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Hello Everyone,
I've been making plans for this adventure path and have come to the conclusion that a couple of my players would be "OK" with the start but they would not really appreciate the "placing the train upon the tracks" nature of the starting point. At first, I thought I'd just ratchet it back to the night before as the Jenivere crunches into the reef surrounding Smuggler's Shiv. But the more I got thinking about it, the more I thought a fuller prelude might be in order with the starting point being a murder mystery in the last port of call: Senghor.
The aim here is to:
- Get the PCs to know a little bit more about one another. The starting on the beach thing is excellent, but starting on board the Jenivere with poison coursing through your veins a little bit less so. A more passive start travelling through the canals of the Senghor metropolis allows for a more thorough build-up to the action to come.
- It allows the PCs to see the 5 NPCs more in their natural environment. Aerys Mavato drinking herself into oblivion and getting into trouble; Gelik Aberwhinge regaling a tavern audience with tales of the latest ship to meet it's doom upon Smuggler's Shiv; Ishirou making strange dealings procurring an impressive (but disturbing looking) scroll case; Jask Derindi in the stocks awaiting his passage on board the Jenivere to Eleder to face his doom; Sasha Nevah being her mysterious but enigmatic self. I think this is important as it gives these NPCs a more immediate direction as well as a "relationship" with the PCs.
- The murder mystery (of two of the Jenivere sailors) is a good start for 1st level PCs finding their way together and gives them a little XP to begin with (in exchange for the XP they would receive for changing the NPCs attitudes).
The murders will be at the hands of Yarzoth as she makes her final plans for getting to Smuggler's Shiv. With the two sailors disappearances, Captain Kovak has enforced all crewman to stay onboard until the Jenivere departs. The PCs are charged by a couple of the onboard sailors with trying to find out what happened to the missing Giv and Speck.
This will be framed so that the 5 NPCs are possible suspects that the PCs have to investigate (I need to write this up further). In the end, the PCs will hopefully discover the bodies and realize something weird is going on: in that Giv was momentarily seen on board (Yarzoth) after his death - providing they make a good enough heal check to determine time of death.
- I might place Smuggler's Shiv a little closer to Senghor so that there is less time between the murder mystery and the abandoning of the Jenivere near Smuggler's Shiv. I plan on having the Jenivere be wrecked a little further out so that accessing the ship is more difficult from the Shiv.
Yarzoth as Ileana secretly abandons the ship with the captain well before it crashes into the shiv reef. A tropical storm continuing at this point might add nicely to the overall drama. The PCs will be able to rescue some of their stuff when it happens (what they bring with them to the mess) but accessing their sleeping bunks will be significantly more difficult (and the hold impossible) with the threat of the ship breaking up. The PCs will hopefully board a lifeboat (the 4 NPCs not including Jask will have boarded a separate lifeboat) otherwise they will have to make alternative arrangements in making landfall.
With the poison running through their veins some or all may succumb while they are in the lifeboat or hanging onto wreckage. Either way, this allows the joining up with the regular module except that the 4 NPCs will be elsewhere (Jask will hopefully be saved by the PCs otherwise his ghost may task them to clear his name).
The important thing here is that the PCs realize they were poisoned, and that the captain abandoned ship (his log notes would be particularly interesting given the erratic path of the Jenivere before crashing into the Shiv.) The NPCs might be unsure of the NPC motives as well as the mysterious Ileana leaving with the captain. This should propel them nicely as the mysteries of the Jenivere's doom are slowly unravelled.
- I'm going to get to work on the map so that traversing certain parts of the Shiv are more difficult. Beaches are broken up by cliff faces stretching out into the surf meaning that access to other parts of the island need to be made by scaling the cliff tops to the Jungle above. Other parts of the Jungle will be near impassable (and particularly dangerous with the plant life taken out of the Heart of the Jungle book - how good is that supplement!). Having some massive undefeatable dinosaur upon the Shive might be interesting too. In this way, the island is discovered in a more metered way with different revelations propelling the story and PCs forward.
- With the extra XP they have gained, I will most likely be more aggressive with the cannibals making the PCs have to defend themselves more so. Evidence of the cannibal’s behaviour (ritually eaten carcasses) will be hopefully confused but eventually differentiated from the Red Mountain Devil.
- Meeting up with the NPCs should be quite interesting - they will have made a makeshift camp further down the map. How they react will depend very much on their interactions with the NPCs thus far. They might ally or they might be aloof. Perhaps there are secrets they know that they may reveal if made friendly. I enjoy having NPCs like this to play with - they become excellent role-playing vehicles.
- Of further interest is:
* The recent wreck that’s tale was told by Gelik (allowing for further NPCs to have knowledge of what's going on with Yarzoth and the Tidestone). These NPCs might fall victim to the cannibals with maybe one escaping to tell the tale (before dying from some horrid tropical disease).
* Ishirou's scrollcase being washed upon on the beach to be discovered by the PCs. They discover inside numerous "treasure maps", one of which they hopefully work out is upon this very island - the treasure pit. How this plays out with Ishirou when they finally meet up with the NPCs might be very interesting.
* Needing a craft to make it to the Jenivere when the seas are calm (otherwise the danger of being thrown onto the reef is too great).
* A mysterious box in the hold of the Jenivere (although now, the hold has become a home to a CR 5 Bluetip Eurypterid.
* Having Jask either tagging along if the PCs need the help or more than likely having a bad infection claim his leg (boot soup or something). This means that he will have to wait in a secured psuedo-cave in one of the cliff faces. Jask will be good for some divinations augmenting the nightmares the PCs will suffer. He will claim things as either good or bad juju producing a range of weird juju fetishes in his tiny cave.
* Introducing a volcano onto the Shiv. It might not do much (except perhaps augmenting the physical effect of the tidestone) but it certainly adds to the Jungle/Lost world feel.
Anyway, I thought I'd present this to everyone here for possible ideas and suggestions and to discuss alternative ways of starting the adventure path. As further instalments are released, there might be more ways of tying things together foreshadowing and enriching the interactivity between the different instalments.
Best Regards
Herremann the Wise
Very cool. I like the murder mystery idea a lot, and you've introduced a really cool red herring with the mysterious box in the hold. Nice touch!
I added a small number of "Shiv tigers" to the island. I used the standard CR 4 tiger, but they have some greenish-brown coloration in their fur that gives them a +4 mod to stealth checks in the jungle. There are only a few left on the island, and they'll only be encountered one at a time. Except for the Red Mountain Devil, they're the top predators on the Shiv. Also, as befits a resident of the Shiv, they're voracious man-eaters.
I've already kicked off my campaign, so I can't use most of your cool ideas. Please report back with how your campaign develops!
using a similar "mysterious box" idea.
Half Orc / Zen Archer is delivering a artifact for study/verification from Nigel Aldain of the Blackros Museam in Absalom.
Happens to be Azlanti. "Ieana" stole it.
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Very cool. I like the murder mystery idea a lot, and you've introduced a really cool red herring with the mysterious box in the hold. Nice touch!
I added a small number of "Shiv tigers" to the island. I used the standard CR 4 tiger, but they have some greenish-brown coloration in their fur that gives them a +4 mod to stealth checks in the jungle. There are only a few left on the island, and they'll only be encountered one at a time. Except for the Red Mountain Devil, they're the top predators on the Shiv. Also, as befits a resident of the Shiv, they're voracious man-eaters.
I've already kicked off my campaign, so I can't use most of your cool ideas. Please report back with how your campaign develops!
Voracious Man-Eaters are you sure they aren't Shiv Cougars?
My 2 cents...
I started the Serpent Skull with a pirate attack - "everything is better with pirates."
The way I planned it was simple; if the PCs helped repell the pirate attack, the would be invited for dinner as the AP outlines and the adventure continues normally.
Second, if the PCs were captured by the pirates, the pirate ship would be wrecked on the Shiv and while the PCs explored the island they would find the Jenivere and the AP would continue as published, with a few modifications to turn add the "Mystery of the Wreck of the Jenivere" idea added in.
As it turned out, the PCs helped repel the pirates and the pirate captain made such an impression on them, I plan on having him lead one of the factions in subsequent SK-AP books .... snicker.....
My players loved the priate attack; swinging down from the sails, firing the ballistas, hurling burning oil on the deck of the other ship, and dualing the scallywags ... all they could talk about afterward was how fun fighting off the pirates was. They even contemplated taking over the Jenivere and marauding the coast of Sargava... lol.