I have been GMing for about 10 years now and I have played Rise of the Runelords three times now though I never finished the whole adventure path from front to back. I always stopped at The Hook Mountain Massacre because of work or other things happening in my life or the lives of my players.
That being said, I am playing RotR again with a coworker in a 1 v 1 sessions. We made it to the Hook Mountain Massacre and the future looks promising. We have been gaming for about 70 hours now (we play every Thursdays for 5 hours) and it looks like we could finish the story in about 3 to 4 months.
I have decided to play on the slow progress because it gives me more freedom to build up some quests and characters. I’ve included most of the quests from Sandpoint, Light of the Lost Coast and some Pathfinder Society missions. I also added factions and characters not found in the original version of the adventure path. If you would like a darker version of RotR, let your GM read my post or if you are a GM, you are more than welcome to use my story and message me for questions. I present to you, A Bundle of Rods.
There is talk about another civil war near the Lost Coast. The king is dead and a new ruler governs Korvosa with a bundle of rods and with help from the Order of the Nail, he has brought eastern Varisia under his shadow. The Lord-Mayor of Magnimar, too distracted with luxuries, refuses to take the Eastern Frontier seriously. The shoanti are all gathering to elect the new tlatoani and making a great migration towards the Grand Mastaba yet on their travels they tell tales of sleeping giants rising and enslaving shoanti people. Can Adam Smith III unite two cities or will he rule Varisia himself?
