But, but...it's a ship! B-)
Oh you don't guess how often I cited "this spell may start a fire on a ship" - one of my favourite quotes from the Pathfinder SRD - during the theater scene ;)
---
After saying good-bye to the "other Resistance fighters" and wishing Hazred all the best with counseling his Lady, the party and Tharaleth head off to Gate Pass. Tharaleth explains that he still has a meeting with General Danava to attend to and the elves are a bit surprised that their father wants to stick to his original plan after all that had happened to him.
"It is a matter of honour and friendship" he says, and explains that originally Danava was considered a friend of Gate Pass after being a co-signer of the legendary peace treaty as a (still very young) officer 40 years ago. So Cuin and Tinu ask him to accompany him on his mission and Tharaleth does not object, but insists that they follow the proper protocol. They leave Torrent and Katrina behind and ask the two women to take shelter in o...
So...what happened to the Wayfarer's Theatre? Without heroes (or even Katrina) to heroically save it, it seems like it should be a smear of soot across the south seas at this point....
Initially I thought about letting it burn to the ground, yes. But then I realized that this would be a missed chance to get some really useful information and to my players it would have felt like a "punishment" for saving their dad. So... I imagined that the PCs had already become heroes at that point (they did save Seaquen from the Inquisitors and their storm) AND that Giorgio would have really loved to get rid of them as well. So, the Wayfarers delayed their play until the PCs could be properly celebrated in their "big hero ceremony" so they could have a chance to attend if they wanted to (more celebrities, yay!).
One trick I sometimes use to advance monsters or NPCs is to take the E6 approach that one level is equal to 5 feats (3rd edition, mind you). One of the E6 guides even suggests some "templates" that amount to nothing more than 5 feats that fit together logically.
Then again, sometimes I take the opposite tack -- give an NPC an extra level and then strip away feats. That often seems easier than trying to come up with a bunch of feats.
That's... actually pretty brilliant! Esspecially at higher levels, I often have a hard time searching through the feat DB in order to find "that last feat". Plus the NPC feat compositions start feeling repetitive when everyone and their mom is a 13+ level fighter/rogue/ranger.
Oh, and speaking of rogues: I also cut all the multiclassed lowbie or mid-level rogue levels away and replace them with something similar (ranger, fighter, monk... even toyed with PoW's stalker). My two PCs both have uncanny dodge. And keeping the levels just to sneak on Torrent from time...
I'm envious -- your campaign seems to have so much more depth than anything I come up with.
By the way, what does "...see Ivellios standing there, overseeing a staple of paperwork" mean? I didn't follow that last phrase at all.
Oh, that could be because I used a (maybe too directly translated) common german phrase. He's at his planning table, writing his plan's advancement on sheets of paper :)
Regarding the level of depth: It all depends on your players and your and their personal preference. I'm lucky that I know my two guys pretty well (we've been playing together for over 14 years now), that one of them is my husband and that both have gotten really into investing emotion into their characters. It also helps that both coincidentally chose a similar-minded background (Taranesti and Shahalesti exile) and then chose to be childhood friends. I only knew that I wanted to expand on Syana, Trilla and the Taranesti-Shahalesti relationship since that were the themes that I knew could add some pe...
Actually, it was sort of lame. I stated that the cliff was half a mile tall, and that Spider Climb lets you move at two miles an hour. The math shouldn't have been that hard, but no one managed to connect the two statements. Oh well.
but.. basic math is hard! :D
My group decided to fly (they still have the boon of indomitability, so winds woudn't harm them) and they had to calculate whether or not one fly spell per person would suffice if they "hustled" (it did!).
How many wyverns does the enemy army have?
"All of them, I think."
Is Madness a person, tactic or virus?
"Yes."
Crystin, staring through Jineer: "Your father will be caged by madness."
thekwp copies down the cryptic mutterings of the oracle.
On the map of the Kingdom of Dassen near the start of adventure 4 (3.5 edition), it sort of looks like the map show's the Kings' road on the west side of the river north of the Pitchwood. Am I reading that right? I somehow convinced myself that the road was on the east side through Megadon, but with Gallo's Fend and Bresk being both on the west side, it probably makes more sense for the road to be on that side of the river as well.
The east road through Megadon is actually the Prince's way. If I'm reading the map correctly, the King's and Prince's roads should meet somewhere near the Nasham river in Lady Dene's territory. The King's road lies in parallel to Nasham, which makes switching from riverbed to road an easy task for travelers.
Reading this makes me kind of glad that my party managed to flee before being taken prisoner and to keep Balan alive through the whole adventure.
Next morning. Balan was surprisingly resistive my questions about Seaquen's defenses. Only after repeated perforations with a #6 eccentric probe to the minor lobe of his liver did he explain Simeon briefly made a celestial dire blue whale fly. If he can make the spell permanent, Seaquen will use the whale to transport Xavious Foebane's army of 15,000 to strike the Ragesian armies' unprotected flanks. Alert Guthwulfe immediately!
Hah! I'd love to see Guthwulf's reaction to this "alert" (I imagine a classic Picard-style facepalm). Also, pretty nice foreshadowing of the Tempest.
I found the discussion and map of Haddin's estate a bit confusing, too. I decided that the lower floor was simply a barn which could only be accessed from the outside (it's very Swiss ;)).
That's an interesting take. And Swiss styling would be appropriate for the area, certainly!
I may have done something with a not-goblin on a hill as well (goblins seemed out of place, so I made them halflings instead).
Goblins have a very low appearance rate in the adventure it seems, and I didn't have a problem with Ragesia using all races in their army. However, now that you say that I wish I had included one as a gnome or a halfling, to underscore that while there are different races associated with some of the political factions involved, this war is much more about the nations rather than the races involved. With the noted exception of Shahalesti; and their allegiance is to their leader, not their race.
The party will figure all of this out in time, though.
The downside of that appr...
I have not worked out a backstory piece for Nina Glibglammer yet, but I agree that having something the raises questions fits well.
I didn't see any other mention relationship between Madness and the Ragesians. Why do the Ragesian know of Madness and their plans, and why is it coordinating with them?
That is the only mention that I see of them working together in that adventure as well. In Bonus Adventure Four, The Old-Fashioned Way, there is a note that among the questions the inquisitors might ask is "What went wrong in Dassen? Was it the fault of Madness?"
This supports the idea that Ragesians know of Madness, and are waiting for the results. This could be anything from information from other Trillith about the location and nature of Madness, to the first of the "alliance" between Leska and the Trillith.
I think I will go with the idea that this is the first real joint venture between the two forces, though from the plotting of the events in the adventure, I think it works just as w...
Thanks, but I'm shamelessly stealing Mrpereira's recap format.
It's not stealing, it's an homage!
I am still working my way through the history of the boards for material and ideas. Some of the campaign journals are great, and I plan to steal from them -- er, I mean, pay homage to them by including them in my campaign. I am also drawing inspiration from the material you and Lylandra are posting now.
Actually, I've been trying to do the opposite -- let them post their notes and then embellish them for this forum. I figure I'm doing enough to run this campaign. If they can't be bothered to keep track of what happened and lose clues, that's their problem! Maybe later they'll figure out they could have done better if they had written things down.
May you have better luck with that than I have had!
I have one player (Rick) who has generally kept detailed journals, and they are really good to read. I am hoping he will start writing some for this campaign for me to share! However...
Sadly, I don't think the players are keeping notes, so this bit of information will likely be lost on them.
That was one reason I have taken to sending out player summaries of the previous session. It serves both to remind them of the immediate past session, and also as a permanent records for them to refer back to much later. That is the starting point for my campaign posts; though I like your format of interspersing comments throughout the recap.
Have you considered taking the recaps you post here and editing them slightly to send out to your players as a campaign record for them?
By the way, I am enjoying your recaps very much, and look forward to reading more!
I'm glad I could help you :)
Your ideas for her childhood and her mother sound great! If my players ever return to Lady Dene (Cuin has won the performance contest, so he has now 20 acres of land in her erstates), I might use them as well. If I ever get to my recap of adventure #4, I will add in the portfolios for the Dasseni nobility.
Thorn accompanying your party to Bresk sounds like a good idea. This way, he can introduce them to court affairs and share his (sometimes propably pretty one-sided) thoughts on the other nobles and proxies.
Oh, and I believe Lady Dene's first name should be Lydia, just from the campaign's credits -- although, the way things are going, I'll probably end up calling her Lylandra. :cool:
I'm deeply honored :D
I'm curious -- how did they learn the mirror was cursed?
It was Gwenevere who told Cuin to be careful and wait outside her lair because she has made an enchanted mirror that will take away the beauty from anyone who dares to steal from her.
"Don't look at that one or it will wither away that beauty of yours, young elf"
Tinu overheared the conversation while still waiting in stealth and was really relieved for not taking a peek earlier. He was sooo close to simply stealthing in and grabbing the relic.
So, my next question: Can anyone fill me in on Lady Dene? The text doesn't have much to say about her. I'd really appreciate any ideas on her situation and motivations -- why she thinks refugees are profitable, why her army is the way it is, whether or not she might want to visit Bresk, etc.
Since my party is generally interested in talking to everyone, I made short portfolios for all the Lords/Ladies and their proxies just in case. Note that this Dene and her proxy are my own interpretations based on the 3e and 4e infos, so take them with a grain of salt :)
Lady Selena Dene is a young, beautiful, but rather inexperienced and naive princess. She's rumored to go by the nickname "the doe" at court since she's considered to be a harmless, easy to frighten, cute girl. She does know that she has a rather small army and is afraid by the Seaquen call to arms and the growing mass of refugees there that can easily turned into a large Seaquenian army, especially since she's heared that "legendary" Xav...
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