| chunky04 |
Hello all, I am brand new to Pathfinder, but will soon be running a game of Kingmaker that we hope to turn into a podcast. Our Session 0 prototype recording session was unfortunately derailed when our audio mixer shorted out, but we have most of our characters created.
I have been perusing through these forums, and I must say, excellent work to all of you who have contributed such a wealth of ideas in this forum – you have very much made life much easier for me.
The PCs so far are below:
Maloch MacPheyson – male Human Wizard - Maloch was orphaned as a young boy, when his parents died of plague, which was blamed on rats. Maloch knew this not to be the case however, as he had at that age already gained a at familiar.
Maloch was taken in by a Master Wizard. Unbeknownst to Maloch, the wizard was originally from Cheliax, and fled the country after falling in love with a captured prisoner, whom he helped escape. They formed the core of an adventuring party for a number of years, which fell apart after the Chelians caught up with them and his love was slain.
Hopeless and despondent, the wizard took Maloch in after he tried to pick his pocket, with Maloch having a resemblance to his lost love and obvious natural magical talent (Maloch is no relation of the lost love - pure coincidence). My plan is that some time down the track, the Chelians will once again come for the wizard, and there will be potential diplomatic conflict involved if Maloch opposes them.
Also unknown to Maloch, his mother is actually a Fey, and is also the cause of the plague, having been forced to create it as an obligation to Nyrissa. She is actually currently being held prisoner by Nyrissa. This will allow me to foreshadow her earlier, and also hold his mother over him at some point in the story as an ace in the hole.
Amarah Phoenixblade – female Half Elf Ranger - Amarah is the daughter of a powerful noble in Kyonin. The Phoenixblade family goes back to well before star fall. At one point, they were the custodians of a Phoenix hatching ground, and the Phoenixblade was the symbol of this role and their family, however even before Starfall they had failed in their mission to protect it and the blade was lost.
Amarah’s father is a ruthless, power hungry individual who actually deliberately sired a Half Elf child after discovering a prophecy that the blade would be found by a half elf. Feeding her with legends and stories of adventure her whole life, Amarah’s relationship with her father is completely at odds with his actual nature. Amarah’s mother will be a Kellid Barbarian who was captured in a raid on Kyonin, and selected as strong stock. A big part of her arc will be the changing nature of her relationship with her father throughout the story.
I am thinking about having the father replace Irovetti and Pitax in the story, or possibly ally with them. The mother would be encountered in the Tiger Lords storyline.
I also intend to borrow an old Earthdawn mechanic and have the Phoenixblade found fairly early, but require Amarah to learn more about the history of the item to unlock its secrets and more advanced powers. As she unlocks more, her father will become more desperate to separate her from the blade before she surpasses him.
Those are the two characters whose players I have been able to talk to and flesh out their characters.
The other two:
Garland Alvarez – male Human Priest of Pharasma (Healing/Knowledge Domain) – this character was the last one created, and I don’t really know much about him yet, beyond that he is a fairly serious chap. I was originally looking at possibly changing out Vordakai for something else, but I think it might be that Pharasma has noticed the rise of this Undead threat and sent him as her Champion to sort it out.
Stuart Gruddliost – female Gnome Rogue Investigator – Stuarts way of staving off the bleaching (is the bleaching a canon thing, or is it only from the Jubilost story in the computer game? I am liberally borrowing from it in any case) is the search for new secrets, and ferreting them out is the core of his being. He’s not a selfish character however, and hoarding said secrets does not necessarily appeal – it’s the acquisition and chase that drives her.
I am hoping to add another PC, as I expect Garland’s player to be frequently unavailable.
Some of the ideas I plan to shameless steal erm adapt for the campaign:
- I intend to run the Stolen Lands with limited changing, probably more to add character specific stuff in
- Venture capital – definitely want to give this a go as a way to easily generate future kingdom concerns at the end of Stolen Lands, start of Rivers Run Red
o I am quite interested in the idea of Cheliax, and intend to include some of it in the campaign. How widely known is it that Cheliax’ rulership is devoted to the Devils? I am currently imagining that the way they are able to function is that any agreement they make, they will absolutely abide by no matter the cost, although as always when you deal with the devil, you better be careful of the terms.
o I see there are some Adventure paths that deal with Cheliax, are these worth acquiring? I assume they have decent lore similar to the Brevoy chapter in the Stolen Lands?
- I will have a strong look at using the Hargulkas Monster Kingdom stuff, and probably use at least some of it.
- I intend on trying to have Maegar Varn be quite friendly with the PCs, to the point of having a monthly exchange of letters, which will obviously go dead at some point, hopefully prompting the PCs to investigate to start off VV
- This relationship will then potentially be put to the test when they start talking to the Nomen.
| chunky04 |
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Ran my first session of this campaign a couple of weeks ago - basically did the first Oleg's scene and then they went straight for the bandit camp to try and get the benefit of surprise.
The party's ambush plan at Oleg's got thrown for a loop when a guest player controlling Oleg became much more aggressive once he was sure of the PCs backing, which made for an entertaining and unexpected change - Oleg nearly fell to the darkside!
The party, probably influenced by Oleg's mindset, became a bit bloodthirsty and rushed into the bandit camp, trying to mount a cavalry charge on the bandit horses.
This did not work well - the fighter Gunner got belted down to 4 HP and had to take a defensive stance to grind them down. The Ranger actually would have been one shotted by a max damage long bow crit, but I reduced the damage, and allowed a Heal roll from the Investigator to bring her back to 1 HP.
After that, the fight gradually turned the PCs way as they ground the bandits down one at a time, with Gunner defences proving impenetrable for the bandits, and the Ranger popping off bandits with some good rolls.
After running for it after rolling a 1 to resist Gunner's Intimidate, Kressle rejoined the fight and oneshot the Wizard to unconsciousness, then was later able to leverage a potential coup de grace and giving information on the Stag Lord into not being finished off by the party.
I look forward to Oleg's reaction to Kressle being forced to work off her debt to Oleg under his watch!
All up, we got around 3 hours of useful audio that I have edited down, and now need to break up into separate episodes.