I am thinking of starting up something of a new adventure path of my own locally but I'm having trouble thinking of who to make the big bad end boss. I'm thinking Wilderness oriented campaign in a kind of Frozen North type world. I am looking for some bits of advice from the boards.
1) One of the main books I am adapting to this is Frostburn which was one of my favorite environment books from 3rd Ed. How would you adapt the Frost Mage prestige class and especially specialization in cold spells as presented in Frostburn to Pathfinder RPG?
2) Major monsters, I am anticipating the new bestiary coming out but I'm still wondering what sort of major nasty I can make as the one behind everything. A part of me is thinking on revisiting Rise of the Runelords with another one waking up but this time instead of such a focus on stone giants I will be using a lot of frost giants. Were any of the Runelords associated with a frozen territory?
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I am thinking of starting up something of a new adventure path of my own locally but I'm having trouble thinking of who to make the big bad end boss. I'm thinking Wilderness oriented campaign in a kind of Frozen North type world. I am looking for some bits of advice from the boards.
In Golarion, the go-to-place for frozen adventures would be the Crown of the World (an Antarctica-sized north polar continent) or the frozen land of Irrisen, overrun with arctic fey, ice trolls and the armies of the daughters of Baba Yaga. Babs herself would be the ultimate 'end-boss,' but she's a plane-hopping artifact-making arch-mage/sorceress who may well be able to arm-wrestle demigods two flips out of three.
Going with Irrisen, which makes a better starting point, the 1st adventure of the AP would start in an adjacent land, either the Land of the Linnorm Kings, Realms of the Mammoth Lords or (yawn) northern Varisia. Mammoth Lords sounds like the coolest option, although a sideways sort of campaign could deal with an Irriseni incursion into the Hold of Belkzen and have the entire party consist of Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Bugbears, Gnolls, etc. from that humanoid-dominated land.
In any event, the evil winter seems to be spreading from Irrisen across the border into [your country here]. In AP 1, you must deal with raids from fellow human(oids) who have been displaced from the border. At first, it seems like standard violence-inherent-in-the-system, but the adventurers soon learn that these brigands are refugees from once livable settlements that have been buried in ice.
AP 2 - travel to the frozen villages, beat up ice trolls, find out how annoying 'arctic fey' with dryad like abilities to move through snow and ice and generate freezing slippery ice slicks (instead of entangle) and whatnot can be. Discover from these adventures that an ambitious lesser daughter of Babs has decided to make a break for expanding the borders of Irrisen before Babs shows up (imminently!) to set a new batch of daughters on the throne of Irrisen. She wants to make a good impression before Little Grandmother shows up, you see.
AP 3 - Attack the renegade daughter, who manages to go all Duke Ferdinand on you and convince her sisters that y'all killed her, triggering her mutual defense back and bringing down Fimbulwinter on your heads. Great! You made it worse! Winter is now spreading in all directions as *all* of Baba Yaga's daughters are pooling their not-inconsiderable might to avenging the slayer of their sister.
Picky detail, she faked her death. It was all a ploy to get her sisters to advance her plan.
AP 4 - Take the fight to Irrisen. Expect armies of ice trolls and frostburn like you've never seen it. Ambitious sister is still alive, but you won't realize that until the end.
AP 5 - Ambitious sister overthrows the ruler of Irrisen, with the unwitting help of the PCs. How many APs let you overthrow the leader of a nation in act 5?
AP 6 - Baba Yaga shows up, and is not pleased. With anyone. It's a crap shoot (good roleplaying helps here, make those Diplomacy rolls) whether or not she kills the party, or her ambitious kinslaying grand-daughter. And, if the Diplomacy rolls are not so hot, it might not be 'either, or' it might be 'first and second.' She should be beatable, but it should be a fight like the end of Savage Tide, against a Demon Lord level opponent.
Monsters - ice fey (modified dryads and sprites and whatever), white dragons (perhaps one used as a dumb brute mount by an arrogant daughter), frost giants, ice trolls (standard troll, but Cold subtype), humans and elves and hobgoblins and goblins and bugbears and gnomes of cruel aspect, 'frost men' (humans, etc. who have willingly gouged out an eye and offered it to a daughter as a sign of loyalty, gaining cold resistance and an eye of unmelting ice that can project a blast of cold X/day), ice elementals (use earth elemental stats, slightly reduced, but with a cold damage aura like the Burn effect of a fire elemental) of up to Huge and Elder sizes, in the later APs, cyrohydra, frost salamanders, ice vipers, ice golems, sentient snowstorms that use Crimson Mist-like stats (draining heat out of people instead of blood), ice zombies (frozen bodies, extra natural armor, +1d6 cold damage on a hit), ice ghouls (heat-absorbing touch causes Dex damage and slowing), etc. The ice fey could go one step further and appear to live in crystalline elven towers (of ice) surrounded by sharp angles and glittering carvings and ornate sculptures, with furs and banners and pageantry galore, with their leaders resembling bone-whites elves (hobgoblins, bugbears, etc) of grim aspect. Their equipment and buildings would resemble some twisted faery-land, of spiky improbably-ornate glistening ice, as hard as steel. Don't forget the skeletal mammoths. Can't have an evil arctic army without skeletal mammoths!
And, to avoid getting too typecast in the relentless snow and ice motif, the occasional odd monster, like the secret ambitious sister lair in a forgotten ruin buried deep beneath the ice, where shoggoth dwell in an ancient outpost, enslaved by her enchantments. This mini-dungeon would have all sorts of completely not-arctic Lovecraftian goodness, using various pseudonatural critters, Akata, Mooncalves, Gibbering Mouthers, Kaorti, whatever floats your boat. Perhaps, to gain control of these things, Ambitious Sister herself has become an Alienist (or gained some Aberrant Grafts, via a Fleshwarper-type training regimen), and it's driven her totally mad, and would help to exlain why she's so willfully defying Little Grandmother's boundaries, attacking / betraying her sisters, and, at the end of the day, likely to be killed by Baba Yaga for polluting herself in this way.
Put the Shoggoth outpost in AP 3 or whatever. Have a pseudonatural thing or two appear in AP 6 as well, when the big throwdown commences with Ambitious Sister and Little Grandmother.
This does sound like fun, and Set laid out (Set set out) some great ideas. My only hesitation on using Irrisen would be that I'm really hoping to see a Paizo AP that involves the Witch Queen Enclave and the surrounding regions.
A Frost Witch would make a great end boss. If you're looking for alternate ideas on an end boss, I would also consider . .
Vampires - Vile blood suckers expanding their empire from a frozen citadel. This may seem cliche, but I'd think I'd enjoy a campaign where the primary enemy are undead who are unconcerned by a harsh frigid environment.
Frost Giant Barbarian - The reason I like this idea is because it is not normal. Typically, the end boss is a spell caster of some sort. Yet here, we have a guy that is so tough and protected by the right kind of advisors that he is cutting a path of destruction through the north and no one can stop him. The heroes take missions against some of his outposts. They travel to places the giant has been to learn clues. They slowly take out his underlings, until there is a final showdown.
As for the Runelords, I'm not sure if Thassilon was much further north than Varisia. That doesn't mean that a Runelord didn't place his "resting place" further to the north. Or if you'd like to use the Runelords, perhaps the wizard in question needs a certain gizmo inorder to return. That gizmo may be hidden ina northern wasteland, and the heroes are in a race against other factions (including a freaking powerful frost giant warlord) to claim the gizmo of runelord resurrection. One of the tomes for the Lord of Gluttony may be a good gizmo.
Why am I writing all this? Now I want to go write up my own campaign.
Why am I writing all this? Now I want to go write up my own campaign.
Hehe, just reading this makes me want to start getting my own adventures onto paper. I've been tossing around a concept for an Irrisen-themed campaign for a while now; might actually have to begin writing it soon.
I had as similar idea, but the entire campaign was not to take place in the north. My campaign was centered around an ancient race that left Golarion in the distant past and their ancient god that dwelt in the Dark Tapestry. Anyway some of these ancient folks were coming back and their god was following them through the dark places between the stars (they were a space fairing people) and the left an ancient city at the Roof of the World. The PCs came across strange events in the campaign that were seemingly unrelated but were all caused by the coming of this Azathoth-like entity. I even had one part of the campaign where the PCs were transported to a sort of ancient space station in the further reaches of the solar system and they witness the passing of the alien ships and the god on their way to Golarion. Anyway the campaign would climax at the Roof of the World in this frozen city.
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Snipping bits from Gray's ideas to play with them.
Vampires -
Frost Giant Barbarian -
As for the Runelords, I'm not sure if Thassilon was much further north than Varisia. That doesn't mean that a Runelord didn't place his "resting place" further to the north.
The Runelord in charge of Necromancy (gluttony) could be the one whose icy tomb ended up in the frozen north, guarded by 30 Days of Night style cold-loving arctic vampires (maybe with some tweaks, such as gaseous form being replaced by a gust of snowflakes form, and control of bats, rats and wolves being replaced by control of actic owls, polar bears (in much smaller numbers!) and wolves). The ice ghouls with their Dex drain and Slowing attacks mentioned in my post above could also be used, as well as the skeletal mammoth or whatever. (Can ya tell that I'm obsessed with the whole skeletal mammoth thing? Awaken and Spellstitch that puppy, to serve as a mobile war-platform for the vampire big boss!)
The Runelord in charge of Wrath (evocation?) could be connected instead to the Frost Giants, who worship his frozen corpse, which radiates an aura of bone-chilling cold that strengthens Cold creatures similar to the way that Desecrate spell strengthens undead, so that the tribe of Frost Giants have built their ice fortress around his tomb, so that their children are all born with extra hit points, the Elite Array, whatever properties suit your fancy. Elemental Bloodline Sorcerers, Frost Giant Rune Wizards (who use Sin Magic forgotten among the local human cultures) and, obviously, that big bad Barbarian leader, who has not just benefitted from the Runelord's elemental aura, but has some other bonus, such as the Half (White) Dragon template or something.
Ogre Magi kind of make the ultimate in-between monster, having some vampiric traits (charm spells, form of mist, regeneration) and some frost giant-y traits (big bruisers, cone of cold), and could be worked into either variation.
Nic Logue's Sinister adventures is doing a 12-20th AP with vampires in the frozen north, that could be the seconf leg of the characters careers after your AP.
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Dear Set,
Please work with Paizo to make an Irrisen Adventure Path.
Thank you,
DM_Dudemeister
Seriously that would be so awesome (I can see the Player's guide now, filled with all sorts of barbaric traits).
Weird synchronicity. I'm working on one of those myself. A bit different in scope though. I'm putting some plane hopping in and weird russian and german folklore. Cool stuff.
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As for the Runelords, I'm not sure if Thassilon was much further north than Varisia. That doesn't mean that a Runelord didn't place his "resting place" further to the north. Or if you'd like to use the Runelords, perhaps the wizard in question needs a certain gizmo inorder to return. That gizmo may be hidden ina northern wasteland, and the heroes are in a race against other factions (including a freaking powerful frost giant warlord) to claim the gizmo of runelord resurrection. One of the tomes for the Lord of Gluttony may be a good gizmo.
Another thought there is that a runelord could have made a deal with Baba Yaga for the ability to avoid whatever doom was visited on thassilon.