Kingmaker-Rise fo the Runelords Mashup

[Greycloak of Bowness]

I am thinking about adding elements from the Kingmaker adventure path to my Rise of the Runelords campaign after the PCs liberate Fort Rannick. Specifically, I intend one of the PCs to become Baron Rannick, ruling over a 5-hex domain near Turtleback ferry and leaving it up to them what to do with what I am naming the county of Rannickshire. If they run with it, I would expand the timeline between the third and fourth modules and would likely relocate the Sandpoint attack to whatever city the PCs build.

To this end, I superimposed a 12 mile hex grid on the Varisia (and Turtleback ferry and Sandpoint Hinterlands) map and added in my interpretation of the holdings of the various political entities out there:

Varisia - Letter Sized
Varisia - Poster Sized
Fort Rannick and Sandpoint hinterlands maps to scale

I was surprised by how large a hex is - essentially the first two RotR modules take place in about half a hex.

I guess I'm most interested in feedback about what I've done, about the political boundaries as I have defined them and in what people think about mashing these different themes together.

[James Jacobs]

Yup; 12-mile hexes aren't small. You can pack a LOT of adventure into one of them; my Sandpoint camapgin more or less has taken place ENTIRELY on the Sandpoint hinterlands map (smaller than one hex) barring one side trip to Magnimar.

Also... pretty cool idea to hex up Varisia!

[vagrant-poet]

I did a hex map that covered the whole known area, it was massive so you could see the hexes, and I built bigger superhexes which had 16 times the area of the main ones for visibility purposes, but I did the same, and had the same boundaries for Varisia.

[Greycloak of Bowness]

James Jacobs wrote:

Yup; 12-mile hexes aren't small. You can pack a LOT of adventure into one of them; my Sandpoint camapgin more or less has taken place ENTIRELY on the Sandpoint hinterlands map (smaller than one hex) barring one side trip to Magnimar.

Also... pretty cool idea to hex up Varisia!

I had to take some liberties with the no-non-adjacent hex rule (For the Sanos Gnomes and Riddleport-Rannick's Cove, not to mention the Ft. Rannick Vassal state).

I like that there is a ton of space to expand into - it really gives Varisia the feel like it's mostly wilderness that has been settled a bit on its southern half.

[0gre]

This is a cool idea, my players are much further behind than you, I was thinking of having them hit one or two of the Kingmaker scenarios to get them some experience but haven't figured out how to tie them in yet.

Anxious to hear how this works out for you.

[Evil Lincoln]

I am thinking of adding Shoanti, Linnorm Kings, Giants, and the Hold of Belkzen to the map, although a few would just be the edges.

[Greycloak of Bowness]

Evil Lincoln wrote:

I am thinking of adding Shoanti, Linnorm Kings, Giants, and the Hold of Belkzen to the map, although a few would just be the edges.

The Shoanti description from PF10 gives each Shoanti Quah a large geographic area over which to roam. I get the feeling that there are few permanent settlements and thus no "ruled" land.

As for the Giants, there is a slippery slope there because if you carefully read the various forest and mountain descriptions from the Gazeteer, there are lots of areas that might be described as Giant or Goblin or Ogre-Ruled. To me, those areas are best left as uncivilized but would be much higher CRs to pacify.

I guess the other side of what I had in mind here was to be able to present a map to knowledgable PCs (Geography) to give them an at-a-glance summary of where the safe zones are and where the wilderness is.

RotR spoiler:

I would put some ruled hexes up high in the Kodar Mountains around Xin-Shalast as well as at least one in the Iron Peaks for Jorgenfist but I intend this to be a map of what is known by civilized folk and what is the situation at the beginning of Burnt Offerings.

[Greycloak of Bowness]

0gre wrote:

This is a cool idea, my players are much further behind than you, I was thinking of having them hit one or two of the Kingmaker scenarios to get them some experience but haven't figured out how to tie them in yet.

Anxious to hear how this works out for you.

It'll be a while.

My group (that I am a PC in) is just about at the end of the second-to-last chapter of the Shackled City AP. I am just the kind of DM who dreams up what might be and who is anticipating players who would love the idea of running their own Feifdom.

I am hoping to push the pace for the first couple of adventures by preparing material like battle-mats and whatnot.

RotR spoiler:

For instance, I already have plans made for what happens if (and hopefully when) the TPK at the end of the 2nd module happens - an elaborate imprisonment, mental control and escape sequence followed by some low-tech underwater action to retreive their equipment.