So I’ve caught a severe flu and between still having to work and lying in my bed wishing my head would stop exploding, I still had some time to think (in a very fragmented kind of way) and look some things up. Not necessarily in order:

1. Dammit, there’s no dracolich entry in any of the Bestiaries. And while I can apply the Lich template to a dragon, that would make for a stronger monster than I intended.

2. More dammit, My idea of making that Dracolich to the actual phylactery of Lich-King Thorder isn’t exactly covered by the rules. So I will have to make some rules myself because otherwise, a lot of players might want to argue that point.

3. Triple Dammit, the Justice Archon is a 3.5 monster which means it is not OGL. And for what I wanted to do with it, the official Pathfinder Archons aren’t very good alternatives. At least this time, I already found a possible replacement in the Brijidine Azata (or the Veranallia Azata). Only problem is that those are high CR creatures (CR 17 and 20), which might be too much for the scope of my adventures. Will have to take a look if I can turn the stat blocks into kind of a racial class so as to make lesser versions of them.

4. At the moment I imagine the main villain to be King Thorder. I think I’ll make him into a level 14 lich which would mean he had 13 class levels before he went through the transformation. Not sure yet if this might not be to strong for the level 10 group I have in mind for this.

5. At least this settles that the campaign should bring the PCs from meekly level 1 beginnings to at least level 10 before the big finale. Need to think a bit how to organize this into actual adventures. I also need to remember that in Tetheril, I’m going for a more low magic approach, so maybe I might need even higher level PCs to make up for it.

6. I imagine the campaign starts with the PCs becoming outlawed when they defend someone (their village?) against some thugs in the service of the Crown (tax collectors?). Afterwards they get contacted by the rebellion and invited to join their forces. So I need to look for what kind of missions they might have to undertake to prove their worth and climb the rebellion ranks.

7. Oh, and thanks to Owen K.C. Stevens I might have some idea about the creation of Thieves‘ Guilds and Assassins‘ Guilds, that I plan to incorporate in my adventures (might have to think about other factions that might play a role. Which makes me think about making this campaign into something even larger to get the space I need.

8. Maps! I need Maps!

…

And now it’s a day later, I just spent some money on Legendary Games‘ Forest Kingdom Compendium, as I really love their stuff and with this and Paizo’s new Ultimate Wilderness book, I should have a lot of material for my campaign setting. Speaking of:

9. Hm, I could have the Resistence forces flee to some unexplored wilderness region, so as to be able to let the PCs build a little forest kingdom. Which might enable me in turn to bring a big battle to the game, when King Thorder finally decides to remove this little annoyance.

10. Might even have to extend the scope of this campaign and make it into a full AP from 1 to 20. Which would help me with my Lich problem and my Azata problem as well.

11, BUUUUT…. it is a lot of work.

12. And makes for an evergrowing reading list just to support that campaign: Paizo’s Ultimate Campaign as well as Ultimate Wilderness, Legendary Games‘ Ultimate series and the Forest Kingdom Compendium, and not to forget Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might, as I want to use the Spheres system for my setting.