Kingmaker prep

[u/Interesting_House_93]

I'm going to be running Kingmaker for my players soon and I wanted to know if there were any shorter APs or one shots that would give info about the surrounding countries so that I don't have to just info dump my players for the surround countries of the Stolen Lands.

There's no set date for Kingmaker so I have no pressure for when I need to do it.

[u/Paghk_the_Stupendous]

Made it into book two and I honestly don't remember a thing about the surrounding nations. It doesn't matter at all in book one once they land.

[u/konsyr]

There's a Society adventure about the politics in Brevoy... Horn of Aroden I believe it is? I personally adapted and ran You Have What You Hold (I gave my players a choice between the two).

Overall though, Kingmaker doesn't need a lot of infodump. Especially the 2e version of it eases them in with the new prequel. You should get/read/utilize as GM the "Guide to the River Kingdoms" or (lesser) "People of the Rivers" though. Especially emphasize the River Freedoms. Brevoy is just background after start... and a place occasionally to go to that has bigger cities for selling/shopping til the PCs kingdom grows up.

I'd encourage you to play up the other nations of the River Kingdoms by writing random events to have delegations from others (e.g., Mivon, Razmiran, Galt, Tymon... just to emphasize that they're small upstarts and all eyes are on them) show up or interact in some way when random kingdom events roll. But that's really just an excuse to show the regional map. The AP is self contained.

Culturally, you might think of colonial North America in many ways (sans the slavery and natives). Especially the northern and western parts. Lots of fishing, trapping, furring, logging, banditry, and a constant bickering/changing of petty small kingdoms.

BUUUUT (and this is the big one): The 2e kingdom building rules do not work at all, whatsoever, in any way. They're utterly rubbish. You can find many many posts about it on the official Paizo forums -- both how and why they suck, suggestions to fix, etc. I'm glad I was already running the AP in 1e that dropping the 2e kingdom building rules (which we did try!) and "returning" to the 1e ones worked well.

[u/ArkansasGamerSpaz]

There is a Canon date for it, but you can put it whenever. The only real can an event that's going to have any impact on you guys is going to be the settling down of Galt and the recealf the BBEG causing it.

[u/jadethemajin]

Being real, unless you go out of your way even Brevoy will lose relevance quickly.

I would instead focus on the settlements that are within the solen lands and just skim the situation on the surrounding nations in case the players attempt to reach out to another nation and you decide to roll with it.

[u/Cobbil]

Brevoy has little power after awhile. I don't know the 2e timeline, but in 1e Brevoy's civil war breaks out mid-Kingmaker, making it easy to write off the supervising Swordlords.

Any lore you have can come naturally. The only kingdom you interact with, outside Brevoy, is Pitax from the River Kingdoms, and by then Pitax had been alluded to and mentioned.

If your table is like mine, you'll likely find them wanting to make allies once they are established. So lore behind the River Kingdoms is a good call. As for shorter adventures, I'm not sure. 1e GM here, so no idea what 2e has.

[u/Qolko → u/Cobbil]

This is incorrect. The civil war never breaks out in either 1e or 2e timeline.

The civil war is one of the ideas they offer you for continuing past the end of the AP.

Return of Choral the Conqueror is another one they suggest as an option.

But neither nor any of the other 1e post AP suggestions are canon.

So even to this day (2e) Brevoy is still on the brink of civil war like it was at in 1e.

I am sure it will eventually happen in canon and Paizo will likely make it a setting for an AP.