The Hel King Saga, a free Pathfinder 2e sandbox adventure

[Kadulu]

The Hel King Saga, a free Pathfinder 2e sandbox adventure

Hello everyone!

For the past few months now, I have been working on a homebrew adventure made for Pathfinder 2e. I wanted to create an adventure of my own, inspired by Kingmaker from Pathfinder 1st edition. This adventure is meant to be a three-chapter sandbox adventure in which the PCs are encouraged to become kings or queens of their very own kingdom.

But I wanted to set it apart from Kingmaker, so the setting is completely different. The adventure takes place in a land far in the north of Golarion, in the Rimethirst Mountains (very close to the Crown of the World). The climate is harsh and cold, but there is a valley surrounded by mountains where life can thrive: this land is called The Frozen Frontier.

Chapter 1 is focused on exploration and discovery, here is the synopsis for Chapter 1:

Enter The Frozen Frontier, a land engulfed by the cold winds from the Crown of the World, and search for an ancient artifact of legend!

In this first chapter, you will discover long forgotten secrets, dating back to antique civilizations that conquered the Frozen Frontier long ago. You will forge unbreakable bonds with the mighty Svens, a powerful people, once chosen by Torag himself. And you will find out that the wild might not be the greatest threat you will have to face in this land.

Your fate awaits: will you rise to greatness or fall into oblivion like so many before you? Endure, Explore and Prosper in an unforgiving oasis full of opportunities!

I have read Chapter 1 back and forth trying to polish everything, but I am sure I missed many things. English is not my mother tongue, so please be forgiving if you find any typos. Your help is welcome to correct or add anything I might have missed.

I have put a lot of efforts into designing every map and asset I have included in this PDF, but I am not a professional artist, far from it... It was in fact my first try at map building, using Gimp, or even trying to draw in general, I did my best^^

I hope you will enjoy it, please share your thoughts with me, I would be delighted to know someone has read it, or even played it!

Links:
The Hel King Saga - Chapter 1 The Frozen Frontier.
Chapter 1 - maps without legends.rar.

PS: To the best of my knowledge, this publication should be in adherence with all of the requirements found here: https://paizo.com/community/communityuse. If anyone finds I have inadvertently gone against one of your intellectual rights, please let me know, and be sure this can only have happened by accident.

[Plane]

You've put some effort into this. Good job. Here are some areas I would work on:

• Formatting - Study some Paizo adventures. Your format isn't easy to reference.
  
• NPCs - This is a formatting example. You have npcs, but you don't have statblocks for them. You don't have a list of them. That's hard to reference.
  
• Sandbox - This style requires a lot of detail to bring the area to life. Your first document only provides a few locations and encounters.
  
• Fonts - Some of your fonts, especially on maps and in bolded text, are very difficult to read.
  
• Map compasses - These are tilted so North is to the right. That's fine, but your letters are sideways. That's not good. N looks like a Z.
  
• Test your names in google - An example: Frozen Sven
  

Keep at it. The only way to get good at writing adventures is to write adventures.

[Kadulu]

Thank you for your feedback, I will look at the names, the NPCs, the fonts and the compasses as soon as I can.

The formatting of the document has been a problem for weeks now, I have been trying to apply my meager skills improving it, but I guess this is the difference between professional and amateur work... This is probably the main reason why I do not consider chapter 1 to be complete yet.

Testing names on google is not something I would have thought of! I will look it up and see if any awkward names come out^^
I love Sven in Frozen so... Even if it is involuntary, I like it :p

[Plane]

Don't put yourself down by saying your skills are meager. I'm working on a project myself, and I don't have the funds of a company like Paizo, so I'm learning map-making myself. I researched several map applications, and searched for tutorials. The best advice?

"The way to get better at making maps is to keep making them until they don't suck."

In 3 months, I've thrown out a lot of maps. :) But I'm happy now. You just put all your work together in a published format. That's something almost no one goes the extra mile to do.

[Kadulu]

Thank you for saying that :)
Still got a long way to go with chapter 2 and 3 though^^

[PochiPooom]

I will take a look at that and give you feedback, but I don't have time this week.

[Kadulu]

I understand reading all 58 pages requires time don't worry!

Your feedback will be very appreciated, I'm eager to hear back from you! :)

[Nathan Nasif]

Dotting for future perusal.

[Kadulu]

Nathan Nasif wrote:

Dotting for future perusal.

Not sure I understand, does it mean you'll read it later? :P

[Arcaian]

Kadulu wrote:

Nathan Nasif wrote:

Dotting for future perusal.

Not sure I understand, does it mean you'll read it later? :P

The normal forum usage of 'dotting' is basically just saying 'I'm posting here so I can easily find it again later', this time explicitly because they want to read it layer, yeah :)

[Animism]

Yeah, it's kinda like bookmarking a page to reference/read later.

dotted ;)

[Here4daFreeSwag]

Good to have some free Hel King Saga stuff for PF2e. :)

[graystone]

You had me at free! ;)

I'll comment when I get a chance to look it over.

EDIT: On a quick look, it looks pretty good! I've paid for adventures that didn't look this good. If I had a complaint, the overland map was quite hard to read the numbers [too small] using my tablet: even on my laptop, I had to fit to width to see the numbers clearly. That's a minor quibble though.

[Kadulu]

graystone wrote:

You had me at free! ;)

I'll comment when I get a chance to look it over.

EDIT: On a quick look, it looks pretty good! I've paid for adventures that didn't look this good. If I had a complaint, the overland map was quite hard to read the numbers [too small] using my tablet: even on my laptop, I had to fit to width to see the numbers clearly. That's a minor quibble though.

Hi!

Thank you for starting to read the adventure, I really appreciate it :)

About the overland map I agree with you. This map was the first map I've ever created and I made a few mistakes along the way that I don't know how to correct without redoing everything... Maybe I can resize the numbers I'll test it out and see if it improves the lisibility.

Thank you for your compliment, I hope you'll have a chance to play it someday! :)

EDIT: I have doubled the size of the numbers on the overland map, and increased the thickness of the hex grid, it not beautiful but it should be clearer. Tell me if it's better :)

[Kadulu]

Arcaian wrote:

The normal forum usage of 'dotting' is basically just saying 'I'm posting here so I can easily find it again later', this time explicitly because they want to read it layer, yeah :)

Ohhh ok! Thanks for the explanation xD I'm usually more of a reader of this forum, I don't even login most of the time so... I didn't know of this functionality :p

[Cellion]

Really impressive work, especially considering the size and scope. As graystone said, I've also paid for 3rd party adventures that don't look this good (as far as formatting/maps/visual design goes). I think your overland map looks very professional and the other encounter maps look pretty good.

After a skim through the adventure itself:

I like the general concept of "go find this sword that has fallen into the hands of a bunch of cyclopes in some underground location". Its a simple adventure starter for an exploration campaign. Once the exploration gets started, there's a good variety of side tasks and things to stumble upon, and there's a few clues to lead the party eventually to the cyclops hut.

Intentional or unintentional, there are some serious Skyrim vibes from this adventure. Just the "Sven" name and the icy setting already point in that direction, but the presence of undead as a major antagonist and the "chosen warrior" narrative beat (ala Dragonborn), seal the deal. I personally like it :)

The crypt is short but looks pretty fun, with a puzzle, some combat, and a dramatic set piece encounter at the end. I particularly liked the way it asked you to briefly split the party.

Some broad feedback:

I found at least half a dozen errors in stat blocks and rules text before I stopped counting. There's definitely a need to go through with a fine-toothed comb to clean all this up. Several of these errors make things not function at all (like the artifact's ability to make its damage "Radiant", which isn't a defined damage type in PF2E).

The writing is not bad for someone with English as a second language. In general, I was able to understand what you were trying to say. However, if you are able to find someone to do so, I would strongly recommend getting an editor or co-writer to help revise the text for clarity, grammar, and natural turns of phrase. For example, the way you use the "Sven" name as a name for a whole culture of people (and the way you sometimes call them "Svens") does not read very naturally in English. (It doesn't help that Sven is a given name. Its just like calling something the "Steve Civilization", the "Steve people" and "Steve culture")

Many of the locations could use some descriptive detail to help set the scene for both the GM and the players. There's very little descriptive text in the adventure right now.

The encounters presented could benefit from some information on their expected difficulty, just so a GM knows what to expect from each encounter. This could be done the way Paizo's current adventures do (difficulty descriptor vs. a particular party level), or your own way, so long as it gives some kind of indicator that's clear at a glance.

[Kadulu]

Hello Cellion,

Thank you for your thorough feedback, I really need it to improve chapter 1 and to try to avoid making the same mistakes in chapter 2.

I'll answer to point by point :)

- The Skyrim vibe was not on purpose but now that you tell me about it, it's obvious. I suppose I have been influenced by this great RPG like anyone else. :)

- The crypt was meant to be "shortish", I know that many groups of players can get stuck on enigmas for quite a long time. And those groups can be frustrated if on top of that the dungeon is too long. I wanted the crypt to be short and intense, with a cool combat at the end. In chapter 2, the main dungeon should be longer though, I have already started working on it, and I have many ideas.

- I am very disturbed by the fact you found mistakes in stat blocks and rules. It is a very serious problem in my opinion, if you could tell me about the other 12 mistakes you found I would be grateful. I have GMed pathfinder 1e for years and I suppose the two systems blur together in my mind... I have tried to reference everything rule related I used but it seems I failed to avoid making those mistakes :(

- For the writing, I expected this feedback, even in my mother tongue I'm not a good writer. Problem is, I don't have anyone to reread everything. If anyone on this forum is interested in being the co-writer I'm more than opened to the idea, contact me via private message!

- Your idea to give an expected difficulty indication is great! I have already added it before every encounter. I hope it will be enough ;)

[Cellion]

@Kadulu: I didn't jot down all the errors I saw. I can give you a few examples from one stat block, the Weak Warg Pack Leader.

Need to provide trait tags (ie. "NE", "Medium", "Beast"), or the GM does not know the size of the creature.

"Darkvision" should not be bolded and separate from the rest of the Perception line.

Orcish should not be on its own line.

The starting level of a warg is 2, so the weak adjustment to HP should be -10 HP.

Multiple spelling issues on the Avenging Bite ability

No damage type on the jaws attack, also missing the grab property on the jaws attack

Pack attack should not cost an action as it is a passive ability

For your encounter difficulty indicators, since you haven't associated a level with them, its unclear if an encounter marked "moderate" is moderate for a 1st level party or a 4th level one.

[Kadulu]

That should be corrected, except for the HP which I intentionally changed. I have also corrected the same mistakes on the other stats blocks.