A long-time friend of the page recently noted my Dark Sun-related posts and pointed me in the direction of Pathfinder's Kingmaker adventure path, which is based on the idea of the player characters venturing out into the Stolen Lands and founding their own kingdom. For this series of posts, I'll be working on posting an adaptation which I'm dubbing (for obvious reasons) Sorcerer-Kingmaker!
(I've not played Kingmaker before, and I'm muddling my way through for the first time, so feel free to let me know if I've missed something, or get something wrong.) The first adventure, Stolen Land, written by Tim Hitchcock, has an adventure summary that reads as follows: "The adventure begins with the PCs, each bearing a charter from the Lord Mayor of Restov granting license to explore and map the section of the Stolen Lands known as the Greenbelt, arriving at a small, remote trading post at the southern edge of rural Rostland. There, the PCs help defend the post from bandits before setting out to survey the wilderness. The rate at which the PCs explore the Greenbelt, and the paths they take, are up to them—many wonders and dangers await discovery, and as their explorations take them deeper into the Narlmarches and the Kamelands, the PCs begin to learn that the bandits in the region are far more organized than anyone thought—and find that they even have a leader, a mysterious figure called the “Stag Lord.” If allowed to continue building his army of bandits, the Stag Lord could well become a great danger to Rostland—that, and the reward on his head for his capture or death, should be all the new adventurers need to spur them onward." Overall Changes There's a lot here to work with, but the big changes will obviously have to be the setting- although a region on the south-western end of the Forest Ridge should be geographically distant enough and hard to reach that they're going to be pretty much on their own for a while. Since there are no stags in Dark Sun, replacing the bandit lord's identity will be necessary. Let's lean on the old Brom art used on the cover of Slave Tribes for nostalgic value, and call him the Sun Lord, with a mark depicting a radiant sun, and a pair of whistling maces. It's also probably important to note that while the adventure calls this area 'the Stolen Lands' and says it's inhabited by bandits, the colonial theme of '"retaking" land that once belonged to the nation doesn't work here, and the people living here are settlers themselves. This means that the PCs' mission is to seize and take settled lands, which, let's be honest, is a pretty garbage thing to do. They might be able to achieve this without full-on colonial invasion, and making the Sun Lord and his lieutenants a little tyrannical themselves can help to remove some of the power imbalance. It can also be useful to note Athas' resource scarcity, and Tyr's new status as a Free City means that its streets are becoming crowded with refugees and freed slaves, causing a great drain on the granaries and stored resources- options must be found, or people will be dying of hunger and thirst pretty soon! Having the PCs sent by the heroes responsible for Kalak's death, can tie them to the Free City, but perhaps King Tithian or some of the other factions are responsible for the other parties sent, meaning there's a common bond, but some rivalry. Part One: Oleg's Trading Post This part doesn't need much change- an isolated trading post with wooden (or similar) palisade walls, and beset by bandits, fits fine. You can mount the bandits on Kanks instead of horses with little difference, and have them hint at working for the Sun Lord. Happs is a desert-ranger turned bandit, and can even keep his longbow, focusing particularly on any Elf characters present. To be continued in Part Two. Also posted on Game Masters Stash on 4 September 2020. What an intriguing idea! My only regret is that my group just finished a 6+ year playthrough of Kingmaker so I'd be unable to ever use this. But I love Dark Sun, I love the unusual nature of the Kingmaker campaign, and I never would have thought to combine them. Kudos! Comments are closed.
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AuthorI'm Luke. He/him pronouns. Archives
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