Your Kingdom Awaits

Game Description

Kingmaker
A Grand Story Unfolds

Brevoy is a proud land, known throughout Golarion for producing able warriors, regal nobles, and clever rogues. Yet Brevoy's two regions, Issia and Rostland, have long held one another in contempt and now stand on the verge of civil war. Both Issia and Rostland were independent nations until Choral the Conqueror's barbarian armies and red dragon servitors united the regions into a single kingdom two centuries ago. Until recently, the iron rule of House Rogarvia maintained a fragile peace between the two regions. But a decade ago, House Rogarvia mysteriously disappeared, and the conniving leaders of Issia's House Surtova supplanted them as Brevoy's rulers. Now a labyrinthine political landscape plagues the nation, full of secret alliances, provincial loyalties, and nefarious plots; civil war seems inevitable. In Rostland to the south, the swordlords see in many of Issia's recent political moves the swift approach of such a war. They rightly fear such an event, for Rostland is smaller than Issia, it has fewer armies, and its rolling hills and grasslands offer very little in the way of natural defenses. Worse, unlike Issia, whose northern border stretches along the Lake of Mists and Veils, which offers some defense, Rostland's southern border lies along a stretch of wilderness infested with bandits and monsters. If Brevoy falls into civil war, it won't be long at all before the violent, opportunistic vultures to the south move to take advantage of Rostland's problems.

This southern region of wilderness is called the Stolen Lands. While these lands are technically a part of the River Kingdoms, several of which have advanced claims in the past, Rostland has long viewed them as "stolen" from it by bandits and monsters. Many attempts have been made to settle the Stolen Lands, but to date, none have succeeded, making these thirty-three-thousand square miles of unclaimed wilderness the largest swath of unclaimed land in the entire River Kingdoms. As tensions mount in Brevoy, some of Rostland's swordlords hope to change that fact; they have issued charters to several groups of adventurers, sending them south into the Stolen Lands. These intial charters are simple enough: re-open the old trade routes along the rivers and scatter or defeat the bandits who have made them too dangerous to use. Beyond that, it seems apparent that Rostland wants to encourage new nations to grow in this region—and believes that by supporting these nascent kingdoms as allies, it'll gain loyal support in any coming conflict with Issia. It's a bold and brilliant political move—for if Rostland turned its own resources to the task, not only would such a move weaken its defenses against the north, but the blatant power grab would certainly force Issia's hand. By sending free agents south, the swordlords of Rostland hope to create new allies without sacrificing their own position of power in Brevoy.

Yet as with most complex and brilliant plans...there are plenty of opportunities for disaster. The swordlords have chartered every able-bodied adventurer and explorer that was willing, ready, and raring to go. Yet...some of those who have answered this call are more than what they seem, and furthermore...highly unexpected.

Greetings, lady and germs. You all know me. I'm taking my second crack at Kingmaker after...who knows how long since the last time. But I'm doing things a little differently this time, thanks to an absolutely absurd brainstorm I had. Details forthcoming as listed below, where my madness will be made manifest. For now, though, I'm keeping this limited to three people. You three! You know who you are. Okay, that was a dirty lie, I'm up to four now. Willing to be five, even. Considering Part One of this path is going to be like mowing your front lawn with a five-hundred horsepower crop harvester, having all of you is going to make roughly the first half of the story mostly laughable, but the point is to enjoy the story and have fun playing. Now, onto the madness.

You folks are beginning at CR 10. That's right. You heard me. You're all jumping into this waist deep in power and I expect it to be hilarious to watch early on. Now, the key words here are CR 10. That does not mean level 10 (well, it kind of does, but I'll get to that). I will explain further down below. As far as alignments go, let me just get this out of the way. I like to view the alignment system as it properly should be, and that's as an abstraction of one's moral compass, and not a hard and fast mechanic, except where it need be (such as alignment subtypes, creatures that have no choice but to act within that/those alignment[s]). That being said, any and all things that are locked to certain alignments are no longer! Want to be a chaotic monk? There's bound to be an order out there somewhere that goes with that flow. A lawful barbarian? Some savage tribes are more organized than you'd think! Just remember that classes do tend toward the mentioned alignments, so straying from those does mean that you are an aberration amongst others of those same classes. Speaking of alignments, I normally advocate mixed alignment parties, and I'm not saying you can't, but I would prefer it if we can keep the alignment axis on the Good/Evil side tilted toward Good, or at the very least Neutral. Not because I'm looking to hedge down intraparty conflict (that builds character), but because with as long-running as this Adventure Path is, and with all that it entails, Evil characters can throw a monkey wrench that would make an eighteen-wheeler blush right into the works of things. I am speaking from experience. So that's out of the way now. Forward to the insanity.

"What races are allowed?" I hear you ask. Well, to be completely frank, just about all of them. Okay, that's a complete lie, but I am being very liberal on what I will allow. I just have a few conditions that need be met before the decision of your race is made!
♥ The race in question must be sapient. That means it must have an Intelligence score of no less than 3. We are not animals, here.
♦ The race in question must be from one of the following books: Core Rulebook, Advanced Race Guide, Bestiary 1, Bestiary 2, Bestiary 3, Bestiary 4. Okay, I say must, but I really mean "should", because those are the only books I know that contain races in them. So no 3rd-party critters, as super awesome as they may be. All right? All right.
♣ The race in question must be no more than CR 10. So anything from CR 1/6 to CR 10 is acceptable.
♠ In all cases, run your chosen race by me before you go any further in your creation. Chances are I will say yes, but there are some creatures that will just not fly (sometimes literally). I reserve the right as SUPREME HIGH OVERLORD your friendly GM to veto any race decision if I feel the need to so. I'm sorry to rain on your parade.
• I can and will answer all relevant questions as to how to modify your ability scores based on the race you have chosen if said modifiers are not already listed, among other things. For example, if you wanted to play a Lizardfolk (that'd be somethin'), I would tell you that they have +2 Strength, +2 Constitution, and –2 Intelligence, and that they begin play with 2 racial hit dice of humanoid, giving them a CR of 1 and leaving you with 9 class levels of your choosing to fill in the remaining CR 9, and that you would get 1 extra class level due to how the rules work for Monsters as PCs (it's all very well-described in the back of Bestiary 1).
◘ If a race has racial hit dice, these are not to be confused with class levels. Because they aren't class levels. They're racial hit dice. They're what's responsible for all the wibbly wobbly bits and things your race can do. They're the reason for the CR of the given creature. You're just going by what it says the CR of the creature is. Trust me. I know what I'm doing.

"How do we roll ability scores?" An excellent question, voice in my head. You will generate your ability scores by rolling 5d6 and dropping the lowest two results, because I'm being generous. I would prefer that you use the Brock Jones die roller for this purpose, and that you screencap your rolls and send them to me (you all have me on Skype, or at least you should, so you have no excuse not to). I know that Myth-Weavers can handle all your rolling, but I trust Brock Jones just a little bit more with something like this.

"And what about hit points? How do we—" I'm getting there, I'm getting there! Hit points are maximum for your first hit dice (which means if you play a race with racial hit dice, your first racial hit die is maximized), plus your Constitution modifier as normal. Every hit die thereafter is rolled, plus your Constitution modifier. Should the dice come up short (meaning below average), you are free to take the average result instead (3 for d6, 4 for d8, 5 for d10, 6 for d12), if you so choose. However, if you feel like being organic and you roll crap on your hit points, you're also free to throw caution to the wind and take what you got. Show that you can work with those terrible rolls! Disclaimer: If you die as a result, don't say I didn't warn you. You had the option. Same as with ability scores, rolls via Brock Jones and send me the screencap. Or you can trust Myth-Weavers with it, and roll it in the GIGO thread.

"ATTENTION SPELLCASTERS!" Okay, that was me, not me pretending to be you who is not me. Right. Spells. I quite thoroughly dislike Vancian magic. So I'm using the SPELL POINTS SYSTEM. It's very easy. It's similar the Power Points System for psionics. But for spells. Ta-da. Though I do have to explain how to convert a couple things. Only a couple things, though. All details of this extensive ruling can be found in the "Spell Points" thread.

Traits and Drawbacks! These can be a bit sticky, they can. It's really easy to take a couple of traits, or a drawback for another trait, or two drawbacks for a feat, and then completely forget they exist. Reeeaaally easy. So I'm going to say that yes, you can indeed take traits and drawbacks, BUT I want to see those take the floor every now and again. They become important parts of your character. Important enough to give them bonuses and penalties, so they're definitely important. Let your Traits bolster you and embrace the hindrances your Drawbacks impart. That's like the meat on the character sandwich.

External Resources~ I should certainly hope that you folks have gotten your hands or electrofondlers on a copy of the Kingmaker Player's Guide, because there's stuff in there you're gonna need and it would be of clearly questionable legality to share this material. Or maybe not. I don't even know. Maybe. Probably. I'm not sure who'd really care about a resource page or two. I mean the hex map's important right off the bat. I think you all have it, so y'all can keep your own records of what you found where on your hex maps. It's not hard. Really.

Character Profile, Backstory, Etcetera. I'll be getting to that next, but that'll be in the forum shortly. As for backstory, I don't need to read an entire novel to understand your character. Between your personality and a quick glimpse at key points in your character's history, I can get a feel for your character. I'm not going to stop you from writing a novel...I mean I don't recommend it, because I don't want to pull any TL;DRs (I wouldn't do that, I am responsible DM person). So really, it's up to you. I'm just sayin' a couple paragraphs (like two to three) between your personality and your backstory is all that's really necessary, but if you want to whole hog and list likes, dislikes, favorite breakfast food, hobby, romantic aspirations, et al, then you're completely free to do so.

That should about cover it for now. I have other parts to work on now to get this ball rolling.