So I've been posting around here for the last month or so, but due to conflicting schedules first actual session date keeps getting pushed back. Normally I don't mind playing down a player or two, but for the first session of the campaign I prefer everybody to be there.
But at this point, rather than pushing everything back another two weeks, I thought maybe I could instead run a one-shot adventure with half the party that works as a lead-in to the two groups meeting up at Oleg's and the adventure proper starting. Problem is, I am drawing a blank as to what do with that lead-in session.
I figure the most logical thing would be something that results in the PCs earning the attention of the Restovi government and being given their initial charter, and possibly including the road to Oleg's. But what could 2-3 low level PCs get up to in the middle of Brevoy that attracts that attention, and what if anything could be done to make those interactions more interesting/entertaining?
Hoping for any inspiration you guys might be able to provide. I figure worst case I can throw together something involving a bandit raid on the border of Brevoy, to make the Stag Lord seem like a more present threat and get the PCs into things early... but I know there's a lot of creative people here, and am hoping someone can provide a more interesting/unique idea.
(Note if you want to suggest specific monsters: the group tends to be mid-op and I have some house rules in play to make starting characters a bit more durable. This is already being accounted for in the main AP, but it boils down to most monsters up to CR3 or 4 being able to be used without a serious chance of TPK even with a small group.)
I don't think there's anything physically impressive enough to receive the charter. I think you need to look at something more political. Find the murderer of a nobleman or something.
The Indescribable wrote: I don't think there's anything physically impressive enough to receive the charter. I think you need to look at something more political. Find the murderer of a nobleman or something. That would probably be a more plausible scenario, but I have rarely seen a good mystery like that play out in game (especially one that has to be solved in one session), they usually end up feeling hollow. Though if you know of any good resources for running that type of a session, I'd be interested in it. It'd be a nice change of pace at least.
Do something political. Find the murderer, meet Maegar Varn, the Iron Wraiths, and Baron Drelev, get recognized and get charter. You could run a few fights, maybe have one of the Stag Lord's men (with a Stag Pendant so he's tied in later) be involved in the murder, etc.
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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Kingmaker Origin Stories
These are short adventures supposed to be played in conjunction with character creation.
Then you can just do some hex travel on the Road between Restov and Oleg's.
DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote: Kingmaker Origin Stories
These are short adventures supposed to be played in conjunction with character creation.
Then you can just do some hex travel on the Road between Restov and Oleg's.
I like this. I think I might string together a couple of them somehow.
Right now, I am thinking something like start out with the Pioneers (average folks on guard manage to impress a local noble), and the PCs rather than immediately being granted a charter sign on to her service. Enter a montage of flash forwards where the PCs get introduced to a few other significant people in the area (a few Brevoy nobles who may show up/be important later, and more notably getting some face time with Varn, Drelev, and the Iron Wraiths.
Mixed in with the flash forwards would be a few notable encounters taking place during their time in service where they continue to handle exceptional situations, culminating with The Crusaders' encounter (save a noble woman from some traitors besieging a building they are holed up in, and escape back to Restov), which earns them their charter. Finish up the session with them arriving at Oleg's.
Works out well since I can prep a dozen encounters and just cut as needed based on how much time things are taking. Rather than being a single act that earns them their charter, it is instead a culmination of extended service as reliable experts, earning the trust of the Swordlords and a reputation as individuals who can get things done.
I ran something for my players beforehand also.
They were friends with a sorcerer named Morian from this: -
The Wizard’s Amulet is a short, introductory adventure for six newly created first-level characters. The adventure revolves around Corian, a fledgling Sorcerer. While an apprentice, Corian discovered a letter written by a wizard named Eralion, who it is said some years ago attempted to become a lich—and failed. Accompanying the letter was a mysterious amulet with strange markings. Joined by newfound companions, Corian set off in search of Eralion’s keep and his supposedly unguarded treasure. But Corian is not alone in desiring to unlock the mystery of Eralion’s fate. Darker, more evil forces have designs on the secrets reputedly hidden with Eralion—forces willing to stop at nothing to obtain...
This adventure won the 2001 ENNIE for best free adventure...
They ended up pulling his bits out of the fire & his Daddy just happened to be
very pleased with that...
Daddy then pulled a few strings with the Swordlords to get the party onto a charter
after the previous party that was supposed to go were all killed...
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Whatever you pick, I suggest making it an session that shows the players what sort of game your Kingmaker is going to be. Here are some examples:
- Politics I ran A Song of Ice and Fire's Wedding Knight for my 0-level party when they were teens so they could see and dabble in politics and intrigue with sort of the safety net of not being adults. One of the other GMs here ran a formal ball where the party got to meet the other three charter holders and get introduced to some movers and shakers in their future. This works great to establish new and future NPCs that you wish to pull out further down the road.
- Bandits, monsters Have them deal with a small group of the Staglord's men who are more ambitious and have begun harassing merchants and a small village actually in Brevoy. Maybe they confront a few, or maybe their tracking leads them directly into the Stolen Lands. Perhaps while investigating, they meet a aging hunter who regales the party with the dangers of the Stolen lands.
- Adventure. Have one of your noble PCs (assuming you have any) traveling to attend the funeral of a distant relative. They leave a small stipend and their favorite horses to the party. If it fits your party, maybe they leave an ornate carriage (which should be quite fun initially in the Stolen Lands). Amidst their inherited items is a journal of contacts, creatures, mysterious locations, etc in the Stolen Lands. Mix in some inaccuracies, a treasure map (GMs you know what this might point to), possibly even detailing encounter locations that match up to some of the early bounties in Kingmaker.
- Pioneers. Have the party hired to deliver supplies to Lord Varn at Varnhold. He would just be arriving at the site of his initial colony and setting up camp. Let the party meet him and his significant others (his future council members). Maybe they meet an eager sage, maybe they see the seeds of future conflicts. Whatever happens, definitely show them things they will need to succeed in creating a permanent settlement, and possibly things Varn is doing wrong that they could do right. In this scenario, it is helpful if one party member has parents or a mentor who run a trading house, transport company, or hire out wagons as an easy hook.
Other great hooks(any of which could be added to an session adventure or even be the center of the adventure):
- Party finds a book of monster lore. Some are just myths, some of inaccurate, but many are helpful to the party.
- Party finds a book about the Fair Folk. This is a great way to inform them of things they can do to offend and appease fey. Also how they deal with humans, their outlook, what happens when you make deals with them, etc.
- party passes through a town and ragged dirty madman stumbling about outside of town. If the party asks one of the town guards, he tells them the lunatic was a sage of some knowledge before visiting a mystical island in the south, after which he has never been right in the head.
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Update: Finished my prep-work, and am running the first group through tomorrow. I'm really bad at knowing how long a given session will run or how long PCs will take to get through content, so I deliberately left room to pad things out if things are going by too fast, and lots of places where I can cut if it's going too slow. The idea is to hit each major beat during an 8-10 hour session, giving the PCs a taste of the stolen lands, a bit of the politics that are spawning the adventure, and introducing them to the setting and the major players.
Start: PCs are helping defend a village along the south Brevoy border until Restov can send relieve. Bandit activity in the area is reaching an all time high.
PCs end up repelling an attack led by Kressle that is an attempt to destroy the village as a message to others who would resist them. The PCs heroics in repelling the attack attracts the notice of Lord Lodovka who arrives a day or two later with a squad of soldiers to find the bandit problem already resolved.
Restov, impressed by the PC's resourcefulness invites them to travel with him back to Restov. Here the PCs will get introduced to Varn and Kesten Garess (this takes place before his public shaming and disinheritance), and get to discuss a lot of the politics of what's going on and generally get to know these three characters better.
Next Ledovka asks the PCs to go take care of reports of banditry at another nearby small town. Some investigation later indicates no bandits at all, but a group of fey who decided impersonating bandits was a fun prank. PCs need to deal with it one way or another.
After PCs deal with the fey issue in town, they head back to Restov and after some praise for their decisive action in handling the fey are told about the colony Drelev will be establishing in the Slough. This is the first colony to be established in the Stolen lands, and Lodovka asks the PCs to go along as 'general problem solvers'.
This section is primarily to let the PCs get to know Drelev, his personality and motivations, and pad out the adventure depending on how time is looking. If everything thus far is going quickly, Drelev will ask them to do some hex crawling around his capitol site, working in a number of random encounters. otherwise things go relatively uneventfully, with no combat really necessary, though at least one encounter is probably desired unless the session is already running really slow.
Upon arriving back at Restov, they hear that Varn has hired a bunch of mercenaries and is striking out to form his own colony. Lodovka seems skeptical, and wants the PCs to check in on how things are developing there. To have an excuse to go, he sends them with a small supply caravan. Traveling to the fledgeling Varnhold is another place where extra encounters can be added for padding, or ignored entirely.
At Varnhold, they find Maegar Varn is paralyzed with a combination of rage and fear as one of his mercenary companies (made up of about 10 soldiers) betrayed him and kidnapped his daughter, demanding to be paid the incoming shipment of supplies the PCs were bringing in exchange for her safe return. Varn is vehemently against giving them anything, but is also terrified his remaining mercenaries are similarly compromised. He will beg the PCs for their aid in the matter.
Regardless of how the PCs handle this (even just saying "Nope" and leaving) they end up getting their charter, and are told a few other similar groups are being sent, one other should meet them near Oleg's when they arrive (the remaining groups form the party that attempts to start the 4th colony). End of session.
Behind the scenes I am going with Varn has an intent to befriend the centaurs, something that Lodovka is adamantly against for reasons little better than Xenophobia. Lodovka actually paid off this group of mercenaries, with the goal of destabilizing Varn's colonization attempt, in hopes of demoralizing him and convincing him to come back home.
If the PCs fail to intervene in the matter successfully, Lodovka will act distraught but is pleased (sense motive checks can reveal this), and offer the PCs their charter giving the reason of "as a backup" in case Varn fails.
If the PCs successfully intercede, Varn will provide a glowing letter of recommendation, which Lodovka will acknowledge, acting pleased at their success, while privately being upset at the setback (again sense motive will reveal this).
Seerow wrote: Update: Finished my prep-work, and am running the first group through tomorrow. <snip> I really like what you're doing there. How did the session go?
RobRendell wrote: Seerow wrote: Update: Finished my prep-work, and am running the first group through tomorrow. <snip> I really like what you're doing there. How did the session go?
It went fairly well. I wound up having about twice as much material prepped as needed, due to more time than expected going towards character building and backgrounds.
The Characters:
Nilthena-A Raptoran Summoner with a Serpent Eidolon.
Jackson-A Human Warlord (Dreamscarred Press class) with a Paladin Complex (ie acts like a Paladin, not really a Paladin)
Axelle-A Human Aegis (another Dreamscarred Press Class) whose focus is on bashing stuff with a greataxe.
The first groups' backstories led to them being more likely to be in a town or city than a small podunk village, so I cut out the first part entirely, starting out with them living and working together in a small town a few days away from Restov. The group of fey was there, and the characters had started hearing rumors of strange happenings and decided to investigate. They eventually figure out what's going on, track down the fey to the abandoned house they are hiding out in, and strike up a deal with them basically boiling down to "no stealing stuff isn't acceptable. Yes pranking is acceptable. No, stealing teeth is doubly not acceptable" though that last point led to on the fly inventing the concept of dentistry for the tooth fairy to be able to still collect her teeth.
From there, a group of fey intermingling with society in a positive manner and generally behaving themselves attracted attention from Lodovka, who came to town to recruit the PCs (figuring someone who can broker deals with the fey will be useful to him). PCs get introduced, recruited, and brought back to Restov where they are introduced to Garess and Varn. They get some chit-chat time with the three of them, and get told the basics of the Brevoy political situation (from Restov's side of course) and about the plans to colonize the stolen lands and the reasoning behind it.
At this point I am realizing that they probably won't get much further than Drelev's and back in one session, so the PCs get sent to Drelev's fort-in-progress, and are told to assist in dealing with any problem elements, and upon their return how they proceed will be based on Drelev's report. The boat gets ambushed by a few boggards (remember my PCs are a bit tougher than usual).
They get to Drelev a day or two later and get to meet him (an overblown peacock of a man who considers his placement here to be a major slight against him rather than an honor in being sent to secure the most important area of the Stolen Lands). They take an immediate dislike to the guy, and do what he asks grudgingly at best. His requests basically boil down to "There's this thing in the area causing trouble and I don't want to deal with that, so go take care of it". The last case of this was a Young Wyvern in the area.
This time when he tells the PCs to "take care of the problem" they decide that doesn't necessarily actually mean killing the creature. So they go and damn near get themselves killed trying to knock the Wyvern unconscious. But they are successful in bringing it down, and the Summoner casts Ant Haul so the two other party members can lug this wyvern back to Drelev (with them taking an occasional break to smack it with some more nonlethal damage so it won't wake up). They get back to Drelev and manage to diplomance/intimidate a 500 gold payment in exchange for the still-living Wyvern he never really wanted.
Drelev sends them back with a rather scathing report about their manners, but Lodovka reads between the lines to see the PCs were merely strong willed enough to stand up to Drelev, and admires their chutzpa in capturing the wyvern alive. He declares these PCs are just the right kind of crazy for this sort of work, and gives them the initial charter. Along with the charter he gives the explanation that the more good they are capable of accomplishing in the Greenbelt the more help he will be able to justify (to the Throne) providing their colonization efforts. He also mentions he has two others who will be following shortly behind them, and they will meet at Oleg's.
So now I figure I'll run the entire other half of the stuff I had prepared for the other two players (start out with the Bandit Raid, get a chance to meet with Lodovka/Garess, and set out guarding a supply caravan to Varn, and then deal with the mess involving Varn's daughter/turncoat mercenaries).
I'm also really happy that the PCs sold Drelev the Wyvern. I really look forward to having that show up again all grown up with a competent rider down the line. And possibly some assassins armed with Wyvern poison.
Seerow wrote: I'm also really happy that the PCs sold Drelev the Wyvern. I really look forward to having that show up again all grown up with a competent rider down the line. They're going to hate Drelev so much :)
Sounds very cool!
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