Greetings!
I’m running Kingmaker as my first campaign as a GM, as a wish from one of the PCs. I’m doing some minor changes, but all in all I’m going with the “original”. My group is nearly through the second adventure and they are all in all on the track the authors had in mind, which I’m quite happy with. However, I got the impression they would be disappointed if some riddles and plot hooks won’t be solved, like Choral, the Swordlords, Brevoy etc. So I’m thinking about homebrew an additional adventure around Choral the conqueror as a dragon as proposed in adventure 6, implant a Brevoy civil-war with Mivon involved around the time of the 4.-5. adventure and leave alone the First World stuff after Narissas Death to fully focus on an epic dragon final. My idea is more to let the civil war in Brevoy happening off screen, with influence on the kingdom-turns, but not much on the adventure level, and to drag the PCs and Choral into it only after Narissas death/the End of the Adventure path.
I searched in this forum/elsewhere for some tips and inspiration, but am still short about the Choral-part. Like good answers to the questions why he is returning now, where he was the last 200 years, why he founded Brevoy anyway and especially what happened to House Rogvaria (or what it’s member were anyhow, since Choral is not a human in the red dragon-scenario). I’d like to get this straight now, to avoid contradictions and perhaps make some fitting adjustments. Does anyone have some tips or advice for me? Any material from similar walkthroughs would be of course greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Well, first off I’d love to see what you already have, because I’m running the game myself too
But personally I am considering having him be held captive by Nyrissia, either in addition to her jabberwokky or instead of it
Perhaps he actually is dead, but she’s managed to create a dragon that thinks it’s choral, in a manor similar to her jabberwoky in canon or that dude who’s sword makes him think he’s a legendary king or whatever
In my own game, House Rogveria was populated with part dragons, though I’m still trying to figure out/decide how the first couple generations worked
Some of the non-dragon loose ends have been tackled by a poster by the name of Dudemaster iirc
Edit: also check the Sound of a thousand screams, as google provides a statblock from that book
If you search this forum for Choral you'll probably find some ideas. I know someone has written extensively here of making the Vanishing a result of some kind of infernal bargain. Personally I'm sick of devils and demons, and I don't like tying it to the First World - it's too pat - so I've been looking for an alternate explanation.
My players are in the middle of a side-jaunt to Iobaria (the area east of the Nomen Heights), and while doing some research into that region I put together what I think happened to Choral in my campaign. Or at least the beginnings of an answer. Which is good, because the players have been investigating the matter on and off and I haven't really known what to give them in terms of clues before.
This is canon:
Choral came out of Iobaria and invaded what is now Brevoy during the time when the reigning kingdom in Iobaria was openly allied with red and white dragons.
As part of that alliance, ancient cyclops ruins (cyclops were the first major inhabitants of Iobaria) were ceded to the dragons.
About 20 years after Choral forged Brevoy out of Issia and Rostland and Restov, the "drakeplague" hit Iobaria, killing off most of the dragons and leading to the collapse of the allied regime.
This is my supposition: Choral (or if he's human, a dragon partner) discovered something in the ancient cyclops ruins that said, you're gonna die if you don't conquer the lands to the west and stay there. Maybe there was a bargain with some sleeping cyclops spirit or demigod or something, here's the knowledge and/or power to do this thing, but it'll only last for 200 years. The lands get conquered, Brevoy is born, Choral/his dragons are missed by the plague. Perhaps he could have gone anywhere, but the creation of Brevoy is important for some reason to whatever power made the deal. Maybe Choral was a dragon and got transformed by cyclops magic into a human in order to survive the plague. Anyway, 200 years later, all his descendants vanish as part of the price paid. Was that the original deal, or perhaps was only Choral supposed to vanish, and he used some magic to sacrifice all of his kin instead? Anyway, I'm still working out the details.
Lord Foul II wrote:
In my own game, House Rogveria was populated with part dragons, though I’m still trying to figure out/decide how the first couple generations worked
It is limited to Gold, Silver and Bronze dragon, but with a bit of extrapolation Children of Wyrm might be of use to us.
It basically gives a breakdown from the first Generation child down to the 30th generation or so down the line (basically Dragon Sorcerors).
There's even a 4 star review by Endzeitgeist (Thilo G.) On DrivethruRPG (see link above).
Thanks for the input! I searched the form before my post, and found some great ideas, especially about Brevoy, but not so much about Choral and his vanished house that I liked.
My current, unfinished ideas (which already changed again since my first post) are the following: I do not really want Choral to be just some red dragon, because it seems too obvious since it is even a common rumor in Brevoy and makes the question about who exactly are the Rogvarias complicated - they don’t really feel like dragon offspring to me. I am thinking about making him a mere human who is not satisfied with having a huge army, a kingdom and being a mighty but mortal warlord and wishes to be a great red wyrm, similar to other mortals wanting to be a lich or a god. This fits his Ioberia-background with all the dragons, plagues (his quest would start before the eruption of the drakeplague, so the idea to avoid plagues by becoming more than human then seems plausible) and empire-in-demise theme. From there, I will most probably go along with the “evil-pact” thing. So conquering Brevoy would then be some kind of test, “sleeping” for 200 years and sacrifice his own family a price, perhaps I add other things here. Like sacrificing his army and especially the dragons, maybe even make him “possess” the bodies and the powers of the latter somehow.
I’m yet a bit unsure about the pact-part however. It’s a bit overused and the obvious path, but without it Chorals action and the vanishing just seems too strange. I don’t like a fiendish theme here because it would add another one to Kingmaker, which is already kind of overloaded with such in my eyes. For now, I think I prefer a First-World theme around the Elder Ones. Then it would overall first be a story mainly about exploring and mortal empires until the end of part 5. In which I think I’ll start a Brevoy civil war after part 3 and go a bit Game of Thrones from there. Otherwise, all the info about Brevoy would be a bit of a waste and regarding powerlevel it takes away the “superpower” Brevoy and adds a bunch of nations more in line with Mivon and Pitax and on eye level with the PC-kingdom. Afterwards a constant struggling with First-World-problems (pun intended) would follow (as opposed to fey and devils if it’s about an infernal pact, which kind of stretches it for me), as a opportunity for the PCs to be really heroic and rise up to be the rulers of a realm containing their own, Pitax and Brevoy. I’m unsure if and how I should connect Choral and Narissa if I follow this yet. I although don’t know if switching the Choral theme from fey to cyclops would be more fitting. On the plus side, it would make it easier to deal with Skywatch, another riddle I would like to present an answer for. That would be a particular good option if there is a TPK at Vordekai’s (we agreed to punish the Kingdom if there is a TPK, but besides that continue with a fitting second group in this case), in which case I would deny the PCs the Nomenhights and implant a little new undead kingdom there, which has a focus on conquering Ioberia instead of the west though.
However, this are all vague ideas. I don’t even know if Choral should not rather be a dragon from the start nonetheless and the mentiones idea to kind of replace the jabberwokky with him or some offspring is tempting. It would went nice with the vorpal sword theme and I just hate the look and some aspects of the jabberwokky. The idea about Brevoy being some kind of refuge to avoid the Drakeplague is also nice, but this needs some adjustments in my eyes to look good compared to dragons like Sjohvor who just survived it anyhow. Moreover, I especially have trouble with the Rogvorias if Choral is a dragon, because I see them unfitting as dragon offspring. Generally the Rogvorias are one of my main problems, some of my PCs are also interested in them (I can’t blame them) and I want to come up with a particular good explanation here. I brainstormed some ideas like a mass “trap the soul”-spell with connections to Vordakais Soul Jars. I even considered some kind of “Familicide” spell like Vaarsuvius used in OOTS. However, everything besides the doing of some demigod-like power doesn’t worked out well in my eyes yet.
All of this has quite some flaws left. And I'm not done yet with wwaging concepts. My latest thoughts spiraled about if it’s a good idea to flesh out the two dragon allies of Choral, because until now they are plain monsters. One idea is: they stayed in Brevoy instead of Choral (whatever he is). The Rogvarias are mere humans dummies, but one dragon always kills the current heir, takes his place for a mortal lifetime, then repeat it. It was killed by the pact-thingy that killed the Rogvarias. The other is more magic-prophecy focused and foresaw the attack. It lives under Starfall and pushed some kind of panic button for magical defense. And I still need some good ideas for Chorals minions once he returns. Just some humans is boring and Kobolds are a bit on the weak side.
So my thoughts about it are overall quite obvious in a state of chaotic beginning yet.
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Welcome to the wonderful world of GM'ing!
The great thing about KM is it has so many hooks that you really can take it anywhere, to the point where the same group could, in theory, play through it twice and have a completely different experience with only a little bit of legwork from the GM.
The bad thing is that it has so many hooks that there is a good potential for a lot of unanswered questions that your group might want to have answered.
My group is currently in between Book 2 and 3 and will be starting Realm of the Fellnight Queen next session (though they don't know that yet).
For me, I too was really intrigued about Skywatch in particular and its seemingly obvious ties to the Rogarvia disappearance. As of yet, I have not fully fleshed out my idea on how to handle this, but I'm forming at least the basis of an idea. :p
The one adventure in the path that otherwise seems to come out of left field is VV. There doesn't really seem to be any real reason for the cyclops to be there except as a means for enabling the PCs to take over Varn. So what I did was to start to plant the seeds in Book 2 with Candlemere. I expanded Candlemere Island using the haunted Candlemere that somebody had posted up here (a search for Candlemere on the forum will likely produce the right hit). Obviously its a bit late for your group -- though you could always have it come up later. Anyway, when my group went looking, they found the signs of Yog-Sothoth on the tower (as described in the forum post) and continued to explore. I then created an underground section which ultimately revealed that the tower was initially built by the ancient Cyclopean empire before it fell. In the lower reaches of the Tower they found a room with more or less the history of the Cyclopean Empire on the walls but also some sort of mystic portal in the ceiling. The party was able to learn that cyclopes were fighting the "elder gods" (Yog-Sothoth, etc.) and that they key to their fight was located at Skywatch.
They also learned that the war with the elder gods started to go bad for them after the elder gods joined with a "mysterious power". That power is going to by N but the main source of her "power" was in the bodies that she could bring to the fight. So this will at least explain Vordekai's presence. I'm still not quite sure how to tie it all to Choral though. My main thought is of course the age-old pact. I'm leaning toward a pact with N who was more than willing to play the long game. She was willing to give him power to "stabilize" the region provided that he and all his heirs go bye bye X years later. Meanwhile, the elder gods sealed up Skywatch at the same time because they knew that the key to their defeat was there. (I'm thinking some sort of artifact -- though my players have yet to show a whole lot of interest in Skywatch as of yet, so it might remain unanswered).
All of this will get tied by to Vordekai in the sense that he was the last guardian of the Cyclopean Empire but in fighting N (a fey) he perhaps went a bit too far and associated her with all fey -- hence the reason the Nomen are standing constant vigil over him. Essentially, the idea is that the Cyclopes were actually more or less good (or certainly better than the elder gods) but that Vordekai went a bit crazy/power hungry.
As for what to make of Choral and his family, I'm thinking of just having them be servants, so to speak, of N -- or rather, sacrifices to be used to help break her out of her prison to be able to reclaim what she believes is rightfully hers.
Obviously this all needs quite a bit of work on my part, but hopefully it at least gives you some food for thought. I do agree that the idea of a pact is a bit overused but I'm also not quite certain what else to make of the disappearance of the family. I mean, its possible, in theory, that something like what happens to Varn happened to them, but as spread out as they were, that seems much more unlikely. Plus it wouldn't explain the sealing off of Skywatch. All of this is very interesting so I'm definitely interested in hearing what others have come up with.
Well to be honest, and I’m quite sure subjective here, but I am no big fan of this many plot hooks in Kingmaker. Yes there are a lot and that gives you some choices as a GM, but many lack further information or solutions and gives a quite unsatisfying feeling if you just run them by the books. This is especially difficult in my newbie-GM and newbie-Pathfinder situation in wich I can't easily make up something good and fitting. It is worst with things like the Rogvoria-vanishing, where the authors went full mysterious and meaningful, but nearly without any hint what could have happened and especially how it must be fleshed out to fit properly in the world. However, I don’t want to rant too much, I just want to know how other GM dealt with similar plots around Choral. I already gained some new perspectives here :)
On a side note: are there any info about the age of Chorals two red dragons? I would guess they were at least adult at time of the conquering, but I found nothing specific. And can anyone tell me what was worshipped in Koloran? I read somethinsg about cyclops, but Vordakai's worship of Daemonms doesn't really fit into this. Asking because I'm brooding a bit about if I like a cyclops-theme in here or not.
Well it was 200 years to it, so take a pair of dragons that would be a threat to armies, and then add 200 years
Vordakai was a necromancer who worshipped the Four Horsemen, harbingers of the end times. I don’t think he was typical of his people, but his faith does provide a clue: the cyclopes probably worshipped the same gods as everyone else. Given their connection to seeing the future, they might have had an important relationship with Pharasma.
To Tag onto what Lord Foul II suggested, this might help.
The easy answer, is pick an age category that seems solid, and add 1~2 categories.
So, if you have two Adult Reds (CR 14's), and add just over 200 years, you have Old Reds (CR 17).
This might be rougher than you wanted, as Red's tend to be on the heavier end of the weight class/age range, on the flip side, it might be almost perfect depending on how you stretch your campaign out.
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