The third volume of the Kingmaker adventure path takes the PCs into the lands of one of their competitor barons, whose capital city Varnhold has mysteriously been emptied of its residents. Meanwhile, the PCs’ kingdom continues to develop and they explore the mountainous steppes around Varnhold. The adventure takes the PCs from 7th to 10th level.

The Physical Product

The book itself is very nice: a 96 page perfect-bound softback (including four pages of advertisements) with glossy pages and full-color artwork throughout. Most of the major NPCs get a picture to show the players. The inside covers are even utilized nicely as “quest” descriptions (see below).

The pdf is bookmarked, and although not hyper-linked is still nice. Just be forewarned that it is not at all printer-friendly due to the sheer amount of color used, including the background.

As with other volumes, the editing is not perfect, but there are no serious errors.

The Adventure

WARNING: Some spoilers ahead – players stay away! I’ll confine the spoilers to this section.

As usual for the Kingmaker adventures, this one – written by Greg A. Vaughan – splits into two parts: exploration and plot. The exploration centers around the Nomen Heights, a steppe-like land ringed by mountains and ancient home to a band of centaurs hostile to humans. Exploring this region also (eventually) allows the PCs to expand and improve their kingdom – otherwise, the PCs’ kingdom grows unmolested during this episode.

Although there are as many exploration areas as in previous adventures, they are almost all brief single-combat encounters. As a result, most are rather uninspiring, though they do have a nice variety of foes, and the setting is evocative. This is because, to a much greater extent than the earlier episodes, this adventure focuses around a single plot: the disappearance of the residents of Varnhold, the capital of the fledgling nation centered in the Nomen Heights – Yes, this is meant to evoke Roanoke, and it does so well.

The first of the three fleshed-out areas is the town itself. Most of the structures are abandoned and evoke a creepy empty village feel. The primary enemies – who are simply scavengers, moving into the empty castle – are a band of spriggans (evil gnomes who can grow to giant size). This section evokes a fey-like feel and gives the PCs an “in” to the next encounter….

…Which is a meeting with the “savage” Nomen centaurs, who can tell them where the BBEG is hiding, if they can make the centaurs friendly. It’s nice to see a roleplaying encounter integral to the plot, even if it is relatively straightforward.

The biggest part of this adventure – probably at least half of it for most groups – is the lair of the cyclops lich Vordakai, who was awoken by a Varnhold treasure hunter and has kidnapped or killed all of its residents. The action takes place in the ancient tomb of the lich, so it’s a fairly straightforward dungeon crawl. But a good one. There’s a compelling villain (albeit one with an unnecessarily complex back story), a strong atmosphere, a variety of terrains and encounter areas, some interesting lieutenants (especially the risen dead of Varnhold), and some nasty traps. My only reservation is that there are an awful lot of undead cyclops here – enough that repetition may be an issue for some.

Despite the excellence of this primary dungeon, two problematic plot elements to the adventure bother me. Most importantly, to maintain the “sandbox” fiction, the adventure emphasizes that the PCs need not hurry to solve the Varnhold Vanishing; they are free to continue exploration (and in fact expected to, given that they need to gain some levels) rather than pursuing the main plot. While it’s true that the villain won’t cause any more trouble and that the hostages are “safe,” it’s also true that the PCs should have no way of knowing this, and heroes are likely to put all their effort into the rescue.

The second is the “quest” system used in all the Kingmaker adventures to encourage exploration. By this point, the PCs are reasonably powerful leaders of their nation, yet they are still supposed to answer bounties and collect rewards from their subjects? Shouldn’t they send minions to do their dirty work by now, or at least not extort money out of their subjects for helping them?

But, of course, that’s how D&D (sorry, Pathfinder) works! I just wish the rewards were more centered on improving the kingdom rather than the PCs themselves.

Other Materials

As usual for Paizo’s adventure path volumes, this one contains four additional articles. The first is a gazetteer of Iobaria, an “uncivilized” realm that neighbors the Stolen Lands where the adventure path takes place. There are no direct connections with the adventure path, although it does add some additional backstory to the BBEG. The gazetteer is mostly a catalog of locations, many of which are quite compelling.

Next up is an article detailing four adventure locales (flavor only) in the Stolen Lands; each gets about a page. Again, none are directly related to the adventure at hand, but they could be added for extra encounters. I found the descriptions solid but not as inspiring as the capsule descriptions in the Iobaria gazetteer.

The book also adds another chapter to the fictional adventures of Ollix and Phargas, in which they get embroiled in “romance.” I found this one less compelling than some others but still enjoyed the comic tone.

The final article is a bestiary of five new creatures, supposedly following an Iobaria theme: the blodeuwedd (a plant-like fey based on Welsh mythology), the clawbat (a weird flying creature), the greater cyclops (I wish that had been involved in the adventure), the peluda (a swamp dragon based on French myth), and the stygira (a gem-based hag and my favorite of the bunch). I like this collection – adding monsters from mythology is great – but again I wish the monsters were actually used in the adventure!

Overall Impression

The Varnhold Vanishing is a very solid addition to the Kingmaker adventure path. As the third adventure, it dials back a bit on the “sandbox” aspect: while the exploration is still there, there is a clear plot – solving the eponymous mystery – that dominates the action. This plot thread is both compelling and exciting, so it is a worthy centerpiece to the action. I also think this adventure is the first to hit the right note in the mix of exploration and plot; the PCs will really feel they have accomplished something by the end.

I have only a couple of quibbles with the adventure. First, in terms of the overarching adventure path, the main plot of The Varnhold Vanishing is a bit of a side quest. The other volumes all have the path’s BBEG involved in some way; this one is really just a random aside. That’s not bad (especially for a sandbox) but it’s odd that the first major “dungeon crawl” is so separate from the main plot.

Second, the quest system to encourage exploration still needs work, especially given the PCs’ status in their nation.

Finally, there’s also very little integration of the kingdom-building aspect here – only indirectly, with the goal of expanding the kingdom. That keeps the adventuring and nation-building sides of Kingmaker very separate. I liked the idea of the periodic kingdom events in Rivers Run Red as a way to combine the two sides explicitly, and I would have liked to see those continue.  This integration is more evident over the next two adventures.

Overall, this is amongst the best adventures of the Kingmaker adventure path in my opinion.

Jane McGonigal’s TED Talk about how online gaming can benefit the world. While the idea is a bit out there, it’s definitely interesting and many of the elements she talks about can also be applied to tabletop roleplaying games.

ION Guard is a setting/organization supplement for the ICONS game that presents a new intergalactic organization of heroes. All of the ION Guard’s members wear a golden ION Fist, which provides them with a suite of superpowers including flight, blasts, a force field, and life support. This will sound very, very familiar to most of you (and if not, just wait for a certain movie coming out soon…), and there’s no question that the organization is a tribute to the Green Lantern Corps. The focus is on the intergalactic organization itself, but you could also use it to build an Ion Guard character who just adventures on Earth.

The 58-page pdf is heavy on flavor and light on rules elements, so it will easily translate to other superhero systems. (In fact, a separate edition is already available for BASH!) It provides a wealth of detail on the history, goals, resources, structure, and enemies of this organization – although, this being a supplement for a supers game, fortunately not excruciating detail. The story elements are solid and definitely fulfill (my) comic book expectations – it includes elements like the ION Guard Oath that add simple, but crucial, flavor for your character.

The crunch is rather light, but it does provide information on some of the equipment and (most importantly) rules for generating ION Guard characters. The latter obviously dispenses with the default random character generation in favor of powers and statistics appropriate for an ION Guard. Personally I would have preferred more room for customization; prerequisite ability scores and an (almost) fixed suite of powers make these characters too homogeneous, so a group of ION Guards would really need distinct personalities to maintain their uniqueness. There are no fixed qualities or challenges, but the example characters still have almost identical choices there (all tied closely to the Guard).

The most interesting section for me describes several villains: a former ION Guard corrupted by his own power; a race of sorcerers who exploit the ION Guard’s weakness against magic, and a monstrous world-eating being who is essentially unstoppable without trickery (think Marvel’s Galactus), although his superpowered minions are at a more normal level. These villains are well-tailored to the ION Guard and all have a lot of potential for classic comic-type stories.

All in all, this is a solid supplement full of good flavor, and I recommend it if you are looking for an interesting intergalactic organization for your ICONS game – complete with a solid history and some great villains. Personally I would prefer more varied characters, but it certainly works fine for a player looking to fill the Green Lantern archetype. The low level of crunch also makes this attractive for conversion to other systems. However, if you are going to convert the rules elements that are already there, you may just want to research the Green Lantern Corps itself!

Note: I received a free review copy (in pdf form) of this title through DriveThruRPG.com.

You can download a copy of the beta version of the upcoming Synapse RPG here.

Check out the video here.

This session started with some great news. We are gaining an extra player. The wife of one of the existing players enquired about joining us, and since one of the features (Emilio) was originally designed as a lead he would make an absolutely perfect extra lead for her to play.

We spent a little time filling her in on the campaign events before someone thought to point her to this series of play reports.

Session Summary

We picked up with Dreux at Toff’s where Dreux was waiting for Giancarla and Nazario completely unaware that they had both been diverted by events. Dreux chose to sit somewhere near the back of the place, out of the main bustle which allowed a stranger to slip into his booth and introduce himself unobserved by most of the patrons.

The stranger turned out to be Eduardo de Valfierno, the young son of an artisan family negotiating for the contract to build the new opera house annex. He had recently acquired a painting by the renowned dead master Leonzio Claudio. He felt the painting would be of interest to Dreux. It depicted  Nazario’s mother (Natalia Cipriano) with her first husband (Dorio Giotto), and their young baby. Niccolò Vitrioni ordered all paintings of Dorio and Natalia burned when he expelled his daughter from the family, but someone recognising the value of the painting as a bargaining chip had bribed a servant to rescue it.  Eduardo hinted that the painting had recently been stolen from someone who intended to use it as leverage against the Vitrioni family. Eduardo set his price for the painting – he wanted a word in the right ear to help his family get the contract for the next opera house annex and a financial investment in the actual build. Dreux agreed to this offer in principle, but wanted to see the painting. They agreed to meet at one of the canal docks the following night [1].

Meanwhile Giancarla rushed to intercept Lucrezia, but failed to find the girl. After half an hour searching she discovered the body of one of the guards she sent after the girl floating face down in the river. With the help of her precognition she also located the body of the second bodyguard, the bridge where the girl was kidnapped and the vantage point where the assailant had hidden in waiting. Clearly whoever kidnapped the girl knew about her visits to the doctor.

There was a short interlude where Dreux and Nazario finally met at Toff’s. Vicenzo spotted the two young men in his coffee house, welcomed them, and talked about the bodyguards he had loaned Natalia. He hinted that she was becoming increasingly dependent on him, and that he appreciated their burgeoning business relationship. Unfortunately neither PC chose to bite… [2].

Still in Toff’s Nazario spotted an old ‘friend’ whom he threatened and berated into revealing information about a ship in harbour from Milvenna. Nazario realised from the description that the ship might be part of his step-father’s trading fleet [3].

When Dreux and Nazario finally give up waiting for Giancarla, Nazario headed to the harbour to investigate the ship. He bribed the night watchman with brandy and checked the harbourmasters records, confirming his suspicions – the ship was indeed part of his step-father’s fleet and it arrived the previous day with a single item of cargo – a crate for Vicenzo. The signature the shipping invoice appeared to say Cipriano, but it was badly scrawled and didn’t resemble any family signature he’d seen.

Giancarla arrived at the Vitrioni estate in the early hours of the morning. She expected to encounter a house in darkness but was surprised to discover a hub of activity. The lights were on, the servants up and in the centre of all the activity a very irritated Emilo. Giancarla tried to tell Emilio that his daughter was missing [4]. Emilio knew she wasn’t telling him everything and demanded she tell him all. He wanted to know where his daughter was, what she was doing out in the middle of the night and what secrets his daughter was keeping from him. Giancarla invented a convenient lie, however Emilio trumped it by thrusting his daughter’s diary in front of her and demanding she explain the last couple of entries. Lucrezia’s diary described her father as overbearing and nosy, someone she couldn’t talk to, and then actually listed Giancarla as a confident. This was a great conflict: Giancarla knew (or at least strongly suspected) that  Emilio’s daughter was pregnant, but had lots of good reasons not to tell him. Unfortunately Emilio had hard evidence that his daughter had been less than honest with him and wanted to get to the bottom of it.

The conflict ended, but not before throwing up a complication. Emilio’s manservant walked in half way through the argument, overheard something out of context and assumed the worst. Many years before the manservant had an illicit affair with Lucrezia’s mother and he suspected he was the Lucrezia’s real father. He dashed from the room, however both Giancarla and Emilio were too occupied to notice. Eventually Emilio sent servants out to search for his daughter, and Giancarla who had by this point been up for most of a day headed home to bed.

In the early dawn light Nazario let himself into his step-father’s study using a ‘borrowed’ key to check the shipping records. He noted the ship in the harbour was supposed return from Milvenna with textiles, but its return had been two weeks late and bearing the wrong cargo,

The following day Dreux went to visit Nazario’s mother (Natalia). The guards at the entrance were surprised to encounter him, thinking he was already there. Dreux immediately used magic to read the guards surface thoughts, and realising the man had seen his double moments ago charged into the Natalia’s room, where he encountered his identical double presenting the lady fruit.

An astounding inventive fight ensued. Dreux’s first act was to draws his sword and “attempt to separate the assassin forcibly from his plums“. Bed sheets and fruit served as both weapons and distractions at various points in the duel. The early conflicts were attempts by the assassin to injure the mother. Once it became apparent he wasn’t going to best Dreux the assassin attempted to throw him from the room but failed [5].  Dreux returned the favour defenestrating the assassin. On the way to the canal below the assassin shifted into a fish and escaped.

Dreux then turned to Nazario’s mother and warned her that she had to be careful of anyone appearing to be him, since the assassins were taking his form. The matron agreed, informing Dreux that as long as masked men were taking his guise he was no longer welcome in her estate, called the guards and told them to escort him from the building. The session ended with Dreux being thrown from the Cipriano estate.

Watchtower’s Commentary

Having a player for Emilio is great. Our new player is a great roleplayer and I know Emilio will be in fantastic hands. Her husband and I sat down with our newcomer last night and talked through the plot so far, and I think she’s already getting a good feel for whom Emilio will be.

I’ve noticed that the system really flies when we’ve got character conflict, but the game keeps slipping into investigative mode. I’m going to make sure the players get the clues anyway, so they don’t need to spend so much effort looking. When I write up the next episode I’ll make sure I hit their values and relationships a lot harder and ensure I really drive the conflict.

When I wrote up the current episode I had three plots –  an A-plot, a B-plot and a C-Plot. I’ve not even touched the C-Plot because the openning acts are heavily Emilio based. I think it would be a mistake to try and incorporate it now since next session is clearly going to bring the episode to a close. I can however start foreshadowing it, and work it into the next episode.

[1] After the session I realised I’ve been missing a major opportunity to add to the drama. I’ve been repeatedly telling my players to Telegraph what they are doing – but when I played Eduardo de Valfierno I didn’t telegraph. If this game is going to fly the way it should I need to ensure all the features telegraph their actions too.

[2] I was very disappointed that neither PC chose to bite during the conversation with Vicenzo. The two PCs have clearly conflicting beliefs when it comes to Natalia and Vicenzo’s business dealings. Further more this very issue should be central to their drives. This conversation should have been dynamite, but instead it fizzled.

[3] Interestingly the Trading vessel in the harbour which has just arrived from Milvenna is a plot point in the adventure notes – but its one of Antonio’s duelling friends who was supposed to tell Giancarla. The reveal (combined with other information he would have revealed) would have placed Giancarla and Nazario at least briefly in conflict. The information didn’t have nearly the same impact when revealed early the way it was in the game – but Nazario’s player deserved to be rewarded for having his character investigate an interesting side line, and it made perfect sense for the information to come out then.

[4] The table talk at this point was priceless. The player’s original plan was to have Giancarla wake Emilio and demand recompense for the three bodyguards she had lost defending his erstwhile daughter. Instead she went with the approach described in the session notes, which is a shame. I think this was one of  Giancarla’s defining moments, and I’m glad the player went with the approach that works for her, but I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that other conflict.

[5]This is the second time the ‘master assassin’ has appeared and been horribly outclassed by a single PC. I am therefore concerned that the big finale is going to be something of an anti-climax. The irony is the assassin has Super- Strength (d4) but completely failed to throw a lead out a window. I now have a better idea of how things work and understand why. The assassin has two trigger actions off Super-Strength – one good for crashing through walls, and the other for entering scenes by scaling vertical inclines. If I wanted him to be competent in physical combat I should have given him assets which supported this. What I have actually created is an assassin who is astoundingly good at entering scenes by various methods (appearing mysteriously, impersonating people, crashing through walls, scaling shear surfaces etc), having the stuffing beaten out of him, and then escaping by a number of different methods.

Next: Session 3 – The Episode Finale (probably)

Declan Feeney is a guest blogger on Gaming Brouhaha .

Fall is approaching, school is back in session, and that means the after-school game club is up and running again – this our eight year and as I’ve blogged about earlier, we had 16 students (ages 13-19) at the information meeting who said they were  interested in playing 4th edition D&D this year. Two weeks later, we’ve started up and here are how the groups have shaken out:

• Group #1 – New DM (11th grader) plus five new players. I have no idea what the DM is running but they all seem to be pretty interested and had a great time today. I know they have a paladin, a wizard, a cleric, and a warlock in the party (not sure what the 5th player is playing).
• Group #2 – Nine players who I and a co-DM will be taking through a 4E adaptation of Paizo’s Kingmaker adventure path. I’ve chose Kingmaker because it’s perfectly suited for large group, working in smaller “teams” to complete. My co-DM is new to 4E but has run a few games before and I’ve given him all of the older, more experienced players as his team, while I’ve taken all of the new players.

We sat down a couple of weeks ago and divided up character roles, made characters, and worked on some back stories which I then took home and fine-tuned to create a series of connections between the PCs and to provide each with his or her own personalized goal based on their background as well as some of the locations and/or events in Stolen Land.

The Players

My nine players come from at least six different countries, with only two native English speakers in the entire group. We have three girls and six boys, with the youngest being 13 and the oldest 19. My group looks like it will include two boys &  two girls, all new players (one has about 6 months of RPG experience with us from last year’s AD&D campaign). The other group is four boys and one girl, all of whom are either 12th graders or older – one of them graduated last year but will be coming to club meetings until November so he’s joining his friends.

The Party

Here are their characters. The first four are from my half of the big group, the last five from my co-DM’s team.

• Nemeia – female tiefling rogue. She’s currently the indentured servant of the wizard Brandis, who refers to her as his “bodyguard.”
• Kira Stoneflagon – female dwarf paladin of Erathis. Her primary goal is to find a place for her clan – who were displaced long ago by orc raiders – a new place to live.
• Brandis Mengora- male human wizard. Wizard in search of an elf gate supposedly located within the Green Belt.
• Brenn Branigan – male human bard. Mercenary, bounty hunter, wooer of women, and seeker of fame & fortune.
• Garen Travoy – male human warlord. Bastard son of a minor noble of Brevoy, he’s trying to make a name for himself.
• Olaya – female half-elf druid. She is searching for a place to settle her people who live in a refugee camp near the border. She is also searching for a lost shrine to Erathis.
• Grom Saurfang – male half-orc ranger. Self-proclaimed monster slayer, he’s along to slay something big and hopefully make Olaya finally notice him.
• Aldur Daleborn – male human swordmage. Son of a baker, he is trying to gain entrance to the swordlords by proving himself.
• Thom – male human avenger. Sworn to Iomedae, he has come south to bring the bandits of the Stolen Lands to justice.

The Plan

Session #1 and maybe session #2 will involve the group as a whole arriving at Oleg’s Trading Post and getting their first taste of the bandits’ activity within the region. From that point onward, the campaign will run with the two teams operating in parallel, coming back together for major events like the assault on the bandits’ stronghold.

…and in case you didn’t know, I wrote it. ;op  The complete list of winners can be found here.   You can download the free, 24-hr version here. Once I have complete feedback and some playtesting data I will publish a revised version which will be available for free.

The events detailed here span two sessions of play.

From the memoirs of Tiberius Cosmourn Bramblewood, Shepherd and former Windrunner

Desnus 25, 471 SL

The situation in Murray’s Rock has more twists and turns than a bowline. Leaving the sickened Tyrinn and Thalos, who now has begun to show symptoms as well, we have visited the mysterious standing stones on the nearby hill and discovered it was actually a Fey Crossing – a thin place between our own world and the Feywild where the wild’s magical nature leaks through, distorting all it touches. There we found an odd diagram of the local area which reminiscent of some sort of twisted battle plan.

Flagstaff, for all his value in a fight, clearly has impulse problems, scattering the diagram’s contents before urinating on them. Clearly my theories about his ogre lineage are accurate. Bloody bampot! The end result were some of the stones in the circle coming to life – apparently they were some sort of elemental guardian. We retreated out of the circle, smashing stone constructs along the way. On the way back to town we were ambushed by more goblins, being lead by a bloated monstrosity of a female goblin. She apparently didn’t appreciate me tearing several of her “children” apart with a tempest.

The remaining goblins fled, including the massive one, but Lochlann was able to track them back to a cave overlooking the valley. Inside we found another Fey Crossing, this one linking to a cave where four of the Fey court were meeting: Dorcas, a creature of shadow; Old Maggotty, the fat female goblin we had met earlier; Slinker, king of the Ratmen; and Amadan, representative of the Sidhe court. They revealed that the events in the region are part of some sort of elaborate plan, the objective of which is to incite a war between the elves and humans of the area. They demanded a tribute of 12 women, but oddly enough all of whom must be mothers. Shades, what is it with these Fey in their bizarre needs?

Desnus 28, 471 SL

Thanks to the events of the last few days, Murray’s Rock has been abandoned and we are all staying at a nearby hunter’s cabin. However, I’m getting ahead of myself.

We exited the cave and returned to Murray’s Rock only to discover more than a day had passed since we entered the cave despite what seemed like only a few minutes to us. As we descended the mountain to the village we realized things had gone from bad to worse – the village had been overrun with the restless dead. Although Tyrinn was doing his best to defend the villagers, his brother Thalos seemed to be more concerned with keeping hold of the bloody statue he had found back in the kobold caverns. Shades! We rushed to their aid, arriving just in time, but not before several of the village folk had already fallen. During the battle I realized that the restless dead were drawn to Thalos’s hideous statue – fortunately by that point Thalos had slipped in to almost incoherence and thus put up little argument when Falstaff took the statue from him and threw it into the village hall to draw the enemy away. Once there were inside, I set fire to the hall – problem solved.

With the village overrun by undead and partially on fire, we evacuated the rest of the residents to the nearby cabin of a local hunter named Cabot. We’ve set up a defensive position here, aided by the cabin’s strategic location atop a steep hill and are attempting to get some rest. Although all of us survived the attack on the village, Thalos appears to have slipped in to a persistent fevered dream.