Ok I saw this in another post but i can't remember where ...so I'll ask it here and maybe some one can point me in the right direction.
I want to use the Feast of Ravenmoor module for the first leg of the caravans route after the end of book one of jade regent. I have 3 concerns about doing this though and would like some help.
1) the party might be a level higher than the module is written for, so beef up would be needed {suggestion please}
2) While this would be a great way for the druid of the party to get his "Super Forest Hobo" grove on, one of the Jade Regent NPC's is a 4th level cleric of Desna. how do I have her not point out that the Ravenmoor populace is fallowing a mockery of her faith?
3) I need to avoid the party having to make a return trip to Magnimar, but to have a small contingent of Magnimar soldiers & another tax collector show up at the end seems a bit week in my mind.
Any help in solving these things would be a great help.
Working backward. Note that I don't know much about Jade Regent, but do know a thing or two about FoR:
3) Rather than soldiers, I would have the caravan encounter a single tax collector -Elias' partner, recently fled from the village (or holing up in Wolf's Ear -see below). Nothing specific should have happened to him, mind you (or else you trigger alarms and hostility toward the village), but he should be scared witless because his partner disappeared from his bed when they were there to collect taxes, and got spooked that some ill fate befell him (or, you know, he ran off). If you add soldiers to that mix as you mention, then the PCs shouldn't have a whole lot of motivation to become the authorities or help out. With a single collector, they can take the initiative. Maybe he promises to share a portion of the collection as an official reward for their aid. Adjust the tax amount accordingly, and send the PCs on their way.
OR, you can go with part of the original outline I've got on file here, which featured a partner for Elias the PCs could interview: Tod Langson (LE male afflicted wererat). They were meant to encounter him in Wolf's Ear before they set off into the wilds. While he's there recovering, he was to share share a short letter from Elias (notably delivered by Ravenmoor's miller, Doriv) that his partner did reach the village, and the text includes a promise to return to Wolf's Ear and escort his partner home. He was to point out that Elias has a young son and wife in Magnimar that Dresden Crouch knew nothing about, and knows that Elias would never have willingly left them to starve in Magnimar's unforgiving streets for any amount of gold. More information on Wolf's Ear can be found on page 69 of Hook Mountain Massacre.
So, I'd use some amalgamation of that scenario and work it in the best you can. No soldiers! =-)
2) If you use the above scenario, maybe the cleric of Desna could stay behind with the caravan (put the marshlands and river between the caravan route and Ravenmoor to make crossing over impossible for the caravan, see?) in order to try and treat Tod's recent lycanthropy affliction. Maybe she needs to stop the caravan and search the swamp for wolfsbane before it is too late. Otherwise, I think the Mayor has a choice dialogue in the adventure for those who question their version of the faith -it is just a dated version that they've been following since the organized "city-slickers'" church abandoned them in the wilds.
1) Use the Advanced template if you need to, or add an extra couple of cultists or xtabay plants (sent ahead to ambush sleeping PCs) in the evening ambush. The final encounter, as I'm sure you know, needs no help. You can increase DCs of Festival events by +2 to bump the challenge a little.
How's that? =-)
Brandon, great adventure. I ran it for my players just like Uthak plans to, and they loved it. I thought I would share my experience running it.
First, my players were level two when they begun the adventure, and leveled up to level three with the xps from the Cygnigot. I let them get their new spells but not recover the ones they had spent, so they had a really hard time with the final fight, even though there are six players in the party. The blightspawn and the aranea ended up escaping alive. This is not the case here, though.
About the set-up with Jade Regent, I used the suggestion of another poster in the forums (See here) and had them meet Lute Haggersly in Wolf's ear. He was en route to Kalsgard for his appointment to the Rimerunners guild, but first he had to tie a loose end --that is, finding what had happened to his tax collector in Ravenmoor--. So he hired the PC's and went on with the caravan to Roderic's Cove while they investigated Ravenmoor. That way, I took Koya (the cleric of Desna) out of the picture. In any case, when the players found inconsistencies on Desna's cult they accepted Brandon's explanation of local variations of the cult in a remote village.
When the party reached Roderic's Cove after the adventure, Lute paid them and traveled with them to Riddleport, where he took a ship to Kalsgard and sent news of the happenings in Ravenmoor to Magnimar so they could send a couple of real clerics of Desna to help the village. Then the party went on to Brinewall, leveled up and went back to Sandpoint to finish their business there before going to Kalsgard. When they passed near Ravenmoor, Koya asked the players to go with her to see the village, since she was curious, and there the PCs found that the blightspawn and the aranea had killed two villagers in their absence. So the party had to finish the work they had begun and set up a trap for the blightspawn --who I had advanced with the advanced template as Brandon suggests. Finally, the party killed the blightspawn although the aranea escaped again. Oh, well, you cannot always win.
Some more roleplaying finished the adventure while the players and the NPCs in the caravan helped the villagers rebuild the Church of Desna and the Hollowitz place, including a fist-fight since I ran it in the spirit of the barn brawl scene in "Seven brides for seven brothers".
All in all, a magnificent adventure which we enjoyed greatly, especially the first half, with all the roleplaying and the PCs interacting with the villagers and noticing, bit by bit, that something really was wrong in Ravenmoor. I particularly liked playing the young Ornigaard as I screamed "Applesauce!!! You've hurt him!!!" at the top of my lungs after the party put two arrows into the styrge in their first two actions. They had to spend three CLW spells just so the kid would stop screaming and crying (and boy, did they miss those spells later on ;-) )
I took a different approach to incorporating the module.
Like Fox1212, my players will be 2nd level when then start the module.
What I did, was to have one of the heros from Rise of the Runelords, ask the PCs if they could investigate the disapperance of a friend of his, someone who was coming out of a bad patch in his life, but was well on his way to making something of himself. That there were rumors that he had run off with the gold, but the hero didn't believe it for a moment. The hero had paid off the taxes for his friend, so the PCs could keep the taxes as their payment for looking into what happened to Elias - he want's Elias found and/or his reputation mended. And finally, once they have done so, the hero asked that they leave message with another friend of his, Shorafu Pamodae, in Riddleport.
The reason that the hero couldn't take care of it himself was that there was a new army of Giants, lead by several Rune Giants, causing havoc in the mountains, and the hero and his friends were off to take care of it before the new giant army can become an even bigger threat.
This was my way of getting them into the village, investigating, without having to have a Magnimar side trip or folks involved.
The caravan will not make the side trip, but will spend a few leisurely days travelling, allowing the PCs to make the side trip and catch up. Sandru knows that the so called path to Ravenmoor is not easily passable for the large wagons that the caravan has, well, not without a lot of work, days of it. He has been to Ravenmoor in the past, there is no market there so he has not been back in years.
Cool thanks for the ideas .....I just wrapped up part one of Brinewall last night, so the trip to Brinewall is next and I noticed that Ravenmoor is one the way so it will make the perfect spot for some extra XP.