I'm still wondering about all the races living under Cauldron at adventure path time:
- Skulks
- Dark ones
- Hobgoblins
- Goblins
- Kobolds (even if PCs will never meet them)
I'm not happy about this and I will like to delete some of this races and maybe replace some other, but I'm still unsure about how managing this.
- What about replacing all goblins (chapter 1 and 2) with kobolds? Kobolds seems more fit as underground vermins (at least for me)
- And deleting hobgoblins and replacing them with more dark ones and some guards (which race?)?
- Also skulks and dark ones realy cover the same skirmisher/ambusher role: I really need them both?
Thanks in advance for any idea
Ciao
Mario
Those ideas all make sense to me. It reduces the number of different cultures under the city and adds to continuity. Continuity is one of the things that Shackled City lacks. But at least the developers admit that and did better work their next time out.
In my homebrew goblins, orcs, hobgoblins, and ogres are all PC races along with humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings along with the wildcard race, vorr'cHak (my version of Thri-Kreen). So in my game I actually changed a bunch of things also. So the only underground races the party will encounter are dark ones and drow.
In the first few chapters I changed the following: J'zadirune I turned into a goblin enclave because there are no gnomes but it was inhabited by dark ones. Kazmojen I made a surface dweller, and thus the Malachite Fortress was a part of the city, and his band of hobgoblins became a band of thugs from all races. The kopru ruins I changed to drow. I'm running from the magazines so I'm not including Drakthar and his cronies. I have not yet finished converting the hunt for Zenith so the party may likely encounter kuo-toa but I'm not sure if I'm going to change them to drow or not.
To be fair, Cauldron, prior to the work of the Stormblades in late chapter 3/early chapter 4, has a solid connection to the Underdark, which is where most of these humanoid races come from. I find it not a problem at all that so many are moving around under the city's streets; personally, it helps to reinforce the "something is going down soon" feeling that sits about Cauldron.
But, if you wanted to thin them out for whatever reason, you could easily merge the skulks and dark creepers, although you miss out on an interesting social solution to some of the Jarzidune challenges (the skulks are the actual bad guys, the dark creepers are sort of innocent bystanders in a way).
The hobgoblins in Malachite Hold are mercs, really, so no matter what you change them to, you don't actually change anything. Still, whatever works for you is what you should do.
The goblins in Malachite could be "second string slaves", acting as wardens over other slaves in exchange for slightly better positions themselves. Its not without precedent.
Drakthar's way could be made extra creepy, and throw a winning red herring at the PCs with the whole orphanage focus of the first adventure, by replacing the goblins with street rats, urchins, orphans, and other destitute children, all at varying levels of vampric transformation (to account for the varying CRs and powers). This could require some conversion work, but it has a lot of potential, especially if your group likes dealing with "grey area" justice. If you do this, be sure to have defined what is and is not murder in Cauldron, and whether "vampire tainted but not fully turned" victims are saveable at all, and if its considered feasible if so.
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Drakthar's way could be made extra creepy, and throw a winning red herring at the PCs with the whole orphanage focus of the first adventure, by replacing the goblins with street rats, urchins, orphans, and other destitute children, all at varying levels of vampric transformation (to account for the varying CRs and powers). This could require some conversion work, but it has a lot of potential, especially if your group likes dealing with "grey area" justice. If you do this, be sure to have defined what is and is not murder in Cauldron, and whether "vampire tainted but not fully turned" victims are saveable at all, and if its considered feasible if so.
That is a great idea. I'm sad that my group basically just finished that section of the adventure, or I would totally have implemented it.
Black Bard yours is a load full of nice ideas!
About Jarzidune dwellers I see the skulks and the dark ones on the contrary of you (skulks as a sort of innocent bystanders and dark ones as the real bad guys and Kazmojen cohorts) even if your rendering is the right as for the AP setting. As I post in the LL sidetrek, in my game I like to have Gortio the doppelganger as an "evolved skulk" (the doppleganger are the leaders of the skulk race, like dark creepers and dark stalkers), so Gortio is the leader of the tribe of skulks living in Jzadirune, and his need for revenge will make him a cool and foreshadowed bad guy.
I really like the idea of replacing the goblins with street rats, urchins, orphans: it sonuds really cool... but maybe it's stretching too much close to the dark side. Also I've rethinked Drakhtar
as a Smoking Eye madness infused ogre mage druid, drawn from an old post about too much related weakness between Drakhtar as a vampire and Tongueater the werebaboon.
Actually I think I will:
- remove the hobgolins and replace them with more dark ones and some duergar allies of Kazmojen: so Kazmojen "organization" will consist of him, his duergar cohorts (half a doren) and the dark ones.
- skulks are derelicts living as outcasts and were bullied by Kazmojen's band aginst their will.
- maybe replace the goblins with kobolds or more likely with your idea of street urchins (changing again Drakthar as a vampiric ogre mage) (I always saw goblins as forest dwellers and up to my last game kobolds were the nasty dog-faced little guys - now they seem dragon followers)
So I deleted only one race - goblins - from the 5 we originally have... and I have the vampire back...mumble...mumble...work in progress
Thanks
Mario
My final thoughts on this subject:
I will retain the skulks, afterwards linking them and Gortio with LL guild.
I will retain the dark ones, a one-time-only race that will disappear from the path.
I will replace the hobgoblins with some duergar/derro relatives of Kazmojen (about half a dozen) and some more dark ones with soldiering skills. Later PCs will meet Kravichack Riolgh and his berserkers.
I will replace goblins with kobolds for my own sake.
I will use Drakhtar as a smoking eye crazed ogre mage druid expelled from his tribe (the same of Zarn Kyass).
That's all for now
Thanks to all
Mario