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Last decade in Jade Regent... A barkeeper in Sandpoint named Ameiko learned of her secret destiny as the Empress of Minkai. Together her friends stormed an abandoned castle and recovered the Seal that unlocked that destiny.
They travelled together to Kalsgard, the capital of the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, and defeated a secret clan of ninja and rescued the sword of destiny Suishen, and hired a guide to take them over the Crown of the World.
For months they travelled the Crown of the World, following the path of Ordu-Aganhei. Along the way they angered giants, killed evil witches, recruited a good one, rescued towns from Dragons, played Demon Lords against each other, discovered an ancient futuristic city, outran and out-fought a horde of the dead, redeemed a clan of corrupted Yeti, restored a spirit tree, mapped a secret road over the Wall of Heaven, and blunted the Jade Regent's machinations in the region.
Eventually they reached the city of Ordu-Aganhei, where they stayed as guests of Prince Batsaikhar. While in the city they played political games against the Regent's Grand Diplomat Fragar, discovered a criminal conspiracy which they put a swift end to. They recruited some Minkai refugees, before departing. They also discovered Ameiko isn't the only heir, as her brother Mordred shares a father with her.
The party split between the Forest of Spirits and the Ruby Phoenix Tournament. The forest team discovered strange truths about themselves in the Pools of Forgotten Reflections, defeated hobgoblin patrols on the golden road, and plumbed the depths of an Oni Prison in the House of Withered Blossoms.
The tournament team entered the tournament, and through many dangerous games managed to win victory and a prize from the Vault of the Ruby Phoenix. They also discovered a strange creature, a remnant of the crimes discovered at Ordu-Aganhei, and protected it as best they could.
Reunited in Minkai, our heroes took all the resources and allies they collected over the course of their months-long journey and began prosecuting a rebellion against the Jade Regent and his August Council. They freed cities from tyrannical governors, rescued allies from imprisonment, avenged an old friend, discovered lost shrines, repaired the veil to Otherworld, gained the blessings of ancestors, played more political games to turn the people against their oppressors. Fought wars.
Finally, they were inside the Palace, where they saw even the Regent was a victim of the evil of Anamurumon, they teamed up with the Regent against the greatest evil in the history of Minkai. Slaying Anamurumon for all time.
These people who valued redemption and freedom ended it the only way it could, by talking. The Regent realising that the thing he valued most was his own freedom, and that his freedom was incompatible with the freedom of Minkai took his own life.
Our heroes met the goddess of Death. And so for the first time in a long time, the nation of Minkai knows peace.
But the story will not end here, our heroes have more to do, ambitions and hopes and dreams beyond this adventure. So we don't say goodbye, we say see you later...
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Book 1 - The Brinewall Legacy: An incredibly fun adventure, even if it's run as a standalone module. Fun encounters, dynamic locations, great villains, incredible NPCs. Brinewall is an incredible dungeon. 5/5
Book 2 - Night of Frozen Shadows: A fantastic adventure with dynamic and proactive opponents. Ravenscraeg is an all-time great dungeon, full of interesting opponents and interesting opportunities for different characters to shine. 5/5
Book 3 - The Hungry Storm: This is the book where I made significant expansions, I needed the break from the main story to explore the player's backstories, and provide alternate paths from the main path of Ordu-Aganhei. I created a card based travel system, which also allowed opportunities for the PCs build up their relationships with the important NPCs they've recruited. It was awesome to add stuff to a really great skeleton of an adventure. 5/5
Interlude: The Villain Arc I had my players build a council of evil rulers for Minkai working for the Jade Regent, in order to personalise and humanise their enemies. In the course of that mini-campaign they tore open the veil between the material plane and spirit realm. Driving the Kami of Minkai mad. But also it meant I had the devious minds of Players to build and optimize their opposition.
Book 4 - Heavily Forest of Spirits & Heavily Modified Ruby Phoenix: I used Social Combat cards to build the feasts. I also put the Ruby Phoenix tournament in Hongal. Added a subplot about an evil doctor using oozes to create an army of supersoldiers. Our heroes split between the Forest of Spirits and the Ruby Phoenix Tournament (mostly built from my own encounters including a Chariot Race, A Build-A-Dungeon, a PubG style free-for all, while also tying up the subplot with a massive psychic sentient ooze that was replacing people at the tournament.
In the Forest I added an adventure for my Druid who was going through a personal crisis to earn the title of
Ancient guardians revere nature and draw power from its divine energies, but also protect the customs, histories, and lore of the Forest of Spirits. They act as ambassadors and protectors of Minkai working with the kami, nurturing the relationship between the communities.
Ancient Arms: A kami guardian can’t wield weapons made primarily of metal. She is proficient with only the club, dart, quarterstaff, shortspear, sling, and spear. She is also proficient with all natural attacks (claw, bite, and so forth) of any form she assumes with wild shape. Using a prohibited weapon renders her unable to cast druid spells or use any of her druid supernatural or spell-like class abilities while wielding the weapon and for 24 hours after ceasing to wield it. This alters the druid’s normal weapon proficiencies.
Community Bond (Ex): At 1st level, an ancient guardian must choose the domain nature bond ability and select from the following domains: Community, Healing, Knowledge, Protection, or Repose. This ability alters nature bond.
Diplomat of Spirits(Ex): A kami guardian does not gain wild empathy at 1st level. Instead, at 2nd level, a kami guardian adds Diplomacy, Handle Animal, and Sense Motive to her list of class skills and gains an insight bonus equal to half her druid level on such checks. This ability replaces wild empathy.
Ancient Ways (Ex): At 3rd level, a kami guardian increases any climb, fly, or swim speeds she has or gains via her wild shape ability by 10 feet. This ability replaces trackless step and woodland stride.
Kami Ally (Su): At 1st level a Kami Guardian gains an alternative list for Summon Nature’s Ally. This ability modifies spontaneous casting.
Summon Nature’s Ally I Foo Pony, Foo Viper
Summon Nature’s Ally II Foo Horse, Foo Frog
Summon Nature’s Ally III Shikigami, Foo Dog
Summon Nature’s Ally IV Fukujin, Foo Lion or Foo Leopard
Summon Nature’s Ally V Kodama, Foo Tiger, or Foo Woolly Rhinoceros
Summon Nature’s Ally VI Dosojin, Foo Dire Tiger or Foo Elephant
Summon Nature’s Ally VII Zuishin, Foo Mastodon or Foo Roc
Summon Nature’s Ally VIII Suijin, Elemental (Elder) or Foo Purple Worm
Summon Nature’s Ally IX Toshigami or Foo Storm Giant
Unimpeachable (Ex): At 4th level, a kami guardian gains a +4 bonus on saves against enchantments. This ability replaces resist nature’s lure.
Ward (Su) At 13th level, a kami guardian can declare an area or object as his ward. This grants the kami guardian the ward and merge with ward abilities of the kami subtype. For large areas such as lakes or storms, a kami medium’s ward encompasses a radius of up to 5 feet per druid level. This ability replaces a thousand faces.
The House of Withered Blossoms was an amazing megadungeon, and my players had roughly 20 NPCs in the Caravan. I made the villain of the dungeon an oppressive and malignant force that would not allow the PCs to rest safely, so they had to split in to assault teams, rest teams and guard teams and take the dungeon in shifts. It was amazing! 5/5
Book 5 & 6: Tide of Honor and The Empty Throne After years along railroads with limited decision points, I opened Minkai into a Sandbox. I adapted the Milita/Rebellion rules from Lands of Conflict and Hells Rebels, with some changes. I added more encounters and adventures for the East Coast of Minkai, and in the end our heroes liberated 3 out of 5 regions before triggering the liberation of Kasai. Over the course of the rebellion they turned the Grand Diplomat and the Consort, killed the Treasurer and General before taking the palace. Since my players were level 15 with 3 mythic tiers Anamurumon had a second form of a Void Yai with 1,000 hit points and Amazing initiative.
My players talked the Regent into teaming up with them to take out Anamurumon, and managed to take out the leader of the Five Storms in 3 rounds.
The Jade Regent took his own life in ritual seppuku after realising that he could not defeat the players and maintain his control of the nation.
Epilogue: My players aren't done. They aren't happy with the Laws of Golden Perfection, and Ameiko has no interest in remaining Empress for life, and so our heroes are going to update the Laws of Golden Perfection with the signatures of 9 gods of different alignments to allow the people to be governed with consent. Eventually Minkai will become Tian-Xia's greatest republic.
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I love that! I am currently trying to get my Celestial Regent campaign up and running in PF2e. It is using Jade Regent as a skeleton, but I am having the entire party choose either being part of the Amatatsu bloodline OR a servant of the family... Ameiko is just the elder cousin, and so any of the PCs could conceivably be eligible for the position of Emperor. I also changed the Five Storms to the Relentless Storm, nominally to create more of an organization rather than 5 entities...
Anyway, I like reading what you did!
Just out of curiosity, what did you rate books 5 and 6 prior to your modifications?
IMHO, in some of the APs book 5s always tend to be a bit weak (although Shattered Star, Ironfang Invasion, and Kingmaker come to mind as being great). Opinions vary of course, but I'm curious to get your take as I've always liked most of your modifications in other APs.
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The encounters themselves were really entertaining (though underpowered for my needs on many occasions), and while Books 5 & 6 should really be one big Sandbox, there are huge swaths of Minkai that just don't have any details for how to liberate them from the Regency.
With so much of the AP "on rails", it's refreshing for the players to control their own destinies.
The minimal modification required is to provide players multiple plot-hooks for the various encounters at once, and let them decide how to tackle the various challenges.
Prior to my modifications: Book 5 is a 3.8 out of 5, and Book 6 is a 3.9 out of 5.
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It's pretty generous giving 5 out of 5 for a "skeleton of an adventure". Prospective GMs should be aware that Book 3 as written is a bunch of caravan encounters that don't really work, plus a couple of decent mini-adventures. If you get good results, it's because of the work you put in.
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It's pretty generous giving 5 out of 5 for a "skeleton of an adventure". Prospective GMs should be aware that Book 3 as written is a bunch of caravan encounters that don't really work, plus a couple of decent mini-adventures. If you get good results, it's because of the work you put in.
I don't like running adventures that don't give me room to personalise my adventure for my players.
For other groups the Crown of the World is a boring slog full of random, disconnected encounters that have no bearing on the metaplot of the campaign.
For my group, it was an epic journey of self discovery, exploration and camaradarie as they built up relationships amongst the caravan members.
5/5 is my rating based on the experience me, and my party.
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It's pretty generous giving 5 out of 5 for a "skeleton of an adventure".
Some of us prefer to add some personal touches, but I can see that some might not want to do the extra work.
@Dudemeister... Thanks for the response.
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That was a fun read. Congratz on completing your campaign!