Is there an AP that could most easily be seguayed into from running Souls for Smuggler's Shiv?

[CASEY BENNETT]

I read the first book of Serpent's Skull and was wowed by it, and we had decided I would run the AP. Unfortunately, after getting through book 3, I am disappointed in much of the factions nonsense and the lack of strong motivation to continue on after SfSS.

This led me to dig up some opinions of others that have ran the AP here on the boards and much of what I read dovetailed with what I was feeling myself.

Which leads to my issue: where to go from here?

I would love to run SfSS as the inro adventure and then move into a different AP. I don't have a problem doing a bit of work upfront to make it fit, and I also have a very solid group that would be happy to simply experience some of the RP and story threads from the first of an AP while skipping most of the encounters (which gives me at least two ways to make this work).

We are currently going through RotRL in another game and CotCT is also out as that is the next AP slated for that group as well.

Right now, I am thinking perhaps Kingmaker, but am just getting ready to crack the first book to see how crucial it is to the AP.

Please lend me your experienced suggestions. Can my idea work well, or should I simply slag it and run a different AP from the get-go?

Thanks!

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

You might stitch something playable together (an island hopping campaign):

Book 2 - Second Darkness: Children of the Void place island in the shackles. Replace Drow with Serpentfolk.

Book 3: Kingmaker: Varnhold Vanishing (Change Varnhold to an island colony, change Vordekai to a Serpentfolk Lich). Play up the Roanoke links and give PCs control of Varnhold as a reward at the end, and Vordekai's tomb should have a map to Savith Yhi, and hint at untold plunder!

Book 4-6: Serpent's Skull 2nd half. Play up pirates vs ninjas (red mantis) with Pathfinders and Aspis as unaligned factions. Place the city on an uncharted island in the Shackles.

[Laithoron]

Actually Kingmaker was my suggestion as well.

In the case of my own group, they were performing a Jade Regent style escort of a member of royalty who was tasked with overseeing Sargava as the new governor/viceroy. Naturally, they got wrecked on the Shiv and by the time the get back to civilization, they find that Eleder and much of Sargava is in a pretty sorry state and needs to be reclaimed.

Since there are still plotlines from Serpent's Skull that could bear exploring, you could always have a member of the court from Kingmaker hire a party of NPCs to carry out the expedition. Perhaps hiring Gelik to oversee operations (if they've grown to trust one another). The subsequent event from SS could then be handle off-screen as kingdom events and a source of BP for kingdom-building.

Possible NPC solution:

In my game I actually had Yarzoth be an ancient spirit that was possessing Ieana. After the events that took place in the temple of Zura, the possessing spirit was driven out and Ieana recovered remembering much of what had taken place. I rewrote her backstory to make her a fairly high-ranking member of the Pathfinder Society which made her a natural choice to head up the expedition that I was spinning off from the main group.

In the case of your group, perhaps one of the PCs was heir to the Baron's estate and maybe he was recently assassinated. You could even go with the discoveries on Smuggler's Shiv causing the Baron to elevate the party to the ranks of nobility and asking them to take over one of the cities in Sargava or even found a new one on the Shiv.

In that way, you could skip from the 1st book of SS to the 2nd book of KM.

Check out Asphesteros' posts in this thread for more ideas on how to accomplish this. Also, TacticsLion has some good ideas on how to dress-up Serpent's Skull in this thread.

Hope this helps.

[CASEY BENNETT]

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

You might stitch something playable together (an island hopping campaign):

Book 2 - Second Darkness: Children of the Void place island in the shackles. Replace Drow with Serpentfolk.

Book 3: Kingmaker: Varnhold Vanishing (Change Varnhold to an island colony, change Vordekai to a Serpentfolk Lich). Play up the Roanoke links and give PCs control of Varnhold as a reward at the end, and Vordekai's tomb should have a map to Savith Yhi, and hint at untold plunder!

Book 4-6: Serpent's Skull 2nd half. Play up pirates vs ninjas (red mantis) with Pathfinders and Aspis as unaligned factions. Place the city on an uncharted island in the Shackles.

Talking with my group yesterday, it seems we are going with this route. I am definitely going to crib Children of the Void. I will also consider using VV as I have heard really good things about it.

I am sofar torn on the idea to put the final city on an island or in the Sargavan mainland, but I suppose I can decide for sure a bit down the road after my player decide whether they want to buckle more swashes or do hardcore jungle exploration.

I like the pirates/ninjas idea, and I know at least two of my players love the Mantis as an organization so they will enjoy seeing them highlighted.

I will post some more plans when I have solidified some of them to try and get some more good feedback.

Thanks, all!