#Blood Lords

2113 messages · Page 3 of 3 (latest)

rotund arch
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So far my fave is Book 2

fiery loom
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And of course, Boneyard

rotund arch
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Hags are great

fiery loom
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If I was going to pick one book to run on its own it would be that one

rotund arch
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The zombie bar fight is a close second though

fiery loom
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Adventure hook:
You managed to piss off some hags somehow, and you must now take down the coven kill bill style

rotund arch
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I also like how each scene and town is themed

fiery loom
# fiery loom And of course, Boneyard

If the players can manage to secure an entire Nation's worth of souls, they will become Mythic (er, I have my own mythic rework lmao 😅, that's a whole other thing)

patent dew
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I'm wondering if an earlier point, where the PC's are collecting pieces for the ritual to unbind Geb from his throne, might be a valuable moment to begin planning his downfall. A ritual to unbind his soul is something that I would imagine could go catastrophically badly for the Ghost King if they were to sabotage the reagents.

fiery loom
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It's very random I feel and not at all connected to my players interests

rotund arch
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Nahhh

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That’s where you tug on player heart strings

fiery loom
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Which is to say as I said before, I reworked book 6 lmao

rotund arch
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Like do they want to kill Berlina

fiery loom
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Sacrificed in a lich ritual

patent dew
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Yeah, kill a bunch of allied NPC's to prove your loyalty to the big G.

fiery loom
rotund arch
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I’m trying to make Seldeg sympathetic

fiery loom
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Seldeg feels like too much of a babysitter in book 3

rotund arch
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Because in my game, he’s actually vindicating the party

patent dew
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Just look at this face. Who can stay mad at him...

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fiery loom
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I was able to get around that though

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With the ol framed by Kemnebi gambit

rotund arch
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Like its less “Geb commands you to do x” and more “Hey, Ik the guy who framed you, I hate him too. Let’s work together”

fiery loom
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Especially when one of the players already worked for Seldeg to begin with. They decided to seek out him on their own so they could lay low and get advice on how to proceed

rotund arch
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Poor Berlina is gonna get tossed into the flesh pits too for aiding the party

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Taviah is a bitch lol

fiery loom
rotund arch
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They’re gonna encounter Drusilla on the path to Slagtown and she’s gonna telepathically tell the party

“Hey if yall don’t want to eat her, I will.”

fiery loom
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I think having the special extra objective be "make Geb more powerful so he likes you more" is quite lame

rotund arch
patent dew
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You could be right. I'll mull it over

fiery loom
rotund arch
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In Book 4 he wants your help just to piss off one of his advisors

fiery loom
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Players are working on their own schemes

rotund arch
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Geb is petty af

fiery loom
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Kemnebi is just a powerful rival who threatens their power

fiery loom
rotund arch
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He’s a paranoid king whose afraid his long dead rival is gonna respawn and fuck his shit up

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Whatever favor he’d have for the party would be fickle at best

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Even if they kill Kemnebi

fiery loom
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Yeah, that's why they want to usurp him

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Making him more powerful and more free to act is not in their own best interests at all

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Though on the flipside, Nex will always come first for Geb

rotund arch
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Maybe have him bestow a permanent +2 to an attribute he can remove at any point?

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Give him the profane gift treatment

fiery loom
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In my case I just cut it out. Geb's mostly focused on the war effort anyway

patent dew
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Well, you have been a font of inspiration Henrio, thanks!
I'll name a Blood Lord in your honour, have the players either have to fight him or suck up to him in some way.

fiery loom
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Kemnebi is like a buzzing fly he wants out of the picture but also wants crushed forcefully to make an example

fiery loom
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I also have a list of additional blood lords I sprinkled in during the books

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You get too few to play with by default

patent dew
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Yeah, I was going to tally up all of the mentioned Bloodlords somewhere before we start the campain, maybe sprinkle a few more in.

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I dont think we need all 60 or so, but a list of who's who would be helpful.

fiery loom
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Off the top of my head, I added

Book 2:
Dark Dryad Tatiana, Master of the Axan Wood*

Book 3:
Big Shark Jigi, Undead Shark of Crabfield Island*
Mr Rag and Bones, Lord of Skeletal Rag Traders*
Ethiel the Spider, spymaster*
Vermeus Hekeraten, master of communications*

Book 5:
Bieric, Nexian defector

*Did not show up in that book, but referenced early to plant a seed

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For example, Tatiana was referenced as someone who the players needed to steer clear of when going into the Axan Wood

patent dew
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Did they?

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Steer clear, I mean?

fiery loom
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Yeah

patent dew
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Love the idea of a pacific island inspired undead shark-man.

ember helm
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Is Berline a bad guy at the end

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I haven’t looked at 5 or 6 yet

fiery loom
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Not really

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The players have an optional mission to sacrifice her

ember helm
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Ah okey doke, I’ve leaned into her hard as their homie so that would be a real bummer

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Though she is a sponsor for one of the players so that would be a fun twist 🤔

patent dew
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The way the book introduces it is a little curious.
Geb tasks the PC's with five jobs that must be done, but then adds some objectives that come across as optional. These include killing some allies, angering some gods, and suffering reputation penalties, all kind of which comes across like a "be evil for the sake of being evil" twist that the author doesn't feel too confident in making mandatory.

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I don't think there's anything inherently bad about having the characters be mean in a decidedly evil themed campaign, but here it just comes across as a little clumsy and out of left field. Couple that with nothing of any real consequence happening if the PC's just nope out of doing the assignment.

ember helm
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Yeah I might juice up the motivation a little bit, my players are really good at exploring the non-gameplay implications of RP (like my player refusing a huge lich buff because she’s not sure wants to be immortal) so slanting it as “this would help you move up the ladder” as the incentive or something but letting them decide how to interact with it sounds fun

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I’ve made the rise of Blood Lorddom much slower and skill based than the book sets it up. Like I have the first three books as competition to prove your worth as blood lords compared to other groups trying, everyone had find a sponsor for their bid as blood lords, etc

fiery loom
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There's both no consequences for noping out and there's also... not really much reason for the PCs to want to do it to begin with?

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Geb is already both petty and quick to discard underlings who have outlived their usefulness so just making him more powerful and less reliant on the PCs without getting anything out of it is not even a good idea

rotund arch
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Yeah the infiltration rules are ass

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I tried so hard to make those work

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Skill check > skill check > skill check is just not fun

rotund arch
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Any tips for managing the downtime wvents in Yled in book 2

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Thinking I’ll replace one of the blood lords with Kemnebi? Or have him meet the party at the the gate

ember helm
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Is Yled decorisa the third hag or the university one

rotund arch
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Nathnelma is the Yled hag

ember helm
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Ah yeah, I got nothing, I rewrote that chapter

rotund arch
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How did you handle it?

ember helm
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I turned the university into a hospital and made it an encounter tied to one of my players back stories with a homebrewed doctor monster guy

I just thought a 4th hag was redundant and a little insufferable lmao

twin oracle
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gave them an entire ceremony

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the champion got a phylactery of faithfulness for his god Ragathiel (but i basically turned it to a cursed item lol), it made him think that his god was testing him personally for being in Geb but its more to make him distance himself from his deity and either (a) fall in line with the urgathoan church or (b) fall from grace as he desperately tried to get his deity's favor back

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that plot line is still cooking thooo

rotund arch
twin oracle
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although in key moments where i was able to make him doubt his deity (if he needed to roll a save vs ghoul hunger) i gave him a really bad penalty to his rolls

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it's not really anything set in stone until it has to be (when they're gonna fight kemnebi)

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I plan on making them fight him at the end of book 5 lol

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and then again in book 6 (but he's stronger this time)

twin oracle
# rotund arch How did the cursed item work?

https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=2376 if you want inspiration a corruption cassiock is a more mechanical version of my idea

Corruption Cassock - Equipment - Archives of Nethys: Pathf...

Devotees of benevolent faiths fear and loathe corruption cassocks, each of which is dedicated to an unholy deity. When the garment chooses a target, such as when it senses a worshipper of a deity who isn’t unholy, it alters its form to match another deity’s iconography, appearing to be a devoted vestments for that deity. Once donned, the cas...

rotund arch
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Tyty

boreal verge
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Finished the AP. Good campaign, buffed the last boss as base kemnebi fight felt lacking.

ember helm
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Hell yeah gang

fiery loom
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I'm planning to make Kemnebi a 2 stage boss fight

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He keeps the greatsword of the commander of the knights of ozem and if he touches it his psyche is taken over

rotund arch
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What’s a good lvl 10 NPC block I can use for Kemnebi as a lvl 10

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Thinking at the end of book 2, he’s going to “spar” with the party

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Thinking a mummy of irori

rotund arch
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Thinking a delight dragon is gonna fuck with the party on their way to Yled

grim egret
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A delight dragon would consider Geb its mortal enemy probably so that makes sense

rotund arch
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I have a tanuki PC whose kinda just along for the ride, he loves pretendending to be a teapot and getting carried along

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So I’m thinking the delight dragon was in Sallowshore, saw that, thought it was hilarious, and is going to do that to the party.

Some mundane piece of gear is going to spontaneously turn into an Adult Despair dragon to scare the party

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Granted both could work. A despair dragon feeds off fear so he’d have reason to spare the party, but a delight dragon is hilarious

low shell
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As a future player: How bad are the maps for large+ sizes PC and AC?

grim egret
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To up to book 3 at least I feel theres a variety of sizes. Sometimes you go into a small area but also sometimes you're in a bigger outside one