SO my players are about 2/3 done RRR and I have been re-reading book 3 (I read the whole AP back almost 2 years ago when we first started the campaign - oh for the days when i could play twice a week! once a month sucks! :) ).
Aside from a very few points (getting a peace treaty with the centaurs, adding Varnhold to your kingdom) this seems like a 'filler' module with little to link it to the overarching metaplot of the fey. The main villain (the cyclops) is completely unconnected to Narrisa (the super fey chick villain) and, for me, the whole adventure seems pretty flat and uninspiring.
I'm to the point where I'll likely replace huge swaths of this one with my own creation as I have added in several plot hooks the party is interested in specific to the setting I am running KM in (Scarred Lands).
Does anyone else feel this way about VHV? What were the solutions you came up with to continue using the adventure as written or what did you add to it?
You got some points, and here are mine:
1) Plenty of options to add your own stuff
2) I actually liked it that not everything has a "point to fey" vibe to it. Not everything over a period of possible 20 in-game years has to be orchestrated by the same BBEG. My players have no idea what *exactly* is going on, and I will enjoy it when I bring certain elements back, and make em go "Dude!!!" :)
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I feel quite the opposite - it works as a standalone adventure while still fitting into the setting, and takes out one of the PCs' rivals without them having to go to war. It's a nice bridge between thinking of themselves as a party of explorers, and thinking of themselves as a nation.
However, it doesn't hurt to play up Nyrissa's involvement. If you read the module carefully, there is a link there but it's not one the PCs are likely to pick up on. So you have to work a bit to make that more obvious, and it might also be an idea to give either the centaurs or the spriggans a bit of knowledge about Nyrissa that the party could discover. Even Vordakai, being so old, may have something among his possessions that ties back to the First World's presence in the area.
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It serves several functions, some metagame and some in game:
Metagame:
1. Those players who are used to dungeon crawsl, standard adventures, and "normal" Pathfinder get a breather from a more political, game within a game type AP, and get to do what they like best again. I like it a lot for this very reason, its good to remember we are still adventurers, just more specialized ones with a lot of responsibility.
1A. All those free Novas the party has been tossing around, blowing all their stuff on their 1 encounter per day lifestyle, come back to haunt them. This is really meant to be an on-the-clock challenge, not one you get to take a leisurely Sunday stroll through, at least IMO.
2. Party has a reason to explore to the east and eventually ends up with Varn's charter. This is the only one of the other charter holders that potentially the party might never conquer, due to the fact he could end up as an ally or neutral party. It also allows for the introduction to the centaurs, who can prove useful allies later on.
3. The BBEG sort of ups the ante on the Threat Level for the PCs kingdom. Like a warning sign that says: From here, things get uglier...
In Game:
The OP is correct, this should have been a Fey encounter. Something like the Fellnight Queen would have been an ideal fit here.
However, I can tell you that this is one of the more entertaining and excellent adventures I have read in a while.
The only in game purpose I can truly think of is to remind the players that the Stolen Lands have a very long history, and encourages them to explore it. This could possibly lead to uncovering some clues about the APs main BBEG.
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The problem with Kingmaker as a whole is that the finale is badly tied to the rest of the campaign. Very little in any of the first 5 books actually points to what is going to happen in book 6.
The two threads of the campaign are the Fae and building a kingdom and engaging in the politics of the region. Unfortunately they mesh very badly to the point that they do not integrate at all.
The problem with Kingmaker as a whole is that the finale is badly tied to the rest of the campaign. Very little in any of the first 5 books actually points to what is going to happen in book 6.
That's not entirely true, if the PCs are lucky they will know a lot about Nyrissa and her likely course of action by the end of book 5. But that's tied to a couple of specific clues (finding out the nature of Briar and rescuing Evindra), and if they miss those then the whole thing does come as a complete surprise.
One thing I am going to do is let my party find a partial copy of Zudigger's Picnic early, probably in Fort Drelev. That way, when the first bloom appears they should recognise it and know to look for a complete copy ASAP.
I'm very tempted to squeeze book 5 out, rather than book 3. Extend the threat from the Tiger Lords and work Briar into their treasure, maybe have a couple of army encounters with them, and replace the rest of the Pitax battles with some initial Fey incursions. Much as I love Irovetti as an opponent, I think a brief war against Drelev followed by a prolonged one against Pitax is too much of the same.
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I disliked the Fae element, it was totally tacked on and not consistent throughout the AP.
The ending should have been the war for independence from Brevoy. The only indication of Nyrissa's involvement comes late on in book 5, before that there is nothing. No other AP waits that late to reveal it's BBEG.
The AP didn't need Nyrissa. Kingmaker consists of two plots that would have made excellent AP's on their own but are not well integrated together.
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Personally I did quite the opposite. I made Vordakai and Nyrissa ancient enemies and V has thwarted her attempts on the stolen lands many times pre -earthfall. By slaying him the PCs are inadvertantly setting forth the events of book 6 as V's death allows her to work more freely in the material plane and extend her influence more directly.
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I had Nyrissa hinted at a great deal more than normal in my games, with an iron ring on all over her agents. I also changed certain characters to be agents so that the party had more opportunity to learn about the BBEG. It was at a point by the beginning of VV that the players suspected every bad event as a plot against them by the BBEG. For them, it was a great break from this to learn that the big bad events of VV were not caused by the overall BBEG.
They also facepalmed when they learned that Willas had the same ring all of her agents wear. I made that change to keep them reminded that there is an even bigger threat out there, but for once they didn't have to fight him, and because he had spent the time with them it hit home when they learned a friend had been her agent.
Varnhold Vanishing is a good break of hexploration/miniquest type of gaming that the first two books had and is a great way to push the players into situations they may not be prepared for.
This is also a great opportunity to insert your own material because there is so much room for it. There is a missing chunk of XP, lots of open hexes, plenty of good plot hooks.
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Varnhold is one of the best modules, especially when enhanced with Dudemeister's suggestions about the centaurs. But remember Kingmaker is supposed to be all about the kingdom, not the BBEG. It's about threats to the kingdom and keeping it thriving, and the hook is great (if this could happen to them, could it happen to the PC kingdom??). By book 3, the party should be mildly suspicious something is odd with the fey, but not enough to begin to worry about any lurking BBEG. Given that Nyrissa isn't supposed to pop up as a challenge till 17th level, introducing her in snippets 11 levels early is just going to frustrate the party (e.g. why give us all this if we can't do anything about it...)
SO my players are about 2/3 done RRR and I have been re-reading book 3 (I read the whole AP back almost 2 years ago when we first started the campaign - oh for the days when i could play twice a week! once a month sucks! :) ).
Aside from a very few points (getting a peace treaty with the centaurs, adding Varnhold to your kingdom) this seems like a 'filler' module with little to link it to the overarching metaplot of the fey. The main villain (the cyclops) is completely unconnected to Narrisa (the super fey chick villain) and, for me, the whole adventure seems pretty flat and uninspiring.
I'm to the point where I'll likely replace huge swaths of this one with my own creation as I have added in several plot hooks the party is interested in specific to the setting I am running KM in (Scarred Lands).
Does anyone else feel this way about VHV? What were the solutions you came up with to continue using the adventure as written or what did you add to it?
In hindsight, what I should have done instead of the opening hook of Varnhold disappearing, I would have had Varnhold reach out to my PCs to assist exploring the area. As it was, the PCs raced to investigate Varnhold which lead to the centaurs and then Vordakai. We are in book 4 now and they have done little exploration of that whole area.
That being said, I did make some changes by adding some fey creatures to the spriggans at the fort in Varnhold. Also, I added a couple of mini dungeons, one leading through the mountains to Vordakai's valley and then another shrine once they were in the valley to make up the lost XP. I described the valley itself as appearing out of time and stole the idea of a forest of grey stones (the petrified minions of Vordakai) from the Greyhawk setting. The minidungeons gave the PCs more clues to Vordakai so that way he felt like a BBEG. They also learned that he planned on sacrificing the Varnhold citizens to his daemonic masters. After his defeat, the valley returned to normal but some of the stones had been destroyed (which means some of his minions escaped).
I see that whole area as more classic swords and sorcery type of area and I'm using the escaped minions of Vordakai as seeds for a possible post-Kingmaker campaign.
Like others said, there are a lot of empty hexes that you can fill in and use to tie into the Kingmaker story you wan to tell. My players are really enjoying Kingmaker but they do not want to do the grinding hexploration anymore so what I've been doing going forward is creating larger set pieces. So for instance, when they finally decide to go back and do some exploring, they'll have to deal with some of Vordakai's minions who have been amassing power while the PCs have been running their kingdom. Also, adding more bulettes, with lots of templates :). Finally, I find that sometimes I can group unused hex encounters into a short adventure for my players who may want to do a solo mission, either to make up lost XP or backstory reasons. RRR was great for this.
I disliked the Fae element, it was totally tacked on and not consistent throughout the AP.
The ending should have been the war for independence from Brevoy. The only indication of Nyrissa's involvement comes late on in book 5, before that there is nothing. No other AP waits that late to reveal it's BBEG.
The AP didn't need Nyrissa. Kingmaker consists of two plots that would have made excellent AP's on their own but are not well integrated together.
See I've been adding a lot of fey elements to the AP for the main reason that I never, ever use fey! Seemed like a great opportunity to dive right into their lore and now, as I more closely read the rest of the books, realize that the fey in general (and Nyrissa in particular) are used very, very little. Too little for my taste. I'm going to be playing up the fey, the Winter and Summer Courts and Nyrissa as a megalomaniac who holds a grudge for a long, long loooooooong time (I have her being super pissed at the PCs *ancestors* from 3 generations ago - now that every mortal descendant of those she hates has been manuevered into being in the same place at the same time she plans to savour every moment of her revenge).
This leads me to VV - aside from the kingdom elements (gaining Varnhold as a vassal and a peace treaty with the centaurs) most of the rest of the adventure is just a standard dungeon romp. That's fine - I think my players will enjoy that I just wish there had been *something* fey related in the book. I do like the idea stated above of make V and N age-old enemies with V always thwarting N in the past. That is about the best fey-link I can see for this adventure.
Thanks for the input people! Really helped crystallize what I want to do with VV.
No other AP waits that late to reveal it's BBEG.
If you think this, you're kinda missing the point of the entire campaign.
The AP introduces the BBEG in Book 1, the main adversary of Kingmaker is: The Stolen Lands.
There is no ultimate overarching bad guy to face off against the PCs because the PCs are not the stars of this campaign. The star of the campaign is the PCs' kingdom, and the overarching metaplot is following along with the kingdom throughout the course of it's founding.
What the BBEGs from each book have in common is that they're a taste of the threats that a fledgling Kingdom would have to face. Each BBEG has a very different and rich history in the Stolen Lands. Part of what makes the Stolen lands so interesting is the myriad of threats and denizens it features, and the PCs have to face them all.
You could just make the campaign: "All fey, all the time," and say that the only problem in the Stolen Lands is the Fey menace, but IMO, that would be short changing a very richly fleshed out region.
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See I've been adding a lot of fey elements to the AP for the main reason that I never, ever use fey! Seemed like a great opportunity to dive right into their lore and now, as I more closely read the rest of the books, realize that the fey in general (and Nyrissa in particular) are used very, very little. Too little for my taste. I'm going to be playing up the fey, the Winter and Summer Courts and Nyrissa as a megalomaniac who holds a grudge for a long, long loooooooong time ...
I don't know if it helps with ideas but the fey backstory in my game sort of ties into Vordekai's story.
It also explains how gnomes came to Golarion and why the elves and fey don't get along in my world. I don't go into that too much here, but I managed to find a way to roll it all together fairly neatly in the end.
Winter was created and given power to seal and guard the portal, ensuring that no one would use it and nothing came through it. Summer was created to ensure that Winter would not become corrupt and open the portal. Each balanced the other and so their powers were commensurate.
The Shadow Court is all that remains of the noble houses that were corrupted, who were sentenced to return to Golarion and stay there, in a very unmagical place. Their role was to be the last line of defense in case the other courts failed, since they had all been tainted without losing their true essence and were immune to further corruption. They loosely translate into the Sluagh, if you follow Irish myth. Nyrissa was a member of one of the tainted houses, who was relatively untouched and was the lover of Count Ranalc. He saved her from her immediate punishment by secreting her away from the other Eldest. Eventually though they were found out, resulting in the punishment detailed in the AP.
So Vordekai arises and wants to open the portal and bring the power of the ancient Cyclopean deities (Elder Gods) back to Golarion to help fuel the rise of his empire.
So the last book is really an all out Fey war between Nyrissa and the Fey Courts that just so happens to take place in the PC's kingdom.
No other AP waits that late to reveal it's BBEG.
If you think this, you're kinda missing the point of the entire campaign.
The AP introduces the BBEG in Book 1, the main adversary of Kingmaker is: The Stolen Lands.
There is no ultimate overarching bad guy to face off against the PCs because the PCs are not the stars of this campaign. The star of the campaign is the PCs' kingdom, and the overarching metaplot is following along with the kingdom throughout the course of it's founding.
What the BBEGs from each book have in common is that they're a taste of the threats that a fledgling Kingdom would have to face. Each BBEG has a very different and rich history in the Stolen Lands. Part of what makes the Stolen lands so interesting is the myriad of threats and denizens it features, and the PCs have to face them all.
You could just make the campaign: "All fey, all the time," and say that the only problem in the Stolen Lands is the Fey menace, but IMO, that would be short changing a very richly fleshed out region.
Well - *I* don't think that (that was from the person I was quoting) but I do want a strong theme in my campaign. It certainly doesn't have to be 'all fey, all the time' I just want some fey elements in each book even if the BBEG of the book is undead or a dragon or whatever. Like I said the idea of having V and N be age old enemies is a good one and is just what I want to add. Enough hints at an even more powerful adversary in the future and it builds on everything I've been doing before. Heck i even had Nyrissa confront one of the PCs alone (although he never got a chance to see her) and had the PC detect the scent of peppermint and rotten vegetables when she was around. From that they given her the nickname "Peppermint Patty" lol!