Sin-less RotRL?

[the DZA]

Forgive me if this has been brought up before, but how intrinsic to the AP is the concept of Sin? I don't play in Golarion and so as I'm building up to run the hardcover when I get it I was hoping to adapt it to my homebrew world, specifically in a setting much like Open Game Design's Northlands.

I'm thinking of ending the game with the defeat of Mokmurian in Fortress of the Stone Giants, so I'm just not sure that the whole sin aspect needs to apply to my game. Any thoughts on how I could keep the Rune Magic but get rid of some of the emphasis on the sin? Thanks!

D

[Lord Fyre]

the DZA wrote:

Forgive me if this has been brought up before, but how intrinsic to the AP is the concept of Sin? I don't play in Golarion and so as I'm building up to run the hardcover when I get it I was hoping to adapt it to my homebrew world, specifically in a setting much like Open Game Design's Northlands.

I'm thinking of ending the game with the defeat of Mokmurian in Fortress of the Stone Giants, so I'm just not sure that the whole sin aspect needs to apply to my game. Any thoughts on how I could keep the Rune Magic but get rid of some of the emphasis on the sin? Thanks!

D

That is a tough question. What "Sin" does for for RotRL is differentiate the "school" specialties.

Beyond this, all that is required would be Powerful, Evil Wizard-Kings of rival kingdoms. If you plan to stop at the end of Fortess of the Stone Giants, then the only kingdoms that have any impact on the story are "Shalast"/Tranmutation (who won the ancient war) and "Bakrakhan"/Evocation (who lost).

[Old Drake]

The problem I see is that neither of the first two books is tied in any way to the Stone Giants. It's tied via runewells and sacrifices to power them to The Runelord. You will have to work through everything carefully to weave in new threats that tie everything together.

As for sins... that's an ancient concept based on a corruption of the virtues of rule. But it's ancient history, so ancient that we have only a few ruins remaining. It has no impact on the present. Or perhaps better, it has about as much impact on the present as ancient Egypt has on Earth now.

Maybe to tie everything together, the runelord isn't captures in his capital, but instead bound to an item than Mokmurian has acquired and he forced him to cooperate, somehow. And now the players end up with a runelord captive that is trying to escape and be reborn.

[the DZA]

In the homebrew magic was codified into the schools by a Southern empire long ago so I really like the idea of rune magic / sin magic as other types of magic that just didn't go mainstream, so I'm not opposed to the inclusion of the sin magic. I guess I just didn't really want the Runelord to focus on Sin magic, and I wasn't sure how that shift would affect the rest of the adventures. It seems like I might have a lot of work in front of me.

The cult of Lamashtu in the first book is easily shifted to an established cult from my homebrew, so I've got that one covered, and they don't really have anything to do with Karzoug anyway.

The concept of sin magic doesn't have to be specific to the 7 realms of Thassilon I guess, so maybe THE Runelord could simply be the Northern representative of the 7 (now I'll need a new name for them as there will only be one Runelord) and I can keep most of the sin stuff but just reinvent the Thassilonian connection, perhaps by spreading the sin realms around the world.

I also like the idea of Karzoug being bound to an item, that could be really interesting!

Thanks for the ideas! Please keep them coming.