I've been reading through the AP, and loving what I'm seeing so far. I'd like to expand the adventure path in a few places, if possible, because 1) there's a lot of cool adventures to be had and 2) it's a great chance to have some fun designing new hooks and tweaking stuff. I'm a very enthusiastic amateur game designer/tweaker/adventure writer, and really enjoy modifying, updating, and creating new content whole cloth, and I'm also an enormous horror fan, so this is like being a kid in a candy store.
I've just purchased a couple of modules I've had my eye on for a while, and I'm wondering how well they could be incorporated into the AP. Please note: I have not yet finished reading all of the AP, nor have I had time to fully digest the modules, so these are merely outlines based on available information online.
Expanding the Haunting of Harrowstone:
homemade ghost stories and haunts in the Ravengro area as a whole, as the cleansing of Harrowstone prison released such a surge of wild energy that it "created" ghosts. I'm going to use this as a chance to really bring players up to speed on Ustalav's history, and the history of Canterwall, and have the surge of energies brought about by Harrowstone's cleansing spark up a whole wave of secondary haunts based around soldiers fighting against the Whispering Tyrant, a battalion of orcs from the time of Kazavon's reign haunting the road, still seeking to "cut off supplies" to an enemy long dead, and a spectral castle that used to be in the center of the nearby lake (whose name escapes me) that re-appears on moonlit nights. The players will learn that these are all new developments, literal ghost stories brought to life by the Whispering Way's meddling with the area. These are all local legends that the townsfolk of Ravengro are just as taken aback by as the PC's- stories that aren't supposed to be true, that now are. I'm going to tie in some hints of how the very act of gathering materials for the Carrion Crown is de-stabilizing the bounds between life and death, kind of like making ripples in a still pond. Ustalav itself is so thoroughly soaked in necromancy after centuries of undead rule that even gathering materials for such a powerful ritual has unintended consequences.
Expanding the Trial of the Beast:
No thoughts here... I think that other than adjusting everything for a tougher party I want to keep this "as is" because it's really well done already and has phenomenal flavor.
Expanding Broken Moon:
After the characters re-dedicate Highthrone to Desna (I can't remember what the original title of this place is, sorry), I plan on running The Harrowing, with suitable tweaks to make it part of the re-consecration process. In addition to the rewards of that module, after they complete it they receive the blessing of Desna as described in Broken Moon, and moreover discover that no time has elapsed in the real world- they're still on top of Highthrone after activating the Dusk Moth, and still hot on the heels of the Whispering Way cultists.
I plan on running Carrion Hill in the place suggested in the AP, between Broken Moon and Wake of the Watcher.
Expanding Wake:
Haven't fully finished reading this yet, but since they're already at Ilmarsh and on the border of Lake Encarthan, perhaps there would be a good chance at some point to run a modified version of City of Golden Death, with the characters now fully aware of what the Whispering Way wants to achieve and racing to the Isle of Dread to recover some bit of lore and some powerful weapons to use against the cult on the island where Aroden slew Tar-Barphon so many ages ago. I'm going to let the PC's "buy time" by disrupting some of the waves of evil energy the cult has been sending out by using the Isle of Dread's own energy... after all, this is where the Tyrant died the first time, and the players can undo some of the damage wrought by the Whispering Way by taking advantage of that fact.... if they can survive long enough to pull it off.
Then it's onto Ashes at Dawn and Shadows of Gallowspire... not remotely sure how to expand those yet, as I don't have all the books from my last order in. By this point, I think that beyond making the subsequent encounters tougher, I'll run the last two modules as written.
I'm not sure how Shadows ends, but I think I was going to cap it all off by letting the characters flex some of their high level muscle by going through Academy of Secrets, or maybe running one of my other high-level modules from 3.0 and 3.5 if they still wanted to play that party. By this point hopefully I'll have enough experience running through a high level game that I can figure out what would work best. I've got a lot of experience with low and middling levels so I'm confident there, but once level 6 spells enter the mix I'm less sure of my GM improvisational abilities.
Do you have any suggestions about this plan? Any thoughts about your own expansions?