Hey all,
Me and my group are about to finish off our current campaign and are currently looking at what campaigns we want to run next. During this conversation the idea of running Wrath of the Righteous came up. As a result of that I looked into the AP a little bit and came to wonder about a question:
How difficult would it be to replace Deskari with any other Demon Lord?
I tend to run my campaigns in my own homebrew setting, so I know I would have to change a few things anyway (mostly names and deities), but I dunno how much the Dreskari specifically being the BBEG factors into the campaign. Like would I have to change large chunks of terrain/locales/plotlines due to "the Lord of Locusts" being a big thing? Or could I just swap him out with say, Orcus, and change his stats (which I would've to make anyway since I am going to be running it in PF2e) and call it a day?
Thanks all for your answers ahead of time.
P.S. If you are wondering why I want to swap Deskari it is mostly because Deskari is a Demon Lord that none of us have ever heard of (except for the one guy who played the video game). My homebrew world started as a D&D 3.5e setting in 2013 and didn't start "appropriating" Pathfinder Stuff until 2020 when we swapped from D&D 5e to 2e. So I thought it might have a bit more "Oomph!" for the campaign if the BBEG Demon Lord they gotta defeat is a known entity (to them) like Orcus or Demogorgon or Dagon.
It could basically work, as long as the alliance with Baphomet can be attributed to those instead (and I think that can be replaced).
If it is Orcus:
--A number of encounters are swarm based. I would recommend keeping Deskary as a secondary ally of Orcus and Baphomet, who is supplying troops but not takeing a super major role
--If Orcus is the foe, have lastwall or Pharasman temples have more of a role
If it is Demogorgon
--Demogorgon "f#$!s around", you could have a subtext of Demogorgon seeking to seal an alliance with Nocticula in a carnal way, and her being "motivated" thus to do a bit more in act 6 then she does as written. Oh, you thought I am Malcanthet or however your little tramp is called? Die, as you did the 3 last times we met.
Other musings:
--The party could plausibly encounter Dagon in Act 4. Dagons realm in pf1e is directly under Nocticulas. I would consider having the players witness an Abyssal battle between Dagons and Nocticulas forces, they frequently raid each other after all. Could also setup the colossal scale of the actual Abyssal militaries. It could also show that Nocticula is not just "seduction" but has a sizeable, well trained, well equipped and "pretty professional and coherent for demon standards" army.