My GMing style is quite improvisational, which can have interesting interaction with the more rigidly structured parts of APs. I generally try to stick with the story, while keeping in mind some changes and opinions about things, then see what develops at the table. Sometimes just throwing things out there, see what sticks, or integrating elements from the main plot in seemingly unrelated places.
But I usually try to take stock of my changes and to plan the stuff that needs planning at some stage, and I think I arrived at this point. The players (6) are about to enter the Urgathoan temple (they alerted the whole bunch while scouting the hospice, so I can skip all three levels of that and head straight to the final confrontation).
Now this means we're heading towards Escape From Old-Korvosa, which I didn't particularly like. The Arkonas seem a bit artificially inserted there, just as a mid-range "boss", and the whole Emperor/Blood Pig scenario doesn't seem too exciting, either. So this is the time where I will deviate from the plot a bit more, see what I can salvage and try to reinforce existing trends.
So let me recapitulate what I changed and some of the likes/dislikes:
- Gaedren escaped, and there was not that much effort chasing him. Devargo might have him, but the PCs never bothered him too much (they did free the pseudodragon, but mostly via summoned monsters/spells).
- I didn't like Ileaso's Evil Queen story. Currently I'm aiming to go into a more paranoid direction: She's not in league with the Urgathoans, but being manipulated will bring out her worst side.
- In line with that, she doesn't have the crown, but the PCs found that in some old ruins while freeing some of the king's harem turned into otyughs. They deposited at the church of Abadar. (I smiled a lot when they did this)
- The kidnapping was done by some Belkzen spies in league with a dragon cult. First hints at a draconic menace.
- Vencarlo mentioned to the PCs that it would be great if Black Jack would unite the citizens and thwart the execution of Trinia. He might even get his hands on a costume... So the PCs impersonated the hero (two of them). I just loved this.
- We did the random "Seven days" anti-plague events, and I found them a bit too disjointed. I want to keep the "main quest" more streamlined, with some "side quests" being clearly unrelated.
- Just to get some "fresh air", the PCs left the city for a while, trying to get rid of a trio of Medusae. The "mother" of this snake hive apparently fathered an amnesiac half-celestial stone giant, because of some prophecy regarding dragons and ways to kill them. He's literally missing parts of his "heart" and "brain".
- They also got a Holy Avenger (no paladin in the group; I generally don't do regular magic item trading). Potentially connecting them to Iomedae.
- There's also some random ice dwarves and their quest to fetch their third brother from the Acadamae, to free a lost dwarven citadel in the outmost north, now conquered by a shamanistic fire giant. Just because.
Now I want to pull some threads together. Some ideas:
- No surviving a headshot and killing the Sable Company commander. The heel turn will be delayed a bit.
- Isolated Old Korvosa sounds fun, but I want to draw that out a bit more and give the Arkonas some more face time. My current plans are them convincing the Queen to let them rule over this prison city. Possibly even involving some slavery. And then something darker, which would further Ileosas paranoid delusions.
- The crown in the temple of Abadar won't lie still. The rest of the artefacts will be drawn into the city. I'm looking for good places for all of them. Once more of them will be in play, we're progressing towards finding out more about the dragon and will be closer to the plot as given starting with A History of Ashes.
So this is the big "transitional" phase. Turning Old Korvosa into some semi-lawless town, whereas regular Korvosa gets more Big Brother-y. Seeing how Devargo, Gaedren and Vencarlo play into this. Maybe even bringing in the "Emperor" here. Fleshing out the Arkonas more, before we end up confronting them.
Any good ideas or inspiration from your very own changes? I'm always willing to bring in more Golarion lore.
Improv is always a good skill to hone, although I agree it's time to plan out some general scaffolding to tie the whole plot together, unless you want to just run an episodic game set in Korvosa with no grand overarching plot (nothing wrong with that direction either).
If you are wanting to wrap the game up into a general AP-shaped package, I would start planning for the end and work backwards from there. Who do you want the final boss of the campaign to be, the source of most if not all Korvosa's woes, assuming you stop at roughly the same point as the AP and don't go to 20?
You actually have a surprising variety of potential candidates to choose from here.
1) Queen Ileosa (it sounds like you're leaning away from her, but you certainly could also go all-in on a tragedy where she simply bit-by-bit slips into tyranny and madness all of her own without any direct manipulation from another "in the shadows" force, ultimately forcing the party to confront and depose, if not outright kill, her)
2) Kazavon (seems like you're planning on him given the mention above of the "draconic menace", and there's a lot of fun you can have with this unkillable monster who has seven potential faces besides his own that he can wear via his relics before a final confrontation).
3) Sorshen (likely a renegade clone or some powerful flunky trying to revive her, given a full-power Sorshen is probably a bit much for a normal party to handle at 16th-ish level).
4) Queen Domina (Eodred's mother) or King Eodred (who faked their death, and is now probably some horrid abomination bent on reclaiming the throne
5) Lorthract, the disgraced Duke of Hell (he's already poking around in the periphery, this would just be moving him up front-and-center. Again, may be too much for a 16th-ish party to handle in a straight-up fist-fight for the fate of the kingdom).
Another consideration is whether or not you want to do Book 4 and Book 5 at all, given that they take the party out of Korvosa entirely for two entire AP books, and that's quite a lot of time spent away from Korvosa (and whether or not your party likes big stompy dungeon crawls). If you are planning on making Kazavon the big bad, I would definitely recommend figuring out a way of leading your party to Scarwall as it's a great place to showcase Kazavon and what he's all about (misery, torture, and cruelty mostly) - particularly if you make the chained spirit a fragment of his spirit so he can talk and taunt the party throughout Scarwall, giving you a chance to give him some much-needed face time if he's the central villain.
If you do Book 4 & 5, or some variant there-of, you will need to figure out a way to convince the party that they have no choice but to go on a grand quest for the Macguffin sword (particularly since they already have a Holy Avenger in their back pocket). There needs to be some sort of threat from the villain, whether from Ileosa or whoever is Kazavon's face, that the party knows they can't just stab to death. Now, if your party happily follows whatever plot tracks you lay out for them, they might be fine with leaving Korvosa for an extended period of time to go after the macguffin, but that *is* the one thing Ileosa getting shot in the head and then just shrugging it off before killing Marcus Endrin is good for - it should send a clear signal that this is not a problem the party can just murder away if they hit it hard enough. They *need* that Macguffin sword if they want to kill the villain and save the city (and consequently, gain a bunch more XP along the way).
Now, you can also throw Book 4 & even Book 5 away entirely if you don't want to do the Macguffin sword plot (or you could just modify it into a fact-finding mission on what's going on that somehow keeps them along the general path without them just "nope"ing out as soon as things get messy). Book 4 is particularly been considered a weak point of the AP, and if the party hasn't really been intrigued or shown much interest in the Shaonti you can just throw them out and replace them with something else. Sial and Laori can point them to Scarwall, and you can make Book 4 about something else - adventures in Kaer Mage, going north to deal with that fire giant squatting in the dwarven hold, whatever.
For the other relics, the seven potential characters that come to mind immediately are:
1) Togomor - He could show up and ingratiate himself with the queen, and after demonstrating his arcane skill, he gets invited to her court so she has someone not connected to the Acadamae able to provide her with high-end magic. That probably ties his loyalties and soul to the Kazavon-relic instead of the devils and Lorthract by extension, but that's done easily enough (or he could be working with the devils).
2) Zarmangorf - As a dragon, he might have an interest in relics of a certain powerful dragon warlord, and may come to Korvosa in search of the Crown's call. He could have one or two relics - two would allow him to "gift" the other one to another character in an effort to spread Kazavon's influence into Ileosa's court further.
3) Yzahnum - It's a little unclear where exactly the efreeti lord actually comes from, he just seems to show up as a foe in Book Six with little backstory or motivation. Having a relic and being called to Korvosa could provide that for him.
4) Sabrina - Perhaps a gift from Zarmangorf, or something she finds in an effort to continue to sharpen her skills as a bodyguard.
5) Lorthract (likely Mavrokeras as the actual relic holder) - The devil lord has gotten his claws on a relic, and has given it to his chief lackey as a "reward" (mostly just to see what happens with it before he pokes it himself).
6) Arkona (either Bahor or Vimanda) - One of the rakshasas found a relic long ago, and that's really why they've moved to Korvosa and taken such a keen interest in taking over the city. Gives them a bit of a power upgrade to make them more of a pen-ultimate boss rather than a middling Book 3 schlub to get axed.
7) Trinia - While exploring the caves around the Blackbird Ranch, she found something she REALLY shouldn't. Fear the Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds.
Thanks for the extensive reply, Inspectre. I'm currently reading through your gaming reports for inspiration anyway ;)
As for the general approach to improvisation and how to tackle campaigns, I really like to prep individual and locations but leave the events open enough. So situations and encounters are more fluid. I can't go totally in that direction, as Pathfinder and similar games require some more work there, but I do what I can. That usually means my backstory is more defined than I have it right now, to be fair, as most events evolve out of what happens before and during the campaign. This time it's a bit of a "Schrödinger's Cat" situation, as there were a few more external variables -- playing it online, two new players, unsure how the strong local focus works out. But now's the time to really write down my version of the details of the world and what the NPCs planned, seeing how we go from there.
Literally starting from a final boss battle isn't the best choice for me, as I don't really want to force a final confrontation, but that's nitpicking the semantics a bit, the "whodunnit" part should definitely be set in stone and not dependent on whose door the PCs kick down.
In the end, you could say that I consider the "Curse of the Crimson Throne" to be the real culprit. Metaphorically or maybe even literally, it creates a tangled mess of conspiracies and catastrophes. The prophecy theme of the game works well with this, fate drawing up a bunch of enemies together, without a single mind behind it, no Dark Lord who controls everything.
Going through your list of Big Bads:
1) Ileosa - I'm leaving it open how tragic her story will turn out. As it is, everything is set up in her disfavor. She starts out well-meaning, if a bit incompetent, with a good set of allies - mainly Cressida & Sabina, with Zenobia as a maternal grey eminence. But bit by bit she will lose those allies and gain more enemies. But also some power, which could easily corrupt her. The only way out I see for her would be direct & active help from the PCs, which I *won't* prompt them to do.
2) Kazavon - I've got several ways planned how this will turn out. Right now there's a rather undirected dragon cult in town. Rather conspiratorial, but without a strong leading hand and really knowing what they want. Once the spirit of Kazavon is more manifested, they will play a leading role. Maybe I can even tie in one of the other baddies with them. Depending on things are going, I can either see Ileosa using some/all the artifacts for her own goals (thus ending up close to the original story) or Kazavon manifesting and taking things into his own claws -- I got this image of Ileosa, after all good intentions and trying to do things her own way ending up as a helpless bride again. I've got a Dragon Disciple in my group, so I guess the PCs will influence this more directly than getting more involved in courtly politics.
The Crown being placed into the hands of Abadar means that they're now targeted by the "menace". This is one thing I'm pondering right now, whether to go more with corruption (ending up with Darb Tuttle taking the crown) or a big fight agaisnt the church.
3) Sorshen - Didn't have her as an active entity on my radar at all. Something to consider.
4) Domina/Eodred - I thought about this, but I felt that "we're not really dead" was a rather tired trope. But now that you mention it, a small theme of ghosts did emerge in play, so I might use them for this, either once or as a lasting presence. But definitely not in a Big Bad manner.
5) Lorthract - Another entity I didn't consider. And to be honest, I want to stick with less black/white themes here, so I prefer to stick with mortals.
The "doom" of the city that Zellara and other pawns of prophecy try to prevent will be mostly a culmination of several strains. Kazavons relics will be a major one, and problem the most supernatural. The cult of Urgathoa is obviously another major player -- disease being a very urban theme. To be honest, the main reason why I'm currently veering away from that (and writing these posts) is because of our current situation. Disease is a rather tired theme by now ;)
Ileosa's predicament is the most humane. Everything is arrayed against her, but she's got a pretty strong core, so she'll try to hold on for quite a while, but once she loses enough support, this very core will make her a much dangerous enemy. It's quite likely that she'll remain the final enemy of the campaign, but we'll see whether she's a more "draconic" individual enemy or whether fighting her will be a much more political and warlike endeavor.
I don't want to be too overt about this in the game, but this conflict between mortal politics and emotions with the supernatural threats and "fate" itself working against some people is a central theme for me.
Thanks for the hints towards the relics, I'm trying to map out the "vectors" of those right now.
I definitely want to head out to Scarwall. The Kazavonian threat will be strong enough to guide the players in this direction. It might even happen a bit sooner. I've already got some Belkzenian influence in the background, dormant right now, but it'll get more important and provide enough hints towards that direction.
Going outside of Korvosa isn't a big hindrance, too, we had some fun just "questing" around in the back country, as it provided a needed respite from the disease -- and allowed me to progress that a bit more while they were away, as the timeline before was a bit short for it to spread too fast.
I'm not sure at all about Part 3 of A History of Ashes, but the rest will stand. The Cinderlands will play a role. My Ileosa will turn a bit warlike soon, and the Shoanti are a good distraction for the battered people of Korvosa. If they PCs are somewhat on her side by then, this will lead to scouting the lands and following some trails there. If they're against her, open or not, they can support the Shoanti -- either by strengthening them or by trying to prevent battles.
Part 6 is mostly location anyway, so definitely will find some use at the very end.
I think as it's going right now, I'll probably add a few things to the AP, but won't have to remove too much. Escape from Old Korvosa will probably be one of the bigger changes, as it's not really a big series of events -- Vencarlo will play a role, but it won't force the players to clean up the whole mess. Ileosas re-strengthening of the rest of the city can run in parallel with whatever the Arkonas do in Old Korvosa. Depending on where the players go, we would go into politics (prevent war), street-level heroics (keep Old Korvosa in check) or even the players participating in the war efforts.
Oh, I forgot to talk about one of the central pieces of the story. "My" Ileosa not being the Evil Queen from the start made me refactor the murder plot quite a bit. I just threw together some existing plot elements. Zenobia is both very "law & order" and a big Domina fangirl - not happy with Eodred, not happy with not being able to punish those who evade the law. So she had ties with the Red Mantis for years and years, but they couldn't help her get the queen she basically picked in power. But one of the king's harem (something she despised), an elf, got a child which he didn't want to recognize. And she had contacts with Treerazer, who enabled her to poison the king, this way also preventing resurrection magic from working. (She paid the price and now lies deathly sick, cared for by Zenobia)
Her main source to smuggle in Red Mantis and their equipment were the Arkonas, so this is the most likely way the PCs will hear about this. This way they also won't know whether the queen had something to do with it. Zenobia is a regular human, no weird vampire.
This can lead to interestin consequences. If the players get on Zenobias trail, this is another ally that's not supporting Ileosa anymore, leading her one step further on her downfall. Or the Arkona could blackmail her, bringing in the Red Mantis as some support. And if it really all comes together and the PCs manage to eliminate both Kazavon and the queen as a threat, I could bring in Treerazer into play if we really need a Kaiju showdown. Hope it doesn't come to that.