Just started running Stolen Lands a few weeks ago and having a blast. So far, the guys have only (recently - last session) explored a couple hexes around Oleg's, but they've also ventured out into unexplored lands and dealt with the Kressel's small bandit camp and a few of my plot points.
Last session was the first time we dropped into a macro-time frame and let about a week go by. Between that and the characters' week and a half of adventuring, I figure that the Stag Lord will finally have heard about Kressel's death, so the characters will have a bit of reprisal coming soon. But other than that...
What does "bandit activity in the area" mean? Other than Oleg getting extorted, what sort of banditry are the characters (and the locals, and Brevoy?) having to deal with? The PCs have killed more than 6 banditos, so they've received the reward from Restov and "bandit activity has been notably reduced" but what activity was there in the first place? I don't want to populate the area with scores of bandits beyond the module, but how much trouble could the few bandits mentioned really cause? I mean, if they killed 6 guys and now the Stolen Lands are safe, that feels a little cheap.
For that matter, what the heck are bandits doing out here? I suppose that they could simply be an encampment of bandits who had fled the law in more populated areas, but the book makes it feel like there was ongoing activity other than Oleg that required the PCs' aid. Yet, they are miles and miles from anything worth banditing. Are the bandits doing hit and run forays into Brevoy? They are kind of far south for that to be pragmatic, and Sherwood has to be close enough to Nottingham for the Merry Men to cause some trouble. Besides which, they are just as low level and as limited by the hazards of the area as the PCs. Bandits could travel in strength, I suppose, to scare off monsters, but there was that original concern about inflating the amount of bandits too much.
And who are the bandits bothering, anyway? Even if a band of 15 or so bandits could terrorize an area of some 30 hexes, who are they terrorizing? Are you/did you have little pockets of folk here and there? Homesteaders and pioneers ekeing out a subsistance existence, maybe? Tiny villages squirreled away in forgotten hamlets and valleys? Ranchers driving cattle or oxen? (I know River Kingdoms fluff puts a high value or food producers) Maybe these are the bandit's victims, but how many can you put in, still have the area feel like a mostly unexplored frontier, but still be able to justify an area rife with brigands?
Long story made short, I need some advice/GM-level justification for these bandits, because it's fine to mark the map with "banditos aqui," but now that we've started playing, I'm having trouble seeing a scope that feels real. I feel like I need some events and news to have as a context, even if it's only in the background as far as PCs are concerned.
Thanks!
I figure there are quite a few homesteads here and there that the bandits are terrorizing. (This is where part of the population comes from when the PCs begin kingdom-building.) Many hunters/trappers/etc. Oleg must be selling his goods to _somebody_ to make a living there, or think he can make a living there.
There are probably some merchants travelling from Mivon and other River Kingdoms to the south up to Brevoy. Some of them would be using boats part of the way, but they can't get all the way to Restov so they need to travel overland.
There aren't that many bandits, though. They're mobile, with horses, and cover a goodly distance at need. The Stag Lord probably does do some raiding into Brevoy, or south toward Mivon, or raids traffic on the South Rostland Road. But they're mostly the current top group existing in a vacuum; there aren't _that_ many of them and they're mostly drifters: sad, lonely souls who are too violent to form much of a community and prey off each other, replenished by more would-be bandits drifting into the area from time to time. Once there's no center for them to gravitate too, people like that go somewhere else, or just lurk on the edges of society, or end up getting hired by PCs who need guards and scouts and other violence specialists. (Yes, some of your Stability checks in books 2-4 are probably ex-bandits fighting non-ex-bandits.)
The bandits probably lair up or starve during the winter. They probably do a lot of hunting. Sort of think "Wild West without many Indians" -- the Stag Lord thinks he's Daniel Boone or Robin Hood. In fact he's Nyrissa's pest eradication service and weed whacker, but he doesn't realize that. She's using various monsters to keep the Stolen Lands free of civilization and human influences. You might want to use his connection with her a bit more to foreshadow some of the final adventures -- the one area where Kingmaker falls down, IMO, is that it doesn't adequately explain to the players what's going on and the final adventure is insufficiently foreshadowed.
I've added in several other bandit encounters to the ones in the 1st
book, for that very reason.
As for 'why' they're there - tonyz post is a great start - & now it's
just up to you to have your PCs meet, or hear about, some of the land's
residents.
I've had my guys 'run into' trappers for example. I even had one of my
players' back-up PC be an NPC floating around doing barbarianny things,
so that she didn't 'just appear out of thin air' should his current PC
kick the bucket. (That was a bit hard, because he hadn't actually
picked a name yet - so I had to go all mysterious...learning curve stuff.)
Also, you can have Oleg or Svetlanna talk about merchants passing through
who'd been raided, or avoided being raided etc. Even have a merchant
approach them at the trading post to offer protection money or some
such if it fits...
Go for it - create your world. :)
IMC, which hasn't started yet and won't be in Golarion, the bandits are also diehards from the last civil war, waiting to be the next rebels. Stag Lord's dad is a former power among the druids/priests that backed the last ruler, as were some of the other druids & hermits around.
As for who they're preying on, I figure they might have picked on Restov's outlying farms and roads. Maybe you could invent a big score that they've just pulled off (like sacking a caravan or robbing a bank), and use that background as story. To be honest, I just thought of that myself, and may add that to my own background.
First off, thanks so much!
tonyz wrote: I figure there are quite a few homesteads here and there that the bandits are terrorizing. (This is where part of the population comes from when the PCs begin kingdom-building.) Many hunters/trappers/etc. Oleg must be selling his goods to _somebody_ to make a living there, or think he can make a living there. This was definitely the feeling I got. So far, they've encountered a couple furriers, a tinker/peddler, a local whose son works part-time for Oleg as a stable boy, and Bokken at Oleg's itself. A rancher also stopped by driving cattle to sell meat to Oleg, but he has a big enough organization that the 2-bit bandits haven't bothered him.
They've also convinced Oleg to add a tavern on to the trading post because they didn't feel like sleeping in tents once Garess and his men at arms showed up, so that's attracted a few locals as laborers. And a camp follower. Yippee, oldest profession!
Out and about, they rescued a family being attacked on the road as they were heading to join blood relatives who were homesteading. They had to be rerescued when the bandits who attacked Oleg's mentioned that they had already sacked said homestead previously, and upon checking the PCs found the family cocooned by spiders. (Building a subplot on that trapdoor spider encounter).
Now that I think on it, there would be loggers too. There is an encounter with loggers in the second adventure, isn't there?
Oh, and they've run into the fey and the faerie dragon, though they haven't realized it yet. Hee hee!
tonyz wrote: There are probably some merchants travelling from Mivon...
I wanted to include this, but I wasn't sure where they'd disembark with cargo, especially given the location of the Staglord's fort.
And Lee, I love the big score idea! Maybe I could tie that into some merchants from Mivon who show up divested of cargo....
tonyz wrote: There aren't that many bandits, though.
I do agree that a few bandits can go a long way. I think, by and large, that I just needed to get a picture in my head so I can paint it for the PCs. I just wanted there to be more advice on locals.
Maybe I should have been more forthwith and just said I need help brainstorming random npcs! :) Or, better yet, a nice and easy random encounter mechanic for a few different types of social encounters with locals. Things that still feel realistic: folk who could live isolated, still reasonably survive, but still have problems with bandits/wild animals, etc.
Hmm, while I'm wishlisting, advice on some "dangers of the Stolen Lands" encounters would be great. It's been said elsewhere, so I won't beat it to death, but this is the dangerous, unconquorable (or at least unholdable) Stolen Lands. But it doesn't feel as dangerous as I'd like. I need some stuff for for the PCs to see from afar. Or see up close, and run from!
Remember that there is enough traffic that building a toll bridge was a worthwhile enterprise for a retired engineer.
I have placed 1-2 farmstead in each plain hex and explained that the bandits are preying traders and passer-by along Brevory border road.
the life of a bandit into the Stolen Lands isn't a pleasant one, but they can manage and be a nuisance for Brevory.
Then if you want you can hint about support from nearby lands. In the south of the Greenbelt you have the River Kingdom founded by Swordlords fleeing the invasion 2 century ago, and they don't like Brevory, so they could easily support a few insurgents. (Just thought about that, I can add some hint into the Stag Lord for, my player have already killed the Stag Lord and taken the fort loo, but they haven't settled it and so I can easily add some unfound thing to it.
It could be some paper hidden behind a secret panel, to be found when the PC decide to rebuild the fort.
"Arnold will bring you 1.000 arrow and 10 longbows in his next voyage, together with the next shipment of food.
N."
"I will add the required leather armor to the next shipment but I will not seen 5 cases of whiskey.
N."
and so on.
Another interesting thing is that in the River Kingdoom book it is said that Brevory is the breadbasket of the river Kingdoms. Most of the trade go down by the Sellen river, but it would be possible to drive a few summer caravans down track routes till the lake near the Stag Lord fort and meet barges coming upriver.
So the Stag Lord could have set up shop to prey on them, again with the possible support of the River Kingdoms with good agricultural production. It would be a nice way to force the kingdoms with little or no food production into submission and dependence from them if they could cur the food trade from Brevory.
Recent threads in Kingmaker
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