Stars of the Sea Update Announcement!

Hello patrons!

We've been hard at work testing and tweaking our Stars of the Sea campaign and after running it for friends and patrons alike, we're here today to announce the first round of updates to the Stars of the Sea Quest Packs we've published so far. 

Below we're going to talk about what we've learned from our playtests, how we feel about the first 10 Quest Packs, and what we've updated and improved upon. We have also included a change log download file at the bottom of this post for those of you who would like a detailed breakdown of every single adjustment that has been implemented for all of the Stars of the Sea Quest Packs.

How did the playtests go?

Thanks to some kind friends and a handful of you lovely patrons who've been playing with us, we've been running through everything we've written so far and in general we're pleased with the world we've set up. However, we think the main story of the first ACT could use some improvements.

Our original intent was for Marlon Wallace to hire the player characters as adventurers, and to introduce them to the city with a pleasant holiday on her dime. Our first playtests have showed us that the players lacked a goal from the onset, and this caused the story to feel a little aimless. We also fear that, with Marlon Wallace as the sole "Quest Giver" and authority for the players to report to, the players will have less opportunity to shape the story to their design in later stages of the story. Lastly, we also felt that there was not enough action happening in the first act, as we had laid out various leisure activities that left little room for the traditionally enjoyable elements of 5th edition like combat, performance and problem solving.

To address these concerns, we made some changes to the story, and then proceeded to playtest it again.

Change #1: The Council of Spiria

To solve the issue of the singular "Quest Giver", we introduced a new one: The Council of Spiria. This is a committee made up of five councillors, each representing some of the largest and most influential factions of Silver Spires. Marlon is still a big part of the story, as she is one of the councillors, and was the one to propose to the council that they hire a group of adventurers. 

The introduction of the Council also allows for more scope in terms of faction allegiances, which will become important as the campaign moves into acts 2 and 3. As player characters are introduced to the various influential groups around the city, they will have more room to decide who they may wish to side with and assist, which will shape how they experience the city and ultimately, how they will defeat the Monstrosity.

Change #2: Setting a goal

To introduce some clear goals for the players to pursue at the beginning of act 1, we introduced the following story elements:

1. When Marlon Wallace proposes to the council that they hire a group of adventurers, not every member of the council agrees right away. There are two holdouts: O'Leyah of the Soulspire Nightlights and Roaming Waters of the Faerie Circle (previously named the Faerie Protection Council). They have their reservations about Marlon's plan, and wish to put the adventurers through their paces before then can agree to hire them. The need to gain the favour (and respect) of these councillors sets clear goals for the players to accomplish during ACT 1.

2. The reason that Marlon proposes the idea of hiring adventurers to the council is because there have been a number of unusual occurrences happening around the city that the town protectors, the Hollow Guard, have not been addressing. These occurrences are small plot threads that hint at the larger problem that is building in Elvin Bay, ie, the Monstrosity. This gives the players a larger story thread to hold onto from the start that ties the narrative together more cohesively, and ties into the larger goal of the campaign.

Change #3: More action

The councillors testing the player characters in various ways is our opportunity to add more action to the story.

After talking to the player characters at the start of the campaign and telling them about the other councillors and their tasks, Marlon Wallace offers the player characters the opportunity to try out their new spell-cell-powered magic items in a friendly fight against her Giant Death Robot. This is a fun way to allow players to test the combat skills of their characters right at the start of the campaign

O'Leyah wants to see the player characters prove that they can handle the blinding spotlight of fame, and she puts the player characters on the stage of the Dockmaster's Opera, asking them to put on a surprise performance for the audience. This gives players a chance to think on their feet and exercise their character's performance skills.

Roaming wants to be assured that they have respect for the fey that populate the city. He will ask the player characters to assist in administering some medicine to an enraged troll, without harming it. This event gives player characters the opportunity to handle a situation with diplomacy and flex their problem solving skills

Implementing the changes.

After testing the campaign with the above changes in place, we felt like we have a much stronger story on our hands, so we decided to implement them. We're doing this in two ways:

1: Introducing Quest Pack 10: The Council of Spiria
The biggest of these changes have been added in Quest Pack 10, which details the council and their motives, all of the influential Spirian factions and adds the encounters from O'Leyah, Roaming, and Marlon. 

2: Editing Quest Packs 1-9
We have gone through the previous Quest Packs of the Stars of the Sea story, and have updated them to reflect the changes we outlined above. Below is a summary list of all of the exciting updates we've made!

To see a fully comprehensive list of all updates made to the Quest Packs, please consult the change log download file attached to this post.

• Changed main quest giver from Marlon to be the Council of Spiria, reflected in various edits through Quest Packs, mostly in QP01
• Re-wrote campaign summary
• Added table of Unusual Occurrences to QP01
• Edited Marlon's letter and itinerary to reflect changes, adding in meetings with O'Leyah and Roaming Waters
• Added the relevant council leader Intro Quests to the downloads for QP02, QP04 and QP06.
• Changed Faerie Protection Council name to be Faerie Circle to avoid having two 'councils'
• Clarified wording on how faeries work, worded their symbiotic nature to be more neutral, clarified various faerie mechanics
• Changed founding elven tribes from wood elf/high elf/dark elf to Spiritwood, Mindwend and Eversoul Tribes.
• Added an emergency council meeting to occur after first monstrosity attack
• Added faction bases to map descriptions
• Changed description of Watcher's Cape to be an abandoned location
• Changed Seasong Island references in itinerary to just cover Spirian's Retreat
• Removed references to 'taming' Bloodthorn Harrow
• Added Quest Pack number and page numbers to all Quest Packs so far
• Minor wording and spelling corrections throughout
• Removed or edited all references to half-elves
• Changed Oki Krablad's name to Akan Krablad
• Changed Fika Hawksmoor's name to Fika Hakaw

We want to hear from you!

We've spent a lot of this month reviewing our playtest notes and going through everything we've written so far with a fine tooth comb with the intention of refining this campaign, strengthening the plot lines and making running it easier. We hope you'll find these updates to be an improvement too.

If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback, we would love to hear them and do our best to help or adjust. Feel free to get in touch via DM, in the comments, or via the Discord server if you have anything you want to ask or tell us in regards to these updates!

And finally, thank you for your continued support - your support means that we can keep making things better and writing fun stories for everyone to enjoy <3

-Niels & Rose