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Harrim, Jaethal, Kalikke & Kanerah, Octavia & Regongar unfortunately didn't make the cut to have more details added to them. But I would like to add extra content. I admit though I'm having some trouble with work shopping. Some ideas. So far I've been working the angle of tying them into some pre-existing content so as not to oversaturate the game with their personal missions, plus the companions that did have their quests fleshed out already occupy a wide range of level ranges.
Harrim I'm thinking of somehow tying to dwarf fortress that the trolls occupied. I'm thinking maybe some shortly after trial trouble is ended. Or maybe there's an angle during? I don't want to do lockstep with how his video game quest played out, but I don't want to have to do multiple stages to his quest and risk him dominating whatever the PCs have going on.
Jaethal I'm thinking maybe have something from Kyonin catch up to her, tying it to those Urgathoa who were turned into mummies seemed like an angle I could pursue, but again, I'm worried about how to actually tie it all together without overwhelming the PCs
For the twins I was thinking maybe tie their fiendish ancestry to "old sharptooth" instead, but I can't figure out a good time to actually pursue this.
Octavia and Regongar I am drawing a complete blank on. To the best of my memory There really isn't a technic league thing in the area of PCs the explorer.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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I'm really only interested in Harrim, Octavia, and Regongar, since I play them the most in the video game version and like their mix. They provide a good cover for situations that I typically have to play anyway when we're down to only 3 players.
Harrim's story is... interesting, but I agree that you could easily tie him into the dwarf fortress in some other manner. Not necessarily in the same semi-suicidal way he's portrayed in the game. Maybe the fortress is part of his family history, retold as myths or legends that he remembers from his childhood, but the details were lost over the years. Perhaps some gear uniquely tied to his past needs to be recovered once the fortress location is known, a fabled weapon only members of his family can benefit from (well, plus something for the party, too). In a nearby burial mound, or similar.
Octavia and Regongar could take a bit of thought. I wasn't a huge fan of the Technic League angle, FWIW. I can see them as a couple of adventurous fools that set out on their own and managed to get themselves caught by some torturous tribe ready to sacrifice the two of them to some obscure demi-god. Regongar is arrogant and Octavia is reckless, both unaware of risks they face on their own.
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I only went in some depth for Jaethal, diving into the Pathfinder Kingmaker Wiki on fandom for info on her and her quests in the video game.
I plan to use this while adapting it to work best with my party.
I guess I will do the same for Harrim, who my players also ended up befriending during the dinner.
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I spent a lot of time overthinking this question, to the point of expanding it into 3 questions. By Examining the Companion's Guide & answering those 3, I thought I'd find some grandiose pattern used by the authors. In no particular order, those were:
I'm going to go ahead really quick & answer #1: There's no consistency to how much exp each companion quest gives. I went through each companion already in the book & it varied IMMENSILY. Maybe it's because I was mostly focusing on encounter xp & not hypothetical Roleplay xp? idk. TBH, some quests ARE less combat-oriented, like Jubilost's, whereas others are strictly mini-dungeon crawls. If by the end of your calculations, you have between 100 - 600 xp, it's good enough.
2 & 3 were FAR more interesting to answer though. Throughout the book, they always recommend that Companion Quests occur during the in-between parts of the story, right after the Big Fight or right before a new threat approaches. Using the AP's Timeline & the Companion book:
•[Amidst, Companion Introductions]
•[After, ???]
•[Amidst, Nok-Nok, Level 5]
•[After, Ekundayo, level 6]
•[Amidst, Linzi, Level 7]
•[After, Jublilost, level 8]
•[Amidst, Valerie, Level 9]
•[After, Tristian, Level 10]
•[Amidst, Amiri, level 11]
•[After, ???]
•[Amidst, ???]
•[After, ???]
•[Amidst, ???]
Behold, method to the madness! I've taken the liberty of adding the [Blank] Slots, but essentially we have ~2 companion slots per story beat. Amidst happens during the brief loose parts of the chapters, while After occurs upon the Chapter's conclusion. With 5 spare companions, Chapter 9 being an optional Dungeon, & the end of Ch10 leading directly into Ch11, I think this is where the slots make most sense. You can also see a lovely Level distribution; they clearly wanted these to be spread out.
Answering Q. 3 took a bit more investigation. I ultimately turned to this page:I recommend using Crt-F to find the Companion because it's split into the game's Acts. This illustrates an important detail however, once you compare the videogame companion quests side-by-side their book-versions: The Authors trimmed off the fat. The game is a singleplayer experience where exploring previously-seen locations is to be expected & story lines are worked on bit-by-bit. But this is tabletop roleplaying.
Take Amiri for example: Her Act 1 & 2 side quests were turned into unrelated events in the AP (Tuskgutter & the Hodag Lair), & the events from Acts 3, 5, & 6 were condensed into a singular outing.
& if you run comparisons with the other companions, the same pattern can be seen. Most have minor tweaks, but a lot of the characters & story beats remain the same. Some Acts get combined, some story beats are dropped, & others rearrange the order of events.
This is where I left off, but I recommend reading through a companion's videogame quests, writing down the main bits or details that stick out to you, then go on from there to write something more cohesive.
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To add, after reading the comments before mine (I kinda just jumped into an essay without fully reading the original question, sorry);
Harrim's story is... interesting
Having not actually played the game, & instead going over the spark notes, I liked the cut of Harrim's jib. I tweaked his backstory, making him from the vanished Golka Clan instead of down south. One of my players is an embarrassed exile from House Garess, & Harrim's now-poofed clan made a perfect tie-in for his searching for long-gone dwarven ruins. My plan is to keep the vibes of his original storyline: dwarf migrants eager to reclaim their birthright, a fallen clan's overreliance on golems, & a ghost too stubborn to let go of the past. I don't intend to use Harrim at Hargulka's Lair, BUT if they choose to, his Dwarven Lore & their perception should uncover wall carvings with 3 crests that reveal the fort to have sat on a trade route between a river Clan to the South, The Golka Clan to the North, & a mysteriously forgotten clan in the region they're now in. That alone should cement Harrim's interest in the migrants that arrive later, at an undecided time. I'll also drop a broken golem in there with the mysterious Crest as foreshadowing. That's all I got so far for him. The Videogame's use of an adamantine golem is hilarious though; that's getting changed.
For the twins I was thinking maybe tie their fiendish ancestry to "old sharptooth" instead
Wow, that is a stroke of genius! The AP literally recommends a confrontation with Zozraael to not "occur until the PCs are at least 13th Level", & the Companions Guide states that their "adventure should be something designed to challenge PCs of no less than 13th level." How did I overlook that?
Jaethal I'm thinking maybe have something from Kyonin catch up to her, tying it to those Urgathoa who were turned into mummies seemed like an angle I could pursue
Also not a bad idea. My original thinking was to have Jaethal's pursuers tied to the arrival of Elven diplomats, on Page 153 of the Forgotten Keep, but I haven't thought that far ahead.
The Payoff for Octavia's Quest is her finding her mother in Pitax, & the Glenebon region for Regongar's home tribe. Whether you go the slave-route or not, that implies After the events of Chapter 8 when Pitax is navigable, somewhere between Levels 14-16. I was initially going to skip them entirely just to save myself the effort, or have them pop up as forcefully conscripted war-casters in Fort Drelev's armies, or captured by the Tiger Lords. Maybe they had a bad run-in with the local giants, idk. I wonder if they could be reflavored as survivors of the Iron Wraiths? That group only exists to die later. My PCs already think their leader is an absolute jarhead. It might be interesting for the PCs to get to know 2 of the faces under those identical polished helmets. & Regongar & Octavia's arrogance & recklessness could be exactly what led to the group's failure in Chapter 7, & if the party heals them it makes for a humbling moment for the both of them. Their stories need overhauls anyways...
Honestly, I don't mind introducing companions later than intended, because the early chunk of the AP is filled with them. Especially if their story-payoffs are later in the adventure.
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lot and lot of greatly valuable things
Thanks a lot for your efforts. I think you're bringing us awesomely valuable insights.
Please keep on providing us with your further thoughts on this. I find it extremely useful and motivating in trying to incorporate the Companions in my own players' game.
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lot and lot of greatly valuable thingsThanks a lot for your efforts. I think you're bringing us awesomely valuable insights.
Please keep on providing us with your further thoughts on this. I find it extremely useful and motivating in trying to incorporate the Companions in my own players' game.
Aw thanks! I am pleased with my plan for Harrim, but I'll put some more thought into the others & share what I've finalized. At the moment, I'm trying to better understand the Twins, since their conundrum is rather complex. I'm curious to how often others have their personalities switch? Like, it's a fascinating concept, but damn that must be difficult to keep track of.
It's always funny looking at what was changed from Owlcat's to the book. For example, from what I've read the Twins in the game gain the ability to control their switching via a magic mcguffin quest, but in the Companion's Guide, it happens once you reach Influence 8.There's also these needless fetch quests concerning mischievous NPCs who call themselves "The Sweet Teeth", friends of the twins from their home city who followed them here. I don't think I'd keep them (I prefer minimizing NPCs), but I think the point of them existing is to represent the twins' past following them? The book references their criminal roots having resulted in the death of Kanerah, so I could see Kalikke wanting to put that behind her, especially seeing that she comes to the party wanting to start a "modest academy". It might be something to work off of, but it's deciding what fat to trim off. Especially since their quest should concern more the freeing of their souls from the Forefather.
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I've read a LOT of game dialogue, too much in fact, but I believe I have a better understanding of Jaethal's whole shtick. The main gist of Jaethal (heh) is that her past is catching up with her, & she has to decide between continuing down the path of Urgothoa & embrace being undead or reject it & return to humanity. Feel free to use my ideas or critique:
The 1st part I'd recommend is ensuring that you don't reveal too much of her story too quickly. Right away, under her Resistances in her Influence Statblock, we know that she's sensitive about 1: Being recognized as Undead & 2: Being recognized as being from Kyonin. While a high enough skill check is all it takes to learn about her "condition", that doesn't mean she owes anyone an explanation as to HOW she became what she is. Not right away, at least. Lean into that.
When & what info is learned is vital to playing her out properly. High enough influence scores should result in her sharing that she used to run in politics, then admitting where she's from, & then that she's on the run for "choices" she made in a past life, but other than that, she remains closed off about the "WHY".
It isn't until the events of Elven Diplomats after the renovation of the Forgotten Keep that representatives from Kyonin learn once more that she's "alive" & well. How this plays out I'm still weighing ideas. 1 is these diplomats immediately demand for her to be handed over, the cat gets let out of the bag & the party learns that she's murdered several court members to become what she is today, & so the party gets put in an awkward pickle. I'm still workshopping it.
The 2nd pickle is addressing her 2 paths. The way the videogame does this is she gets to become more powerful by sacrificing her daughter (who's conveniently in-town, & whom Jaethal is utterly disappointed in for various reasons) or choose to reject Urgathoa. It isn't explicitly clear what Urgothoa wants her to become, but thankfully we have a likely statblock for that: A child of Urgathoa! What's probably the oddest twist it that the good path, her rejecting this power, results in Jaethal EXPLODING, only to be reborn as an inquisitor for Pharasma during the final hours of the game in Nyrissa's House at the Edge of Time. That is...a choice in storytelling. What she becomes isn't stated but I think it's implied a duskwalker. I don't personally like having a companion disappear for a portion of the campaign, but there's something to having Jaethal redeemed by Pharasma, with some involvment of jaethal's daughter. So let's backtrack a bit.
Nintendogeek01 brought up the Bog mummies at HT13. The description mentions that they were previously Urgathoa priests that had plans to establish a cult in Pitax but fell to infighting. It doesn't mention how FAR they got into establishing a cult. Let's pretend that they got a LITTLE far, that within Pitax is a decades-old ruin with a chamber still humming with unholy divine magic from Urgathoa herself. To leave it there is a safety violation frankly, a place that Priests of Pharasma would want cleansed, & a place that Jaethal would have keen interest in. This would most likely occur during chapter 8, when Party is sneaking around Pitax. An idea for how they'd learn about it is if they get the quest from a local priestess of Pharasma, who just so happens to be Jaethal's daughter. Jaethal would be disappointed that she never went into politics like her mother, & even more insulted that she devotes her life to preventing undead like her mother from forming, but won't let the opportunity to see urgathoa's shrine slip away. From there, the quest would be navigating the temple & escorting the priestess to the alter in order to cleanse it, where there would be a moment when Jaethal weighs her options (following the same choice from the game, but with more bite). Again, still workshopping.
Small aside, the Bog mummies have 3 undead, but there should technically be a 4th body (with knives in his back) in the bog. After combat, this remaining corpse would be the only (relatively) undamaged one suitable for spells like "Talking Corpse" in which he'd lament being stabbed in the back (literally) & never getting that cult in Pitax up & thriving.