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My group has chosen for me to run Gatewalkers next and I read that running Stolen Fate after that is simple enough, so that is my plan. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or suggestions to foreshadow any of the main plots or main villains in Stolen Fate during Gatewalkers.
Should any of the harrow cards be introduced to the PCs during Gatewalkers? Also, how should the PCs harrow suite background be utilized if they aren't taking any of the backgrounds from Stolen Fates at first level. I intend on them to take only a Gatewalkers background to take a deviant ability when they create 1st level characters, but not sure if the harrow suites associated in the various Stolen Fate backgrounds need to be addressed as well at 1st level. Or just wait until Stolen Lands starts, then let them choose a suite?
I heard that AV is a really good AP as a prequel for Stolen Fates. We've already run AV several years ago and half of the current group were players in that campaign, so that is an AP that I don't want to run again with 2 players that have already run through it and 2 that haven't.
Creative Director
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My suggestion would be...
Then let the PCs find their second Harrow card on Ritalson's gear.
And the third one stashed in area B7 in his workshop in Findeladlara's temple.
And then the last one in area E2 of The First and Last Temple, among the sledge and other stuff left there... at which point you can reveal via a flashback or sudden un-repressed memory that it wasn't Ritalson who found these cards, but each of the PCs, and what they're finding are cards that ALWAYS belonged to them.
If you pick the four cards for the PCs before you run Gatewaklers at all, you can even pick what card is best for each player's character and use that card's imagery and symbolism during the whole first Adventure Path, showing up in dreams or other weird parts along the way, so that when the PCs do start finding the cards in the 3rd adventure it feels more portentous.
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Funny enough coincidence, but my GM also ushered use from Gatewalkers into Stolen Fate.
Whether or not you plant some cards early, I absolutely do NOT recommend any GM runs right from one AP into the other.
We had a "few years" intermission, which allowed for 2 players to retire PCs, and the other 2 to undergo significant retraining/partial rebuilding. I highly recommend you do the same, and offer all players the chance to overhaul their PCs to whatever extent they wish during an off-screen timeskip between campaigns.
APs are rather notoriously bad at giving PCs downtime, and it would have honestly sucked if I had to carry my Alchemist as-is into the start of Stolen Fate. Badly enough I might have retired the PC right there without the rebuild option.
Thus far Stolen Fate has been both rather directionless (go get cards) and carries a bizarre urgency with us racing to get cards before "they fall into the wrong hands."
All that is to say, still very hard to justify taking downtime in Stolen Fate. Even though we are clearly supposed to, it's super hard to even justify spending a week round trip to any of the distant event hexes to go chase a Rabbit or something. Not being able to clear that event in one go was super demotivating for the PCs that tried it (my Alch needed the time retrain a feat and stayed home). Aside from that Rabbit Prince attempt, we've completely ignored all the other hex mechanics.
Stolen Fate really should have had some form of direct explanation/instruction as to what the heck the stakes even are, lol.
Gatewalkers may be a bit schizophrenic, but we always knew what we were doing and why.
So the way I run my games is probably much different than the way your GM runs theirs. I very explicitly tell my players to feel free to take downtime whenever they want. I will NEVER run a secret timer in the background, or rush my players to feel like they have to do something now or the world will end or whatever. If they do have to accomplish something within a set time period, I will very very explicitly tell them up front, hey guys, so uh, this time you have 36 hours before the volcano explodes, or something like that. Even then, I still have a couple of players that always feel everything is an urgency and they refuse to take downtime, even when its always offered, then complain about not taking downtime.