Changes to Graveclaw

[hanez]

I am considering a couple changes to Graveclaw, thought I'd post and ask if anyone had opinions on it. I also have only scanned it once or twice, and maybe I am missing a great part of the adventure, so if you think there is something I shouldnt "remove" I'd love to know about it.

First off I think 4 witches is way too much, my PCs would likely get bored by the third witch and begin to think of this as the witch campaign (not an undead campaign). So I am thinking I'll bring it down to 3 or less hags, as it might be a very long journey with 4 hags.

I am also feeling that the adventure doesnt really give a feel of Geb..

The first chapter with Iron Taviah in the forest, is a traditional trope haunted woods that could be anywhere.

The third chapter with Decrosia is a bit tech focused (guns, industry etc), and I get that its close to Alkenstar so that makes sense, I just feel my characters are excited about the undead not tech and gunslingers and its somewhat of a distraction.

The last chapter with Nathnelma in the necromancy school has tons of potential, I love the idea. I was somewhat disapointed to find its based outside Yeld and doesnt include quests in Yeld. I get why they did this as Yeld is a huge can of worms, but I would have preferred if the whole adventure focused on Yeld.

So one of my ideas is to move Nathnelma to corpselight so the school is outside of Farms of the living. Its close to GrayDirge, and what could be more exciting to navigate then Human/Elf farms. It seems like it might be something easy to homebrew (take a farm adventure and put humans in it). Who knows maybe my players want to free the farms, tons of potential for them to roleplay and not a ton of planning.

I might keep Iron Taviah and just play up the undead woods aspect a bit.

Anyone else feel like this adventure is a bit underwhelming for the setting, or have other ideas on how to make it feel more like an undead nation?

Edit - Having just read the synopsis of Adventure 5, I see that its in Yled. Maybe I should keep it in adventure 2 for foreshadowing.

[Patrickthekid]

I was surprised there wasn't much of the same delve into backstop from the other two hags since they seemed to be the more senior members of the cove. Did they ever go over why either of the other two were going through with their plans?

The Impossible Lands book should help out in fleshing put the area more as many of the areas mentioned get some writeup.

[AceofMoxen]

I'm also thinking of skipping or shortening the rust hag. I'm thinking of changing the city to be abandoned, and the party is ambushed by the hag snipping and running. Or maybe she ambushes them on their way into the city.

[rokeca]

My group enjoyed Graveclaw. I beefed up the narrative between each location as a travelogue to introduce the PCs to the unique culture of Geb, and giving them options to travel by foot, zombie powered river boat, etc. It helped my players get a sense of the geography of the nation, setting up the later chapters in Mechitar and Yled. I think I still have some notes of that if that would be of interest.

One of the highlights was the Pakged inflitration. Using the infiltration rules, the whole affair played out quickly and with a lot of tension. If you skip this part, I recommend finding some way to integrate the Shroud. He helps set up the Carters Consortium early on in the campaign and their role is important later on.

A note that the Nathnelma segment does take place within Yled. My PCs enjoyed the RP segments checking out Yled and making allies. This chapter does a good job forshadowing book 5, introducing some of the NPCs the characters will encounter later (as well as the imposing environment of Yled). I found using Impossible Lands helped a lot to bring Yled to (un)life for my PCs