Quoted from the Downtown thread:
Rowyn Kellani as princess of Ahlissa . . . wow. At the risk of inciting a threadjack, how'd that happen? I take it your players sold out Lavinia?I got my players away from Farshore to attend Rowyn's official inauguration as a princess of Ahlissa (long story), which of course served as a lovely distraction for Serpents of Scuttlecove.
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Actually, Lavinia helped set it up. This is how it went; My players marooned Rowyn after the incident in In the Sea-Wyvern's Wake. She ended up in Scuttlecove and got recruited to the Crimson Pirates. Rather roughly too. While she didn't protest at the time (smart girl), she didn't like how they treated her. She joined the assault on Farshore but ran away at the first opportunity.
Meanwhile, the players had picked up another bunch of colonists from Dragon Hunters (Dungeon #104) on a small island on the way. While Prince Henri and his cohorts most certainly were not of the same culture or alignment as the players, they decided his case was not hopeless and that taking him along was the best solution. Conveniently, there was room on the Blue Nixie as the passengers had eaten about half of the food stores. Prince Henri enjoyed Lavina's company a lot, tough not of that of the Jade Ravens. After the pirate attack on Farshore, Prince Henri was put in charge of keeping the pirate prisoners on his plantation - the task of being a prison warden being distasteful to my group. Most of the pirates were saved from death and captured - my players are quite pacifistic and very good in outlook.
As one of the more charismatic escapees, Rowing gathered many runaway pirates around her, then contacted Prince Henri with a deal; she'd give up all her pirate prisoners in return for a full pardon. The heroes were reluctant, but both Lavinia ad Prince Henri supported the idea, and it was accepted. Rowyn ended up living on Prince Henri's plantation (Farshore wasn't large enough for both her and the heroes), and the two became an item and finally got married. Her opportunism and quick thinking (CE) complements his steadfast and methodological approach to life (LE), tough neither is as evil as they were at the beginning.
About a year later, all adventures on the Isle of Dread resolved, the PCs arranged a reconciliation between Prince Henri and his mother, who I now (level 15) decided was actually the acting regent of Ahlissa. This was largely possible because Prince Henri has so obvioulsy settled down and "grown up" as his mother would say, getting married , building a plantation, and giving up the ambition for immediate warfare. With Prince Henri restored to the succession in Ahlissa, Rowyn ended up as a princess of that realm.
I don't expect this arc of the campaign to ever visit Ahlissa again, but I'm thinking of placing the Curse of the Crimson Throne in the Great Kingdom, where this act of charity could affect things greatly. I'd not go as far as placing Rowyn as the queen of the Crimson Throne, tough ow that I think of it... This will need more thought.
Awesome idea, Carl. I tried to start a thread about where to set CotC in Greyhawk on the Pathfinder thread, and no one took the bait.
I'd love to trade some more ideas with you. I had been thinking that somewhere in the ruins of the Great Kingdom would be a good spot--Ountsy was where I was thinking of transposing the main city--it's a port and has a female ruler, according to Living Greyhawk Guide. A port city in Ahlissa might work well, too. Have you looked at the free download Ivid the Undying? It would have a lot of good background material in it to help with this task.
Don't know where the best place for a further thread on this is--maybe we can revive my original thread and chat more about it there?
I had been thinking that somewhere in the ruins of the Great Kingdom would be a good spot--Ountsy was where I was thinking of transposing the main city--it's a port and has a female ruler, according to Living Greyhawk Guide. A port city in Ahlissa might work well, too.
There is a dearth of port cities in the southern former Great Kingdom. Their great port to the east (Pontylver) is today a city of undead. Of course, it need not be if we wish to place Korvosa there. Rel Astra, Ountsy, and Roland are also possible options, but too well-detailed in the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer. Dullstrand on the east coast of the Sunndi peninsua might do better. This also has some reasonable wastelands nearby, which serves as the location of the barbarians.
I was previoulsy planning to put Korvosa in Ratik, more specifically the city of Marner. Almost everythig there fits, and there is plenty of room for barbarian tribes and nearby orcs.
Have you looked at the free download Ivid the Undying? It would have a lot of good background material in it to help with this task.
No. Perhaps I should.
Here's the link for Ivid the Undying. This sourcebook represents the state of the Great Kingdom successor states at a time chronologically between "From the Ashes" and the "Living Greyhawk Gazetteer."
I had thought about Ratik as a good location as well. I think any place you plop the city down, you'll have to do some alterations--either to the AP backstory, or to Greyhawk canon, or both.
Another alternative would be to just use Kalstrand--it's a river port, after all. It's a bit farther from "barbarian country" per se, but one might use the demihumans of Sunndi or even the Vast Swamp.
If one wanted to use Pontylver, one could perhaps advance the calendar by a couple of decades and have the city reclaimed from the horrors that claimed it.
If I have some free time, I'll give this some more thought, and post some specific ideas. I haven't looked at FR/Eberron conversion notes for old APs, so I'm not sure if there's a good format to follow or what considerations are usually dealt with in them.
Hadn't thought of Kalstrand. If you use that, the Rowyn angle works well. If I want to use that. After all the effort the players put into her redemption, I'm not sure I want to use her as a main villain.
I'd like to reiterate my sense that Ountsy is an excellent place to use for Korvosa. It is a city-state controlling a small hinterland
Ountsy's ruler is Princess Emmara, the Trine of Ountsy. Her husband was a House Garasteth nobleman, who died during the Greyhawk Wars. She was born into House Darmen (Prince Xavener of Ahlissa's house!)
She has a capable wizard (Svenser) advising her, and is said to greatly fear the influence of the Scarlet Brotherhood.
So . . . it would be possible to set the beginning of the campaign during the Greyhawk Wars, or move the date of Emmara's husband's death to a later time. Or have Emmara be old in 591 (date of LGG) and die shortly afterwards, leaving the city in charge of a brother-in-law or son who gets married to another Darmen princess
At this juncture, I'm wondering if we should open yet another thread in the CotC section of the boards, in case readers in this section are planning to play in CotC and inadvertently stumble across spoilers . . .
OK, sorry to move this discussion again, Carl--here's the link to my old thread in the CotC folder.
I'll post some more ideas over there.