Combining APs: CotCT, Kingmaker and... Carrion Crown? *Spoilers!*

[MistChild]

Greetings all. First, sorry for the bad english, it's not my first language. Second, spoilers ahead, so be careful.

I was planning a campaign combining Curse of the Crimson Throne, Kingmaker and Carrion Crown. I don’t care about running the modules as they’re written, but rather to write a homebrew campaign borrowing elements from all three APs. It would be neither CotCT, KM or CC, but something else.

This is what I have thus far:

The setting will probably be a heavily modified Brevoy/Ustalav mashup. As far as I am gone, I made Queen Ileosa the sister of King Noleski Surtova (in place of Natala Surtova) and plan to have her

Spoiler:

find an ancient artifact related in some way to the Whispering Tyrant instead of the Fangs of Kazavon, then planning the assassination of her brother in a more spectacular way, thus igniting a civil war between the noble houses.

The campaign will begin with the PCs still in Restov (in this setting the city has its own major noble house, even if the Swordlords still play a very important role in the rule of the city), attending to the wedding between the King and the Lord of Restov’s daughter (one of the PCs), arranged for prevent the civil war by binding the Swordlords to the Dragonscale Throne.

However, before the ceremony the gathered nobles will be attacked by a group of assassins disguised by Swordlords’ guards, who will kill the King. I borrowed the wedding idea from this thread, so thanks to Olondir.

After this I am unsure whether to go on with Edge of Anarchy or Stolen Lands. Either way, the PCs will end obtaining the kingdom-building charter from the new Lord of Restov.

After dealing with Rivers Run Red, the PCs will be called back to New Stetven to pledge fealty to the new Queen and will be stuck in with the events of Seven Days to the Grave.

As for the Kingmaker part I will drop all the fey stuff in favor of political intrigue with Brevoy’s noble houses and the mystery of the Vanishing, that I would relate to the Whispering Tyrant, even if still I don’t know how.

In all this, where is Carrion Crown? Well, this is the issue. I really like all the Petros/Kendra/AA stuff in this thread and was planning to use Ice Titan’s approach, but I don’t know how to fit Professor Lorrimor’s assassination and the pursuit of the WW in with the kingdom-building part. As I said I’m not interested in running the modules straight as written, so I’m looking for some advice here. Maybe I can tie the WW with the events of Seven Days to the Grave.

My other issue was about the BBEG:

Spoiler:

I really like both Adivion and Ileosa, but I can’t find a way to use both without making one a pawn of the other or something alike that would demean both of them.

Ok, this is all. Any thoughts? Am I insane or it is doable?

[Turin the Mad]

Merge

Spoiler:

Ileosa and AA into one BBEG. Her plans are several layers spread across all three: inciting the civil war, raising the spectre of undead horrors returning to usher the masses into overcrowded disease-infested cities to fuel her ascendant transformation. The professor stumbles across the gathering of naughty bits, gets whacked by Ileosa's minion Vrood thus setting off your CC tie ins. Illmarsh is transplanted to the same lake that Candlemere sits on (for WotW). The civil war rages off and on as seasons pass, with the rural elements replacing the Shoanti. Ileosa sets up shop at the end on Candlemere in a cyclopean temple dedicated to Shub-Niggurath. As things get ugly the power nasty stuff roiling about from the end of CC is protecting not the Tyrant but worse, a gate through which an Outer God could affect physical entry onto Golarion.

[MistChild]

Turin the Mad wrote:

Merge ** spoiler omitted **

I really like it, but I would leave the Old Cults more in the background, because I can’t see a clever BBEG attain immortality and ultimate power only to then ruin everything by releasing an Outer God upon her head and ending the world (and also to remind the PCs that there is always something bigger and badder waiting in the dark).

I was also considering replacing Vordakai with some lich from the WW (maybe Socorro), tying the Oculus of Abaddon with Tar-Baphon by having a semi-sentient shard of the Whispering Tyrant’s will trapped in it (a very “Eye of Vecna” thing).

Spoiler:

If I go on with this, the Oculus will be the tool behind the Vanishing of House Rogarvia and the same artifact that influences Ileosa. Maybe the Oculus drives Ileosa in discovering the Carrion Crown poem, carefully hided many years ago by his first discoverers (Professor Lorrimor and Adivion Adrissant). Ileosa plans to use the Carrion Crown formula to attain immortality in the form of true vampirism (I don’t feel lichdom as a good in-character choice for her). In this case, the slaughter of the vampires in Ashes at Dawn will be only the harvesting of another component for her personal version of the Carrion Crown elixir.

Still don’t know why Tar-Baphon should be behind the Vanishing, though.

Some other thoughts on Kendra and AA:

Spoiler:

Running with the idea of her being the last living heir of the Whispering Tyrant and him being an old friend and former protégée of Professor Lorrimor, I can see Adivion wanting to purge the now politically corrupted Order of the Palatine Eye presenting a new menace that will force the Order to return to his original duty: to protect the Realm from supernatural threats. But in order to do so Adivion must recover the Carrion Crown poem and find the heir of Tar-Baphon, both carefully hided (the latter in plain sight) by Professor Lorrimor. Knowing that the poem is now in the hands of the Queen, Adivion helps the PCs in pursuing the Whispering Way as an agent of the Order, only to betray them after the defeat of Ileosa, fleeing to Gallowspire with Kendra and the Carrion Crown elixir.

Is this too much convoluted or could it work?

[Turin the Mad]

Ileosa isn't infallible, let alone AA. She may not really know about the 'true purpose' of Candlemere anymore than she knows the 'true purpose' of Sorshen's crib in the swamp.

Spoiler:

I like the 'eye of Tar-Barphon' twist and the vampirism twist in place of the lichdom. Maybe the version of vampirism she is going for also includes the solaric creature and dread vampire templates or something. I preferred Ileosa as a destined bloodline sorceress instead of a bard. There's also the Imperial bloodline in the ARG.

The Vanishing is acquiring not only blood but bones, flesh and souls to 'jump start' the Blood Vault on Candlemere. Ileosa knows that she can use the Blood Vault to fuel her transformation into a 'daywalking vampiress', and to do so she needs not only the blood of her subjects corrupted by disease and terror, she also needs direct infusions of life energy. Some of the left over 'bits' are blood simulacra she uses to protect her lair as the process gets closer to the proper celestial alignment. What she doesn't know is that the process she is using is inefficient. The 'left over' bits are what she is getting - the lion's share of the 'juice' is drained into the main Blood Vault below. The idea here is the replacement of Kazavon with something horrific of comparable power and Candlemere-ish. If this Thing is successful in gaining entry into the world ...

The funny thing about the 'Tar-Barphon bits' is that they easily cloud Ileosa's mind from the beginning. I suspect that once they did so, their hold on her perceptions is effectively unbreakable.

[Mirona]

I merged CotCT and CC easily. I started CC when my player reached Caliphas.

What I did (with the exception of level rising):

spoiler:

- Changed Queen Ileosa with Queen Carmilla Caliphaso
- Changed the kidnapping of Count Galdana with a ''regicide'' by a old cult (in fact the Whispering Way kidnapped the king with Carmilla help)
- Changed some encounter to be more ''horror'' like
- Changed the Sorshen or Zon-Kuthon affiliation to Old cult or Whispering Way
- Made sure they were going agaisnt the Whispering Way, not the queen. Sometine a dropped hint of the tie between the two.

[MistChild]

Mirona wrote:

I merged CotCT and CC easily. I started CC when my player reached Caliphas.

I considered doing something like that, but I want to start with the KM/CotCT stuff at a much lower level. Well played, however.

Turin the Mad wrote:

I preferred Ileosa as a destined bloodline sorceress instead of a bard. There's also the Imperial bloodline in the ARG.

This will be a gestalt game, so I would go with a bard/sorceress or bard/witch build for her.

Turin the Mad wrote:

Spoiler:

The Vanishing is acquiring not only blood but bones, flesh and souls to 'jump start' the Blood Vault on Candlemere. Ileosa knows that she can use the Blood Vault to fuel her transformation into a 'daywalking vampiress', and to do so she needs not only the blood of her subjects corrupted by disease and terror, she also needs direct infusions of life energy.

This is good. It could work in a way similar to

RotRL spoiler:

the Runewell of Greed, but meant to siphon soul power towards Tar-Baphon instead of Karzoug.