So, I finally have free time since I get out of university, and this would mean reading my printed collection of Pathfinder RPG. I've read Kingmaker AP in these days (I've played the 1st adventure as player, but never played as GM) and I really appreciate this "sandbox" campaign.
I want to try to change the main villain with another villain of my own creation, and the result was creating a cursed lord. Who said Ravenloft? That's right, praise Horror Adventures! Here his story:
Long ago, in the Age of Destiny, the Stolen Lands had their king. Not an human but a powerful fairy king, an erlking; and with him was his sister, the hamadryad Creiddylad. They loved each other, like a brother could love his sister (and vice versa), and the erlking was a member of Seelie Court - the "good" fairies of the First World.
But one day, Armag appeared. A young and brave human warrior, Armag was leading his tribe (the Tiger Lords) in the current Stolen Lands. The fairies feared the belligerent Kellids, but when the erlking showed up to intimate to move out Armag wasn't afraid and assured the powerful fairy king that he and his tribe didn't want to get in trouble with the Seelie Court. The erlking tolerated their presence.
Then, Armag and Creiddylad met. Armag fell in love with Creiddylad, and the fairy queen return her love.
When the erlking found out, he was incredulous. How could her sister, her beloved sister, fall in love for a human? Surely Armag tricked her! But their love was true, and this made the erlking insanely jealous. He tried to separate them, sending gifts to Armag to persuaded him to give up on Creiddylad and leave his lands. He failed. He tried to talk with his sister, because it was impossible for a fey loving a human. He failed.
The erlking began to planning to kill the insolent human warrior. Creiddylad found out the brother's intent and, disgusted by his insane jealousy, she warned Armag. And this was the final straw: feeling betrayed, the erlking plunged his sword through Creiddylad's heart.
The Elders sensed the hamadryad's scream. The blood was still flesh when the mysterious entities intervened to punish the fratricide. The erlking was stripped of his name, and his fairy kingdom was wiped out by the Material Plane - creating the Stolen Lands. Lately, Armag became the undying champion of Gorum - to ease the pain of the death of her beloved fairy queen. And since then, the forgotten and cursed land was imprisoned by the madness and cruelty of this fallen Seelie. The erlking, now an Unseelie, is the Nameless King.
But in the Age of Lost Omens, the Nameless King has found a way to come back in the Material World. While he's unable to break his sentence, the evil fairy king wants to annex Pitax and the Stolen Lands and drag these mortal territories in his nightmare realm!
Now, the changes.
* The main villain: The Nameless King (with his sister) (CE cursed lord shadow lord erlking), CR 22.
* His realm: The Thousands Cries. This is exactly the Thousands Breaths from the original adventure, expect this place is not situated in the First World - this is the Nameless King's domain of evil, a cursed realm separated from the multiverse (Ravenloft style). While the Thousands Cries could have some similarities to the First World, this is a cursed and tragic world where a pale sun emulates an eternal twilight and those who don't succumb to evil are haunted and persecuted by evil feys and other sinister monstrosity. The Thousands Cries is a strongly chaos and evil-aligned realm, and every evil inhabitants of this realm has shadow template (or debased fey if the creature is a fey). Furthermore, I must have to select four magic traits for this domains of evil.
* His plans: Like Nyrissa, the Nameless King wants the Stolen Lands - but not because he wants the Elders' pardon. That region was technically his territory. He's unable to leave the domain of evil, but with the plannar thinning ability he can temporarily create a link with the Material World and sending his thralls and servants. If he's able to annex the mortal territories with his kingdom, he'll be happy to torture and torment his new "subjects". And then there's his sister: he wants Creiddylad's soul to bring her back from the dead.... for evil reasons, of course.
* His right-hand man: For his plans, the Nameless King was able to send one of his most strong and loyal agents in the Material Plane: the "Raven Knight", a vilderavn, and he has a key role to play in the campaing. The Raven Knight serves king Ivoretti disguised as a loyal general of Pitax, but actually he's preparing the annex of Pitax and Stolend Lands with the Thousands Cries. In the final moment of the 5th module the truth comes out: the Raven Knight shows his true nature and betray Ivoretti trying to kill him, so that he could replace him and donate the Pitax to his true lord.
* Briar: This was the erlking's blade, and with this weapon he killed Creiddylad. When the Elders punished and cursed the Nameless King, Briar remained on the Material Plane. But rather than reborn in the First World, the hamadryad's soul and conscience was binded in the blade. The location of the blade should be changed (if the Raven Knight should find the weapon, the Nameless King could get her back). Briar is a quite different from the original adventure: this artifact is CG rather than CN, and the vorpal special weapon ability is replace with the following abilities: fey bane (but only against evil fairies), defensive, lifesurge and merciful.
If you like Irovetti having him be the BBEG of the AP is super easy! There's almost nothing that hints about Nyrissa so the two or three things are easy to remove or switch them so they're pointing towards Irovetti instead) and end the AP with the end of book 5.
(Book 6 really does come out of nowhere if the AP is run as written.)
Yes but which things
I’m only at the first book in my DMing and I’ve just read the first two and skimmed the third so far
You would have to change how the unicorn died (or just remove it completely if you haven't gotten there yet) and maybe not have the ring found in the giant owlbear's cave at the end of book 2 be made of green hair. Oh, and maybe the books say that the denizens of the Stolen Lands mention a powerful fae... I can't remember. If it says that, don't do that.
Other than that, have it so that Irovetti was manipulating everything instead of some unseen force which can't even really enter the Material Plane.Very serious suggestion: Read all of the books that way you can decide if you want to change the end or not. Plus, that way you can plant the seeds for things to come. Book 3 doesn't have much of an impact if the PCs didn't know there was another town being built just across the mountains.
One of the main things I didn't like about Kingmaker, as written, is that the BBEG is so effective at hiding themself that the players literally have no idea what they're up against until the very end of book 5. when I ran it I added in enough that the players had an idea what was going on around book 2 or 3. But Irovetti would still make a very good BBEG if your players really embrace the mass combat and do things like infiltrate Pitax.
I kind of rushed through book 5 because it felt like it would be too involved and my players were gnashing at the bit to get to the powers behind the scene. But if I had played up Irovetti more it would've been easy to make his defeat feel like the climax.
Also, look into the Ultimate Add-Ons line from Legendary Games for more advanced rules for mass combat (and running a kingdom since it sounds like you haven't started that part yet).
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I have been reading the later books as much as I can, and I’ve also added a few pieces here and there (Most notably I’ve added the emerald spire superdungeon to the bend in the river on the top left of the map)
And I’ve been looking for as much political drama as I can find/make (which is hard because the AP really seems to gloss over this too)
This is like the third time I’ve ever DMed, and it’s something I really want to do well
When I sat down to run Kingmaker, I read the entire set first, compiled a list of every named individual I could find, and started browsing this forum.
As mentioned, there are a few, VERY Subtle hints foreshadowing the events of Book 6, that without some extra emphasis on your end, the party will NOT catch, and they may be confused when book 6 hits.
I have chosen the option, to be a bit heavy handed with these hints, and add more, such as shards of a mirror on many of the influence enemies, a half felt presence, and nature smells in odd places. The party already suspects that there's a hidden player, but we're only half way into book 1, and play VERY infrequently. As time goes on, I believe they'll make the connections. (This also allows me a wealth of time to fiddle with things, not everyone has that.)
As for politicizing the game, there are a number of REALLY impressive posts here that should give you all the ammo you need.
I've sown the seeds for an impending Wedding and Venture Capital funding round, based on idea here. I'm likely to implement ideas for the Monstrous/Troll Kingdom, when the time comes, also found here.
Dig deep, there's SO MUCH to be found, that it's hard to point to specifics without doing a disservice to the other great content authors on this particular board.
Another source of inspiration, depending on how deep you want to dig, is some of the (Successful OR failed!) PbP games. Some folks have some REALLY creative intro's, that you could cherry pick from.
Kingmaker has depth, but is so sandboxy, that you can add a metric ton from these boards alone, and make it an entirely different game. The OP is just one of ... hundreds? of solid, in-depth alterations of the path, which is what makes this particular AP one of the perennial favorites.
It boils down to what YOU, are up to doing, for YOUR game/group. Add what you like, and can handle. Don't go overboard if you don't think you are up for it. Most importantly, make sure that YOU, AND your Players, are having FUN.
I'm running Kingmaker for the first time, and I've been pretty unimpressed with Nyrissa. However, your question got me thinking. One of my players wrote 17 pages of backstory for his character, including some kind of mysterious cult that murdered his father. These guys will replace Nyrissa. This will be so much more interesting! Thank you so much for helping me get my brain working!