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Here's My List of Party Origins
Each Origin is built around having a party of alignments within one step of the party origin, and each one has a different "Origin" story for the party. Good luck, enjoy.
I put together a prelude session that you could do in a night that outlines the players getting hired by a Swordlord, securing the charter, and travelling to Oleg's. You can check it out here if you'd like: Jabberwonky's Kingmaker Start
Feel free to modify to suit your campaign particulars -- for instance instead of the thugs at the fountain being galtesans looking for one fo the party members, maybe its an angry, hungry crowd accosting the carriges for food? Perhaps the party acts to keep the mob at bay until the city guard shows up?
I had a really difficult time wrapping my head around the idea of the Swordlords hiring all these experienced, established mercenary groups to go scout the other areas of the Stolen Lands, but sending complete novices into one section with the sanction to start a new kingdom. So, I took another route. The PCs themselves were hired to be the advanced scouting team for a mercenary with noble ties who had himself received the charter. This meant that, to start, they were simply hired guns with no ties to the Swordlords themselves or the politics that would unfold.
They were each recruited by the NPC (Uri Nazarov) individually [solo RP scene], and invited to a tavern in Restov to meet and discuss details (and negotiate their pay). Uri is a guy's guy - manly and charming, a bit older, with stories to tell (think Sam Axe from Burn Notice, but with a Russian accent). The PCs bonded with him quickly, and set out towards Oleg's while Uri gathered the rest of his company.
As the story progressed, Uri was always a force behind the PCs. They were his advanced scouts, so they did the exploring, then he brought guards and settlers (including Jhod, Kesten, and some other NPCs, including an emissary from Swordlords) to set up patrols and create stability in the land. Of course, over time, his personality changed from friendly and loveable to aggressive and paranoid. As the first book went on, the PCs found themselves in verbal confrontations with Uri.
Upon returning to Oleg's after an excursion recently, they saw the body of a converted but feebleminded bandit (long story) hanging from the walls and rode in to find Uri whipping another converted bandit (Vrenic) who had long been an ally to the PCs. The PCs rode into the middle of the scene, demanded Uri stop, he refused, called himself the ruler of the land and made some crazy statement about his beautiful queen then punched a PC (nonlethal), causing the punched PC (a half-orc ranger/rogue who hates slavery and torture) to attack him viciously. Enchanter sleeps some guards, Dawnflower Dervish subdues another guard, then Armored Hulk barbarian power attacks and crits on Uri = splat dead.
Okay, that oversimplifies the scene, there was lots of role-playing involved. Uri was torturing the reformed bandit because he 'believed' Vrenic and the other converted (now dead and hanging from the walls) bandit were to blame for a bandit attack. Uri, wanting to be "king of the land" had decided to have a great hunt and took all the important people with him (Kesten, Jhod, emissary from Restov, Vrenic [he is a ranger and knows the region], and a few guards to round out the hunt), leaving only 2 guards and the feebleminded former bandit with Oleg and Svetlana back at the outpost. The Stag Lord took a "shot at Uri" which hit the guard next to him, killing him instantly. The hunt suddenly turned into a chase of the Stag Lord, lasting a few days. They (obviously) never caught their prey. When they returned to Oleg's, they find Oleg and the two guards dead, the feebleminded bandit wounded, and Svetlana kidnapped. So, Uri believed that the only living person (the feebleminded bandit) must have been in on it, and tortured him for info. When Vrenic and Jhod appealed to reason, he locked them both up. At this point he emissary objected and he was locked up too. Kesten fled south to find the PCs (and would return a day after the PCs did). Then after killing the feebleminded former bandit through torture, he started torturing Vrenic (who had been on the hunt), claiming that he had lead them into that trap. Insert PCs during torture scene, most of this comes out - splat.
Aftermath:
1 - need to rescue Svetlana from Davon and Stag Lord
2 - must protect those few left at Oleg's while guards just watched them murder their employer (fun role-playing convincing guards to join them)
3 - they murdered their employer, a chartered agent of Swordlords, making them outlaws if word gets back to Restov (roleplay with emissary, and insert big political ramifications)
4 - what happens to the charter now?
5 - found a couple nice pieces of loot on Uri, including an interesting ring with nature motif (similar to one that will be found on the Stag Lord, and various other NPCs throughout the AP)
They dealt with aftermath #2 and #3 (awesome roleplaying and story manipulating), and are being driven into a direct confrontation with the Stag Lord and his forces to rescue Svetlana. Should be interesting. And #4 sets up some good roleplaying to start the politicking.
Btw, in my version of the AP, the Stag Lord is an alcoholic, but not the pathetic shell of a man he is written to be, and enjoys hunting humans (including the PCs) and playing cat and mouse with them. So yes, he knows who they are, as do his leiutenants, and they are not simply going to walk in with booze and bandit badges and off him in his sleep (lame and anticlimactic).
I started running Kingmaker last night. 4 of the 5 characters received a note from a Swordlord telling them to arrive at a cafe for a job. The 5th character is on the run from something and bluffed his way into the group. At the cafe the party was subjected to an outrageously horrible French accent and forced to sit around waiting for a very long time. This allowed the players to reveal as much of their backstories and personalities to each other as they wanted. When then moved forward at the speed of plot.
The messenger with the charter arrives ... beaten up. He's confused when he sees the group of no-name explorers and is vocally confused as to why they had been selected. Turns out the messenger was beaten up and left for dead by another group of mercenaries who were on their way into the Greenbelt to explore for another Swordlord who's looking to expand his personal power.
The party left the messenger (he had a name and backstory that they didn't care to find out about) and made their way to Oleg's.
At the cafe I was able to foreshadow a few things from book 3. It will be interesting to see if they remember.
The anti-party will make a few appearances throughout the adventure and will level up when the party does. A showdown with them will be the avenue into book two. (I'm guessing the party will go after the Stag Lord before exploring the entire charter area.)
There is definitely some untapped potential to set up the group before they get the charter. Just go ahead and have at it...
Now I want a group of players to get a charter by accident... mistaken identity.
"Here is your charter, my Lord. Everything has been arranged for your trip to the Stolen Lands. Will your friends be accompanying you? If so I will need to run off to arrange more transportation. You can pick up your supplies from the stables at high noon. I am running behind so I must be off, good luck in the Stolen Lands."
There is definitely some untapped potential to set up the group before they get the charter. Just go ahead and have at it...
Now I want a group of players to get a charter by accident... mistaken identity.
"Here is your charter, my Lord. Everything has been arranged for your trip to the Stolen Lands. Will your friends be accompanying you? If so I will need to run off to arrange more transportation. You can pick up your supplies from the stables at high noon. I am running behind so I must be off, good luck in the Stolen Lands."
Almost did that. Considered the party finding the body of the messenger with the charter and seeing what they'd do.
The only twist I've seriously considered to starting off Kingmaker is to empower one of the players and have the charter written to that character specifically.
It seemed kind of funny to me that Brevoy would say "one of you is a baron; we don't care who" so I thought maybe the initial charter could be written out to one PC specifically with the assumption that he'd then become their noble in the area. There's plenty of room for the PCs to decide he's not the best fit and choose another one of their own, but the conceit at the beginning is that one PC then recruited the others for the enterprise.
I guess the end result is much as you describe it, with PCs approaching Oleg's with an assumed backstory of interconnectedness, but in this case, the interconnectedness is based on them deciding why the chartered PC would have selected them to accompany him.
