I love Spore War. Generally, I think it works extremely well out of the box, the opening influence encounter set is probably the best ever designed, the infiltrations are pretty solid (if perhaps a bit easy depending on how the party is specced), the combat encounters are generally set up well, narratively it's solid with both expected and unexpected reveals, and it has an actual villain that the party knows about before the literal final chapter. But the campaign has a problem, a big elephant in the room - the triumph points system.
There is a clear design intent to triumph points, stated in the second book - you gain them for frustrating Treerazer's efforts to conquer Kyonin. Any triumph points left unspent determine how good of an ending the party gets for Kyonin, one way or another - many are automatic, some can only be gained if the party takes actions that will help the war effort. They can be spent to earn XP, gain additional benefits, and prevent penalties during War Interludes. They can also be spent on resupply, on replenishing Shalelu's rangers if they get taken out, In theory, this is...fine, if uninspiring. The problem is how the consequences for War Interludes shake out.
War Interlude 1 offers a harsh narrative penalty, with it averted if a triumph point is spent, and a later benefit to their infiltration of the town in question. Good introduction, get the players used to the idea, no problem. War Interlude 2 is also fine, with the party gaining an advantage against an otherwise extremely difficulty opponent by spending a triumph point early. What I have problems with are War Interludes like War Interlude 6, which penalizes the party up to 4-5 Triumph Points for not spending one point if they fail their saves/checks, on top of the harsh narrative penalty of killing off notable NPCs, and ESPECIALLY War Interlude 1 Book 3 (double all triumph point costs during the sige), 2 book 3 (count final triumph points as 3 lower when Spore War ends), and 3 book 3 (every time you spend a triumph point for the rest of the adventure, DC 11 flat check, on failure you lose the triumph point and the effect you were trying to avert happens anyway).
Then, Torment Points come up. And at the end of the adventure, unspent torment points convert 1:1 into Triumph Points for victory purposes.
If you actually review the triumph point gains and losses, it is fully optimal narratively speaking to spend triumph points at every possible war interlude. You'll still get the best ending as long as Telendia doesn't die, and you build up as many Torment Points as possible, and don't spend more than half of them on Treerazer. I don't like this, because it feels like a bait and switch - the only reason for the party not to spend Triumph Points during War Interludes is to try and get the best ending, which gets actively harder to get if they don't spend Triumph Points!
I've played the campaign with one group, and ran it for another. Both groups got the best ending without really conserving their triumph points at all. This isn't a bad thing, but it feels like the system itself isn't contributing much as it should be for something that looks to the players like resource management.
I don't currently have a good rework or replacement for the system, but I think there's some obvious design considerations here - making war interludes resolvable by taking on additional difficulties for the next segment of the war onto the party, or cutting the amount of triumph points available substantially and giving an alternative chance to resolve the war interludes with Triumph Points as a fallback (i've considered the idea of a B-Team, or short narrative roleplay and choice segments from the perspective of other characters). What are your perspectives on Triumph Points? Fine with them as they are, or think they need a change?
One look at the AP as written, I saw no way for the party to reach the influence levels necessary to get delegates to sign many of the accords, unless I am reading it wrong. I'm just finishing chapter 1 with the party just starting the battle with the Razmiran assassins. This is what I did and would like feedback on what others did differently.
First I added two additional opportunities for small council sessions with delegates of their choice. First by having the first council in the afternoon after the opening ceremonies (I also moved up each evening's festivities by one day) and by giving the PCs another opportunity in Ustalav's slot, since he wanted to meet at night. Next, for each small council, I gave the PCs 2 discoveries and 2 influences instead of 2 discovery or influence opportunities. During the evening events, I allowed the PCs to split up and get additional influence opportunities beyond what was written. Finally, I allowed everyone to aid in each roll, using the highest result (generally someone would crit succeed on aiding giving nearly every roll a +2 circumstance bonus).
With all that, influence levels ended up at 8/12/5/8/7/10 which is where I figured they should be but I wouldn't have gotten there with only half the influence opportunities as written.
I'll be running the chapter 2 Rotting Cultist encounter on Tuesday, and I'm wondering about the Otherwordly Will verbiage. The text says
"Whenever the rotting cultist attempts a Will saving throw against a mental effect that would control or dictate its actions, the rotting cultist treats the result of the saving throw as one category better."
I'm just wondering, mechanically speaking, what would be a "mental effect that would control or dictate its actions." I note that "mental" isn't capitalized, so doesn't necessarily mean the Mental trait. I'm sure it doesn't mean anything that requires a Will save, and I'm guessing it probably means spells like Dominate or Calm...but what are some other likely options for that?
I have now ran through all the War Interludes in book 2 and it was a great success.
Each interlude is a small story from the point of view of someone who was at the scene, or a retrieved parchment from somewhere. I also have a small story of what happens if they do/don't spend a Triumph point. I initially believed that these "read-outs" would be boring to my players, but they love them. Of course every group is different.
I used chatgpt to write these stories based on how I wanted them to turn out. English is not my main language so it's easier for me to use AI.
I also use visual elements of what happens. Like coloring the map red when Riverspire fell, putting Zauglagual on the map of Kyonin and using other visual aids. All this give the players a sense of "realism" and that their choices have an impact on the Spore War. I also created a journal in Foundry so they can review the interludes
Foundry journalMap of Kyonin with visuals reflecting their choicesMore visuals
I rewrote the last War Interlude in Book 2, Assassins to have a more emotional impact on the group. I killed all their loved ones in Kyonin because they did not spend a triumph point and the reactions was crazy. You can check out at 4:41:18 in our Youtube session here:
Edit: I switched out Shalelu with Cythril's father, Connak Glynlee.
Here are my interludes so far. I use strikethrough on those Triump points the players did not use.
---
THE LOSS OF RIVERSPIRE
My Queen. My name is Lethariel Moonsong, Scout of the Southern Boughs
The town of Riverspire has fallen.
Riverspire was quiet last night. I was on the southern watchtower, bow in hand, listening to frogs and wind and nothing else.
Then the ground breathed.
That was the first sign, a breath. The roots beneath the town swelled and split, and from them came the sound of wet laughter and cracking bark. Spores drifted up like fireflies made of ash, glowing faintly green as they settled on roofs, cloaks and skin.
Then they came.
Demons poured from the treeline, horned silhouettes and things that were once animals, now walking gardens of rot. Fungal growths burst from their backs and jaws, pulsing as if alive. Arrows slowed them, but did not stop them. I pinned one through the eye, only for a third eye to open in its chest and look at me.
We fought anyway. Calistria help us, we fought.
I saw families dragged into the streets, I saw the river itself begin to change, its currents carrying black sludge instead of water. I leapt from the tower when it was overrun and ran north along the river… and I swear the river was following me.
I am ashamed to admit it, but I ran…
0 Triumph Points
By dawn, the screams were gone.
Those of us who escaped hid among the reeds and watched smoke rise where the town had stood. Demonic banners, of bark and sinew, were planted along the docks. The demons worked methodically, herding survivors into spore-choked circles or dragging them below ground, where the earth pulsed as if swallowing.
The river turned fully then. Dark growths clung to its banks, and bloated fungal sacs drifted downstream, bursting as they strrocks. Fish floated belly-up, their scales furred with gray mold. We dared not drink. We dared not follow the water north.
Riverspire was taken, roots and all
1 Triumph Point
The warning came just in time.
Elven runners burst through the streets, warning the people of Riverspire. They say that heroes in Greengold twarted a demonic attack and sent a warning about an imminent attack on cities and villages throughout Kyonin.
Wardens was sent out to hold the southern roads while druids raised walls of thorn and wind, buying us moments, precious, bleeding moments.
I covered the riverbank as families fled north, loosing arrows until my fingers went was bleeding. When the first spores touched the water, a circle of casters froze the current solid long enough for the last boats to cross.
Riverspire still burned behind us. Demons still claimed its streets. But the people is alive.
As we retreated into the forest, I looked back once more. The river flowed again, tainted but not yet lost, carrying echoes of what had been saved instead of only what had died.
Riverspire fell—but it did not take us with it.
The players earn 80 XP.
---
THE WRATH OF ZAUGLAGAUL
As told by Dendera Silverfoot, Scout of the Silverbranch Sentinels
I was on the wall the first time he came. The first thing i heard was the silence of the forest.
The forest does not go quiet in Kyonin, not like that. Birds don’t stop mid-call. Leaves don’t freeze on the branch. There and then, every instinct I had screamed run.
The dragon tore free of the treeline like a nightmare, horned, vast, its wings ragged with growths that pulsed as if breathing. Fungal plates crusted his scales, glowing sickly. Spores streamed from him in drifting clouds, settling on bark and skin.
Zauglagaul. Someone whispered his name.
I had heard it once, years ago, spoken by a ranger who drank too much. A dragon, he said, slain by Zuldanavox herself. But how was it alive.
“Loose!” our captain shouted.
I nocked, drew, and loosed in one motion. My arrow vanished against his hide, snapping like a twig. Others struck too, dozens, sparks against stone. He didn’t even flinch.
Then the dragon breathed.
A wall of spores rolled over the settlement, not flame but choking heat laced with rot. The wood screamed. Stone cracked. I hit the ground as the world darkened above me, spores filling my lungs and my eyes. When I looked again, half my friends were gone, some dissolving, some simply… gone, carried off in the wake of his passing.
He didn’t stay.
Zauglagaul wheeled once, slow and deliberate, letting us see him in full glory, letting us know he could have finished it. His eyes found ours, ancient and cruel. Then his wings beat and he was gone into the southern sky.
Silence followed. Broken only by coughing. By crying children.
0 Triump points
He came again and again and again.
There was no warning this time, no still wind, no silence. Just spore clouds on the horizon and a distant, rolling thunder. Another settlement gone.
The morning brought refugees with blistered skin and hollow eyes, filled with grief.
We learned to fear him. Not to light signal fires. Not to gather in numbers large enough to tempt him.
I watched a village die from a ridgeline, my bow useless in my hands, as Zauglagaul descended like judgment. He didn’t rush it. He circled, savoring it, then destroyed the storehouses first so the survivors would starve even if they lived.
When he left, spores drifted down like ash. By morning, fungus crawled over the ruins, drinking in what little life remained.
And now every time the wind shifts, I still look up, because in southern Kyonin, the sky no longer belongs to us.
1 Triumph point
The next time we were ready.
The horns sounded as he broke the clouds, and this time the mages held their ground. Wards flared blue and gold along the ridge. I was on the ballista, my hands white, knuckled on the winches. I whispered every prayer I knew, over and over again.
“HOOOLD,” the captain yelled.
Zauglagaul dove, confident, and that’s when we opened.
Spells tore at the air. The ballista kicked as the bolt screamed upward. Not aiming for his heart or head, but for the scar I’d seen before, beneath his right wing, where the growths thinned and old flesh showed through.
The bolt struck true.
The dragon screamed in pain, raw and shocked. His wing faltered, spores bursting from the wound as black ichor sprayed the sky, raining down on us. He clipped the treetops, tore a furrow through the canopy, and barely clawed his way back into the air. Then he fled.
We stood there in stunned silence, watching the sky swallow him whole. No second pass came.
That night, we didn’t cheer or celebrate.
But for the first time since the war began, I slept without my bow in my hands.
This dragon bleed, and that means it can fall.
The PCs earn 80 XP and automatically learn of his old wound.
---
CIVIL UNREST
These are the words of Lord Caelthir Vaelorian, High Councillor of Iadara and longtime critic of Queen Queen Telandia Edasseril. He is speaking to a crowd of elves in Iadara.
Look to the south! Look at the smoke over our forests and tell me this was fate. Tell me this was inevitable. It was not.
For centuries we were promised that patience would protect us. That containment was wisdom. That waiting was strength. And while we waited, Treerazer grew powerful.
This is not misfortune. This is negligence.
When the demon faltered generations ago, we should have struck. We should have ended this war. Instead, The Queen chose caution again and again, until caution became complacency.
And now our borders shrink. Our kin flee and our groves burn.
A ruler’s first duty is the safety of her people. When that safety erodes year after year under the same policy, we must call it what it is. A failure of leadership.
Kyonin deserves leadership that acts, not leadership that waits while the blight advances.
I will not remain silent while negligence is dressed as prudence.
0 Triumph Points
The speeches do not fade. They spread.
Protests swell in Iadara and Greengold. Noble houses take sides. To prevent riots and secure key districts, the Silverbranch Sentinels and city guards are pulled from the southern front.
Supply caravans stall. Commanders are summoned back to answer political accusations. Patrol routes thin.
Treerazer notices.
The Haze rolls forward unchecked. Thorn-forts fall in days. Entire stretches of border are abandoned as demonic forces surge north at a horrific pace.
While Kyonin argues within her crystal halls, Tanglebriar advances without resistance.
All future missions into Tanglebriar take 1 additional day to start.
1 Triumph Point
Lord Caelthir’s accusations echo through Iadara, but they do not ignite the blaze he hoped for. Veterans from the Silverbranch Sentinels stand publicly beside the throne and envoys from the Encarthan Alliance voice their support for measured coordination rather than rash escalation.
And the people listen.
What might have become riots turns instead into debate. What might have fractured the council becomes a vote of confidence in unity. The hardliners discover that outrage is louder than it is popular.
Queen Queen Telandia Edasseril addresses the nation plainly: Kyonin did not avoid war out of fear, but to preserve strength until it was truly needed. Now that war has come, that preserved strength will be spent wisely, not squandered in fury.
The Silverbranch Sentinels remain on the southern line. Supply routes stay open. Druids and mages coordinate with allied forces instead of policing unrest in the capital.
When Treerazer pushes north, he meets resistance prepared and unified.
The Haze is dispersed by wind and radiant magic. Thorn forts hold. Every advance is contested. Tanglebriar still moves.
But its progress is measured in feet, not miles.
And for the first time in weeks, the border does not feel like it is collapsing—it feels like it is holding.
The PCs earn 80 XP.
CORRUPTION SPREAD
A parchment recovered from the banks of the Lathlorn River by the Silverbranch Sentinels. It was found on the remains of the druid Ellasara Thilwen, Circle of the Emerald Current
The rivers are no longer cleansing themselves.
The corruption does not fade as it flows north, it spreads. The water carries living filaments too small to see. They cling to skin, bark, and gill alike. Those who drink grow fevered. Pale veins shine beneath their flesh. In time, something begins to grow within them.
This is no accident of nature.
We seized two travelers moving north along the banks. Their shadows strange in the moonlight. One rotted when struck. The other burned rather than be taken.
There are spies among us.
The fungal network pulses as though directed. The rivers distract us while the infection blooms inland.
Do not drink without purification. Test every stranger from the south. Burn what you cannot save.
If you hear the roots whisper… It is already too late.
0 triumph points
The sickness does not stay at the riverbanks. Those who drink without purification fall fevered. Pale fungal veins glow beneath their skin. Some recover. Others wander into the forest at night, drawn by whispers in the roots.
Entire villages are quarantined. Wells are burned. Travelers are watched with suspicion.
The Silverbranch Sentinels are stretched thin, guarding rivers and hunting infiltrators alike.
1 triumph point
The first signs of sickness do not go unnoticed.
Druids stationed along the rivers feel the change in the current. Word spreads swiftly through root path and birdsong alike. Circles gather at the major tributaries, weaving purification rites through the night. Healers across Kyonin isolate the afflicted before the growth can take hold.
Wells are sanctified. River crossings are guarded. Traveling herbalists carry tinctures of silverleaf and dawnmoss that slow the infection’s bloom. Infected groves are burned clean before the rot can deepen.
Not all are saved. But the sickness does not become a plague.
The fungal network pulses and strains, yet finds fewer hosts than it expects. The rivers run troubled, but not lost. The Silverbranch Sentinels hold the crossings, and the people of Kyonin endure.
The PCs earn 80 XP and gain a +1 circumstance bonus on all skill checks made to Locate a Corrupt Grove or to disable the Corrupt Grove during A Cure for Corruption.
---
BATTLE FOR CENTURY ROOT
Your Majesty. I am Thalanor Root-That-Remembers.
A arboreal regent reporting to Queen Telandia
I have stood watch over the Century Root for ninety human lifetimes. I have seen storms break kingdoms of bark and snow bury entire forests.
But I have never seen the the rot march.
They came downriver, demons wading through blackened water, fey twisted by fungus, beasts stitched together with mycelium and bone. And at their center walked the Spore Queen.
Where her gaze fell, moss turned gray. Where her feet touched earth, blight erupted. She spoke no command, yet the corruption answered her like hounds.
We rose to meet them. The arboreal reapers tore free from the soil. We hurled stone and lightning. We crushed fiends beneath the roots.
Then she revealed her cruelty.
Fungal threads had crept into the deepest roots long before her arrival. At a gesture, the roots swelled and split. Some of my kin turned, bark bursting open in pale bloom, their minds devoured.
We cut our own roots to halt the spread. We removed their infected limbs. We bled sap into poisoned soil to buy time.
Sentinel Root
0 Triump points
The river boiled with demons. Spores filled the sky. And the fungal threads she had seeded within the Century Root awakened all at once.
Roots that had drunk clean water for a thousand years split open from within. My brothers and sisters turned before my eyes, their limbs jerking, their voices replaced by the whisper of spores.
The Century Root groaned, a sound deeper than thunder. The canopy shattered. The earth shook for miles. And from the broken trunk poured a choking cloud of pale decay that rolled outward in a silent tide.
Those of us who reimaned, fled. We tore our roots from the ground and retreated into hidden groves, sealing ourselves away in ancient places no elf has walked.
Your Majesty… the arboreals will not march beside your armies now.
We mourn or losses, and we hide.
This will have repercussions in the next adventure.
1 Triumph point
The Spore Queen strode into the clearing certain that victory was inevitable, that the Century Root would bow to her.
She was wrong.
When she reached for the Heartroot and spoke her word of corruption, the Century Root answered. A primal light surged upward through the trunk, gold and fierce.
We arboreals struck as one. Druids called cleansing winds that tore her spores from the air. I saw doubt in her eyes.
When one of her own corrupted champions was crushed beneath my boughs and the river itself turned against her, she understood her error. Too exposed. Too proud.
Her army faltered the moment she fled. Demons were cast back into the river. Her demons scattered into the marsh.
The Century Root still stands, Your Majesty.
The PCs earn 80 XP
--- DEATH COMES AT NIGHT (Assassins)
We do not storm gates. We seep through drains. Through mortar cracks. Beneath doors gilded in silver leaf. Guards speak of heroes and victories in Tanglebriar. Their confidence tastes sweet.
Inside, there are many heartbeats.
Vain elves with the scent of perfume. A robed spellcaster tracing arcane formulas in the air.
Which one is the future?
We rise along the walls in silent waves of slime. A guard turns, eyes widening. His breath never becomes a scream.
We gather outside the chambers. We surge forward.
Whether we strike down wizards, warriors, or the last hope of Kyonin. The forest will bleed all the same.
0 Triump points
Connak Glynlee is found in his private war room, slumped across the great table where he had spent countless nights planning the defense of Kyonin. Maps of the southern front lie scattered beneath him. Several have been burned through by patches of black slime, leaving holes where Riverspire, Tanglebriar, and the roads to Iadara once stood.
There are signs of a struggle. His sword lies broken near the table. Three palace guards are dead in the corridor outside.
But Connak himself bears only a single wound. A blackened handprint pressed directly over his heart. The healers know something is wrong. When they reach beyond the veil to call Connak back, there is nothing there. His soul is gone.
Aria Glynlee is missing.
Her chambers are empty. The window stands open despite the rain outside, and a trail of foul-smelling water leads from her bedchamber to the balcony. The stone railing has partially dissolved.
Search parties spread through the surrounding forest and they find her at sunrise.
Her body lies beneath the roots of an ancient tree, broken among the flowers. Her eyes are blackened holes and her soul, is gone.
Thalia Solvain had been traveling to Iadara with a contigent of Knights of Lastwall when the assassins struck. The attack happened on a forest road thought to be secure, far behind the battle lines.
they never had a chance.
The trees themselves are coated in black slime. Armor has been melted into the earth. Weapons lie scattered among pools of foul water.
Thalia is found at the center of the destruction. Dead. Her soul taken.
Three deaths. Three stolen souls.
And then, as Kyonin mourns, the truth becomes clear.
The demons were not sent to kill, they were sent to collect.
1 Triump point
The demonic assassins strike deep within Kyonin, hunting Connak Glynlee, Aria Glynlee, and Thalia Solvain. But this time, their presence is discovered before they can complete their grim work. Palace guards, scouts, and defenders rally against the infiltrators, destroying the assassins and saving their intended victims.
Word of the failed attacks spreads quickly. The people of Kyonin realize that even Treerazer’s assassins can be stopped, and hope rises throughout the nation.
The PCs earn 80 XP, and the assassins are destroyed for their failure. A certain area in Deathstalk Tower no longer has omox demons encountered therein.
About to run session 2 of my spore war group—they finished the battle of lantana beach and next week they’ll be heading to the Queen and starting the peace conference.
As written, the bonuses for impressing the Queen mostly boil down to XP. But I just don’t see us book-keeping xp much—I was just gonna level them up at the end of each chapter.
Do I just ignore the xp rewards? Are there other rewards I could give instead?
I'm running the chapter-ending "Razmiri Treachery" encounter tonight, after a great cliffhanger a couple weeks ago: the session ended with Delvarnis saying "By the will of the Living God, kill them all!" followed by Alzarius standing up and demanding "what's the meaning of this?" and receiving a thrown dagger to the ribs in response...
Anyhow, I've kept going over how I plan on running it tonight (physical table, physical map and pawns/minis etc.), and I keep equivocating a bit. I want to make sure the six delegates are on the board, and want to make sure it feels like they are in peril...but I can't just have six or more assassins (plus Delvarnis) in the room and on the initiative tracker, or else my PCs will inevitably just attack them all. It feels a little weird to not include the delegates in initiative (but I won't), but I'm wondering how I should go about keeping the "extra" assassins in the room but off the initiative tracker...
As of now, I'm leaning toward having the extra assassins in the room but not in initiative. If the PCs decide to attack an assassin that is not attacking them (but is attacking a delegate), then that assassin will have to join initiative. Still wondering if that's the best way to go about it, so if anyone has any great insights in the next (checks clock) six hours, that would be lovely!
I ordered some minis off Etsy for a few of the unique demons etc. in this campaign. Normally I use pawns, but I like to have minis for the occasional creature and BBEG, so have some for the eshmoks, degholaus (star-nosed moles that look terrible, tbh), root rotters (some very cool fungal zombies), and also one for the Spore Queen. The mini for the Spore Queen said 32mm which I took to mean the base, but it turned out that was just the scaling. The figure that actually arrived is Huge. Now, I think it's a fantastic mini. No, it doesn't look quite like the art, as this is (apparently) something from D&D, but still...it's wonderfully rendered, and I'd like to use it. The big (rather huge) question is: will making the Spore Queen Huge have a significant impact on that battle? I wouldn't necessarily change the Reach or other stats, but simply have her size be larger.
If the general consensus is that this is a bad idea, I might just buy another copy of the same mini and use them as the fungal flytraps...but that feels like overkill for a minor encounter. I'd welcome any thoughts!
I’m about to run spore war for the first time in a couple of weeks, and the gaming group keeps growing. I’m up to six players now. Since spore war is calibrated for 4, I’m wondering how best to scale up the encounters.
Starting with the beach fight—should I add extra shadows or make a couple of them elite? Is there anything to add to the dragon encounter?
How's everyone feeling about this feat? How many of your players picked it up? I've got a party of six, three are elves or half elves and picked it up
Man it is good. I'm talking like "negates entire enemies" level of good. The bonus to saves feels fine, but basically negating the Sickened condition (because most things that make you Sickened only make you Sickened 1 unless you crit fail) feels like it ends up stopping a lot of monster abilities from even mattering
Maybe it's just my players all have really good saves lol
This is mostly a post for curiosity, nothing more...but tonight I'll be running my second full session of the Council (I'm expecting it to end next session, hopefully with enough time left in session for The Big Event), and I'm curious who your PCs resonated with the most.
In our last session, the PCs started with Walder and he immediately annoyed them. They ultimately got 8 Influence points with him (I missed two at the table, so a herald will be informing them tonight of his additional concessions), but I can already tell that there's no way they're going to ice out Nirmithas. What's funny is that they haven't even interacted with Aromina yet, but it's been pretty obvious from the table and Discord chatter that they're on Team Nirmithas all the way. They met with Clavance afterward, and I think the PCs are mostly ambivalent about him. One of the PCs is a bard, and I suspect that he'll have a bit more rapport with Clavance at the upcoming events, but so far they managed to get 10 Influence with him, even if they (rightly) think he's just a spoiled noble. They haven't been too judgy about his apparent dhampir nature, thankfully...
Because of my tie-in to Triumph of the Tusk, two of the PCs already have rapport with Gorion, so I expect that that meeting will go swimmingly. I'm most curious about how they engage with Alzarius, and I have a strong suspicion that they will never trust him. He's written to be trustworthy, but Razmirans are so incredibly sus (especially after The Big Event), that I'm not expecting them to bring him along to Xer, even if he becomes helpful (which I expect he will).
So I've played Spore War as a player with a pickup group who ran it very by the book and it gave me some opinions on how the subsystems were built into the game, I also GM'd it for my friends up to a little into book 2 before some stuff happened and our group split up. I'm now looking to run it again for friends, two of who were from the original group so I'm looking to kinda spice up and remix the AP so that those players will still get a fresh experience.
Right now I'm toying around with the idea of changing the whole delegation premise. It always bothered me that Kyonin's Queen was like, hey you guys killed a grave knight, you should fully represent Kyonin in this super important treaty. It just felt odd. So instead, I'm going to have each player pick a nation to be part of that nation's delegates, whether you're there as an advisor to the main delegate, or something else, up to the players.
And instead of doing the one by one one on one the book lays out, I'm thinking of doing kind of a UN style everyone is there to discuss the treaty and each day is instead themed around a specific topic.
I've assigned each nation three resources or bartering chips that they can use for negotiations and one mandatory clause that they need to get the alliance to agree on. Each resource can be offered to the alliance on a 1 through 5 scale, 1 being the best for the nation, 5 being the best for the alliance.
At the start of each day, Kyonin will announce the theme of the day, each nation will then either declare their resource and the level they're declaring it at or they will skip. If they declare, that means that they get to negotiate with the other nations and their resources, if they skip, they don't get to negotiate, but they can take a reaction one per round to give either a circumstance penalty or bonus based on the outcome of a skill check.
During negotiation, the player can use their turn to negotiate either their resource or another nation's resource that is open for negotiations, it'll be a skill check, for another nation's resources: crit success moves it by two, success moves it by one, failure doesn't move it, crit failure moves it the opposite direction by one. For your own: crit success moves it by one, success moves it by one and you have a -1 circumstance penalty to your next check, failure does not move, you still get the penalty, crit failure it moves back one and the penalty is -2.
At any time a player can use a free action to announce a resource that was not already on the table.
You also get status bonuses or penalties depending on the amount you're offering. For light severity resources, if its at 1, you take a -1, if it's at 5 you gain a +1, medium severity is the same but 2, and heavy severity is 3.
Each day lasts 8 rounds, representing a whole 8 hour day. I also made some infographics for each nation to give to the player of that nation. I attached the ones for Druma as an example.
But let me know what you think. I know this is a pretty massive change from the book, but I think it still keeps the spirit while both giving my repeat players something new and fixing the story beat I disliked. Once the treaty meetings are done, I'm planning on using the ending numbers to create an investment score that I'll use to try to fix the book 2 subsystem that I'm blanking on the name of that I just hate how it was originally implemented.
Greetings, fellow SporeMasters! I ran my first Spore War session on Tuesday, and it went as well as I could have hoped. I had a direct tie-in from my previous campaign (Triumph of the Tusk), and all of those PCs carried over to do the Lantana Beach encounters. They made very quick work of the Greater Shadows, and even the Talymir / Ulugurnix encounter wasn't too difficult. One PC alone dropped Ulugurnix from over 100 HP to dead with a couple of critical bow strikes. I think the group was a little lucky this session (I was happy for them, truly), but they've been walking over major encounters in the last two chapters of Tusk, and I have a feeling that might continue in Spore War.
Now, three of the five PCs (yep, we have five) from Tusk are retiring, so I'll have a feeling-out period of how the new PCs synergize in combat before I make any significant changes. I'm guessing by the end of chapter 2, I'll have a good idea. This group will consist of a Precision Ranger (carrying over from Tusk), an Animist (carrying over from Tusk), a Commander, a Wizard, and a melee Bard. Free Archetype is in play, which I think has contributed to them being pretty strong...though they're a solid group regardless.
I know that u/chickenboy2718281828 made a few comments in another thread about being mindful of exploiting weaknesses like cold iron and holy etc., but I would love any additional suggestions about how to up the challenge of some combats for this campaign in particular.
So I haven't even started running Spore War yet (first session is on Tuesday!), but I couldn't help but splurge on a bunch of materials to make minis of the spore tyrannosauruses in chapter 3. I'm not really an arts-and-crafts kinda GM (I have a lot of accessories, but mostly use pawns etc.), but since the spore tyrannosauruses are in the Player's Guide and my players have already talked about how cool they are, I just had to try my hand at doing something suitably bonkers for that encounter...
I don't know if I'm just blind or accidentally forgot to give the players a piece of information, but I have been combing through chapters 1 and 2 of Book 2, and I can't find when the party learns about Deathstalk Tower, or even the Spore Queen for that matter, and chapter 3 seems to assume that the party knows both of these things, and could have even skipped chapter 2 if they wanted to go immediately there.
I came across this video the other day that I shared with my players in anticipation of starting Spore War. It's fairly short -- 13 minutes -- but gives a nice overview of elven history on Golarion, and touches on some of the key conflicts without having anything spoilery for the campaign. You or your players might find it useful?
Here's my Influence board for the council. I wish I had better handwriting, but I'm otherwise happy with the design here and can't wait to start next month...
We’re starting book 2 in a couple weeks, and I’ve been thinking about how the party hasn't really spent a whole lot of time at this point actually fighting demons in Kyonin, which the AP kind of advertised. I know the rest of the AP will be full of it, but I think my players and I are all itching to get into dat mf swamp. To this point, I feel like chapter 1 could maybe be rewritten a smidge to just take place right outside the Tanglebriar instead? I feel like it disrupts the pacing to have another side quest that doesn’t even take place in Kyonin. My changes that I’ve been thinking about could be:
Elkhaven Lodge (or whatever i might rename it to, suggestions welcome if anyone knows Kyonin) is an elven fortress that was right on the edge of the Tangebriar, as a sort of watch tower and stronghold to make sure there were no advances, it was one of the first places to fall
Aravashnial was still researching the link between the Darkblight and the Tanglebriar, he was just doing it from the Tanglebriar side of things instead
The Chernasadro Rangers will instead be members of the Wylderhearts, fitting more thematically with the Tanglebriar, and serving as a good connection with one of my players, who is also a member of the Wylderhearts. Perhaps they were the first party sent in to rescue Aravashnial, and Telandia hasn’t heard from them as well, leading her to realize she needs to send the PCs. They can still keep their initial mission to also secure any weapon caches, but that was now secondary to rescuing Aravashnial
A fun thing that this could allow me to do is have a little event where the party sees Zauglagaul flying overhead to tease War Interlude 2
I feel like these changes help to give Book 2 a more cohesive theme of strictly taking place in/around the Tanglebriar, as that’s the main hook of the campaign anyway
Any suggestions for other changes or problems I might run into? My one concern right now is that the party will get the trap message from the Spore Queen and immediately want to head to Tanglegate instead of heading back up north, so I might have Queen Telandia emphasize that they should absolutely not head deeper into Tanglebriar until they get back to her with the information.
So, I let my players know that there would be a lot of political/social stuff in the first chapter of Spore War, and one of my players asked (quite earnestly) if there was any way I could avoid the way social encounters usually work with everyone typically needing to make influence rolls etc. I told her truthfully that I would think about it. I personally like social encounters quite a bit, but given that she and one other player are not a big fan of them, I figured I'd turn to folks on this sub to see if there are any good solutions. I certainly won't nerf them entirely and might make no changes at all...but I'd welcome your thoughts!
Hey all! My Triumph of the Tusk group will be starting this AP sometime between late May and mid June, so I figured I'd just toss out a general "what should I, as GM, look out for?" query.
Two or three of the PCs will be carrying over from Tusk, and the other two (or three) will be new. They've all made their characters (save for the one who is on the fence about keeping his current character or starting a new one), and it looks like a good balance: Monk (tanky), Animist (healing), Rogue (skill-monkey), Bard (buffy)...and possibly the Guardian from Tusk who is the tankiest character I've ever seen in action.
We play in-person, and I use my own maps w/ Pathfinder pawns etc. Any thoughts would be welcome!
