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Hey lads! I'm going to be running Kingmaker using 2nd Edition rules soon as part of a Podcast- the details of which I'll be sure to plague y'all with in good time. However, I wanted to get a few things right!!
My players HEAVILY prefer storytelling over combat. A fight or two is good, but we're all big into improv, and want to be able to tell as good a story as we can! As such, we know there's some stuff that needs fixing. Allow me to regale a few of the things I know for sure need fixing up before we can touch it-
SPOILERS AHOY!
I know Nyrissa is a big one. From what I know, she doesn't appear until the last book, which is frustrating to many. I know the Kingmaker Videogame does something with her- I have yet to play much of it, but I did get up to a part with her appearing in a dream, so was suitably surprised to find out she was the BBEG. I don't, however, want to make her a huge surprise villain; I already pulled that with this group in Carrion Crown, and my players aren't fond of the "THEY WERE EVIL ALL ALONG!" trope. Her backstory seems to be one that could be woven sympathetically and tragically, and it's one I'd be interested in toying with- but I need to foreshadow her somehow. I'm considering having parlays between her and the party druid in dreams, but I don't know when or why these parlays should happen. Any advice on how to do her is extremely welcome!
Additionally, if the CRPG fixed any plot holes or added new plots that would be worth trying out, I'd gladly give it a shot- or any much needed fixes are welcome. Link me your rewrites, link me your ideas- I welcome any and all help I can get!
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What I've been doing, starting with the players' encounters with the mites in Stolen Land, is to make it known that a powerful fey has an interest in these unsettled lands. All the fey know it, and talk about it (though they generally don't know many details), and evil ones see it as a reason the lands are "theirs." The players call the powerful fey "the Green Lady" but she has other names.
This foreshadowing has manifested in a few ways in my campaign (I no longer remember what I've taken from others on these boards or made up myself):
With regards to the specific events of book 6, I've started having the players encounter "test runs" of Nyrissa's ultimate plot. Basically, they had to deal with an early "bloom" between books 4 & 5, and I'm about to spring another on them. They've already met some of the NPCs from book 6, as well, or heard their names.
Ohohoho... dude, this is some genius stuff! I'd actually scoured the forums and found a good few of your posts- the mites was a thing I was definitely gonna do, but now this is some really cool stuff!
Wow, thanks for the kind words! In truth I owe a lot to this forum and all the ideas that DMs have posted here over the years.
Recently one of the players summed up everything he could remember about Nyrissa (the Green Lady as they know her) and Thousandbreaths and the rings and the Castle of Knives and the rest. This was shortly after the end of Blood for Blood. Reading over it has reminded me that I've added a fair number of additional faeries to the campaign to help reinforce the players' knowledge of the BBEG.
1. the villain of one of the original players' backstories turned out to be an evil fey in search of the sword.
2. not mentioned in the link, but there's a faerie court near the Stag Lord's castle, presided over by an unstatted faerie known as the Owl Prince, whom gives them advice from time to time.
3. I took an early kingdom event and said it was being caused by spriggans who had come into the PCs' world via a faerie ring. The spriggans were kidnapping peasants and the PCs went through the ring into the First World to get them back. The addition of faerie rings to the campaign has led to other plot points and to other fey incursions.
4. I added a korred to the Lonely Barrow, placed there by Nyrissa to keep the fey-bane spear out of mortal hands.
5. After Varnhold vanished, more than just spriggans moved in; all the local faeries figured the town was theirs now, in the same way that all the Stolen Lands were said to be.
and so on. I'm always looking for places to insert fey into the story to remind the players of what's to come. And it seems to have worked! When the blooms come in earnest the players will be able to look back and see how it had all been building towards that point.