I'm very excited for this AP and trying to begin strategic planning for the AP. I don't love starting at high levels without a couple of shorter adventures to help establish the characters/help the players know how to drive the more complex starting build.
I think Rusthenge can be a good (but full-length three levels) starting hook that shares some themes. I think the season 2 PFS metaplot, could likewise be used in an accelerated level up fashion. The PFS 4-99 multi-table special could maybe be homebrewed into something as well. Other thoughts on other existing Paizo adventures that would work well for a prologue/accelerated vingettes for checking in on the characters as the got from 1-10 in a couple of adventures? Ie I'm not really looking for a normal 1-10 AP to run first, but between 3 and 15 sessions worth of content.
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As I wrote here (in the spoiler), you could probably modify Wardens of Wildwood (and tweak the start of Whispers in the Dirt) the as the lead-in to Spore War with just a bit of effort.
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I think the first half of Strength of Thousands could be an interesting lead-in as long as you don't mind its implementation of Free Archetype (or drift it to be more personally palatable).
The characters could be students sent from Kyonin, its allies, and/or one of the Mwangi Elven tribes. At the end of the third book of SoT, you have established yourselves as professors and defenders of the people. SoT4 has you leading a diplomatic delegation, so it isn't even that conceptually far off to have the characters being sent from the Magaambya to Kyonin instead.
There are a few things in the first three SoT books that point to the back half of the AP you may want to de-emphasize but honestly shouldn't require too much.
If I can, I want to play Triumph of the Tusk and this one with the same "diplomat" PC, even if it means going back to 11th level.
That’s my current plan for GMing it, hoping it doesn’t clash too much narratively.
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If I can, I want to play Triumph of the Tusk and this one with the same "diplomat" PC, even if it means going back to 11th level.
Are you thinking the party are freelance diplomats hired by various powers on a per diem basis (that is, one month they might be working for Nirmathas, the next month Molthune, with all the attendant conflicts of interest), or are you thinking they represent a single power successively to Belkzen and Kyonin? If the latter, what single power(s) make sense?
Kyonin's conference is about concluding a military alliance for a general war everyone in the lower Sellen and on the Inner Sea sees coming, which means attendees are likely to be from Kyonin's immediate neighbors, and Taldor (but excepting Razmiran, which is all but at war with Kyonin). But all of these have interests that are terribly distant from Belkzen and have little reason to do outreach there. Maybe Taldor, with its historic interest in supporting the Knights of Ozem? Or the Five Kings Mountains, which could be looking to both reconcile their long feud with the orcs? Druma could also work, I suppose.
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If I can, I want to play Triumph of the Tusk and this one with the same "diplomat" PC, even if it means going back to 11th level.Are you thinking the party are freelance diplomats hired by various powers on a per diem basis (that is, one month they might be working for Nirmathas, the next month Molthune, with all the attendant conflicts of interest), or are you thinking they represent a single power successively to Belkzen and Kyonin? If the latter, what single power(s) make sense?
Kyonin's conference is about concluding a military alliance for a general war everyone in the lower Sellen and on the Inner Sea sees coming, which means attendees are likely to be from Kyonin's immediate neighbors, and Taldor (but excepting Razmiran, which is all but at war with Kyonin). But all of these have interests that are terribly distant from Belkzen and have little reason to do outreach there. Maybe Taldor, with its historic interest in supporting the Knights of Ozem? Or the Five Kings Mountains, which could be looking to both reconcile their long feud with the orcs? Druma could also work, I suppose.
The PC I envision for this is a Droomar alijae elf born and raised by Matanji orcs. He will be sent by the Matanji to Ardax's gathering to represent them and get a feel for the honorability of Ardax's intention as well as his true power in Belkzen.
After the events of Triumph of the Tusk, he will have been noticed by the Kyonin elves and/or sent by Ardax as a trusted emissary. Zazirele, the alijae fiancé of Queen Edasseril, will take him under his wing for a while and later volunteer the PC's service in view of the diplomatic alliance.
Does anyone have any new thoughts now that we have the book in hand?
Creative Director
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The Spore War Player's Guide has advice on how to run Spore War after several of our published lower-level Adventure Paths.
If you have lots of time, one possibility would be to...
But also, always chat with your players. I could imagine some groups being eager to start a new Adventure Path being frustrated at having to go on preliminary adventures before they get to the thing they're there to play!
I'm helping one of my friends run the idea I posted in the OP -- Rusthenge for levels 1-4, followed by the Season 2 PFS Meta plot to skip level (two levels every single Society adventure), into Spore War. Possibly heavily tweaking the 4-99 special as their introduction to Kyonin. But the 4-99 events might be too on-point and overshadow the undead/Whispering tyrant kick off, so I'll need to think through that some more.
I still need 1-2 backup plans for how to get the party from Rusthenge to Ioboria (main plan would be seeking help from the society to figure out how to seal away the horn, and being sent (Maze of the Open Road) to some place closer to Iobaria to meet with Eando, and then get stuck helping with the events there.
Also playing with an idea for creating a similar horn-artifact (fingernail) from the PFS sequence and seeing if there is an interesting way to tie in the two mcguffins to the book three finale once I see it.
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We are still in Sky King's Tomb Book 1, but one player chose to be a deep elf who'd spent time away from Highhelm, and I recommended that in his journeys he was most recently from Kyonin, just in case we decide to go to SW after SKT.
That being said, a custom 'campaign' of PFS modules would probably lead really well into this. You could run a few, level up the PCs in between, and in a few sessions not only have a party of high level PCs, but some exploits to brag about and bond the party together.