Gestalt ruins of Azlant: Shouting at the void.

[AtlasSniperman]

Hi everybody,
I'm running a gestalt campaign of Ruins of Azlant. But, sadly, everyone I know IRL who would be of use to talk about the GM secrets of the game(I have to talk about stuff) is part of the campaign. So I am making this thread to just kind of throw my little notes at. Somewhere for me to talk about what's happening. So if you are one of my players, and you'll know who you are by now. Please don't read this.

Not so much a play-by-play, more just a place to shout at the void. If the void shouts back, so be it.

The party at the moment(though they are constantly afraid of dying xD) are:
Tyrael, an Angelblooded Aasimar Paladin|Mesmerist
Narissa, a Merfolk Bard|Oracle. Through agreement with the player, the oracle's deity is Elion, which will slowly be revealed to her.
Kildris, a Tiefling Unchained Monk|Arcanist
Zolon, an Aquatic Elf Unchained Rogue|Magus

Some caveats and side notes:
This is gestalt, I have to adjust the CR of encounters to make up for the power of the PCs, and the players are aware of this and accept that sometimes I am going to make mistakes in difficulty.
Spoilers for the entire Ruins of Azlant adventure path. This is about my personal additions and tweaks, but in some cases they are heavily intertwined with the story of the game.
We're using group XP, so everyone levels up at the same time.
Zolon's player can only make it every two weeks, so has given me permission to run his character in the off times. This causes Zolon to leave the party to do his own thing apparently at random. This point may come up at later points.

So, first thing to put in:
THE BOAR

Introduction:

Since session #2, the PC's have been finding signs of a great beast on the island of Ancorato. Starting with Kildris finding glass hoofprints on the beach, leading inland. The group started to suspect something bad when, when hunting boars and dire boars for food, they found the creatures were already beaten and bruised and in some cases heavily scarred with burnt flesh. They have also found a strip of burnt plantlife circling the entirity of the Talmandor's Bounty colony at a range of 400ft.

Status:

To the relief of Kildris' player, the creature in question has been revealed to not be a nalfeshness but instead a "Giant Hellfire Titanboar" which is subjugating all the wild boars and daeodon on Ancorato. Tyrael and Zolon were captured by the creature, Tyrael awoke to find himself crucified. Zolon tucked away an empty flask after Tyrael came too and informed him that he was forced to do this or be killed himself. When Zolon was moved away from Tyrael's sight by the boar, the Aasimar freed himself and fled. In freeing himself, he heard "the boar" talking to an intimidating force of some discription that threatened to call down 'its allies' on it if the boar didn't obey as agreed. This is also the first namedrop of 'Ochymua'

Plans:

The Giant Hellfire Titanboar considered itself a 'big fish' in the azlant islands and is now very threatened by several growing forces, and is attempting to assemble an army to protect itself. I hope for the boar to simply be a sideplot arching villain until the party are able to take it on face-to-face. At which point I can give the group a nice epic landscape for a fight against a typical big brute enemy with lots of little ones, without it seeming like something I just threw in as a random encounter.

Acavna's Soulgate

Introduction:

In exploring the temple to Acavna and chatting to the celedons, Tyrael succeeded at a "Gatefinding" skill unlock attempt and found a LG soulgate at the centre of the temple. The Celedon's claim it leads to the home of their mistress and was the portal through which she brought them to the material plane.

Status:

Tyrael is very interested in this notion, as the soulgate is LG and yet Acavna was CN

Plans:

Starting as an error on my part, I had to figure out how this soulgate became LG in case the group ends up going through eventually. The idea I came up with is as follows; according to lore, when Acavna died, her herald 'Olhondias' wandered the Maelstrom collecting pieces of acavna's former realm that were raided following her death. Eventually he settled down in the Maelstrom city of 'Basrakal' and has been actively attempting to ensure Acavna does not return. With that in mind the goddess Myr recruited the assistance of a Lillend Azata to guard one of the remaining temples from acavna's domain. This temple is the one linked to the material plane, and through the eons of upholding its agreement, the lillend has become LG(not unusual for Basrakal inhabitants to be 'wrong' alignments) and her change has infected the soulgate.

The Choker

Introduction:

When initially clearing Talmandor's Bounty, the players located a crevice in the well near the levin farm. After signs pointed to this being a bad idea to explore just yet, they continued cleaning the village and eventually retrieved the Peregrine and the remaining settlers. Once the town was filled, the very first decision by the party was to explore the well. Zolon was missing somewhere in the woods, so only three went down and were quickly swarmed and almost TPK'd by a group of choker children! Eventually they returned as a full group, with proper tactics. Sealing one passage and having Kildris buff his AC to all hell(ha), they were able to bottleneck and eventually wipe out most of the choker children. After readying themselves, the group moved through the complex a little further and got in a fight with the remaining children and the choker 'parents'. When only one adult(the father) and one child remained, the choker father literally begged to be allowed to leave in peace. Tyrael, Narissa, and Zolon agreed and did not attack as the two fled on their turn.

Kildris did not agree. He followed the chokers a short distance, and after killing the child, he turned to the adult and stated. "Now you may leave"

Status:

Since that point, the Choker has appeared in the background several times. Most notably, he was present outside the boar 'grove' and gave a signal to Tyrael on when best to extridite himself from the crucifix. When Tyrael, moments before escaping, asked why. The choker responded "I will have my revenge." At this point the party is convinced that the Choker will be returning for a 1-on-1 duel with Kildris, and the entire party agrees that no-one will interfere with this fight.

Plans:

This is the prime opportunity to trick the players even a little bit.

The choker has no interest in fighting Kildris or any member of the party! In fact, he does not blame them for what happened. Instead, his reasoning is a little more complicated; The party cleared the well cave not because they were bloodthirsty, but because the creatures down there were a threat to the colony. They only thought to consider the things down there a threat, because the colony had been cleared out once already. Basically, the creatures to blame are the ones that cleared out Talmandor's Bounty initially, not the PC's which were a consequence of those actions. The Choker wants revenge on the Faceless Stalkers that will be attacking the colony in book 2. I intend to boost the power of the final boss of that adventure a little more than I should and give the choker class levels, so the choker feels like a necessary/useful component of the battle.