I just ordered my subscription last week so I am waiting on the first part of this adventure path. So needless to say I haven't looked it over yet.
But I was wondering how difficult it would be to change out the Drow for a different bad guy race such as the Yuan-ti?
My group recently when through City of the Spider Queen and I was thinking that more Drow might not be a good thing.
Creative Director
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I just ordered my subscription last week so I am waiting on the first part of this adventure path. So needless to say I haven't looked it over yet.
But I was wondering how difficult it would be to change out the Drow for a different bad guy race such as the Yuan-ti?
My group recently when through City of the Spider Queen and I was thinking that more Drow might not be a good thing.
Since the drow are the main villains of the campaign and there's an awful lot going on with the interplay between drow and elves... swapping out the drow for another race might be kinda tough. You'll certainly have to redo dozens of stat blocks over the course of the adventure.
Taking Rise of the Runelords as an example, it'd probably be easier to swap out a different race for all of the giants in that adventure path. So... not impossible, but still not easy.
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So, frankly, this might not be the AP for you. some options are:
1. run it as-is, but toss in plently of Pathfinder-specific flair, so your players will appreciate a different take on the drow.
I havent read through Spider Queen, but I might be able to point out the following:
Second Darkness features, for the most part, major drow NPCs as primary villains, at least in the first few adventures. the greater part of the stuff they will be fighting is riddleport thugs and aliens, and demons. there are no hordes of drow mooks in the beginning. Also, not that many b##+*y preistessess with a spider fetish.
2. buy a different AP. save second darkness for later, or a different group of players, and pick up CotCT or RotRL, APs with no drow whatsoever.
3. wait a bit. run some other stuff with your players, and wait for more of Second Darkness to be released so you have a better feel for the AP, then see if your players are ammenable to going up against drow again.
Maybe consider using hobgoblins instead. Hobs and elves also have a poor relationship, so it might not be too much of break from the story.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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You could possibly try keeping the Drow as the main protagonists, buuut...
Stay with all of the main NPCs, but swap out all of the "Grunt Drow" for a slave race (such as Goblinoids, Kobolds or any of a myriad other Underdark/Darklands races). It will still be a big task, but you get to keep the storyline relatively intact, while reducing the impact of the Drow on your PCs.
Vegepygmies, all the way, go for it man.
You know those little buggers have always been up to something.
What I like about them is you can eat them, and not only don't you get the cannibalism rap, you're even a vegetarian!
Salad is murder Heathy . . .
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Githyanki?
This this this this this this this this this this this this this.
Imagine bands of them going on hunts not for mind flayers, but for elves of all sorts. Except they suddenly became rare millenia ago, leaving only the drow who also live in the Darklands as accessable prey. But now the githyanki are suddenly getting savvy to the fact that the surface elves are back and plentiful, enjoying the sunlit world outside the underground realm they share with the cursed kin of their creators. It's enough to make a guy want to hit the planet with a rock.
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Githyanki?
That was what I was thinking. Alternatively, you could also consider the Shadar Kai or the Dark Ones. Or perhaps even subterranean Fey'ri with Tanarukk slaves.
As for Mikaze's question - I just looked at the SRD and they aren't included. Interestly, duerger are. Hmmmmmm.
But let me opine on one point, because we have a campaign in the midst of the City of the Spider Queen . . . and it ain't just drow. In fact, there are a lot of baddies in that campaign who once were drow . . . but aren't anymore.
What might be interesting would be to envision a bridge between campaigns. Bring Dorina or Zedarr back for an encore appearance. Find some way to suggest that the terrors that were in CotSQ have bled over here, too. It might be a rewarding surprise, albeit will likely require planning on your part.
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Githyanki?This this this this this this this this this this this this this.
With heavy fluff changes of course, keeping whatever fluff elements characteristic of Golarion drow that your recently used drow didn't have. Githyanki getting eaten after a certain level will definitely have to go as well their usual plane of operations. And since they won't be coming to Golarion proper in any future releases(they're not open-content I assume?), you can tie them into the history of the world in a way that can put them close to the drow and not replacing them. You could make them the elves' shameful secret(or the drow, minus the shame) and have them being bred as a slave race that still bears a grudge.
Here's my idea: since the Githyanki are traditionally associated with hatred of Illithids, and given the path's "antihero" type of feel, you could make it the Mind Flayers who help the PCs out instead of the elves.
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Here's my idea: since they're traditionally associated with hatred of Illithids, and given the path's "antihero" type of feel, you could make it the Mind Flayers who help the PCs out instead of the elves.Githyanki?With heavy fluff changes of course, keeping whatever fluff elements characteristic of Golarion drow that your recently used drow didn't have. Githyanki getting eaten after a certain level will definitely have to go as well their usual plane of operations. And since they won't be coming to Golarion proper in any future releases(they're not open-content I assume?), you can tie them into the history of the world in a way that can put them close to the drow and not replacing them. You could make them the elves' shameful secret(or the drow, minus the shame) and have them being bred as a slave race that still bears a grudge.
Gah, caught me before the edit...and that's a great idea too. That's another race you don't have to worry about being contradicted at a later date that you can do anything with.
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Here's my idea: since the Githyanki are traditionally associated with hatred of Illithids, and given the path's "antihero" type of feel, you could make it the Mind Flayers who help the PCs out instead of the elves.
This is BRILLIANT. Moreover, make the mind flayers conniving and untrustworthy allies . . . but allies that the "heroes" must keep to survive. (Or not.)
You know, another angle would be to make the elves orcs and the drow as orogs.
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So the asteroid or whatever is some funky material the gith want to make swords with? Maybe the legendary 10th sword hinted at in the BO9S.
It's something I was toying with a while ago; IDK.
Swordsage elves? IDK again...
Maybe it's for the same reason the
Maybe take a leaf out of Tolkien's book, and make orcs corrupted elves? Wouldn't necessarily fit with the pathfinder world's version of things, but could make for a good (and different) AP.
Githyanki?
Really, really good fit for a lot of what's coming...
How about Duergar? Just shift the focus from Elves to Dwarves.
That's not bad, not bad at all.
Or you could go Dwarves/Derro. Golarian Derro are awesome. I quite like the Roswell-esque re-invention of these "little blue men" as briefly brought forth in Curse of the Crimson Throne.
I was just about to suggest derro!
Duergar don't interest me too much, and they're dour and introspective. Derro, on the other hand, are just nuts. Just the sorts that would
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I just finished running my group through ‘Shadow in the Sky’ and one of the things that I did change was the Drow. I have run across to many Dizzzzits and Dri33its in too many forms for them to be even mildly credible anymore.
I did rewrite the beginning background story but I’m not sure how much of it I am allowed to reproduce here, so here are the salient points:
However when the impending doom threatened the eleven council decided that they did not want the ‘lesser’ races to contaminate there refuge, regardless of their usefulness. So the elves left leaving their faithfull servants to their doom.
The human tried to take cover under ground when the star impacted, this combined with the rupturing of a certain vault caused… wait, let me get a quote… “They were transformed by this event, their hair and skin bleached white, their eye’s boiling red with hate.” (Yay! Albinos)
So when the elves returned there former servants are out to kill them.
I liked this solution for several reason, the primary of which is that the elves cant tell anyone why the Aloth (That’s what I called them by the way) want to kill them, without risking the ire of the other human lands. Having left there ancestors to die may not go down well…
The other reason is that in this scenario the Aloth have a genuine grievance against the elves (or at least think they do), who they blame for dropping a star on them. All they want is to do the same thing back to the elves. It will be interesting to see my party try and navigate the morals on that.
I dropped the whole Allegra thing because it didn’t fit with the story anymore and I thought that it was a little laborious to begin with. I replaced her with an Aloth that was around since the elves left him to die. It’s taken him this long to figure out how to get his revenge.
Again this means that this Aloth doesn’t actually hate the party or anything (unless they are elves or course) which means he can do the whole “If you leave I will let you live” scene with at least some credibility.
Thus ends my rant. Hope it helps some of you out.
The Kuo-Toa may be a good choice. I think they get a short shrift in many people's eyes because many illustrations of them look goofy. Yet look at the stats - these guys are more terrifying than drow: they can see invisible creatures, generate lightning, are impossible to hold, and can make combat super glue. These guys are not pansies. It's important to remember that they are essentially the Deep Ones from the Cthulhu Mythos.
However, it seems Second Darkness requires an element of paranoia about the secret nature/creation of Drow, and it's hard to think of something that could work with that. I'd have to read future issues first before knowing if it was possible to change that to a more general "forbidden knowledge" aspect.
At the same time, Lovecraft's Deep Ones do have the secret human/deep one hybrids, so that is a possible solution! I don't know how well it works with elves, but you could replace the protagonists with some kind of secret society (or perhaps not so secret, but known and widespread like the Freemasons). This society however had one or more member families that turned out to be such hybrids, and they desperately want to protect their reputation. Riddleport can easily have something like an Esoteric Order of Dagon, and you can have one or more of the pirates in the city to be possible hybrids and/or allies of the Deep Ones.
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I just ordered my subscription last week so I am waiting on the first part of this adventure path. So needless to say I haven't looked it over yet.
But I was wondering how difficult it would be to change out the Drow for a different bad guy race such as the Yuan-ti?
My group recently when through City of the Spider Queen and I was thinking that more Drow might not be a good thing.
Yuan-Ti would be an excellent swap. You still get that "oooh they're EVIL" vibe. Also, they hit about the right power level, and would function fine in the underdark.
You still have to redo the stat blocks, but, from what I've seen, you can do the grunts and be 80% done. A few specific characters will need more attention, but that won't take too much time.
If scales aren't you bag, I'll put in a second vote for the Hobgoblin. Just have the technology angle be from some lost civ that the hobbies are pirating, and voila!
I suggest you think about sticking to drow. Not only will that be less work, it also might work out for you:
Golarion drow are quite different from CotSQ/FR drow. The matriarchic vibe is a lot less severe, maybe even nonexistent. There is no constant holy war going on between drow deities, good-aligned drow are virtually nonexistant, and the whole back-story is different.
While in the Realms, drow are used as nursery tales to scare children into eating their vegetables, they're virtually unknown on Golarion - because the elves suppress any information about them and their very existence.
And unlike FR drow, who are, for the most part, content to stay underground (or just run around nekkid in the forest), the Second Darkness drow do have quite a bit interest in the surface, and so are a real threat to the world.
I just finished running my group through ‘Shadow in the Sky’ and one of the things that I did change was the Drow. I have run across to many Dizzzzits and Dri33its in too many forms for them to be even mildly credible anymore.
You should see this as an opportunity: Show your players that there's so much more to drow than Drizzt. Cure them of their silly, misguided prejudice! Show them that Drow mean business!