I believe that the adventure starts at the end of winter/towards spring.
In the first book there's a Stonehenge-like monument where they celebrate "Night of the Green Moon". I would equate this with the Vernal Equinox, which is in Pharast (March).
Book 2 begins at the end of Desnus (May)/beginning of Sarenith (June) and Book 3 ends in winter.
I am considering running Bounty 10:HIllcross Round Up as a introduction to the campaign setting. How far from Hillcross does the campaign start? And across the three books, do they visit Hillcross at all? I know the players guide mentions they go there about once a year or something like that.
The final book has a section in Hillcross.
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I fleshed out the rest of The Broken Tusk Following here:
All Members of the Broken Tusk Following
If anyone needs prompts for additional NPCs this should help.
We start this Friday (12-9-22).
Super pumped! Using 3rd party monster parts system.
Anyone currently running this, I would love to connect.
My party going is Cleric, Druid, Ranger, Alchemist, Sorcerer.
Curious who you all think will be the main damage dealer here?
And do I need to enhance the encounter difficulty at all or will it be difficult enough as is? Thanks in advance.
I think the Ranger and Warpriest Cleric will be sharing the tanking role.
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I am only through Part 1 of Book 1 so far. I felt the combats in that part were very easy for my 4 person group besides the first moose With a 5 person party, I am sure you will need to up the difficulty from my experience. (My group is barbarian, witch, druid, bard)
EDIT: also thank you for the write up! I will check it out.
There are a lot of fights, but rarely more than one per day. So it can be easy if you nuke everything at first contact.
I was compiling a list of loot (to check what might need to be changed to use the Monster Part system I alluded to in another thread) and I noticed that there seems to be no treasure listed for area G4 (Open Barrow).
Since this is where Hiajor died, I would think that there would be a few things to be found there?
I would love if you would share that list, since I'll be doing the exact same thing in my game.
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I wrote some journal entries for Ardissa's Journal in Chapter 2, to flesh out her backstory. Took actual hunting tips from online sites, and wrote her journal entries myself. Hope it's helpful for anyone else.
(It took the PCs 22 days to reach the Grandparents, you can adjust the dates for your group)
----------------------------------
This journal is written in Taldane, in a very neat and disciplined hand.
(...)
It’s never too early to start learning the country that you’re going to hunt in.
When the time comes—get there early, stay late, and always keep a weather eye on the horizon.You can’t control the weather. An early cool snap or rainy spell can turn this into a painfully slow hunt.
Nothing will sharpen your skills quite like small-game hunting. Get after squirrels with your light crossbow, or prairie dogs or jackrabbits or rats at the city dump.
Invest on some high quality spyglass, whether you’re sitting in a ground blind or glassing from a pickup, the extra magnification is nice for deciphering just how big a goat’s curls and cutters are from a thousand yards away.
Also, read terrain like a book, starting at the top, "reading" lines slowly left to right. When you finish one line, move down to the next, reading terrain slowly left to right again. You'll see more game and gain more enjoyment while hunting by using optics effectively.
When set up efficiently, ground blinds can be a massive advantage for your hunt. Ground blinds are practical for bows, and crossbows, giving you a top choice in your weapon style. Therefore, no matter what equipment you use for hunting, following our ground blind hunting tips will increase your chances of yielding the best results.
Remember the 6P’s (Perfect Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance).
Since most animals we hunt are sharp in sight and smell, you should take the time to camouflage yourself. Don’t just set up along the tree line or at the top of a ridge. This can lead to a poor session, as you’ll be easily spotted. There are several ways through which you can cover and hide your blind according to your surroundings. Blending into your environment with branches, cattails, or other natural vegetation is one of the most underrated strategies when hiding your hunting tent.
Keeping your feet in good shape is pivotal to successful big game hunting. Many expensive mountain mule deer or elk hunts are ruined by blisters or otherwise sore feet.
Spot-and-stalk ploys are typically the name of the game while hunting big game. Once game is located with your spyglass, learning to move quietly can be quite important to closing the last yards required for a killing shot -- especially with archery gear. Stalking like a cat requires practice, but a few beginning tips help you remain quiet. Plan your route well ahead while moving, avoiding patches of ground that make it impossible to step quietly. Avoid clothing materials that create noise of their own; fleece, wool and similar materials prove best. Stalking "slippers" or overboots are also a wise choice. Be patient, plan well, and use these tips and you, too, can stalk close to game.
To regularly succeed on big game, make the best of limited opportunities and work to increase your maximum effective range. This doesn't mean recklessly attempting long shots without practice, but investing in practice that makes longer shots second nature. Archers should strive to improve equipment tuning and shooting form. How far you're qualified to shoot at game is then entirely up to you, but stretching your effective range by even 10 or 100 yards opens a world of additional success opportunities.
The wild can be highly unforgiving. Rough terrain can run you down and leave you far from camp after dark. Weather can change radically and unpredictably in a matter of hours. Be prepared for a worst-case scenario by always carrying essential survival gear in your hunting daypack. Think in terms of staying warm and dry should you be forced to spend the night out. And always carry a means of starting a fire under any condition. Prepare for the worst and come home alive.
(...)
The first part of this journal has a bunch of notes, presumably gathered from different sources on big game hunting, including plans for blinds, basic guides for tracking, best places to strike animals for a quick, clean kill.
These notes are enough for you to learn how to become a game hunter (You get access to the game hunter archetype)
Some of the latest notes read:
(...)
Oathday Pharast 31st 4722:We tracked and hunted a whooly mammoth, a nice specimen, it however was too weak to resist my beloved Furybeak and Stonebill's bite, It did manage to trample my dear Furybeak, who we had to leave under the petrified creature's foot. What a waste!
Starday Gozran 2nd 4722:
We moved east towards the Tusk Mountains, found the area the locals call the Grandparents, to me they just look like any other mountain peaks, but I guess these superstitious people see things were there are none. The area is useful though, there are plains to the north and southwest, hills to the south and it's flanked by mountains to the east and west. There's a cave to the northeast that looks very promising. We have already seen tracks of mammoths and other large animals in the region.
Toilday Gozran 5th 4722:
We found the cave, a limestone rocky entrance that resembles the mouth of a mountain lion. We tried to set up camp there, but these dwarves were spooked and refused to stay there, they said they kept hearing strange sounds from the deep, and movement on the wall paintings.
I must confess I might have heard those sounds, and seen the strange movements, not that I would let them know it. These dwarves are hardy and strong, but I might need to look for more brave employees when I get back south.
Oathday Gozran 7th 4722:
We went back down to the southwest and found a wonderful place, this will make a marvelous hunting blind, it's even camouflaged from below by bushes. From here I can see many miles to the west and north. I'll see any herd of mammoths approaching from quite a distance.
There's also a strange looking stone embedded into the ground. It's about 4 feet tall, looks like a narrow pyramid that fell from the sky and got stuck in the ground.
Fireday Gozran 8th 4722:
I believe the stone we have found is one of the so-called apakus, that are found in these lands. It seems to focus the power of ley lines...
My limited research has determined that this apaku dramatically extends the range of evocation magics. This location has proved even better than I initially thought. With the power of this apaku, I shall be able to drop fireballs far down into the hills, and shoot magic missiles for many feet at a time.
Starday Gozran 9th 4722:
We have spotted a small herd of mammoths and other creatures approaching, what a fortuitous find. We also managed to petrify and capture a female dire wolf, thankfully it's only temporarily turned to stone this time.
Sunday Gozran 10th 4722:
The herd seems to be lead by some of the famous Mammoth Lords, they have camped not far away from our hunting spot. I'm pretty sure they can be caught in the range of a fireball, I'm so close to getting my mammoth, I can feel it. Just gotta be patient.
The second half details Ardissa's current expedition into the Realm of the Mammoth Lords. In her latests entries, she describes the terrain surrounding the Grandparents, she visited Red Cat Cave, but she and her employees found it too unnerving to stay there. She found this hunting spot and the apaku stone recently. According to her, evocation magic is enhanced by this particular apaku.
I fleshed out the rest of The Broken Tusk Following here:
All Members of the Broken Tusk Following
If anyone needs prompts for additional NPCs this should help.
Thanks! I had planned to do this myself and saw you already had, so just modified it for my game.
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The overall treasure in the AP seems very light. Are the encounters tuned around the party having fundamental runes at the appropriate level given the lack of treasure/trade in the setting?
Should I be using ABP to supplement the lack of treasure?
Anyone else with experience running this have an answer to this question? This was my very first question before even opening the book...
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Also, I'm not finding an easy answer to the question "What do members of the Broken Tusk following know about the origins of the following?"
I have to think that, with someone who lived through the original split still alive among them, and with oral traditions being so important, that there is basic knowledge known by everyone.
The Player's Guide doesn't mention the Primordial Flame. The anticipated questions posed to Eiwa on page 20 in the AP assume the PCs not only don't know that the Primordial Flame was lost, but also that they don't know why the following is called The Broken Tusks! This kind of baffles me...
I'm willing to accept that the younger generations don't know, but I wish we were given some kind of sound justification for keeping the truth away from them. I'm not coming up with one at the moment: they are small in number, migrate in the direction of the other half of their former following all the time, and they need to be wary.
And if their entire identity is based on protecting the flame, why do they never visit the cave in their annual migration normally?
(I also have a number of questions on how to sell their flight plan across the wilderness to the players in a believable way. They are being pursued by a band that wants to murder them. I don't understand Reconnoitering every hex, or spending several days on a detour to the Red Cat Cave to go back WEST in the direction of their pursuers, instead of further east or south. Or eschewing their usual practice of letting scavengers eat the dead because they're on the run, opting instead to make a big funeral pyre that can be seen for miles around...)
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I suppose the text to work with is on page 5 of Book 1. But I still have trouble squaring it with something believable:
A NEW YEAR
When the Broken Tusks made their annual sojourn to Red Cat Cave and discovered that their plan to protect the Primordial Flame had failed, the following became a lost people. They maintained a small migratory route that passed by the cave, but they no longer bothered to visit the place, which had become haunted by the ghost of its murdered animal guardian.
The following saw the Flame was gone. A person who was alive even before then, Eiwa, is still among the tribe...
As the decades passed and the elders’ tales unraveled or were forgotten, the story of the Primordial Flame devolved from fact to fable. The oldest Broken Tusks—those who remembered when they were still called theBurning Mammoths—began to refer to this new era of lost hope and broken promises as the syorn, a term of great sadness, and the before-times as the ethgir, a golden era best left forgotten.
Okay, I get it now - Their mission failed... So they don't talk about happier before-times, because that's depressing. The FACT that things were better before is known, but exactly what happened and the central act of the tribe's shame, the loss of the artifact, is not told to the younger generations.
Now, the small migratory route that has sustained the Broken Tusks in the syorn is failing. Without the Primordial Flame’s magic, the warm seasons are shorter, the winters longer, and the game sparser. In spite of these difficulties, the Broken Tusks maintain what traditions they can, largely in denial to the realities of the changing world around them. At present, they’ve temporarily settled in their familiar stomping grounds, the once-verdant Gornok Plain, for the spring thaw and to observe the following’s ancient vernal ceremony, the Night of the Green Moon. Their elders, including the centenarian Grandfather Eiwa, have put on brave faces for the sake of their following’s youngest generation, many of whom are coming of age in a world still reeling from demonic warfare.
Though spring should be a time of cheer and renewal, a sense of dread hangs in the air around the Broken Tusk camp. The elders stubbornly believe the best way to address the chronic food shortage is to maintain the path they’ve walked for the past century. Yet many of the youngest generation believe that exploration might be the group’s best hope for survival. With their leaders paralyzed by indecision, it falls to the Broken Tusk’s newest band of scouts to reignite their people’s nascent spirit of adventure and, with any luck, guide the following toward a new era of prosperity.
I'll be making this sense of declining fortune a theme that is known to the players. And so there already are rumblings of changing the tribe's migratory route. The fact that the elders are hiding some of the truth is a point of tension - why do this same route, and why aren't we being told everything?
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I suppose the text to work with is on page 5 of Book 1. But I still have trouble squaring it with something believable:
A NEW YEAR
When the Broken Tusks made their annual sojourn to Red Cat Cave and discovered that their plan to protect the Primordial Flame had failed, the following became a lost people. They maintained a small migratory route that passed by the cave, but they no longer bothered to visit the place, which had become haunted by the ghost of its murdered animal guardian.
The following saw the Flame was gone. A person who was alive even before then, Eiwa, is still among the tribe...
As the decades passed and the elders’ tales unraveled or were forgotten, the story of the Primordial Flame devolved from fact to fable. The oldest Broken Tusks—those who remembered when they were still called theBurning Mammoths—began to refer to this new era of lost hope and broken promises as the syorn, a term of great sadness, and the before-times as the ethgir, a golden era best left forgotten.
Okay, I get it now - Their mission failed... So they don't talk about happier before-times, because that's depressing. The FACT that things were better before is known, but exactly what happened and the central fact of the tribe's shame, the loss of the artifact, is not told to the younger generations.
Now, the small migratory route that has sustained the Broken Tusks in the syorn is failing. Without the Primordial Flame’s magic, the warm seasons are shorter, the winters longer, and the game sparser. In spite of these difficulties, the Broken Tusks maintain what traditions they can, largely in denial to the realities of the changing world around them. At present, they’ve temporarily settled in their familiar stomping grounds, the once-verdant Gornok Plain, for the spring thaw and to observe the following’s ancient vernal ceremony, the Night of the Green Moon. Their elders, including the centenarian Grandfather Eiwa, have put on brave faces for the sake of their following’s youngest generation, many of whom are coming of age in a world still reeling from demonic warfare.
Though spring should be a time of cheer and renewal, a sense of dread hangs in the air around the Broken Tusk camp. The elders stubbornly believe the best way to address the chronic food shortage is to maintain the path they’ve walked for the past century. Yet many of the youngest generation believe that exploration might be the group’s best hope for survival. With their leaders paralyzed by indecision, it falls to the Broken Tusk’s newest band of scouts to reignite their people’s nascent spirit of adventure and, with any luck, guide the following toward a new era of prosperity.
I'll be making this sense of declining fortune a theme that is known to the players. And so there already are rumblings of changing the tribe's migratory route. The fact that the elders are hiding some of the truth is a point of tension - why do this same route, and why aren't we being told everything?
So it makes more sense that younger members of the following don't know about the Flame. I still think they should know why they're called The Broken Tusk though.
I'm currently running this book, and I arrived at the same conclusion as you: it was really important to paint the following early on as not a miserable place, but a group keenly aware that their way of life is existentially threatened.
From Eiwa's perspective, the Flame is gone and the following doesn't have the resources to recover it (if such a thing is even possible). I reinforced that Weohotan's death is a huge blow, and Wipa's pregnancy also limits the ability of the following to do anything besides focus on survival.
I got the sense when reading that the book assumed most PCs would be joining the following from elsewhere instead of being born into it. (And that was the case for 3/4ths of my party.) But even if you've been with the following for only 5 years and not your life, little things stand out - why does Eiwa assume you've never been to Rockloom before? Doesn't the following go there every year (or most years)?
In the end, the fact that the players are new to this setting meant they weren't super worried about differentiating between what they "should" know, since they just wanted to absorb as much info and ground themselves as possible. And though I encouraged them to be curious and ask lots of questions, they in fact never asked about the name of either following! Now that Eiwa's gone, they might ask Argakoa, or otherwise never care to know...
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Strangely, no one has brought this up. RAW, it would seem that Hobji knocks players out as a free action if he hits them with their fist. It says the target begins suffocating and the rules for suffocating say
"you fall unconscious and start suffocating. You can’t recover from being unconscious and must attempt a DC 20 Fortitude save at the end of each of your turns. On a failure, you take 1d10 damage, and on a critical failure, you die. On each check after the first, the DC increases by 5 and the damage by 1d10; these increases are cumulative. Once your access to air is restored, you stop suffocating and are no longer unconscious (unless you’re at 0 Hit Points)."
This means suffocation starts after you are already out of air and that is what Strangling Grasp says it does. I have to believe that the writer meant to start the holding breath aspect rather than suffocation.
Lastly, it isn't clearly defined how he keeps suffocating people. I am ruling he needs to successfully hit the victim once per turn with his fist attack to trigger the free action again or else the victim is free.
From Eiwa's perspective, the Flame is gone and the following doesn't have the resources to recover it (if such a thing is even possible). I reinforced that Weohotan's death is a huge blow, and Wipa's pregnancy also limits the ability of the following to do anything besides focus on survival.
Totally agree. I will also add that Eiwa thinks himself a visionary and forward thinking. He actively recruits members from outside the Kellid race because he knows the Following is on the brink of extinction. I would argue the other Mammoth Lords of the Broken Tusk are of the same mind. In my campaign, Eiwa and the other Lords also hide the truth about the relative size of the Broken Tusks following compared to other followings, and that (somehow) 74 members is a mighty number. All of these truths will be revealed, in time over the course of the AP, and it will be up to the individual PCs to come to their own conclusions about ultimate wisdom of Eiwa's deceptions.
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Maybe someone will find this useful. I ran this little scenario at the end of our zer0-sesh, after everyone had created their characters. This is the night before the Moose Hunt. And, before you go hunting it down, Gorash the Great One is not canon and is something I just made up. Still, I think it makes for a nice creation story, introduces a few NPCs and sets a tone.
The Tale of Gorash the Great One
Strangely, no one has brought this up. RAW, it would seem that Hobji knocks players out as a free action if he hits them with their fist. It says the target begins suffocating and the rules for suffocating say
"you fall unconscious and start suffocating. You can’t recover from being unconscious and must attempt a DC 20 Fortitude save at the end of each of your turns. On a failure, you take 1d10 damage, and on a critical failure, you die. On each check after the first, the DC increases by 5 and the damage by 1d10; these increases are cumulative. Once your access to air is restored, you stop suffocating and are no longer unconscious (unless you’re at 0 Hit Points)."This means suffocation starts after you are already out of air and that is what Strangling Grasp says it does. I have to believe that the writer meant to start the holding breath aspect rather than suffocation.
Lastly, it isn't clearly defined how he keeps suffocating people. I am ruling he needs to successfully hit the victim once per turn with his fist attack to trigger the free action again or else the victim is free.
Yeah, that seems a bit harsh. This fight is going to come up in one of the next sessions at my table, so I'm gonna houserule it as this:
Strangling Grasp (Free) Trigger as RAW; Effect: Hobji grapples the target and starts to strangle it, trying to suffocate it. The target has 5 + Constitution modifier in rounds worth of air before they lose consciousness. Any attempt to break free subtracts one round from their air supply, and any attack, spell or similar use of an ability subtracts two rounds from their air supply. Any time Hobji uses his free Strangle attack, he subtracts one round of his victim's air supply as well.
This still makes it a nasty ability, but it will cause Hobji to have to focus on one foe, with the rest of the party trying to free his victim.
I appreciate everyone's answers. My other concern I'll bring up again, as we're now about to start Chapter 2:
I'm concerned about being able to sell the Broken Tusks' flight plan across the wilderness to the players in a believable way. They are being pursued by a band that wants to murder them. I don't understand Reconnoitering every hex, or spending several days on a detour to the Red Cat Cave to go back WEST in the direction of their pursuers, instead of further east or south. Or eschewing their usual practice of letting scavengers eat the dead because they're on the run, opting instead to make a big funeral pyre that can be seen for miles around...
On Reconnoitering, I see that the text only talks about Reconnoitering at the landmark hex, which helps. I'll need to come up with a justification for each one, however.
Also, the Burning Mammoths move 1 hex every THREE days. This makes Reconnoitering easier to justify. I don't know much about overland travel, but this seems awfully slow to me. It says it's because they "are larger and less coordinated," but being 3 times as slow seems hard to justify to me.
But this makes Reconnoitering more palatable, since the party can tell how far away they are.
Is it okay for them to travel 1 hex every TWO days? I will need to read ahead, but the text does explain they might be at the Red Cat Cave for a few days. It looks like it takes 17 days to go through Hex C and Hex D. Add 2 days of Reconnoitering that is 19 days total; meanwhile, the Burning Mammoths will have traveled only 9 hexes according to what I'd propose.
(The lack of response here from the developers concerns me.)
I'm really getting frustrated by the strange and contradictory text that keeps coming up as I prep for this module. I'm currently in Chapter 3 and came up against these issues:
-Mechanics that only make sense as mechanics. The Plant False Tracks example on page 52, for instance. I don't know how to justify this without just laying the statblock before them. It is a FREE check to create "false tracks" that somehow delay the Burning Mammoths a whole day? I don't see how that opportunity can become apparent in-lore, and what it actually could even possibly encompass.
-The "deserter" (actually a tortured outcast) Aklep under "Punishment By Fire" on page 53. Why would Pakano leave someone alive in the way of the party who has valuable information on Pakano and his plans? Also, the possible information Aklep can give the party can be gotten anyway, from the waylaying group ("Reaver Squad") that the party encounters on page 53-54. I suppose the idea is that here is an interesting NPC, but we are given zero information as to who he is or his possible importance later in the AP. We already have enough NPCs to handle in this AP.
-The party is to see encounters that are so obvious that they see "a landmark, geographic, feature or clue" from ONE HEX AWAY. However, once the party reaches the hex, they must spend another day(!) to Reconnoiter the area? How does this make sense, and how can I justify it?
-The High Barrows give no motivation to explore them beside curiosity, while it gives crucial information for upcoming encounters. I might need to come up with one if the party isn't curious. Meanwhile, the glyptodon has contradictory descriptions as to what it will do. On page 55, it "attacks any creatures that intrude" and leaves if "reduced to fewer than 40 Hit Points." AFTERWARD, it tells us that the party can sense that it is "especially possessive" of the standing stones. My players at this point will likely try to Tame it upon visiting it, which is how the AP has structured every other encounter with a wild animal. But that is not countenance in the text: it says if the party "makes a big show of backing away... the glyptodon RETURNS." So the text clearly intends to have a fight to the death with this creature, and THEN the party tries to "befriend" it, which is kind of crazy. So I'm thinking of having it not attacking the party, they detect that it's possessive, but that it will take "a day"(!) of not approaching the standing stones. I don't see why the party isn't going to try to use their Tame Animal feat which is only a 10-minute check. Perhaps there is something strange and magical drawing the glyptodon to this location? All we are told is that the stones are larger than it and therefore rare... It likes to lean up against large rocks?
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I found the backstory confusing as many have pointed out. I decided that the Broken Tusk were ignorant of the Frozen Flame and the history. They came upon the cave and discovered it gone and decided to move on, never speaking of the failure.
One of my PCs is an ancestor oracle, so I do a slow drip of information guiding the PCs to the cave, where they discover the true story and answer why the Burning Mammoth are pursuing them.
I created a random movement table for the Burning Mammoth, so they weren't always taking the optimal hex in pursuit of the Broken Tusk. I implied there was a quantifiable distance between the two groups to drive the PCs forward with urgency, but there was no real risk of being caught. At the lake I communicated there was significant distance to rest and gather food. Upon discovering the map, the PCs decided to visit the cave.
I had the guardian provide appropriate magic items because the PCs are the heroes of the following, pursing the Frozen Flame.
I only tracked the humanoid membership of the following and one of the PCs, a cleric of Rowdrosh, is very interested in recruiting and not jumping into combat with everything encountered, including Burning Mammoth scouts. The number of animals I keep abstract since I didn't have a number to go with.