleet, so feel free to keep her in.
Sea Wyvern's Wake: piratey goodness ahoy. Let them have their victory over the undermanned ship at the blockade, consider losing the whole sargasso event....wasn't all that fun for us. There are plenty of little islands on the way to the Isle of Dread, you can use any of them to stage a little dungeon/wilderness adventure.
Beware the Hydra and Flotsam Ooze encounters: they can be quite deadly for unprepared characters.
Here There Be Monsters. Consider dropping the whole Fogmire encounter set. Bar-Lguras and demon-temples are one thing, but really serve for foreshadowing to the later events. A tribe of Troglodytes, or even some lost (crazy) Olman in the woods can serve the same spot, and if you have the later adventures (City of Broken Idols) the Skinwalker Sorcerer or Skinwalker Chief (knock em down a fre levels) can serve as good "boss man" type for the tribe.
Extra bonus points: You don't have to use/modify the crazy trap room in the temple @ Fogmire.
And that leads into Tides of Dread, which I believe was my favorite adventure of the whole path.
Really play up the "sim-farshore" type events, let them explore the jungle a bit, have the quest to return the idol to Zotzilaha merge with defeating Tehmat-Tecuahitl (however the T-Rex's name is spelled) and the Temple of the Rakasta / Couatl. Personally, I would expand the final fight against the pirates to be the culmination of the whole path. Increase the CR of the individual pirate groups the party encounters, put Lavinina and the Jade Ravens in the fight, let them get in over the heads so the party has to save em.
Then, at the end, after the waves of pirates and everything else, Vanthus shows up with his pet Vrocks, perhaps with a Yuan-Ti sorcerer in tow (i wish i had that guy teleport himself and vanthus from the ship to the town...perhaps with a scroll). Big old fight in the middle of farshore, be sure to have Lavinia statted out (she's listed in a couple of the adventures...or just make her an Aristocrat/Swashbuckler/Duelist) and let them use her (or use her against the party if Vanthus can charm/dominate her) in the fight.
Feel free to have him use another of the Pearls (perhaps these are blood red, to go with the Crimson Fleet) at the end, as written, forcing the party to deal with that or lose farshore after all that.
Sounds like a good little campaign, with lots of Piratey Goodness, plenty of hard-core combat, sim-city style fun, wilderness adventuring, city adventuring, and the chance to get their own pirate fleet as a reward!
feel free to kick around any and all of the above ideas, I'd be happy to help iron out any details!
and don't forget the Savage Tide Obituaries and Savage Tide Glories threads.
-the hamster
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well, i believed you were intending on ending the game after the conclusion to Tides of Dread.
if you ARE going to continue on after that, one good bet would be to skip The Lightless Depths and go straight to Serpents of Scuttlecove.
That's a pretty good (and pretty challenging) pirates and ninja's type of combat and infiltration adventure.
In the middle there you can have some running sea battles between the burgeoning Farshore Shipping Company and the Crimson Fleet.
Not sure if there are any good Pirate vs Pirate adventures kicking around Dungeon, but i'm sure there's some parts you can mine out for an ongoing adventure.
Not sure just what kind of climax you're looking for, but in the 1st 5 or so adventures of ST, you have the following main antagonists:
Lotus Dragons and Rowyn
Vanthus
Harliss and Drevoraz
Bullywug gang
Diamonback and her Assassins (and Kellani family by extension)
Bunches of random monsters
Crimson Fleet pirates (again, kinda)
Hydra
Crazy Plant type place
Storms
Dinosaurs and crazy birds
Oozes and undead in the tunnels
Bar-Lguras and demonic monkeys
Aspect of God
More pirates, including Yuan-Ti ones.
so, a simple extrapolation of what they've seen and what they are planned on seeing, you could use
More Pirates. this is easy, and there's a bunch of premade npcs already generated. Yuan-Ti sorcerers and assasins are good for pirate bosses, as are the Crimson Fleet captains in Serpents of Scuttlecove.
The harpies in the same adventure are also good for easy drag-n-drop
Other humanoid creatures (Sahauigin, Aquatic Elves, Kuo-Toa, and the like) make for good encounters, as do things like Kraken, the Dragon Turtle (Emraag already statted up and good to go, after all) and the like.
Then, you can get a little esoteric...Illithids, planetouched creatures, giants, and the like don't come up in the STAP much, so tossing them in can be nice.
-t
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well, you could keep interjecting Vanthus into the adventures...
Bullywug gambit be sure to play up the "Vanthus betrayed me" angle to Harliss, perhaps with Diamonback being sent by him, rather than the Kellani's
Sea Wyvern's Wake: throw out rumors that Vanthus is working on a similar expedition (with a copy of mom's journal, perhaps with pages torn out from the one the players have). Consider the Brotherhood blockade to be a "Vanthus sent us" ambush...still a cakewalk, tho.
Rowyn is stowing away partly to get back at the pc's, partly because she hopes to get back with Vanthus.
Bonus points: Meravanchi IS Vanthus, in disguise (or Polymorph Any Object'ed) and riding along with the PC's to determine all their little in's and out's.
Here there be monsters: now's the time to let them stew...they are hellbent on leather to get this dude, stretch it out...this adventure is intended to slow the party down while introducing the IoD, so do that. Aranea, T-Rex, Darkened Tunnel encounters all work well as written, as does the Gargoyle Ambush.
Like i said, if you're not looking for the Demogorgon tie-in, skip the whole hiddne temple nonsense and interject some evil-tribal-villager type encounters....skinwalkers or the like, perhaps simply fiendish or half-fiend trog's/humans/orcs/etc...
then, Tides of Dread. really play up the "we have to get ready for the pirates" by having the initial fight a bit tougher than usual...have them use alchemicals, teamwork, and things like reach weapons, civilian hostages and the like to really set the PC's up for a knock down drag out fight at the end.
All the rest of that adventure is pure gold, and if you time the last battle right, the final climactic battle vs. Vanthus will be a memorable capstone to the campaign.
-t
Cheers for that!
What I meant (as well) though was that I kinda fear one of my players going "And why did the Crimson Fleet attack Farshore again?", i.e. without the reveal they have some interest further up north on the IoD it's not convincing enough.
I could reduce their importance/power maybe and just make them a vessel for Vanthus' ambitions and give the campaign the classic stop-the-bad-guy spin but I'm not 100% sure on that.
Henders, maybe you should consider working some significant things being there on Temute that makes Farshore and the "thing" a threat to the Crimson Fleet. The thing could be ANY thing. Maybe a person (Lavinia or possibly one of the players), an object (maybe some magical plant or artifact buried in the ruins mentioned in the backdrop article), or some kind of phenomenon (perhaps some kind of magical dweomer that the pirates plan to use to "super charge" the pearls for world ending/changing results).
Work in some foreshadowing early on in the adventures and drop more hints as to what it is the closer the PCs get to the Isle of Dread. Dreams of destiny are pretty cool - visions that help the players connect the dots and point them to Farshore and their importance in getting there to stop or protect whatever that "thing" is that you come up with.
Perhaps there are a few different "parts" to this thing that you can drop in to the game in the various elements of the path that lead the players to Farshore.
Those are just a few ideas off the top of my head. Hope it helps your creative juices get going.
The risk you run with this idea that your players might find it suspicious that the crimson fleet has the power to make such powerful items. They might find it illogical, so that it will undermine suspension of disbelief. I have noticed my players already suspect extraplanar influence and they have just found the first pearl and think there is only one of them.
Perhaps you can avoid the risk by using the Demogorgon shrine. There might be a conduit to the abyss there which charges the pearls, and which the PC's can possibly close or destroy at the end of the campaign. Perhaps a nice location for a crimson fleet/brotherhood last stand?