[Game Journal] Devacorian Presents: Kingmaker

[Devacorian]

Starting fresh with a new first entry into this gaming journal. More will follow.

My group has been playing through the early stages of Paizo's Kingmaker AP, and we have all been thoroughly enjoying it. As such, I've decided to re-kick off this (previously deceased) campaign journal in order to get some of my thoughts down and into the aether, and possibly get some feedback. For those of you who have played through this AP, I want to hear from you! If you haven't, I'd still like your feedback regarding what I've got going on and coming up.

Fair warning: If you are one of my players, stop reading here. There will be spoilers ahead. If you don't know if you're one of my players, you're not.

Additional warning: I am making my own changes to Kingmaker, as everyone does, so what you see here will not be 100% "out of the book." I welcome ideas and feedback most especially regarding these changes.

Without further ado, let's start with introducing the characters!

Cal Longheart: Martin Callendon Elioda Longheart The Second, aka "Cal," a half-elf arcanist. This character is a bit of an amalgam lovechild of my group's previous party in our Red Hand of Doom (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?480297-Red-Hand-of-Doom-is-Still-Cool-Right) campaign, now retconned into having taken place in Isger (Golarion's stand-in for the Elsir Vale). He was raised by the old group, and broke out into the world to make his own fame and fortune. Cal grew up on stories of the missing member of the old group, Uncle Caliden, who departed his homeland forever in a search for his own peace. Our young Cal set off in the direction of Brevoy, having heard rumors of Uncle Caliden's possible presence in the area. One really cool aspect about this character is the little quirk that my player through in: he has synesthesia. He experiences sensations as a blend, and while he doesn't know it yet, I'm going to capitalize on this as a form of sixth sense—magical Sight (a la Dresden Files).

Ariel "Ari" Orlovsky: A sylph rogue and somewhat distant relative of Lord Poul Orlovsky. She was born during a magical storm (which she doesn't realize will be important to this story), hence her sylph atavism. Ari will serve as a conduit to feed information to from the Brevic nobility. I have thoroughly researched, fleshed out, and expanded the political landscape of Brevoy, and Ari's player has already dived in and gotten her mind wrapped around the whole thing. Which is saying a lot. Brevoy ended up looking like it was written by George R.R. Martin by the time we were done.

Amarand Fen: Elf slayer with a hefty dose of elven arrogance and snobbery, and a fair bit of blood on his hands. The "paladin" has taken to calling him a "mad dog" in his character journals, and so far, Amarand has proven this true. Between cold-blooded murder of unarmed kobolds, violent executions of disarmed bandits, and several key pieces of information being hidden from the rest of the party, Amarand has nudged his alignment out of Chaotic Neutral and into the borders of CE territory...

Mercer Kingsley: Perhaps my favorite character concept in this campaign. This character's campaign journal can be found here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?499587-The-Diary-of-Mercer-Kingsley-A-Kingmaker-Campaign-Journal&p=21174185#post21174185). What we're looking at here is an insinuator antipaladin (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/alternate-classes/antipaladin/archetypes/paizo---antipaladin-archetypes/insinuator-antipaladin-archetype) who is going to be spending the entire campaign playing as if he's a paladin. Major spoilers here, but this character's ultimate goal is to build the kingdom up around himself, subtly taking control of the military and gaining the love of the commonfolk, before leading a (hopefully bloodless) coup against the rest of the rulers. This is going to be a tricky character to play well, both for the player and for me (especially getting the NPC interactions right in front of the other players).


Sessions will be backlogged in the next post, then updated on a regular basis as the game progresses. This is going to be a long one (Kingmaker can last quite a long time, both in-character and out). I'll appreciate any feedback you guys have for me during that time.

Until then, cheers!

[Devacorian]

My group typically tries to begin with a "trial session" to get a grasp on their characters, both mechanically and in terms of role-playing. With that in mind, I wrote up a pre-session myself with ideas contributed variously by members over at the Paizo boards.

The session took place at a wedding between the second daughter of House Lebeda and some distant cousin of House Garess. My intention was to play House Lebeda (and particularly its matriarch, Dame Sarrona) as House Tyrell from Game of Thones, more or less. House Lebeda is rich, powerful, well-loved, and run by an older woman who's damn good at political maneuvering. House Garess, meanwhile, is more like House Mormont: disgraced, in decline, and falling apart at the seams. All in all, this marriage was supposed to be one that did not make political sense to anyone who knew anything.

The PCs were introduced to several important NPCs—all future movers and shakers in their new kingdom. The first to show himself was my own homebrew NPC, Aleksi Lodovka, son of Natala Surtova and her late husband, Vladimir Lodovka. He is young and cruel, arrogant, and with easily-bruised pride. In other words, I modeled him after Joffrey Baratheon.

None of my PCs will end up as the ruler of the new kingdom they found. Instead, they will have the option of installing one of several NPC rulers, and will function as the elite council for this NPC ruler. This is for two reasons:


The idea of a level 20 ruler galavanting around the countryside slaying monsters is a little too anime for my group, and quite frankly, for me too. It doesn't make any sense that the rulers of the kingdom would be risking their lives so regularly and with so little care.
I want to be able to add this additional layer of political interplay to my group's playthrough of this campaign. My players are smart, and giving them something like this is like throwing in an extra toy that they can play with.




The trick to this exchange, of course, was that young Aleksi here would be one of the potential NPCs to rule their new kingdom when the time comes. Well, sure enough, the arcanist went and accidentally made young Aleksi look foolish in front of his cadre of sycophant friends. If/when the party has to deal with him again, you can be sure that sweet li'l Leksi's gonna hold a nasty grudge.

The group schmoozed, boozed, and perused their way through the party. The "paladin" was the life of the party, despite being a half-orc, and successfully turned the eyes of several noble ladies and gentlemen. The arcanist spent his time dazzling the crowds with displays of minor magic, or else hoarding the buffet like a half-starved lunch dragon. The sylph rogue darted casually about the room, eavesdropping on conversations she had no right to be a part of or glomming on to one random person or another for pure entertainment. The elf slayer had not yet joined the party (he was an addition to the group in the next session).

The time came for the wedding, and the group filed into the huge, ornate chapel in Lebeda's castle. The ceremony was rudely interrupted by an attempted assassin, who was chased off by Cal and Mercer, while Ari warned Lord Orlovsky about the man and caused her own kind of scene. The assassin seemed to be looking for someone, but when the group got wise, covered it by taking an ill-aimed shot at Lord Regent Noleski Surtova.

The truth of this "assassin" was that he is actually an agent of a cult of Norgorber. Lady Natala Surtova hired them to start a war—one wherein she can destroy her enemies and crown her brother without dispute. She hopes to eventually be queen herself, and has plans that lead into that.

The assassin disappeared with a short-range teleportation spell after drawing the crowd's attention. The guards spread out, firing shots into the crowd. The "paladin" took this opportunity to sweep a nearby civilian "out of harm's way" and look like the dashing hero. Meanwhile, the arcanist fired off a well-aimed smoke bullet with his crossbow and obscured the assassin from everyone else's aim as a result.

Some fruitless searching later, Lord Regent Noleski presents the "paladin" with a charter to explore the Stolen Lands, with the promise that it will be its own reward, and that he will keep a "close eye" on the knight. The arcanist and rogue, meanwhile, caught up with Lord Orlovsky to see him speaking to an older commoner—a man named Maxim.

With a spot-on roll, they were able to identify him as Maxim Trirog, leader of the Golden Harts mercenary company and House Garess's guest of honor. After that, the rogue bumped into a younger man, Sergei, who was absolutely wide-eyed and full of naive amazement at the grandeur of the festivities. He was later identified as Sergei Trirog, Maxim's son.

Sergei, however, is actually Maxim's foster-son and, if the old mercenary is to be believed, the only heir remaining of House Rogarvia, the nation's old and disappeared rulership. He will be another of the potential NPCs to rule the new kingdom, and while he would at first be a baby-faced blue-eyed sweet boy, he would grow into a dragon-fanged Rogarvia king over the course of the campaign.

Finally, the "paladin" regrouped with his new companions—he and the arcanist had already hit it off nicely at the buffet, and having ties to one of Brevoy's most powerful Noble houses suited his aspirations just fine—and the group set off for New Stetven, where they were given a wagon and mule. Thereafter, they made their way south.

SESSION 0.5
On the way to Oleg's, they group was attacked by a random encounter. The dice decided that a pack of wolves would be going after my level 1, fresh-faced PCs. I'm not in the habit of pulling punches, so I threw the pack, led by a dire wolf, at them. After a single bite almost one-shot my poor babes, I decided to pull back on them a bit.

"The wolves are starving," I contended. "They're suffering starvation damage and penalties to attack and damage." I played the wolves up as emaciated and crazed, willing to attack each other as much the PCs. Of course, this was a mistake on my part. My players are too smart not to read into something like that, so now, I have to figure out why the animals in the area are starving. What could it be?

Eventually, beaten and bloodied, the group made it to Oleg's Trading Post south of New Stetven, where they were brought inside, fed, and informed of a looming bandit threat. Oh, and they met their fourth player, too. XD