Worldwound Campaign Setting: Drezen Differences to AP

[laraqua]

Now I noticed a very easy to justify difference between the Drezen in the Worldwound Campaign Setting book and the Drezen described in the AP. The setting book states that Drezen has a population of 7,489 humanoids with roughly half as cultists and the other as prisoners and slaves. The AP only has a several hundred tieflings and cultists - though most were likely marched down toward Nerosyan with the bulk of the demonic forces so that's pretty much explained in the AP.

How about all of those slaves and prisoners, of which there's only a couple hundred in the AP? Well, the AP doesn't want you to have to manage all those folks and all the cult conspiracies, spies and simply broken nervousness that would include. That makes sense. It would turn it into a very different game. Perhaps most of them were slaughtered before the main armies marched out so they couldn't cause trouble? Perhaps Invidiaks saddled up the majority alongside other possessing entities? Perhaps the demons, in their excitement, wiped them out just because?

Heck, since the Setting Book is set in the tail end of the Fourth Crusade, then mass starvation and plague could have set in and wiped them all out prior to the PCs taking Drezen -- which would certainly add to the horror themes.

But! If you want to include more prisoners and slaves or other sorts of folk, you certainly can.

Plus I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the initial inhabitants in Drezen were wiped out by abyssal contamination that drove them mad and made them kill each other. If you like, you could have a bunch of Warped Ones still sealed up in an old ruin who could break out and cause some action at home if you like.

[Zilfrel Findadur]

i like this, i would put more slaves in Drezen :D and some of them would be evil and would steal resources from the city.

[Raltus]

You do get a second "army" of 200 ftgr lvl 3 guys in Dreznan, you could say they are the remain slaves whom have yet to be executed.

[j b 200]

Most of the Demon armies have been pulled out of the north end of the worldwound and sent to attack the southern front. That's why the city is so empty. Also why you don't have to fight Aponavicious to get the Sword of Valor.

[James Jacobs]

The previous post is correct.

The version of Drezen presented in the Worldwound book is the starting point for the city; the way it is when you start the Adventure Path. Once you get to the 2nd adventure, the situation of the worldwound has changed DRAMATICALLY and things are adjusting as a result. In fact, the whole point of the 2nd adventure is...

Spoiler:

... due to the fact that Deezen's super-powerful leader has left the city, and took with her most of its forces to join in the attack on Mendev far to the south, NOW is the perfect moment for the PCs to do something that Mendev's wanted to do for decades—re-take Drezen. It's the first time something like this has happened to Drezen since it's original loss; the demons have been pretty good at defending it until this point, when they move out to pursue the start of the endgame elsewhere. It's one of the early mistakes the demons make tacically in the AP, and the PCs are there to capitalize on that error.

If your PCs decide to go to Drezen before the first adventure in the AP begins, or at some point halfway through the 1st adventure, then you should absolutely use the information in the Worldwound book to TPK them. ;P

[Thrandr]

You can also add more "life" to Drezen without any dramatic changes really.

Spoilers follow :-)

My PCs were stupid enough to let the mercenary army they freed fight on the frontline in the battle to take the courtyard of the citadel, even though it was much more vulnerable than the paladin army, resulting in the army losing most of its HP. This of course resulted in a lot of death - but there is also the maiming and wounding. I set up a felt hospital, we played it out, they visited the wounded, they walked around the camp, sent out paladin scouting groups and so forth.

And adding a few minor extras really doesn't change that much. The found a few thiefling children hiding in the city, there are the survivors from the enemy armies and I added an extra NPC to their entourage before they left - a seemingly prejudiced, racist and very strict judge which I had to make up on the run in module 1. And of course then there are all the other NPCs + the candidates for redemption.

All this makes for more than enough roleplay in between battles, and I actually rather like them being in an almost empty city. The city itself can be made to feel... alive? Haunted? Traumatised? Perhaps a bit of each, setting the atmosphere nicely for module 3 when they repair/redeem the city itself :-)

[laraqua]

Still gives you cause for plenty of mounds of corpses if you want them, what with a few thousand prisoners dead ... now that can add to some creepy scenes. Whole buildings filled with dead bodies.... Oh, the smell!

Ooh, on the other hand, Aponavicius marching a few thousand prisoners in front of her armies as meat shields would make for some pretty nasty stories floating back to the PCs as well.

Either way, definitely not something you have to include as the article was absolutely written prior to the AP but food for thought for those looking for a reason to make changes.