Running Chapter 6 of Return of The Runelords - Advice Needed

[Dezea]

Hello !

Warning : Spoiler ahead about the Return of The Runelords AP.

After 3 years of playing, my player just finished chapter 5 and are tremendously enjoying ruling Xin-Edaseril.

We are about to start chapter 6 and I can't help but feel a bit disapointed by the way things start. The whole "Fixing temporal injuries" seems incredibly cool and I can't wait to go there, but the beginning of the books seems to me like a good excuse to add some dungeon crawling for the sake of experience (Kinda like early Book 5) and I feel like it's a bit anticlimatic.

Convincing Karzoug to give the key to the Cyphergate is actually quite nice, but the way it is handled - Going to some random place never heard off to get a McGuffin, then let's go for another dungeon makes me uneasy.

Me and my player have all been tremendously enjoying RotRL until now... Except for that early Book 5, and I don't want to do the same mistake, running something that feel a bit unneccessary to the overall plot.

Do any of you played trought that and had the same feeling ? Or did you actually enjoyed it a lot ? (I could be mistaken...)
If you changed it, what did you do to keep that whole Karzoug reveal and avoid that much dungeoning... While still giving your player the opportunities to get to lvl 20 for the last fight ?

Thank you very much for your help... And apologies for my English, I'm French ! :)

[Kaleph]

That part is automatically cool for players who went through the rise of the runelord and know who Karzoug is. Anyhow the annoying thing is that they are railroaded (actually, that's also not the first time it happens) into going after an important NPC (the demilich), who appears out of thin air. The trick should be to avoid simply the suggested course of events (the older heroes "giving the quest"), and let the party investigate on their own. If possible, try to introduce information regarding the demilich aforehand. In addition, I believe it could be nice if you insist a bit on the aspects of "redemption" of the dead runelords - Xanderghul and Karzoug; this is something I didn't try, but probably if the party has had some interaction with Nocticula and/or her minions (and they should: Sorshen is one), the goddess herself can add some motivation, as she could be personally interested into freeing their souls from the place where they are imprisoned.

[Thealtruistorc]

The thing with the Sunken City is that it's a quest for information and diplomatic leverage, something that could easily be obtained in other ways. If you're not fond of an underwater mission, it's very possible that players could acquire Karzoug's whereabouts by other means, such as:

1. Returning to Karzoug's capital of Xin-Shalast and bargaining with the Rune Giants or Denizens of Leng for information
2. Seeking out a powerful spellcaster (maybe a cleric or herald of Pharasma) and petitioning their aid in locating Karzoug's soul
3. Having the Sihedron Heroes already know where it was taken
4. Sending them a message from the High Priest saying that he wishes to barter with them for Karzoug's soul.

[Dezea]

Lots of good ideas there ! Make me kinda think to be honest that I may have overreacted by posting there because you are right... It's not that hard to fix.

To be fair, I never DM'ed such high level content ever, and was kinda afraid of ****ing it up by tweaking it.

Did you guys run the event as written but leaving more agency to the player as to how they find it ? I would be curious to hear how it went for you.

[Thealtruistorc]

My party played Return right after finishing Shattered Star, so I added a few connections to that campaign. The character who alerted the party to Karzoug's clone bodies was actually Ogunthunn, the Veiled Master from Xin's fortress. They joined the party in exploring the depths, and the team ended up discovering a few pretty handy magic items which came in clutch later in the campaign.

The funniest part for me was the ending of the dungeon, where the players actually decided to recruit Zinlun to their anti-Runelord coalition rather than destroy him. After sticking him in a portable hole, they let him out during the fight with the high justice (who was fighting alongside a soulbound shell of Karzoug, because I scaled up the adventure's difficulty pretty substantially). Zinlun ended up soaking most of Karzoug's nastiest attacks before the construct-bound Runelord busted out a gate spell and literally threw the demilich into another plane.

Also, if you're running Return of the Runelords, I highly recommend checking out Legendary Games' sequel adventure, Sentence of the Sinlord (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/304886/Sentence-of-the-Sinlord). It ties up the lose ends of Thassilon's mythos and explores some other oddball elements of the world.

[Dezea]

I love the demilich turned into some pokemon to throw at opponent, gave me a good laugh.

Just gotten my hand on Sin by the way, very nice read and a nice way to close up the campaign, indeed. Thanks !