Greetings, fellow travellers.
I have also doubled exploration time for the hills and plains parts of the Stolen Lands.
The Skunk and Thorn River were frozen over, but the Shrike River was not.
Blizzards were quote numerous which caused them to look for shelter in the open.
With a hearty population of (owl)bears (they I just kept rolling the same encounters over and over again), they had many a good fight over caves and other shelter in the hills and forests.
A lot of encounters with carnivoreous animals started with the animals going directly for their horses (especially when they were tethered for the night).
Wolves were a common sight (led by a worg or winterwolf - depends on level, obviously).
Tracking became a heavily used skill. There is a thread in this sub-forum talking about non-monster encounters broken up into season somewhere...
Orientation was more difficult, as some landmarks vanished.
I added a Fossergrim to my encounters and some fey circles carved in the ice of frozen ponds and such, since my campaign is more feyish than the AP as written.
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-- The PCs, at least at low levels, should hole up somewhere for a while... Oleg's perhaps, at least during the first module.
Unless the PC's are VERY slow, it is unlikely they will encounter winter during the course of the first module. It pretty much starts in early spring, and with the threat of the Stag Lord's reprisal it should finish in about a month, maybe a lil longer with additional exploration of the area. I wouldn't expect winter until the period between modules or during part 2.
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For kingdom building, I double the Consumption of every hex and city district in the winter. Players have gone through 3 winters since starting their kingdom. With 21 hexes and 3 cities, you should have seen their faces when Consumption jumped from 24 to 48 - BOOM! They've now built more Granaries (which, in my game, also double in winter) and winter becomes a good time to hunker down, maybe adventure a little, but not so much kingdom building.
Unless the PC's are VERY slow, it is unlikely they will encounter winter during the course of the first module. It pretty much starts in early spring, and with the threat of the Stag Lord's reprisal it should finish in about a month, maybe a lil longer with additional exploration of the area. I wouldn't expect winter until the period between modules or during part 2.
-- The PCs, at least at low levels, should hole up somewhere for a while... Oleg's perhaps, at least during the first module.
A month is really racing through the module. You can do it if you are just following the major plotline, pretty much ignoring the side quests, not doing all the exploration, taking very little downtime, and making few trips back to Oleg's, but I think that would be at the extreme lower end of the spectrum for how long it takes.
I think 2-6 months would be about average to finish the entire module, which includes all the side quests and exploring the whole area of their charter. Some groups will even be slower than that, if they are very cautious, return to Oleg's a lot, and take significant downtime.
My own group was pretty cauious and still finished the entire module in a little less than 4 months, moving on to the second module in late summer.
As for the OP's original question, I've modelled Stolen Lands weather after Minnesota, with long, cold, snowy winters. My group campaigned through their first winter, but after some tough encounters in freezing rivers, on frozen lakes and in knee-deep snow, they have since suspended campaigning and focused on kingdom-building in December each year and started again in April (I hate alternate calendars, doesn't add enough in immersion for me to bother to learn them).
My group's going to being the hexploring the stolen lands during the last half of Erastus. I'm expecting to wrap up exploring and begin castle building as the first snows fall. We'll see what happens, though.
Just let winter last 'til the end of Pharast, becoming a wet spring.
Ruyan.
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At the suggestion of other DMs on the Kingmaker boards in previous threads, I use this.
IMC the region is subject to supernatural weather (that being one of the reasons contributing to why the Stolen Lands have never been settled), causing extremely cold winters (normally in the negative 20-30s). the players have to rely on magic to keep from freezing to death in the wild, keeping wands of endure elements handy when traveling in winter.