Good party hooks to start Rise of Runelords

[Ron Hay]

I'm looking to start up a RotR campaign shortly, but I like to have a strong "glue" between the characters, rather than "you stick together because ... well ... you do". Anyone have any suggestions how to do it that fits in well with RotR and/or Golarion? One thought I had was make them all part of a military group that just got done fighting some war in a distant land and have come to Sandpoint to get away from "all that". But I don't know Golarion well enough to find where such a war would have occurred. I can make stuff up, but I like embedding it in the setting as it exists.

Thanks!

[OmegaZ]

They could have defended Magnimar against some pirates, one of the small Varisian villages against bandits, or something like that. It would probably work better if the glue occured in Varisia, just to keep it close to home, but you could always put them in the Molthune/Nirmathas conflict, Cheliax/Andoran, Taldor/Qadira, or Sargava/Natives if you want them to be a bit more well-travled.

That, or like you said, just make something up for them.

[Drogon]

I'm planning on starting this AP for a second time (different group, of course) within the next couple months. My current plans are to use RedCelt's idea found here.

Having run through it, once, I can tell you that you are correct: being stuck together "just because" wasn't very satisfying. We have had fun, and the group has enjoyed the AP, but the impact would have been far better with more background for the characters. Using RedCelt's idea appeals to me because there are so many things from five years ago that you can introduce to "the kids" to get things started.

If you want to run with the war idea, though, you can certainly use the fall of Cheliax as the basis for it. As the empire faded back to its current (much smaller) borders and left behind its colonies in Varisia, impact could very well have been felt.

Another solid idea to introduce war to this region can be found here. The background notes found in the conversion documents give you a ton of good ideas that already tie in really well to the whole Magnimar region. And you'd get a bonus side adventure that you could run.

Good luck.

[Elorebaen]

I am in the middle of FotSGs.

Here are my suggestions:
1) All of the PCs are from Sandpoint, have grown up there etc. Connect each one specifically to at least one NPC from Sandpoint. At least one should be connected to Ameiko. I also suggest, making them members of the town militia, doesn't have to be full-time. Could even run some short scenarios that happened in the past when they were 0 lvl (recelt's stuff would be great for this, but there tons of hooks in the material you could use)

2) Integrate some connections to the Order of the Black arrows early on. For example, any trials, or criminals, etc, could be sent to Ft. Rannick.

3) In the background, I suggest beginning a series of events that will lead to war/military action between Magnimar and someone else, like Korvosa. These events would mature slowly in the background, such that once HMM came around, Magnimar would be in need of heroes. Additionally, by the time you hit FotSG, the military action should be in full effect, so that the heroes cannot simply rely on Magnimar.

Good luck!

[Aeshuura]

I went a slightly different way. All of my players came in sort of in the hodge podge way they do, but as the story went on, they found that they were not who they thought they were.

In a sort of "deep cover" way, they found that they were:

spoiler:

All surviving agents of Karzoug that had done such a good job of concealing themselves that they had tricked themselves into believing that they were their current incarnations. I had three elves that were actually Faceless Stalkers that took the form of elves to avoid suspicion of their long life. Magics were placed on them to convert their previous abilities to that of elves. By breaking the magical seals, one has been able to gain darkvision, but is unsure that he really wants to break the others.

Two of the humans were "weapons" created by the Runelords kind of the Thassilonian Super Soldier Program. One was a Sorcerer created by Karzoug, himself, and the other is a Monk that, unbeknownst to the rest of the party, was a weapon of Cyrusan (Nation of Pride). The final one is a Shoanti Barbarian. He is the only one that is mortal, so to speak. He possesses an enchanted Pauldron that holds the soul of Karzoug's greatest General, that was passed down from generation to generation.

This has been my attempt to bind them together, like they share a common past. Now, the thing is that they are now different people, and they do not want to go back to the way things were.

They didn't find out until meeting Xanesha in Skinsaw Murders.

[Ron Hay]

Aeshuura wrote:

I went a slightly different way. All of my players came in sort of in the hodge podge way they do, but as the story went on, they found that they were not who they thought they were.

In a sort of "deep cover" way, they found that they were:

** spoiler omitted **

Ok ... that's a cool idea. I may have to use a variety of it, thanks! ;)

[Aeshuura]

Ron Hay wrote:

Aeshuura wrote:

I went a slightly different way. All of my players came in sort of in the hodge podge way they do, but as the story went on, they found that they were not who they thought they were.

In a sort of "deep cover" way, they found that they were:

** spoiler omitted **

Ok ... that's a cool idea. I may have to use a variety of it, thanks! ;)

Go for it! It turned out to be a great way to make the characters really care about what is happening. Glad to help!

[cynarion]

Aeshuura wrote:

I went a slightly different way. All of my players came in sort of in the hodge podge way they do, but as the story went on, they found that they were not who they thought they were.

In a sort of "deep cover" way, they found that they were:

** spoiler omitted **

... It turned out to be a great way to make the characters really care about what is happening.

Hey Aeshuura, I'd be interested to hear whether your players knew this (or something like it) was coming or not. I am unsure whether it would fly with my group as I have a feeling they would think I was rewriting or invalidating their own carefully-constructed character backgrounds.

###

To get back to the original discussion, when I run the campaign I am going to require at least one of the PCs to be a Sandpoint local. As suggested, any PCs who are from Sandpoint get more information (e.g. they know about the Late Unpleasantness) and they also get to choose three NPCs from Sandpoint who owe them a favour.

Fortunately for me...

spoilers for Burnt Offerings, Skinsaw Murders and Hook Mountain Massacre:

...the one player who has settled on a concept has chosen an aasimar ranger. That's going to tie in easily to Nualia (as two aasimar surely they would have known each other reasonably well...). It's also going to make it easy to transition from Skinsaw to Hook Mountain because he suggested that his great-grandfather was a local ranger who was a half-celestial, and that said great-grandfather came to find his character around twelve months ago. Hey presto--I turn the great-grandfather into a Black Arrow and instead of Haldmeer Grobaras sending the PCs to investigate Fort Rannick, I'll have what has up until this point been a series of regular letters from the character's great-grandfather dry up suddenly. Worried about great-grandad? Perhaps you should go investigate.

This is me waving goodbye to what is (so far as I have seen) the biggest plot hole in the entire AP. : )

[Aeshuura]

cynarion wrote:

Aeshuura wrote:

I went a slightly different way. All of my players came in sort of in the hodge podge way they do, but as the story went on, they found that they were not who they thought they were.

In a sort of "deep cover" way, they found that they were:

** spoiler omitted **

... It turned out to be a great way to make the characters really care about what is happening.

Hey Aeshuura, I'd be interested to hear whether your players knew this (or something like it) was coming or not. I am unsure whether it would fly with my group as I have a feeling they would think I was rewriting or invalidating their own carefully-constructed character backgrounds.

I blindsided them, but I tried very carefully to allow their pasts to have taken place, with some slight alterations, which I notified the players about. They have been alive for over 10,000 years after all. What I had to do was figure out a way to be able to have them keep the racial bonuses of their current race, and keep them from just going crazy with their original race's abilities.

I feel that once in a great while, you can do this with a campaign, but the hard part is that the Players feel like that need to know WHO they were. Some Players felt they needed to live up to that past, and some felt like, that was then, and this is now. But it really gave a feeling of heroism to the Players knowing that they were ancient heroes.

I had debated on having them reincarnated heroes, but I felt it would be so much better to have the big X recognize them after 10 millenia. It worked out very well, and we start FotSG this weekend! While I admit it was a gamble, it was one that paid off, very well.