What season does the AP encompass?

[Zaranorth]

Unless I'm blind (well, without contacts I am ... but we'll ignore that), there's no mention of what month the AP starts in. I'm guessing an axial tilt causes the season and thus the Crown of the World will have extremely varying day lengths depending on the season.

The blurb for The Hungry Storm on the AP synopsis page mentions crossing in the off season; which I assume would be winter. So are we looking at maybe mid to late autumn in Brinewall Legacy and progressing to late autumn or early winter for The Hungry Storm, or even later depending on how long it takes to finish Night of Frozen Shadows?

I've been using a calendar handout for years and my players love it; they especially want to journal their JR experiences on it. Most of the time the season doesn't really matter for an adventure, but I think JR is different here. Along with weather considerations, there's a lot of overland travel, so the narrative will hinge on the season. (Rolling hills covered in the lush green of summer? The vibrant reds and oranges of autumn? The skeletal limbs of winter?) Plus it'll be just plain spooky for them to see the horizon light up, the sun rise above it, hesitate, and drop back down; all over the course of a few minutes.

Had a relative experience that his first day at a military base in Alaska. Heh, he claimed it was rigged so that they got off the plane just in time to watch it. The MPs almost had to drag him back off the plane after witnessing the "30 minute day."

[Jason Nelson]

The journey across the pole in The Hungry Storm by itself will take months. How many months depends somewhat on downtime the party chooses to take if they want to craft items or whatever, but the journey is several THOUSAND miles. It's a long trip. :)

[Zaranorth]

Oh most definitely. I was thinking more of when it started, especially for the trip through northern Varisia. However, if there'll be the option for downtime to craft items, then the start date of Brinewall doesn't really matter. I was assuming a bit more frantic pace to keep ahead of assassins. (I guess that mostly depends on how frequently they open the warding box and the Five Storms get a lock on their location.)

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

I hope the adventure deals with Polar Night. :)

[Jason Nelson]

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

I hope the adventure deals with Polar Night. :)

The support article I wrote for the issue is part gazetteer of locations and part environmental resource for dealing with extreme climate and radical extremes of day and night. The adventure itself presumes nothing as far as what time of year you go (though there are notes in some places about what happens in particular if you are traveling during darkness vs. light), but the support article is intended to work as a guide to help you judge how strange the conditions will get depending on where your party is latitude-wise vs. what time of year it is.

In other words: Yes, it does. :)

[James Jacobs]

Zaranorth wrote:

Oh most definitely. I was thinking more of when it started, especially for the trip through northern Varisia. However, if there'll be the option for downtime to craft items, then the start date of Brinewall doesn't really matter. I was assuming a bit more frantic pace to keep ahead of assassins. (I guess that mostly depends on how frequently they open the warding box and the Five Storms get a lock on their location.)

The assumption is that it starts near the end of fall/start of winter—that's the off-season. How long it takes to get through the Crown is kind of irrelevant once you start on the journey, though.

Keeping ahead of assassins is not the goal, in fact—it's more like "The longer we take crossing this vast land that our enemies have no resources, really, to patrol, the more likely they'll think we've died or gotten lost, and the more likely that they'll get distracted and/or forget about us."

It's detailed more in the adventure, but needless to say, not all bad guys are equally competent at tracking down their enemies.

Spoiler:

After all, if they WERE that competent, they'd have tracked Ameiko down long ago and there'd never be a Jade Regent adventure path in the first place. The fact that the enemy is somewhat poorly organized, easily distracted, and kind of forgetful is it's greatest disadvantage, and is what allows there to be a chance of hope that heroes (aka the PCs) will rise up to save the day.

[Zaranorth]

Cool that works out great then since that's the current timeframe the PCs are in.

James Jacobs wrote:

Keeping ahead of assassins is not the goal, in fact—it's more like "The longer we take crossing this vast land that our enemies have no resources, really, to patrol, the more likely they'll think we've died or gotten lost, and the more likely that they'll get distracted and/or forget about us."

It's detailed more in the adventure, but needless to say, not all bad guys are equally competent at tracking down their enemies.

That's why I clarified my comment with how frequent they open the you know what. (Starting to get confused as to what needs spoiler tags and what doesn't.) I've got one player in my group that I know is going to have a problem with not fiddling with it constantly. The others will probably need to hide it from him. Heh, this is the same guy, different character, that blew the second floor off an inn because he couldn't stand not knowing what was in a box.

Spoiler:

If Kikonu is typical of the oni, then this is going to be a blast. :)

[ikki]

winter or even post winter into mountain passes?

Im sure hey have much magic, but to push thru that 6m+ (20') packed high snow in mountains for many long months.. ow dear... temperatures at -50C (-60F) etc. Elements alone will kill.