[heavy spoilers] Question about Kingmaker AP

[Vlad1999]

Hi!
I am thinking about Kingmaker AP and I have a question.

AP plot spoiler:

Nyrissa is slain 999 kingdoms when AP ends. And slain kingdoms are shown as a noticeable process. So when and where did she destroy the other 999 kingdoms except the PC one? Based on the AP kingdom should be rather big.
If she destroys it in other worlds, then... How can she travel between worlds? My players will definitely think about it. Heavily introducing interplanetary travel can be confusing I think. But on a Golarion there were no 999 kingdoms that were slain by fey and trees... Or I am wrong?

[James Jacobs]

There's not really much of an expectation in the Adventure Path that the PCs will have a chance to learn more about this, so we didn't go into detail on those... but if your players are intrigued and ask the right questions at the right time, feel free to create any answers you wish! Some of my additional idle thoughts...

Spoiler:

I don't believe we set a date for when Nyrissa started collecting kingdoms, but it was a lonnng time ago. Possibly even before Earthfall, more than 10,000 years ago. Plenty of time for Nyrissa to gather up 999 kingdoms, in any event. Some would have fallen quickly in the span of a year. Some might have taken a decade or more. Most likely fall somewhere in between.

Where are those kingdoms from? 999 different planets in the universe. The story that takes place in Kingmaker presents the first time her attention has focused on Golarion, I feel, and those previous kingdoms were plucked from different planets in the past. There's countless other planets to choose from that have kingdoms to be harvested.

In fact, you could at your table have her harvest kingdoms from ANY other world you want. We obviously can't include links to D&D campaign settings or worlds like Middle Earth or Midkemia or Midworld or Vulcan or Narnia or the like created by novelists or TV Shows/movies, nor do we dip into real world mythological places like Atlantas, but at your table, any of these could be potential kingdoms Nyrissa scooped up!

[Nicolas Paradise]

The Owlcat Game has some of its own hints on some of the Kingdoms definitely being in the Stolen Lands and that Nyriss's Involvment is what has stopped the region from ever becoming a lasting world power.

There is the Skeege Clan Dwarves who got to dependant on their Golem tech.

There is Vordakai(who in the Owlcat game isn't the original Vordakai who ruled in Iobaria but a pretender Wizard who used his name and legend kind of like Karzoug) Cyclops empire that had to go into undead hibernation.

There is the first kingdom ruled by an unknown Elf King as the first grain that created a powerful artifact that Nyrissa's servants fight over.

In the PC game the wriggling man was the ruler of a Kingdom who was tricked into the first world to stop something that was threatening his kingdom and by the time he realized he was tricked hundreds of years had already past.

There is the Original Armag

There is also evidence in both the PC game and AP that Taldor tried to settle in the area and may have fought their enemy Qadria so it's possible Nyrissa helped one side until it got big enough to count and than sparked new war to gain a grain.

Also all the players in the AP as it is written are Nyrissa playing 4D chess to ensure that whoever wins wins big enough to count as a big enough Kingdom for the apology. Obviously it is supposed to eventually be Pitax vs the PC's. But as a sandbox any of the chapter threats could grow to be the big threat. Maybe your party's early political intrigue could collapse Pitax before they are supposed to be the threat so you make Vordakai with an army of Undead humans, Cyclops and Centaur are the threat before Nyrissa.

James's idea that other planet's or settings could have been targets is cool. Depending on how meta you want to go you could tie other ap's in. Maybe Nyrissa was fooling around with the runelords and contributed to the in fighting that led to the death of Xin.

Reign of Winter although later in Pathfinder lore involves traveling to Real World 1920's Russia and involves the events around when the Romanov's died. Maybe Nyrissa got a favor from Baba Yaga and counted the fall of their dynasty as a grain.

[Deriven Firelion]

How did I interpret this?

Somewhat like Nicolas Paradise states. The idea of the Stolen Lands is no one has been able to settle this area due to Nyrissa's influence. She destroys the kingdoms that try to rise in this area. What counts as a kingdom? Hard to say.

Maybe the PCs killing the Stag Lord counts as a grain of sand.

The fall of the Cyclops counts as one.

The defeat of the Taldan armies counts as one.

Maybe the ruins of various warlords.

I always felt the Stolen Lands was one of Nyrissa's favorite areas for collecting kingdoms since it is like bait for kingdom builders. A big, wild, beautiful land with tons of resources ripe for building, but somehow every kingdom that tries she collects.

As James is the writers, she is collecting on other planets as well it seems.

I think its pretty wide open and The Stolen Lands is one of Nyrissa's favorite places to collect kingdoms on Golarion. Maybe she has other such places on other worlds or planes of existence.