So, I'm looking to have my players engage in some side-tracked adventures.
Has anyone done anything with:
Nybor
Ember Lake
Galduria
Wolf's Ear
Churlwood
Wartle
Windsong Abbey
or Viperwall
I would be looking to leverage the work of others...or discuss here what these places might hold.
CJ
So, I'm looking to have my players engage in some side-tracked adventures.
Has anyone done anything with:
Nybor
Ember Lake
Galduria
Wolf's Ear
Churlwood
Wartle
Windsong Abbey
or ViperwallI would be looking to leverage the work of others...or discuss here what these places might hold.
CJ
D'oh!
I found most of what I would be looking for by reading Pathfinder #3, Hook Mountain Massacre.
Humiliations galore is what I get for not reading ahead.
CJ
This sort of got lost in the shuffle when Tintagel posted his spiffy maps. So as it is yet incomplete and I am looking for feedback/assistance, I will post it here.
It is approximately forty miles from Sandpoint to Magnimar. Along the Lost Coast Road there are numerous villages (about every five-six miles or so). From Sandpoint to Magnimar, the villages will be encountered in this order:
Hardney has a smithy and a small herbalist shop. A large hill called Blue Tooth Tor looms over the village. The hill is said to be hollow and once home to a sapphire mine.
Morton’s Gale is dominated by a statue in the main plaza of an Angel of Death missing the right (sword) arm.
Swanspike has a moderately sized inn called the Gargoyle’s Cup. The village also boasts a wheelwright and a small flour mill. The village holds a monthly market throughout most of the year.
Detmond has a rather nice inn called the Three Hawks – it caters mainly to travelers on horseback and has a sizeable stable, farrier, and even a horse-trader. The village holds a small temple to Abadar honoring Saint Foursquare, the Patron Saint of Caravans and Wagons (represented by an eight-spoke wheel).
Whirty has nothing of note except a ruined watch tower that is said to be haunted.
Gullskald is home to the Black Fish Inn. The Black Fish is a moderately sized inn, but has a somewhat shady reputation. Most folk in the village make their living from gathering sea bird eggs and feather from the nearby cliffs. The village is also home to a beacon to warn ships away from the treacherous shoals and rocks that pose a hazard to shipping.
Rhelmardin is built amid the ruins of some great dwelling (presumably Thassalonian). Structures in the village are made of large ill-suited stones and assembled in a very haphazard manner. The village has a very evil repute and the inhabitants are singularly lazy, slovenly, and shifty-eyed. Many of the folk of the village are misshapen and deformed from birth. Insanity and cruelty abound here, and the local Under Sheriff, Sir Teffrin Ardmoor (Chelaxian, LE-Ftr5), is hard pressed to keep the populace in line.
Lostspear is hardly more than collection of farms. Most folk here conduct their business in Magnimar. The village is home to an abandoned metal works.
This is a work in progress...and contributions are muchly desired.
CJ
I've been playing the journey much more sparsely, emphasizing that it's called the Lost Coast Road for a reason, and that there just isn't much there.
James Jacobs wrote that there were road houses between Sandpoint and Magnimar, but I'm not sure what that means in terms of population.
Nice work, regardless. I might steal from this, and if I develop any of the ideas I'll certainly show my work back in this thread.
I guess I was just sort of assuming there would be outlying villages in order to feed the population of Magnimar. Is the Yondabakari valley not suitable for farming? South of the river is probably too soggy for farming and settlement.
What is the general population density of Varisia? Numerous villages are shown on maps...I assumed these were larger villages. Was this an incorrect assumption on my part?
And roadhouses would need some sort of local infrastructure to support them: provide food, labor, etc.
CJ
All sounds really good. Will most probably pilfer this for my games. I've written some stuff on Galduria and Wolfs Ear that I'll post a bit later when I can find it. My only thought is the village named Whirty is a bit close to Whartle which is pretty nearby. It may confuse the players as they are very similiar sounding. That's my only criticism.
Positive wise I really like the idea of Rhelmardin. It is just such a cool idea for a creepy little backwater village. When I read it it gave me a lot of cool adventure ideas. Like I said that is definitly going in my RotRL campaign.
Right found the stuff I wrote for Galduria and Wolfs Ear. It's not much as they were just passing through the towns but still here what I've got:
Galduria:
There are several places to rest up in Galduria. The Retired Familiar is the Inn closest to the Twilight Academy it is also one of the most expensive and one of the nicest Inn’s in Galduria. There are several other taverns that cater to the loggers and farmers who often visit Galduria. These include The Branch and Axe, Jarl’s Hole and The Granary.
Wolfs Ear:
The town’s main inn is called the Deer and Wolf. This Inn is the largest in town and the most welcoming to visitors who there seem to be relatively few of. The tavern is owned by a man named Jonas Debeas. He is a large set shaggy man with little interest in strangers. The other feature of the town is a large temple to Erastil. The head priest Braid Ollum is a quiet man dedicated to helping those afflicted with Lycanthropy overcome and live with the disease. Despite the size of the temple he is the only priest as few others priests share his compassion for Lycanthropes. Luckily for the PC’s there arrival is nowhere near the full moon so there stay should be relatively uneventful. The PC’s next stop is Galduria. It is two days walk or one days solid march away.
All sounds really good. Will most probably pilfer this for my games. I've written some stuff on Galduria and Wolfs Ear that I'll post a bit later when I can find it. My only thought is the village named Whirty is a bit close to Whartle which is pretty nearby. It may confuse the players as they are very similiar sounding. That's my only criticism.
Positive wise I really like the idea of Rhelmardin. It is just such a cool idea for a creepy little backwater village. When I read it it gave me a lot of cool adventure ideas. Like I said that is definitly going in my RotRL campaign.
Thanks for the support Cheddar. I guess given that Wartle is over a hundred miles away, I wasn't that worried about any name confusion. I also think name confusion is a good thing -- it reflects a real world problem.
Yes, I will need to do more with Rhelmardin, it has a lot of potential.
I have to be careful though -- I don't want to make every podunk village a potential adventure hook. It was tempting to write something interesting about every village though.
CJ
If anyone's still reading this thread, I'm working on a writeup of the Viperwall. I've already made a map and have all the levels drawn up, but i'm working on this as a kind of capstone for the RoTRL campaign. I'd be happy to post the maps of it if anyone's interested. Tried to get the basic theme from the picture in the Hook Mountain Horrors campaign.
And thanks for the lost coast stuff, it looks great and i'll more than likely use it in my campaign too!
I'd love to see the stuff on Viperwall. I am hoping to extend the AP with some side adventures that introduce the RuneLord of Gluttony and am looking for ways to use the other areas in Varisia as well.
How are you tying Viperwall into the story arc?
Once the Runelord is dealt with and the party is essentially done, I was going to bring in a high powered lamia cult, a group of Tatzlworms (D0: Hollow's last hope) led by a dragon, or even a Yuan-ti cult dedicated to either Lamashtu or one of her Marilith Leutenants (in keeping with the snake motif of the viperwall picture). Either way, the cults would be attacking, and in some cases destroying small fishing villiages along Ember Lake. I know this kind of feels like the whole "Nualia story" from burnt offerings, but it's what i've got started so far. Really, i've just got the map done, haven't even started describing the rooms yet, so the story could be left open for interpretation.
Okay, here's the link for the maps i've gotten done. I'll post a basic overview of what i was thinking for all of the areas a little later once i've gotten it written up. Please let me know what you think, I appreciate any and all feedback.
Thanks!
This sort of got lost in the shuffle when Tintagel posted his spiffy maps. So as it is yet incomplete and I am looking for feedback/assistance, I will post it here.
It is approximately forty miles from Sandpoint to Magnimar. Along the Lost Coast Road there are numerous villages (about every five-six miles or so). From Sandpoint to Magnimar, the villages will be encountered in this order:
Hardney has a smithy and a small herbalist shop. A large hill called Blue Tooth Tor looms over the village. The hill is said to be hollow and once home to a sapphire mine.
Morton’s Gale is dominated by a statue in the main plaza of an Angel of Death missing the right (sword) arm.
Swanspike has a moderately sized inn called the Gargoyle’s Cup. The village also boasts a wheelwright and a small flour mill. The village holds a monthly market throughout most of the year.
Detmond has a rather nice inn called the Three Hawks – it caters mainly to travelers on horseback and has a sizeable stable, farrier, and even a horse-trader. The village holds a small temple to Abadar honoring Saint Foursquare, the Patron Saint of Caravans and Wagons (represented by an eight-spoke wheel).
Whirty has nothing of note except a ruined watch tower that is said to be haunted.
Gullskald is home to the Black Fish Inn. The Black Fish is a moderately sized inn, but has a somewhat shady reputation. Most folk in the village make their living from gathering sea bird eggs and feather from the nearby cliffs. The village is also home to a beacon to warn ships away from the treacherous shoals and rocks that pose a hazard to shipping.
Rhelmardin is built amid the ruins of some great dwelling (presumably Thassalonian). Structures in the village are made of large ill-suited stones and assembled in a very haphazard manner. The village has a very evil repute and the inhabitants are singularly lazy, slovenly, and shifty-eyed. Many of the folk of the village are misshapen and deformed from birth....
My Players threw me a curve ball. They took a ship from Sandpoint to Magnamar, a short boat trip instead of a long trip around overland. So you might want to think of some water encounters. I was caught with my mouth hanging open.
In my game, I cast Wartle as a town built on stilts since they're at the juncture of two rivers (fed by glacial runoff and mountain storms) with a big old swamp on their southern side, and, given that, flooding would be so commonplace that anything less than raised housing would be ridiculous.
'Blocks' of buildings were built together with rigid walkways between structures supported by braces under them and the occasional open space between buildings with a small crane built onto a roof to move supplies up from a boat below. Individual blocks were connected by flexible bridges (rope with timber flooring), and most blocks had their own pier/dock that could be docked at.
Unsurprisingly, Wartle had a thriving timber import business, and had more carpenters per capita than any other city in the region. They primarily got their income from trading companies out of Magnimar establishing warehouses there to hold goods shipped down both rivers before transshipping them down to the 'big city' on the coast.
Although the party never got involved in one, a frequent method of 'dueling' to settle issues was to hunt snakes in a specific area (under a specific block or blocks) with a time limit. (Goblin Snakes counted as 10 regular snakes) Winner was the individual with the most snakes. Restrictions on weapons were the most common way of making the duel harder, with really bitter issues sometimes coming down to hunting with daggers or bare hands.
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Once the Runelord is dealt with and the party is essentially done, I was going to bring in a high powered lamia cult, a group of Tatzlworms (D0: Hollow's last hope) led by a dragon, or even a Yuan-ti cult dedicated to either Lamashtu or one of her Marilith Leutenants (in keeping with the snake motif of the viperwall picture). Either way, the cults would be attacking, and in some cases destroying small fishing villiages along Ember Lake. I know this kind of feels like the whole "Nualia story" from burnt offerings, but it's what i've got started so far. Really, i've just got the map done, haven't even started describing the rooms yet, so the story could be left open for interpretation.
You might want to take a look at Into The Darklands. Viperwall is mentioned there as being linked to an ancient race of snakelike beings, and being connected to the underground Darklands.
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Okay, here's the link for the maps i've gotten done. I'll post a basic overview of what i was thinking for all of the areas a little later once i've gotten it written up. Please let me know what you think, I appreciate any and all feedback.
Thanks!
Your maps are quite useful already! In "Hook Mountain" one of the treasures specifically calls out "map of the first few levels of viperwall" or somesuch.
Any development on what baddies you're populating your map with? (And without derailing the topic too much: anyone know of a good snake-themed adventure in Dungeon to adapt to Viperwall?)
Once the Runelord is dealt with and the party is essentially done, I was going to bring in a high powered lamia cult, a group of Tatzlworms (D0: Hollow's last hope) led by a dragon, or even a Yuan-ti cult dedicated to either Lamashtu or one of her Marilith Leutenants (in keeping with the snake motif of the viperwall picture). Either way, the cults would be attacking, and in some cases destroying small fishing villiages along Ember Lake. I know this kind of feels like the whole "Nualia story" from burnt offerings, but it's what i've got started so far. Really, i've just got the map done, haven't even started describing the rooms yet, so the story could be left open for interpretation.
In one of the Pathfinder issues with the Serpent Skull AP, it said that Viperwall was created by the Serpent Men during their last incursion to the surface world. Below Varisia there is also a Serpent Man city where the ancient Serpent Men sleep in magical hibernation & their primitive descendants war for control of the city with driders & gugs.
Perhaps their time of awakening is upon your PCs.|
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Five years late, but I'm building a short adventure at a sort of way station along a Shalast highway through the Malgorian Mountains, and I'm wondering if anyone has cool ideas about what Ember Lake was like back before Earthfall. Were the Lost Coast plains still mostly just farming communities, or were there major cities in the area? Was Ember Lake also quarried out like the Storval Deep - was it even a lake back then?
I sort of think the island at the center of Ember Lake might be the highest-elevation part of a city or fortress of some sort. And maybe there was a lake way back when but it was significantly flooded when Eurythnia sank.
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Bump ^
But I've been doing a little bit with the lake - the party found a charig, and when they discovered a creepy gallows with a hanging human corpse on the lake's eastern shore, I told them there are stories about a submerged city around the island in the center. Still not sure if that's actually real.
I've also developed some of the communities around there to my own taste:
Small town
Population 1200 (1100 humans, 50 gnomes, 30 halflings, 5 dwarves, 5 elves, 4 half-orcs, 3 half-elves, 2 changelings, 1 goblin)
Strategic, prosperous
Wartle is known for two things: Furs and swamps. These are not the only reasons people visit Wartle, but they color almost every interaction. This town of about 1200 is host to 2 trading posts (Ciellan the Elf's Bog Hole, and Hawkclaw Dry Goods), 3 inns (the Lampblack Lie-Down, Sil's House, and the Redbrick Inn), 2 taverns (one directly adjacent to Ciellan's is called the Lean-To, and there is also the Blue Barber), 3 brothels, and many assorted bog-specific ingredients shops and stalls. The Lean-To was the first to name its ”Bog Grog,” but the other taverns and inns in town are trying to capitalize on the popularity by selling ”Neat Peat” and ”Bog Whisky” knock-offs. The Lean-To's proprietor, Grimplenose Teefchew (goblin trapper ranger 4), claims to have thwarted multiple attempted thefts of her recipe (by having a lot of fake recipes, because it's all in her head). Teefchew is in fact one and the same person as Ciellan the Elf, but uses male pronouns when in the Bog Hole (named for the hole in the counter that Ciellan uses to talk to customers).
For the spiritual and artistic, Wartle offers a small boneyard maintained by a surly Pharasmin named Anella Dithrasti, a church in honor of the Drunkard on the central boardwalk, easy access to sites sacred to Varisian mystery cultists, as well as easy access to the fey-aligned Sanos Forest. The town is dotted with pieces of art gifted by the gnomes of that forest, and in a few places by the work of local artisans. One such piece, older than anyone can remember, is a stone fountain of a turtle marking the eastern edge of town.
The town is split into western and eastern halves by the Lampblack River and crossed by the Crow Bisque Ferry and the Kettlepot Schooner, as well as by the many smaller, more maneuverable boats Wartle's citizens use to travel the swampy Mushfens to the south. Though in some towns such an obvious geographic divide would lend itself to rich folks picking their favorite side and excluding all the poor people, Wartle is a bit more integrated – the town's mayor Dagrin Lamm is a swamper themself, and doesn't put up with people putting on airs. It is for this reason that the town's ”swampland tax” raises funds for boardwalk going to every home and shop, as long as it's built within 10 meters of another building in the network. There are a few homes outside the boardwalk radius, but those folks keep boats tied to their roofs for the autumn floods.
Horse dealership owned by Narven Sithsew, who talks like a cliche criminal and doesn't trust renters not to get his horses killed.
NG small town
Corruption 0, Crime -1, Economy +1, Law +1, Lore 0, Society +1
Qualities insular, strategic location
Danger 0
Government autocracy
Population 528 (201 humans, 68 half-elves, 56 half-orcs, 52 gnomes, 38 halflings, 36 dwarves, 24 elves, 23 assimar, 14 tieflings, 7 changelings, 5 half-gnomes, 2 undines, 1 sylph, 1 fetchling)
Notable NPCs
Mayor Janos Sarrin (NG agender half-orc fighter 4/expert 5)
Mother Alca Rhodosis (LG female human cleric of Erastil 7)
Militia Captain Alma Skeen (CG female half-elf rogue 3/skald 3)
Base Value 1,100 gp; Purchase Limit 5,000 gp; Spellcasting 4th
Minor Items 3d4; Medium Items 1d6
Nybor is a small riverside community across from the imposing Malgorian Mountains. Surrounded by farmland and spotty forest on its western side, it is a minor trade hub in the Ember Lake-Lampblack River system. Important businesses include the Watch Inn (has a water clock in the common room), Nybor Commerce (a building painted in pastel rainbow colors and charig designs), the Fish Conserverie (run by a half-elf named Cathran), the Maudlin Forge (run by gnome triplets), the Welcome House (a grange maintained by the local church of Erastil, run on donations), and the Ember Lake Log Yard (south of town, collects logs and lashes them together for rafts to float downstream). The town is connected to the Sanos Forest by an ancient stone bridge that crosses the Lampblack River NE-SW – the bridge is not accessible to horses or carts, however, as it stands about 15 meters above the water and abruptly stops after the support on each side (imagine a big archway). Iron rungs have been bolted in to form ladders on each side, allowing foot traffic such as the gnomes of the Sanos Forest to freely cross over.
This last full week of (20-27) Lamashan is marked by the annual Nybor Fall Festival, during which Varisian fire-breathers, infernal-blooded coal-walkers, and a host of other entertainers enliven the town with acts of daring, magic, and comedy. Each year, the huckster and not-so-secretly-a-werewolf Zhayne Rubriskal makes the trip south from Wolf's Ear to sell ”werebear furs” (regular bear furs, mostly), werewolf teeth (collected after bar fights in Wolf's Ear; anyone's guess as to whether they're from regular humans or lycanthrope), and a garlic-dominant dish he calls Vampire's Steak. Stalls are also set up on the town's main street, and nearly every family in Nybor has something for sale: wooden carvings, baked goods, salted meat, sketch commissions, local maps, salt and spices, jewelry, locally-produced clothing, clothing from as far away as Radripal in Vudra, and magic scrolls are among the offerings.
Map basically cribbed from here
1-Mayor's house
2-Watch Inn
3-Maudlin Forge
4-Schoolhouse
6-Nybor Commerce
8-Fish Conserverie (1 keelboat for charter, 10 rowboats)
9-Harts, Hitches, and Horses (stable and horse supplies)
10-Welcome House
11-Boneyard