I'm in the midst of CoBI at the moment, and looking ahead to the next phase in the adventure path. The players have felt a little bit rushed in the last few adventures, with various time deadlines and pressure to move on, and not having time to explore their own objectives. So what I want to do is break up the pace between CoBI and SoS.
I always felt Lavinia's kidnap was a bit hackneyed, and as the party have had enough clues about Scuttlecove from pirates in ToD and soon from Thorogriff in CoBI, chances are they may have it on their list to visit sooner or later anyway. So what I was thinking is to pause and let them do whatever they want for a few months after CoBI, and maybe spring the Lavinia kidnap during their exploration of Scuttlecove, rather than being the impetus to drive them there. Whilst killing pirates, they find clues about the the kidnap plot, maybe get a chance to save her, and then hunt Vanthus to the prison.
Any thoughts on things to be aware of with this? Knowing my players, there'll be a lot of groaning and rolling of eyes if I play things as written, so keen to make it feel a little more natural
Also, in the 'downtime' adventures, I'd like to foreshadow the involvement of later key players in Enemies fo my Enemies, so they don;t seem too sprung out of the blue. Any ideas for bringing in the involvement of Iggwilv, Melcanthet etc in some sidequests?
You could link Tyralandi to Malcanthet instead of to Graz'zt.
If you delay the kidnapping, it would perhaps be a good idea to let Lavinia be kidnapped after the PCs have been away from Farshore for quite some time, so that they can get the idea that they have sort of neglected Farshore. I do not know whether that will work for your PCs. Or you could let them find clues in Scuttlecove that Vanthus is back, and that the Crimson Fleet is planning something which relates to the Abyss.