Please understand, the following are just opinions and musings of mine. To those that like this AP as is... more power to you. :)
Recently, I've been re-reading my APs. Serpent Skull has been "meh" for me. I'm ok with the first 4 books except that the City of Seven Spears needs further fleshing out and some tidying up, so it doesn't feel like 10 people just threw some random stuff together and painted it orange like the cover.
The biggest gripe I have with this AP is that I realize that I really hate the Urdehfan. I just don't like the flavor, the cenobyte look, etc. I'm also a big fan of Underdark adventuring like the old "D" series of AD&D.
My solution was simple. I've replaced all Urdehfan with Drow using mostly just the Monster Codex.
1) All Urdehfan Guards were replaced with Drow House Captains with 2 more fighter levels added.
2) All Urdehfan Skirmishers were replaced with Drow Master Scouts with 4 fighter levels added.
3) Belkor was replaced with the Drow Demonic Champion with 4 more Anti-paladin levels. This was a fun build btw.
4) Izon is replaced with the Drow Matron Vulissakra Rasivrein, not much work here except eliminating her magic domain. The Demonic Apostle archtype should only have one domain.
The explanation of these changes in short...
House Rasivrein was nearly decimated recently by a secret alliance between other houses. The survivors under Matron Vulissakra fled Zirnakaynin, etc. Finding the legendary city of Ilmurea and plundering it's secrets had always been on Vulissakra's agenda, now she's determined to find it and plunder it for items of ancient power to strike back at the rival houses, perhaps even Ydersius returning might suit her purpose, if the old god can be pointed at Zirnakaynin.
It's a story in progress. A jungle romp with solid Darklands adventuring flavor kind of brings this AP into my top 5. Now I just have some work to do with the City of Seven Spears...
Apparently, the Dark Elves are not an option anymore.
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Apparently, the Dark Elves are not an option anymore.
As GMs, we can make anything options. I still play 1e anyway because of the flavor of 2e as well as the setting itself. 2e seems to be altered by RL situations too much for me. I could do a major rework of 2e Golarion but I like where the setting is at in 1e.
Without getting into too much detail, I had Ilmurea trapped in dimensionally sealed bubble underground - it didn't seem sensible to me to have the city merely moved underground where the serpentfolk could simply tunnel their way out instead of being legitimately trapped.
The trapped serpentfolk used their magic to try to survive and evolved into urdefhans. I removed all drow and other races that came after they were trapped.
Originally before I swapped out books 3 and 4, I was going more Spielberg with the Seven Spears. Basically, drop a massive spear into the earth, rinse, repeat, and after the seventh such spear, it would open up an underground shaft (probably in the center of the city) with an elevator-like mechanism that would take some time bringing the PCs that far below.