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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Taed" data-source="post: 5747161" data-attributes="member: 89454">[This is a modified version of something that I've posted previously.]About 2 years ago, I DMed KotS and the motivation for going to the Dragon Burial Site is one of the big problems with the module, and is what started me down the path of modifying it. I made a bunch of changes throughout the module to give motivations to NPCs and reasons for things being the way they were.I took a fair amount of the ideas from someone's "rewriting" of it (at TheAlexandrian.net, as I recall). The key from that is that at the Dragon Burial Site, they are digging up a small idol of Orcus, which will be used later in the final ritual. So, drop that silly mirror. The same idol is also what the goblins are REALLY digging for (though they don't know it) in the room on level 1 of the keep. Additionally, Kalarel's Apparition (see the online version of KotS -- it is not in the printed version) keeps watch over both dig sites, so that helps expose the party to Kalarel before the final battle.So, why did my party go to the Dragon Burial Site? When they defeated Irontooth, they discovered the note. In the written module, it's written in Common. But since Kalarel knows Goblin, it makes more sense for it to have been written in Goblin. "Unfortunately" no one in the party read Goblin.So, they go back to town. First, they meet Ninaran, who is surprised to see them back alive (she sent them to the Kobold / Goblin lair intending for them to die in the battle), and stupidly asks if they killed all the kobolds and goblins. That was an intentional clue by me.  A clever player at the table realized that she could not have known about the goblins as they had never been seen by anyone else. (He actually pointed out my "mistake", but I corrected that the DM does not make mistakes, so he got the hint.)  So, that's their first clue that Ninaran is not what she seems. Then she "helpfully" provides them with an incorrect translation of the note (basically saying that the goblin stronghold is to the South), and she tries to keep the note.  The same clever player does not allow her to pocket the note.The party wisely seeks another opinion on the note and eventually chat up Valthrun the Prescient (who they nicknamed "bathroom depressant" due to the name and craggly voice that I used) who told them that his human apprentice, Douven, knows Goblin, and he's out on an achaelogical dig. Valthrun also gives them a book to deliver that Douven wanted to borrow.  (And that's how I get them to the dig site.)So, the adventurers go there and meet up with the Gnome, who happily admits to being Douven. (Sadly, the players forgot that I told them that Douven was human.)  He's extremely friendly and calls them all down to see what he's dug up. Everyone gathers around the dragon's skull, and then the gnome orders his minions to pounce the party, taking them completely by surprise. Someone even said, "What?!?! Why is Douven attacking us?" So, once that's done (and they get their first taste of Kalarel's Apparition watching the dig site), they can chat up Douven. Douven provides a correct translation of the note. Also, the story of the Keep is mentioned, and the book that Douven wanted to borrow just happens to be a local history of the area. That gives me an excuse to read the big section of the history behind Shadowfell Keep.The idols of Orcus are important to the ritual and they provide a reason for Kalarel's Apparition to be around.Furthermore, if Splug (who the party rescued from the jail cell and he assists them in trade for his life) learns that the party has one or more of them, he will attempt to steal the idol(s) and give it to Kalarel (who he has heard of but never seen), providing a way for Splug to show his true colors.  However, I eventually changed my mind on Splug for the final part and had him being "charmed" / controlled by Kalarel, stealing the idols from them during the night (Splug was sleeping next to the person who had the idols), and delivering them to Kalarel.Some other changes I made was Ninaran's motivations. She's clearly not the lush that she pretends to be. She's in league with Kalarel for her own reasons. She believes that her Elven mother was raped by Lord Padrig resulting in her conception (in reality, they had a brief romance when he was a young soldier, and Lord Padrig did not know of the child), and she seeks revenge on him.The first time that the party sleeps outside or heads back to town, Douven will come riding up to come get the party as Ninaran has raised the dead, killed the town guards (which explains why they aren't dealing with the problem), and has given the town until midnight to produce Lord Padrig for execution or she will kill everyone.The adventurers, acting heroically, rode to the rescue to find that Lord Padrig has offered himself up to save the town. The party might be able to stop his execution at range, but most likely, she'll kill him. And in this battle, she did kill him.  The battle ensues, and she is killed, but was not given a chance to explain herself (so my players never learned her backstory).That sets up some long-term issues with the town becoming a farming co-op with Douven organizing things, as I suspect the party will visit the town occassionally in future adventures.Another change I made early in the game was motivated by the party having a Dragonborn.  Since the town was very small and remote, with none but a few "worldly" residents ever having seen a non-human, the reaction to the mixed races of the party were something to work with.  Remember that the town has been being harassed by the kobolds and that they just blocked the roads.  When the party comes walking in with a Dragonborn (to them, a big kobold), the town guards immediately assume that the party are hostages to the big kobold and react accordingly.  The player playing the Dragonborn wisely dropped his weapons and surrendered (which was a great lesson to learn in that not everything need be a battle).  That was quickly diffused by the intervention of the Lord of Winterhaven (since he was a soldier who had fought alongside Dragonborn), but to quell the townspeople, the Dragonborn was jailed while in town.I also made a bunch of changes to the magic items. I kept most of them but customized them for my party, and moved some of them to give them some reason for being (the +1 magic wand in the goblin room really bugged me). One nice change was to make Sir Keegan's boring +1 sword into a Sunblade (does radiant damage) of Bahamut, which helps to explain why Sir Keegan still "lives" and wasn't fully corrupted by the Shadowfell, but he also explains that he used it to fight the evil when the keep was in service. Furthermore, I really thought that Kalarel's Horned Helm was silly as he's not a martial character and converted it into a Gem of Colloquy that allows the wearer to understand Abyssal (the language of Orcus), which only makes sense given the rite that he's performing. Another tailored change, which will became a touching moment for my Warforged Warden, was to remove the Shield of Protection from the water room and instead have a strange glowing from the bottom of the water, where they discover a Warforged with a dimly glowing Delver's Light who is all-but-dead, having been at the bottom of the water for over a year, and asks the other Warforged to end his suffering.The reward after the defeat of Kalarel and saving all the kidnapped townspeople was weak in my opinion.  So, I had the Pelor priestess (I forget if the module specifies Pelor or if I added that detail) and the "ghost" of Sir Keegan give a speech about the party's heroics in rescuing the Pelor-worshiping townspeople and righting the wrongs that the Bahamut-worshiping Sir Keegan had battled against.  They then offered each member of the party their choice of low-level boon, either Pelor's Blessing or Bahamut's Protection.  The townspeople also referred to the party as "The Heroes of Winterhaven" whenever they visited the town in the future (it was used as a base for a while) and would be treated to free drinks and the like by the townspeople, who even grew to accept the Dragonborn.I also made some minor changes to battles.I had them play the two Hobgoblin rooms on the second level (after the entry encounter) as the same encounter -- two rounds after going down the narrow hallway to battle the Hobgoblins to the South, the other Hobgoblins hit them from behind from the North.  It was a great battle since they also had to deal with the portcullis.I also made the "cave" room somewhat of a bigger battle, adding a carrion crawler in the back of the cave guarding its eggs.  (I also remember a yellow slime, but can't remember if that was in the module as written or if I added that.)  The party unwisely battled with both the kruthiks, slime, and carrion crawler at the same time, even though my flavor text and actions made it clear that the slime and carrion crawler were not aggressive.  They ended up saving the carrion crawler eggs, and the results of that were dealt with later (the druid hatched them as pets).I also added an encounter at the entrance to the Keep in the ruins of the above ground structure, battling some Hobgoblin guards with bows.  After all, it only makes sense that they would have sentries stationed there.  The party was attacked from 20 squares away from behind cover of the ruins, so that was a different sort of battle than they saw in the claustophobic dungeon.That should cover all of my modifications.  I really thing that KotS is a good intro module since it has a lot of different things going on.  I just wanted to fix the internal consistency so that it would tell a logical story and not just be a set of encounters.</blockquote>

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