# World Domination? OF COURSE!



## DragonStryk72 (Oct 5, 2012)

I've been running a Pathfinder game of late, and the party is doing  really spelndidly. They've preformed above and beyond anything I could  have expected of them. I have three characters now with the Leadership  feat, naming their cohorts as proxies for them in case they get held up  during their admin week, as well as using them to further the kingdom,  such as Maia's Druid council she's brought together for the region,  something that was sorely lacking before. For those that don't play  Pathfinder: Start playing it.

Pathfinder is set on the world of Golarion, in a region referred to as  The Inner Sea. I am running an Adventure Path (A full campaign in six  books) called Kingmaker, and in it, the PCs are sent by the Swordlords  of Restov to stop the banditry in The Stolen Lands, as well as to  establish a kingdom there to help keep the peace. In truth, Restov is a  conquered nation, being held by Brevoy, and they are trying to use the  party as an end-around way of obtaining greater power in the Brevoy  government. As the PCs kingdom grows, however, Brevoy will take an  increasingly negative view of the group, coming to see them as eventual  threats to their own sovereignty, while an ancient Fae called Nyrissa  plots in the shadows on how to rid The Stolen Lands of the PCs for once  and for all.

Well, the party succeeded in capturing The Stag's Lord Keep, deposing  the Stag Lord in a very Ocean's Eleven sort of way. The Stag Lord is  head of the bandits of the region, but he's also a raging alcoholic. The  group manages to jack a full load of his booze, along with getting the  passphrase to allow them entrance. So armed, they are able to enter the  keep with weapons and armor fully intact. The Stag Lord proceeds to get  himself fall down drunk, and retreats to his quarters. This is when they  send Naraina, the group's Elven Ranger in after him, with her passing  it off as her trying to sleep with the boss to get ahead, while the  party fans out around the keep to get in position to take them down.  Once in the Stag Lord's room, Naraina whip her Elven Curved Blade out of  the Efficient Quiver, and coup de graces him, a check he fails. When  she steps back outside, it's the signal, and Naraina's already got her  bow ready. From there it goes downhill pretty swiftly, claiming a new  ally in a former bandit named Akiros Ismort.

Well, now, two years in game later, The group's king/bard has come to a  decision, one he has yet to share with anyone in the party: having  looked through the Inner Sea guide, he has realized just how screwed up  the world is, and now believes that to bring Golarion back from the  brink, he must, by needs, begin taking down kingdoms. Between the  seriously evil kingdoms, and all the ones that are on the brink of  chaos, I can kind of see his point.

He's already been making good with the Dwarves, and the Elves, setting  up an elven community in the Narlmarches, the forest to their northwest  that holds an ancient elven keep, and to the southwest, he plans to  convert a dwarven stronghold to create a dwarven community. There are  even plans for a halfling community in the hills to the south. He  already has a small tribe of kobolds, so things could get interesting  here. He's even reached out to the goodly fae of the Narlmarches, and  helped them several times over now.

As well, the party's level continues to rise, and eventually, they'll  have to deal with Brevoy anyhow, as it's part of the campaign, and it's a  war I see them winning at the current rate. They've taken to tracking  down Wyverns to bring over to their side so that they can create an air  corps, by offering the Wyverns regular foods, a proper rookery, and pay  for them, along with breeding Thylacines to help patrol the borderlands  (Combination of Rangers and Druids working together to that end).

With the help of the Druids, the crop yield of the kingdom is a third  higher than normal, and that looks to keep growing as the party's level  continues to improve. They've taken to taking the winter months off of  exploration in order to take care of things around the kingdom, and  allow the Druids to go about and do their plant growth thing to enrich  the soil.

This is the most fun I've had GMing in a long time, so no, I'm not  bringing this to a grinding halt. Oh sure, I'm gonna mess with them,  I've made them bleed, and made them bury 5 of their companions so far,  don't get me wrong, but I've talked about this on the Paizo forums, and  one poster referred to their actions as "antics", and asked how long I  would let them "get away" with this, and suggested a ton of ways I could  destroy all the extra progress they've made, despite reading about how  much work, effort, and role-playing they've done to actually get there.


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## doghead (Oct 6, 2012)

Sounds like an interesting game. I agree that the aforementioned poster's attitude is a little perplexing. 

What I do find interesting is the extent to which magic has been woven into the socio/economic fabric in order to spur on growth and prosperity. This seems to be a characteristic of player character managed societies that is much less evident in authored settings.

Thanks for sharing.

thotd


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