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Hello everyone.
I am an exceedingly infrequent lurker and even rarer poster to these forums.
I've decided to run Curse of the Crimson Throne in Pathfinder 2e. It will be my first time running in 2e and I'm very excited for it!
This is for me to get my thoughts out, as well as perhaps get some insight from anyone who's offering. I've ran all of Rise of the Runelords and 1/2 of Strange Aeons for this group, so we are well-versed in playing together and prioritize roleplay and character over combat. In the past I haven't done much to tweak any AP to suit my party better, but in this case I will be.
To prepare, I've read about half of the adventure and much of the back matter in the Anniversary Edition and have spent some time perusing the forums here.
We had character creation last week, and everyone seems to be settling into a similar kind of niche organically. All but one of the characters have some influence of death/undeath around them, and the odd one out is periphery to that. Here is what my starting party will be:
-Maeve, a human/changeling sorcerer with the undead bloodline. An... interesting mixture to be sure. She is unaware of her heritage and wants to learn more about it over the course of the campaign.
-Unnamed as of now, a half-elf oracle of lore. The eldest of 3 triplets who all are saddled with the blessing and curse of oracular powers. Grew up in Ustalav and moved to Korvosa. Don't have a lot of detail about this character yet.
-Unnamed as of now, elf duskwalker rogue. This is where things get wild. This player wants their character to have been a part of a noble house of Korvosa who have ties to the Church of Pharasma. Before the events of EoA, her house falls and she doesn't know who is responsible.
-Lawrence (or maybe Ludwig) human dhampir monk. This character is tied to the previous one and are creating the backstory together. This is the servant of the duskwalker.
With a character wanting to play in an invented noble house with a mystery baked in and ready to go I have a lot of options from the get-go. With what my players have done and talked to me about, they are very much looking forward to intrigue in the campaign so I think that side of the campaign needs to be buffed up.
This noble house will be a minor one, of course and will have ties with the Grand Cathedral of Pharasma. I think it will be located in or very close to The Grey District. The PC duskwalker was created from one of their ancestors. The members of the house are killed, perhaps while the PC is away with her servant - which means I need to decide who-dunnit and why. My current thought is perhaps this is the first move before the events of Seven Days to the Grave to ensure less help and monetary assistance can go towards stemming the blood veil.
I will need more interaction from the noble houses to assist with this subplot as well as to maybe keep the trail off Illeosa for a book or two. (Plus, the players want intrigue and perhaps houses vying for control of the Crimson Throne!) I'm also considering her maybe not being responsible for either the murder of Eodred or the blood veil.
I am already planning on making some tweaks to the beginning of the campaign so that they don't kill Lamm right away which will serve the dual purpose of spending some time in Korvosa before the riots start, and possibly meeting Eodred before he passes away. The assassination of a noble house over night followed shortly after by the death of the king means that riots starting quickly will probably be less jarring.
I have ran two sessions of the campaign at this point, and like I mentioned, I've been shamelessly stealing other peoples' ideas to fluff up the beginning of the campaign and get the players more involved in Korvosa before the king dies.
The game began with giving each character an individual scene and what their stakes are:
Maeve human/changeling sorcerer. Is a shop owner, selling various herbs and tinctures. Yargin and one of the lambs came into the shop, looking to steal some of her supply. When she noticed, Yargin shoved her into a storage room and tried to burn the place down. Luckily, it didn't spread and not much of her stock was destroyed, leaving mostly aesthetic damage.
Maeve didn't have any luck with the guard, but on her own time she learned more about Yargin being tied to Gaedren. She wants vengeance, less for herself than the others he's hurt; however her primary goal is to save the lambs.
Drake is half elf oracle, son of a big shot in Ustalav. He's an emissary who's had some of his father's investments stolen. His motivations are self-motivated, and he doesn't want his father to learn anything is awry. I think I will introduce the minor character of Amprei in the future since he and Drake run in the same circles.
The last two characters decided to create a duo; a noble and their butler. They are members of a created minor noble house called Arisen, a family very closely allied to the Church of Pharasma, and would do some charity work healing the wounded. Their manor is in the Grey, right on the edge of the district.
The noble is a young (roughly 16-18) elf duskwalker rogue named Lyros. They are the reborn soul of one of the heads of house - Loros Arisen. Lyros doesn't consider themself to be the same person, though the others in their house do, especially Loros' sister Lyvi. Lyros thinks of her as a grandmother, putting them very much at odds with the Arisen household, though they conduct themself as properly as the family expects.
The butler is an human dhampir named Laurence who looks to be in his 50s. He was found as a baby abandoned in the Grey by Lady Lyvi Arisen, raised by the house, forever instilling his loyalty. They treated him well, but he never took the family name, instead going by 'Laurence en Korvosa'.
A month before EoA, there was an attack on the Arisen's house. Lyros and Laurence escaped, going into hiding. They have reason to believe Lamm is connected to the attack, but not why. As far as they know, no one survived. During the first session, they visited the manor for the first time since the attack. It has been boarded up and the bodies have been removed - but they could find no evidence of who was responsible.
I am thinking the attack was carried out by the Red Mantis assassins, though who hired them I am not yet sure. I had thought perhaps the Arisen's were taken out as an early move to weaken the city against the blood veil. Any suggestions here would be helpful.
I'm also unsure how the city would handle such an event - the members of a minor noble house slaughtered overnight. Would the Church of Pharasma take care of the corpses? In any case, the city starts on edge after hearing about this. As I said in my first post, this will make the descent into anarchy after the death of Eodred less jarring. The dominos are already falling visibly to the PCs.
Continuing how to handle the political situation, I want there to be more intrigue in the game around the death of the king and also with the destruction of house Arisen, but I'm not sure how best to handle it. I want Lyros and Laurence to come into contact with multiple nobles and have to decide who they can trust, if anyone.
How have I carried on since introducing the characters - they are drawn to Zellara's after having their introductory scenes. I ended the first session with her beginning to perform the Harrow, and I linked the short story on this site to them to read during the week in between sessions. They thought that was really cool, and helped them to trust her.
The second session I performed the Harrowing, and it was damn lucky the order in which I drew the cards - it basically ended up with the interpretation that they would accomplish this goal (finding and getting vengeance on Lamm) but then disaster would strike. The card after this 'victory' card was the Avalanche. They dug the reading, and asked if this would continue over the course of the campaign.
Rather then sending them straight after Lamm to the Fishery, I had used some other people's ideas of running a module. I implemented St. Casperian's Salvation and the Splithog Pauper is not an accomplice of Lamm's but a competitor in the shiver business - the PCs do not know this. They don't know who is in charge. The PC's decided to stake out St. Casperian's, and after it being quiet and rather innocuous, they are going to go in and fight their way to getting some answers.