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I added a fun subplot to my Kingmaker campaign involving blighted fey.
Essentially, I didn't want Nyrissa to come out of nowhere, so in addition to the trolls and the owlbear and the issues with Count Drelev and whatnot, I had a fungal blight grow in the Narlmarches to the west of the PCs' kingdom.
It turns out the blight is being caused by a blighted fey (satyr) necromancer who was released from his prison in the plane of Shadow by our favorite crazy nymph. Her idea that if she can't find Briar, this fugitive fey will cause enough destabilization to allow her plan to come to fruition. He wields an artifact, a magical pitcher, that allows him to blight existing fey and reanimate humanoids as plant monsters, as well as to grow the Narlmarches and thus expand the blight.
The blighted fey satyr has no idea why he was released from his prison, but since the PCs didn't attend to him over the course of three modules, this is their in-between for Varnhold and the adventures with Drelev and Armag. Since the fugitive fey knows he is part of some kind of power game, he is trying to make alliances with any group who won't stop him from spreading his blight around. In the meantime, he has essentially turned the Narlmarches into his personal poison paradise, and the good+cold iron DR of blighted fey has been a hugely obnoxious (and thus fun for me) obstacle for the PCs, along with the need to resist poison since the entire place is now a toxic environment.
Now, the PCs are about to have the final showdown. Honestly, I don't think it's going to go very well because even if they "win," he will almost certainly teleport away. The blight won't end until they destroy his artifact.
Now that you have the gist, can any of you think of any additions to this plotline with your preexisting knowledge of Kingmaker? I intended this to be a challenge for around this level, but it has ended up being the de facto Bad Thing That's Happening to the PCs' kingdom, and I want to make sure it doesn't just end with a meek little slugfest.
That's a cool idea. Consider it yoinked!
@Lee Hanna
The original encounters from module 2 happened, but they were all murdered by a group of druids/rangers who were using any means necessary to stop the blight at the source. The leader of that group turned out to be the man who trained the druid PC in the art of fighting as a bear; he also killed her entire druidic circle. They took him down and stole the artifact he was going to use to send the blighted fey satyr back to wherever he came from. Said artifact can also be used to stop Nyrissa's plans, for which I have a political plot scandal from Brevoy ready to roll out.
All the blighted fey monsters are... well... blighted fey. The only modification I made was to give all the blighted fey the blighted dryads' tree stride ability, which the PCs found a homebrew alchemical solution for-- basically what are effectively hand grenades of 1d4 rounds of dimensional anchor. Typical enemy parties include at least one satyr (their pan pipes are annoying) and as many redcaps as I can throw. I'd love to use more powerful base fey, but it seems absurd to send legions of svartalfar or nuckalevees after the PCs, since I don't think the base creature would be around in any large number for the bad guy to blight. I go back and forth about what satyr necromancer will have accompanying him into battle, but it will probably be a nuckelevee (who they have seen but haven't been able to catch) and some Drow liaison (because he's looking for any sort of evil help he can get) who will basically be at the wrong place at the wrong time when the PCs barge in.
Sadly, even though I was happy with the idea of the blighted fey, I am displeased with my execution. Only after doing a lot of research in the past couple months have I really begun to grok what the fey are like-- and even then I felt compelled to ask J. Jacobs where he would turn for inspiration. They have too often just seemed like monsters with stupidly difficult DR-- they might as well have been Super Orcs. I would really play up their whimsy if I could do it all over again. On the bright side, I feel like I'm well prepared for First World sessions when the sixth module comes around.
No slugs.
Anyway... yes... any ideas for further follow-through in the storyline as I've designed it would be helpful. Glad you two liked it.
Out of curiosity, how did you build the satyr necromancer? Just satyr + blighted template + wizard levels, or something else?
@Spatula
Precisely.
When I came up with the blight, I just knew I wanted it to bring Nyrissa into the game earlier and to make FEY a more decisive presence in my players' minds. I was inspired for the "fugitive" angle by Daily Bestiary's "blighted fey" entry.
I am using Vordakai's spells almost exactly for this encounter, albeit with a bit more dispel magic at hand, since the PCs are using magic to avoid the poison in the air. When my PCs encountered the lich in module 3, they destroyed him handily because, as Lee Hanna noted, single boss encounters don't mix well with Pathfinder's action economy.
I actually commissioned a rad picture of their battle:
http://i.imgur.com/hjaH72Q.jpg
I felt like my party deserved a fight against a necromancer that felt a bit more epic, so I am going to make them fight three brute (probably a nuckelevee and a svraltalfar), the necromancer, and some mooks (the drow liaisons). If I didn't feel so cheesy making them fight another underpowered lich, I'd have thrown one at them on their way back from Varnhold.
This way I have a justifiably underpowered magic user (he's been in torpor in the Shadow plane for millennia) who's using a problematic artifact (an artifact pitcher that corrupts plants, animals, and fey when water is poured from it) and it protected from the action economy by his minions.
The thing is, they're level 10. I've learned to make all serious encounter CRs @ APL+3, and I predict they will triumph handily, even if a couple of them die.
First off, you guys suck. Between all these threads of great additions, ideas, etc. to Kingmaker, I want to /yoink waaaaaay too many ideas to fit into even two campaigns, much less one. :P
Anyhoo, that said, one thing about spell casters, especially those who have lived to a ripe old age (or turned themselves into liches) is that they are very intelligent and generally would prefer to avoid a direct fight if at all possible. After all, direct fights often end in one side being annihilated. So your satyr in this situation is certainly pleased with the increase in power that he has presumably seen as he has expanded his blight. However, he is also probably aware by now that the PCs pose a serious threat to his life should they come a knocking.
When they do come a knocking, the satyr can certainly offer a mutually beneficial exchange: information for being left alone. Essentially the satyr offers to keep his little bit of paradise (and maybe, maybe not abides by that) and in exchange offers the PCs what information/aid that he can. He knows that he is being used as part of a power struggle. Frankly, being a powerful necromancer, he is probably more than a little miffed at being used, so despite having freed him, he likely won't harbor a whole lot of love for N. Now, he may not know exactly who freed him, or why, but he should certainly know that somebody did. More importantly, you can let him have stolen a glimpse of N, or perhaps having heard her talking to him (presumably telepathically, etc.) Couple this with his age and fey origins and he may even be able to make a pretty decent guess at who is responsible, or at least a good idea as to what kind of entity is responsible. Furthermore, given that N obviously has not attempted to fully recruit him to her side, he can probably surmise that he really is just being used as a distraction -- which should clue the party in further that something much more troubling is afoot. Specifically, even Armag/Drelev are not really the true problem as they would not have the power necessary. Likewise, Irovetti is unlikely to be the culprit as well because how would he even know about this satyr? Everything points toward something from the First World, etc.
Now, all that said, assuming that negotiations don't work out well (by the way, I would have the satyr approach under a flag of truce, that way your good-aligned PCs should at least be hesitant to attack, even if negotiations go south) the satyr will now try to avoid a straight up fight. Rather, he'll let his minions do the fighting while he keeps to a distance, going invisible, teleporting, harassing from afar and possibly even getting the heck out of Dodge if things start to go south for him (which they probably will). He probably even has a Contingency spell set up to whisk him away to safety should the need arise. All this has the benefit of allowing the PCs a potentially powerful ally against N, or else providing them with a powerful recurring adversary who may even eventually team up with N, making Book 6 all the more difficult.
@Gargs
I like where you're going.
Drelev/Armag/Ivoretti are non-factors thus far.
What the PCs know:
They know from a letter stolen from the area in the blighted fey dungeon (Thornkeep), that he is recruiting allies for "a coming doom he cannot name." They have also seen pissed off letters from the necromancer (whose name is Ixion, btw) that say, "She" is the real danger.
They acquired a powerful artifact called the Steel of St. Sofamel, which is a hymn that has increasingly powerful effects when a sufficiently high Perform (Sing) check is passed. One of them (DC 45) would basically remove the end of Kingmaker. To my delight, since all these bad people want the Steel, there has been talk of burning it. Mwa, ha, ha, ha. Ixion wants the Steel because he wants to stop whatever it is that is fraying the edges of the First World and the Prime Material. He won't tell the PCs that. He just says bad things are coming, and he has approached them (in the form of a tapestry actually made from thousands of blooming and dying flowers) in the Thornkeep and asked that they surrender the Steel in exchange for his never bothering their kingdom again.
He would, of course, not keep his word. He's a crazy, CE necromancer, after all.
Actual stuff:
He's out of his gourd, and, like you've said, has these flashes of memory that indicate who N is and that the real problem might be N. But he doesn't know. He's atrophied, like Vordakai. He SHOULD be a 17+ necromancer, which is why the Eldest put him away in the Phantom Zone... I mean the Shadow plane.
Book 4 seed:
They have found barbarian corpses and boggard corpses on the western side of the Narlmarches. If they don't finish off the blight, they will have to fight barbarians with the Plant Creature template. (They've already battled numerous druids and rangers with said template.) They have also found the bodies of Drelev's men and noted that they were decidedly not up to the challenges of the blighted Narlmarches.
Book 5 seed:
They do regular business with Pitax, and during their annual festival, performers come from all around to challenge the party's bard. None have succeeded. They have received kind letters from Ivoretti, and they have no idea that he is a threat.
Necromancer tactics:
Yeah, Ixion SHOULD be smart, and he will definitely teleport and dimension door away if the chips turn down, but he also is a b&+&~#% crazy megalomaniac who honestly thinks that turning Golarion into a corrupted forest is a sound plan to defeat N, just like he thought it was a great idea to try to turn the entire First World into a blight millennia ago.
I mean, Vordakai could have bailed, but he was cocky and thus, "fights to the death." As an added incentive, Ixion is actively courting allies whenever the PCs arrive. He WANTS to look tough. I'm not looking to make him the BBEG. I still want them to meet with N. I just don't want that to be inevitable, so I am giving them other avenues of adventure. Word? Help?
What I added was something more in the vein of traditional sword and sorcery. I took an empty hex and put a cave stronghold there. Some roving Hobgoblins use the stronghold as a winter staging point and started raiding the kingdom in it's infancy.
They almost TPKed the rulers twice before the troop (roughly 50 "roaming" hobgoblins, and then 10 or so in the cave with a bugbear leader) was finally put down. And now they have a cave that doubles a storage area (defense +2 if they cultivate it)
So now the kingdom has a war on two fronts. The Stag Lord to the south and the Hobgoblins to the north who are still roaming, though stronghold-less.