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I have been trying to hammer the Falcon's Hollow series into a different shape for some time now, something a little grimmer and darker perhaps and sometimes just...different flavour. At any rate, the quest continues but I think I may have found my ideal campaign arc for Falcon's Hollow, but I may need some help.
1.Hollow's Last Hope: essentially the same
2.Crown of the Kobold King: I am planning on extending the orphanage sequence but not having it burnt down but burnt out, inside the PCs will find haunts and ghosts of the past, as well as a small girl who claims her name is Kimi...
2.5 Possibly a small adventure to include more werewolves while the idea is still in their head.
3.Carnival of Fear: I am thinking of removing the good fey element entirely, with the PCs being unaffected by safety of a series of fortunes they receive from a fortune teller.
4.Revenge of the Kobold King: pretty much the same, but hint to Drazmorg as the reason for the king's return.
5.Hungry are the Dead: This is where I am thinking of diverging; I want to make the seal be a time-lock keeping a powerful lich in check, Drazmorg is his servant (a bit of a renfield, who found out about the lich through obscure research), and when the seal opens all they find is a really old corpse and a Failed Phylactery (from Artifacts and Legends) but the PCs don't know it.
I want to continue the story to wrap up conflicts between the fey and the lumberjacks, possibly with two more adventures; Realm of the Fellnight Queen as a bit of an interlude and then a big showdown between fey and lumberjack, all the while one of the poor PCs is slowly being eaten away by the lich's personality.
Any suggestions on modules to use or adventure ideas for the conclusion?
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I'm running a Darkmoon Vale campaign for a large group (8 players) and I had to figure out some fill-ins for extra XP. Some of them are from older 3.X stuff, but really easy to convert, even on the fly.
So, here's the run-down of the adventures:
- Hollow (Tales of the Old Margreve); to bring the party upward in XP count.
- Hollow's Last Hope (less the fungus thing); to reach level 2.
- Crown of the Kobold King (no changes); enough to reach level 3.
- Wingclipper's Revenge (Dungeon Magazine #132); halfway to level 5. Feys at war.
- Challenge of the Fang (Tales of the Old Margreve); up to level 5. Werewolves and tradition.
- Revenge of the Kobold King (no changes); enough to reach level 5.
- Hungry are the Dead (no changes); to reach level 6.
- Gall of the Spider Crone (Tales of the Old Margreve); a little short of level 7. Again, tradition.
- Blood of the Gorgon (from Open Design, I was a patron); enough to reach level 8. A big "whodunit" urban adventure, which I set in Olfden.
I also plannes some different "roads" based on PCs choice; you can substitute Revenge of the Kobold King and Hungry are the Dead with Tower of the Last Baron and Treasure of Chimera Cove. Moreover it's possible to substitute Wingclipper's Revenge and Challenge of the Fang with The Automatic Hound (Dungeon Magazine #148) and Carnival of Fear.
Each different path gives a specific vibe to the campaign, a result I'm pretty satisfied with.
Challenge of the Fang fits perfectly for the feel I'm going for, thanks golem!
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I put together a Darkmoon Vale mini-AP with some of the modules a few years ago, an an introduction to Pathfinder for my group.
In my campaign, Drazmorg is the big bad, a semi-lich follower of the whispering Way who believes that if he defeats the Whispering Tyrant and takes in his power, he will fully ascend and then begin transforming all of the world into an undead paradise. In my version, Tar-Baphon's prison in Gallowspire is held together by certain seals in locations important to him in his actual life, and one such seal exists below Droskar's Crag. Meanwhile, tensions between the townsfolk of Falcon's Hollow and the fey court of Queen Syntira are deteriorating due to the machinations of Kreed and his grip on the region. My image for Falcon's Hollow is very much inspired by the tv show Deadwood.
I used a number of the published adventures set in or around Falcon's Hollow and Darkmoon Vale. I connected them together with some homebrew adventures directly related to the PCs' actions and stories. Here's my set-up:
Hollow's Last Hope - 1st adventure; intro to Falcon's Hollow.
Crown of the Kobold King - 2nd adventure; further fleshed-out the town and the notable NPCs like Kreed (a very Al Swearengen-type in my game).
Wolves in Sheeps' Clothing - 1st interlude; one of the PCs succumb to a werewolf's bite and the party had to deal with the ramifications .(ending with one of the other PCs making a deal with the fey queen Syntira to "cure" his comrade).
Tower of the Last Baron - 3rd adventure; set on the Chelaxian border of Darkmoon Vale, the threat of war leads the PCs to intercede on behalf of Falcon's Hollow.
Revenge of the Kobold King - 4th adventure; leads to the first hints as Drazmorg as the BBEG.
The Bonds of Blood - 2nd interlude; one of the former PCs comes back as the undead servant of Drazmorg.
Treasure of Chimera Cove - 5th adventure; Drazmorg sends his minions to capture the "treasure" (really just wants the amulet as part of his grander plan), the party face his minions and meet Drazmorg for the first time.
Keys to the Heart - 3rd interlude; the party looks into Drazmorg's background and what he could be up to in Darkmoon Vale.
Carnival of Tears - 6th adventure; the bad blood between the fey and the townsfolk comes to a head and Drazmorg uses this opportunity to strike against the PCs.
Hungry Are The Dead - 7th adventure; climax of the AP as Drazmorg uses all of the recent deaths in the region to fuel his ritual and the PCs must stop him.
I cannot stress enough how useful the Darkmoon Vale sourcebook is to any campaign set in the region. Pick it up if you haven't already.
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Here's how my DMV campaign went a couple years back:
Into the Haunted Forest
Crown of the Kobold King
Howl of the Wolf (Necromancer Games' Glades of Death)
Timber Rivalry (Necromancer Games' Glades of Death)
Revenge of the Kobold King
Hungry are the Dead
Tower of the Last Baron
Treasure of Chimera Cove
The Volcano Caves (Dungeon Crawl Classic #19)
Beyond the Vault of Souls
Winter Council
Valbryn Morlydd (WotC's Exemplars of Evil)
I also watched the first 10 episodes of the series Deadwood for town flavor and based the mayor off of Gene Hackman's character in The Quick and the Dead.
I made the connection between Falcon's Hollow and Deadwood myself a few weeks ago, hoping to make Kreed into a Hurst-proxy.
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I'm doing a Darkmoon Vale campaign as retold by H.P. Lovecraft. Basically, the nightmare realm of Leng is bleeding over into the Vale and the people and environment are becoming tainted. I'm spending a lot of time establishing mood and making it extra creepy. Module choices are:
Hollow's Last Hope -basically unchanged
Kobold King -the kobolds are painting a wall with the blood of the innocent to keep the taint at bay. I will be adding cave raptors as mounts instead of slurks!
Carnival of Tears -the Denizens of Leng are harvesting souls and gathering slaves
Seeds of Sehan -Leng is using tainted beer to make new slaves
Maybe Revenge of Kobold King?
Custom module - Something to do with Mi-Go in the volcano and finding out the whole truth
Hungry are the Dead - Amped up CR and close the portal to Leng
Custom module - Deal with the BBEG on Leng
Rather than start Falcon's Hollow out as NE, I'm going to slowly have it slip into evil as the taint takes hold and people begin to "go wrong". My player's guide says that Kreed and many of the nefarious NPC's are actually quite nice, so it'll be a shock when they start charging "axe tax" and whatnot.
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Wow, this seems to be a popular series of modules with a lot of variety. Right now I'm still trying to pin down Kreed as an evil SOB with a "evil that men do" and "it was just good business" vibe. I've been brainstorming various deeds for the PCs to uncover about Kreed to make them want to take him down (either with frontier justice or the letter of the law). Here's what I have so far, please feel free to add ideas and coherent logic to my scribblings:
1.Having Payday "mysteriously disappear" independent lumberjacks that chop in his forest.
2.Be the supply line for Kabran Bloodeye's drug trade that keeps his girls so strung out they can't say no
3.Controlling a local beastie (a local myth) with an artefact to keep people scared of the forest and of the world outside his walls, as well as take out thorns in his side he can't publically (the PCs, the sheriff)
4.Fudging his books for the Consortium to make it look like he is barely managing while he siphons Darkwood to Cheliax for own personal profit
5.Organise the deaths of people in town to take over their property that he wants
6.Running the lumber trade into the ground intentionally while simultaneously acquiring old mines because he (and only he) knows that there is a valuable mineral underneath the Vale (he killed the surveyor that brought it to his attention)
I'm looking at doing this as well. But with the group I'm going to be doing this with I will need to chop it up in a very weird way. (Jobs and other issues make full group play iffy.)
My plan is to make the Aspis Consortium the BBEG and have Kreed be one of the toadies working for them. The basic plot is that elements from Cheliax are trying to destabilize the area enough for local leaders who have been co-opted or that will soon be replaced, to secede from Andoran back to Cheliax. I'm also increasing the size of Falcon's Hollow to use it as the focal point of all the machinations. Using Grey Citadel from Necromancer games as the Falcon's Hollow of this campaign.
Hopefully I'll be able to use local politics to fill in low turn out nights and keep everyone hooked.
My questions for those who have used these modules.
Did anyone try to make the Blackscour taint an attack on the town and have a suspect for your pcs? If so, how'd that work for ya?
Anyone have a good suggestion for one-offs that might run as political/espionage modules?
Wow, great ideas :-) I had an early game in which I had the drow act as a menace under the dwarven ruin. They have heard of a power moving thru the underground called Drazmorg and want it. I had the game follow the same arc as posed in "Revenge of the kobold king", but after the attempt of payday to kill the PCs, they decided to get payback on Kreed. SInce it was the end of the group (real world moves and such) I let the fight ensue and had the group run the town and run the lumber trade.
I am running the game again (with a new group) and just finished D0 and D1. I had the encounter with the werewolf girl, but she got away and I plan on having werewolves from Arthfell forest start sending groups towards Darkmoon to see about expanding their operations there as well. I plan on using "Barrow of the Forgotten King" as a medium between D1 and D1.5. Just as I had in the first game I ran I still plan on having drow beneath the dwarven ruin and word of some one (cultists maybe) searching for some items to help someone called Drazmorg in some ritual of sorts (still in the air how I am going to do this). I also want to run them thru Carnival of Evil as well, just thinking on how to string them along. Thinking also of going thru Tower of last bastion and midnight mirror if possible.
How has it work for all of you so far?
If anyone here has the Trouble at Durbenford by Necromancer Games, you can swap out some NPC's for established ones. The larger community could be totally under the sway of hildignae or whatever it is, and you could have them go to 16th level on the fast track...
Anyway, talk to you soon.
In the Crown of the Kobold King, one idea was presented as to how the events of the story effected several of the people involved.
Has anyone ever looked at going back several (game years) later and building up on those suggestions when everyone has grown up?
I've been running a longer campaign and I have been thinking of going back there with the next adventuring party, and let everyone see what has happened over the years. I would like suggestions on what type of builds ot turn some of those non-statted people into, as well as a few possible arcs that would play well in that area again.
Here's how my DMV campaign went a couple years back:
Into the Haunted Forest
Crown of the Kobold King
Howl of the Wolf (Necromancer Games' Glades of Death)
Timber Rivalry (Necromancer Games' Glades of Death)
Revenge of the Kobold King
Hungry are the Dead
Tower of the Last Baron
Treasure of Chimera Cove
The Volcano Caves (Dungeon Crawl Classic #19)
Beyond the Vault of Souls
Winter Council
Valbryn Morlydd (WotC's Exemplars of Evil)I also watched the first 10 episodes of the series Deadwood for town flavor and based the mayor off of Gene Hackman's character in The Quick and the Dead.
Hackman... Dude that's perfect.
Hehehehe, I really like these series of modules and once again I start with a new group and planning on playing thru these again. I am going over some of the mods people have mentioned to see how they may fit into how I run my games. One thing I like is the possibilities of what happens with the children hat were taken and how they may affect the town in the future, maybe having the group re-visit the Hollows and a new set of terror arising from the seeds planted in the children (?)
Just some ideas :-)