I'm pretty excited about this. I've always run home-brewed games, due to a combination of creative independence and a thrifty hobby budget. After seeing a lot of positive feedback, I finally broke down and subscribed to the most recent Adventure Path for the Pathfinder Role Playing Game produced by Paizo. Boy, am I glad I did. After struggling to put together all the components of a campaign world in my own games, it's relieving and enjoyable to see it done professionally.
I strongly encourage everyone who is going to join me this summer to
log into Paizo (you do have to create an account, but that's quick and harmless) and download your own
free copy of the player's guide we'll be using. This supplement to the adventure is very nice, as are most of the Paizo products. Taken from the introductory page of the Kingmaker's Player's Guide, below is a taste of the story we'll be entering:
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 33,000 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 initial 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 Kingmaker PCs
Your group of characters begins the Kingmaker Adventure Path as one of four groups sent south into the Stolen Lands to defeat bandits and, hopefully, to establish one of four new nations in the River Kingdoms. It certainly won’t be an easy task. Before any such settlement can even begin, the bandits and monsters must be dealt with—and once that initial task is done, the danger will only increase. As you struggle to foster a fledgling kingdom, build up its cities, and expand its farmlands, your group is destined to face rival warlords, ferocious beasts, strange cults, invading barbarian hordes, and even the mysterious fey denizens of the near-mythical First World. Can you tame the Stolen Lands and forge a lasting settlement amid such opposition? Who will survive to rule your kingdom? Who among you possesses the makings of a king?
