Enter the world of Golarion, where a group of adventurers fight against the devastating power of the mighty lich known as “The Whispering Tyrant” to save the area of Lastwall from utter ruin. Follow 10th_King and his team as they battle against world-shattering danger to the tune of German and Finnish metal in the dangerous, yet adventurous campaign known as “Broken Shield”.
First off, feel free to tell us about the person behind the GM scr21een. Where are you from? What do you do aside from gaming? Alter Egos? Life partners? Family? Where can we interact with you on the internet?
My name is Nick. I was born in Seattle, which always feels like home to me, but have lived in Richmond, Virginia for so long now that I should really stop telling people that first part. I am married to a phenomenal person who has been my inspiration for so many things. I actually had them come into this campaign to play as the former demigoddess Arazni. That reveal was one of the best moments early on because every time my wife came to watch us play, at some point in the session I had one of the PCs notice a scrying sensor watching the party, but none of the players connected the dots until the big moment.
You have a very prominent banner on your landing page that is both detailed and intriguing. Why don’t you tell us all something about it.
One of my players commissioned a beautiful piece of art for the campaign featuring all the player characters in a Darkest Dungeon style. The video game was one of my early inspiration sources for the campaign’s atmosphere and I liked the artwork so much that it’s been my background on my home computer ever since. My players don’t know this, yet, but I altered the established adventure to make their characters functionally immortal partly because I appreciate this art and the enthusiasm for my game that it represents.
How long has your campaign been running and what made you choose Pathfinder as your gaming system.
This particular campaign is an adaptation of Pathfinder’s adventure path Tyrant’s Grasp and we’ve been playing it for about two years now almost weekly. Tyrant’s Grasp is a fantastic AP and Paizo used it to introduce some cataclysmic changes to their world of Golarion when they went to their Second Edition. My players and I have been playing in our own version of the Pathfinder setting (named by us Pathfinder Prime) for over 10 years. In that time, we’ve failed a lot of campaigns, both published and homebrew, resulting some sweeping changes to our own Inner Sea. I used Broken Shield to sell my group on PF2E and bring Pathfinder Prime in line with some of what I thought would be Paizo’s biggest alterations to the larger setting.
Do you play online or at a table? Tell us something about your average gaming sessions. How often do you play? What is your gaming group like?
We play in person most weeks. Classically, everyone brings snacks and I always try to theme what I bring based on what will happen in the session. A quiet little hint for the players to puzzle out for my enjoyment. We play at one of my player’s houses so he can help watch his son who has also made an appearance in a couple sessions. As a whole, my players are very tactically minded, forcing me to constantly be on my toes to have any hope of challenging them, but since we have so much established history in this world we’ve built and between ourselves, we also have a lot of lore and cohesion we can rely on for character creation and role play. My group is all very creative, giving us a wonderful balance of fluff and crunch. Every one of their characters is my absolute favorite at varying points. Look into the OP page for some amazing examples of their talent, but for a brief overview we have Andre Goncharov (a.k.a. the White Spider, a now world-famous circus wrestler grown into his own tall tale), Raffletholomew Twice-Dead (the midwife “native” of the town where inciting events for the campaign begin and host to one of Pharasma’s most powerful agents now clinging to existence), Wil Scarborough (the orphaned child of a different player’s former character in our Carrion Crown game), Mathias Forest (the adopted son of that player’s own Carrion Crown character who was not concurrent with the character that died and orphaned Wil), and Apollonia (the daughter of that player’s own character in a homebrew game now carrying on that player’s many-year legacy and plans for the setting). Each of these was unknowingly and completely independently made to be perfect for the campaign and weaving their stories into the adventure has been delightful.
Tell us about life in Lastwall. What dangers are still propagated by “The Whispering Tyrant”? What sort of adventures do your characters get up to? What are their quests? What are the challenges?
For those unfamiliar with Paizo’s Pathfinder setting, the Whispering Tyrant is basically THE big bad. A classic lich necromancer bent on world domination and his own superiority over even the gods themselves, his power over death is unimaginable and nearly unstoppable. The AP as written is about him destroying Lastwall as a nation, leaving it a land of horrors and undeath. The characters have at this point traveled hitherto unseen parts of the world to try and find a way to stop his onslaught, and have only recently come back with any hope of actually being able to do so. They have been several catastrophic steps behind him up to now and have been repeatedly caught off guard by expecting things to follow normal game tropes. More than once, they’ve discovered the thing they set out to stop or learn about is either already in progress or has already happened. I’ve worked hard throughout to give them the impression that many of these events were destined to occur later in the story only to pull the rug out from under them. That has sometimes backfired, forcing my hand even earlier, bit it’s been a BLAST.
Is the main WIKI mainly set up by yourself? Do any of your players help out? Do you have any tips for newcomers starting to build their own campaigns?
I built the initial wiki, but life and time have gotten away from me. At this point, a couple of my players have largely taken control of it and are responsible for how incredible a resource it remains. From day one, I have rewarded player’s for adding content, bribing them with Hero Points, but their efforts have gone above and beyond. I am truly in awe of the work they do every week.
There are several musical links in your campaign, particularly in the adventure logs. How important are these to your campaign? Do you use music during your sessions?
I create new playlists to use in session for each part of the campaign. Every major milestone means a change to the tone of the music I set. One of the first, as an example, used a lot of video game music, heavily featuring the Darkest Dungeon soundtrack which may have influenced the commissioned banner a player got. Currently I play a lot of German and Finnish metal as the players explore a Dwarven ruin and Elvish artifacts. My players also use music specifically to set the tone of some of their adventure logs and in particular I’ve been impressed with how many of Wil’s logs actually line up in their writing with the music playing as you read it. Line breaks frequently match breaks in the music if you hit play just before you start reading.
Without divulging any major plots, what is your plan for the future of your central characters?
We are honestly in the home stretch of the campaign, so my players and I are really all focused more on the legacy these characters will have on Pathfinder Prime at this point. I recently tried to force them into a difficult heroes choice where they had to risk that legacy to save the world itself. The characters all elected to do the right thing, but the players were very frustrated with my decision. They blamed the source material (sorry Paizo!) and will only learn I’m the culprit reading this, but I wanted the stakes to be real. I had to backtrack on that choice a bit, but we’ve worked it into the story and after some checks, only one of them will suffer the full consequences.
What would you say are the most useful tools available on Obsidian Portal, both in terms of Campaign Design and in terms of active playing?
I have used OP for every campaign we’ve run in our Pathfinder Prime setting. I find it incredibly useful for giving players background on the setting and character creation. Our group has talked several times about creating an Obsidian Portal wiki just to have our own wiki for our Pathfinder games and tracking all the changes from the published setting. By far my favorite part of Obsidian Portal, though, are the adventure logs and players’ ability to document their own perspectives on each session or other events in their lives. As both a player and a GM, the insight into another character and the creativity we all get to display even between sessions is incredible.
What have your main influences been in building and running your campaign? Think of literature, films, games, anything else.
There are honestly so many influences I draw on for this game. I’ve mentioned Darkest Dungeon a few times, but I’ve also relied on one of my favorite video games, Bloodborne, for creepiness and atmosphere. Supernatural and the Castlevania TV show have also been big inspirations. I have steeped myself in classic horror from Dracula and Frankenstein to the Cthulhu mythos to guide my own storytelling. I also listen to playthrough recordings of Pathfinder every day to keep on top of rules, and steal techniques and ideas from fellow GMs. I’d especially like to shout out Find the Path who are also currently going through Tyrant’s Grasp and who are a phenomenal podcast.
Okay, as a last question, we always ask for the GM’s “pearls of wisdom”. What GM insights can you offer the community this month?
I am truly blessed to have a fantastic group of players who are just as invested in this ongoing story as I am. The best advice I think any GM can give is to communicate with your players and use them to help us all tell a group narrative. Take their ideas and their goals and rewrite everything if you have to. You can definitely still surprise them by twisting their expectations, but the involvement you get is incredible and unique. This is a cooperative medium and watching something grow beyond any of us has been truly beautiful. My thanks have to go to Obsidian Portal for giving us a place to store and refer back to our legacy!
Thank you to the community for making this campaign of the month possible! That’s all for now, join us on our next adventure June 2nd, and don’t forget to nominate your favorite campaigns for our next Campaign of the Month!
