Moving Tales From Wilderland (Spoilers)

[bluejay]

Going through DoM/TfW for the second time and the new fellowship are based in the Vales of Anduin. With that in mind I was thinking that the story with the Gibbet King is great up until the last two adventures. If the fellowship is based out of Esgaroth then no problem but for this group it would be the first time travelling to Dale and it just feels to me that the last two adventures would feel very jarring compared to the current campaign. I could make it work but I'm looking at alternatives.

As far as I see it these options are: -

1. My players create new PCs based out around Esgaroth and we play them in parallel. It's something I am toying with at the moment. There are plenty of adventures set around that area so I could justify a second campaign.

2. I move the last couple of adventures closer to home. I could take some ideas from the Crossings of Celduin and make that into an adventure, particularly with the idea of the Gibbet King being transported somewhere in that cage. For the last adventure there are two places that seem to make sense, either a Dwarven tower in the Dimrill Dale or in the western end of the Grey Mountains.

All thoughts welcome!

[Finrod Felagund]

Well, the official adventure has the PCs visiting Dale for a festival, but I see what you mean.

I can think of some other ways of handling it:
1) Maybe have a Lord of Dale offer the adventurers a pile of gold to enter his/her service ad effectively relocate to Dale. They are therefore in the right place when the Gibbet King attacks
2) Maybe Radagast tells them that he has heard that the evil spirit has moved eastwards and asks the adventurers to do the same and warn King Bard?
3) Create a bridging adventure. Bit of hassle this one, but a merchant asks the adventurers to escort him/her to Dale for a year whilst he buys/sells goods before returning to Wilderland. Lots of adventurers on the way, but they reach Dale. The festival then begins...

Is this helpful?

FF

[Mytholder]

For the Crossings of Celduin, I'd suggest moving the festival and the poisoning to Beorn's house, and then move the battle of the Crossing to the Old Ford - use the material in Kinstrife and Bad Tidings as a guide.

The Watch on the Heath can be used largely as is. Alternatively, you could have the Gibbet King target the Forest Dragon instead, which has the virtue of being a lot closer to the Vales of Anduin but requires a sizeable rewrite.

[zedturtle]

When I ran it, I tried to make clear to my players that the GK was looking for gold and lots of it. The assault on Mountain Hall and its mines proved to him that there was not enough gold west of Mirkwood for his plans and thus he moved towards Dale.

Granted, I still had to deliver this message via NPCs after the initial musings of the NPCs "where would he find gold?" failed to provide satisfactory answers.

[Otaku-sempai]

1) Maybe have a Lord of Dale offer the adventurers a pile of gold to enter his/her service ad effectively relocate to Dale. They are therefore in the right place when the Gibbet King attacks

FF

Hmmm. A year seems excessive. Perhaps the lord employs the Company to accompany him for a season, which ends with the festival and the adventure.

I do like Gareth's suggestion for relocating the "Crossings of Celduin" adventure.

[bluejay]

For the Crossings of Celduin, I'd suggest moving the festival and the poisoning to Beorn's house, and then move the battle of the Crossing to the Old Ford - use the material in Kinstrife and Bad Tidings as a guide.

Thanks Gareth, funnily enough I'd written something like this in my initial post and then removed it. Glad to see that's do-able then.

I think I might use the Forest Dragon to be honest. That could work out quite well.

Thanks everyone for the ideas!

Cheers

James

[bluejay]

One other thought I had was to move the Tower of the Winds across to the Dimrill Dale instead. Too much of a stretch? If not then I guess I could use a tower in the Vales of Gundabad or mansions in the Grey Mountains.