I just finished running this adventure last month. It took us 53 sessions over 16 months. I definitely expanded more on the Krakovan war with the Blood Kingdom, and we actually started the game just south of Jozht, and we rant Chapter 1: Cartways under Jozht. This was the first campaign I've finished as a DM, and it was phenomenal! We need more adventures like this!
I've been running this adventure for around the same time as you, but we play biweekly and take breaks due to life. This means we're still towards the end of chapter 2. That said, I really enjoy the adventure. I have added a lot to it, but only to personalize things for my player's backstories (the reason I love running premade adventures). I think reading the World Book (read all of it before running this) has helped A TON with running this adventure. I think anyone who runs this adventure would benefit a lot from it. I also have other sources from Kobold Press to support those player backstories (and they are helpful as well). That said after using player content (classes, spells, etc.) I have come to realize that Kobold Press is more about quantity rather than quality there; they do much better in their lore building. It makes me sad but due to people caring more about player content and their upcoming RPG, I doubt they'll be making any long-term campaign soon. This means I'll probably stop using Midgard after this.
I have so much Kobold Press stuff and was happy to see that I already own this one. I even picked up the physical Midgard Worldbook a while back because of your regular comments about the quality of the product. Thanks for the deep dive!
I have been running this campaign for my weekly tuesday group since the start of october 2022 and it's a blast. We are halfway the last chapter, the end is nigh. But i can concur: i added travel montages to keep the pace, skipping encounters and forgetting days of rolling random encounters. Next to that, due to the dark and mature contentI can see this campaign go right into depression with edge lords around the table and playing this is hard core mode. We were lucky, the party is happy go lucky positive naive with a bearfolk barbarian, a mushroom folk that digests all dead bodies, an erina wizard, a constantly low rolling warlock, a rogue dwarf that considers himself o so smart and a half elven cheerleader bard. The party brings a ray of sunshine in this dark dark campaign.
Got Empire of the Ghouls and City of Cats from a humble bundle earlier this year. Haven't read much beyond the intro and gazetteer, but seems awesome. Love what you said about not knowing how the world is going to react, that's how I try to run games. I might have a ideas, but I don't know what will happen until things start happening. Great video!
You already convinced me to buy it - now you're telling me I have to run it, too?! But really: Thanks for the recommendation! I love a well-written campaign, and this scratches my Gothic itch without being a campaign that most people have played (like Strahd)
I think Uncharted Journeys would be useful for the travel scenes. It even has rules for scaling the length of the journey across time and distance, based on how much detail you want to roleplay or handwave.
How would you say adapting this module to a homebrew setting is? The module says you could use it on a homebrew adventure, as long as you have some underworld equivalent and a overland vampire kingdom.
Can you pretend like travel time is elapsing between game sessions? That might be cool, and I feel like it could work for Midgard. Just bought your book, finally. Thanks for the vids!
I just finished running this adventure last month. It took us 53 sessions over 16 months. I definitely expanded more on the Krakovan war with the Blood Kingdom, and we actually started the game just south of Jozht, and we rant Chapter 1: Cartways under Jozht. This was the first campaign I've finished as a DM, and it was phenomenal! We need more adventures like this!
I've been running this adventure for around the same time as you, but we play biweekly and take breaks due to life. This means we're still towards the end of chapter 2. That said, I really enjoy the adventure. I have added a lot to it, but only to personalize things for my player's backstories (the reason I love running premade adventures). I think reading the World Book (read all of it before running this) has helped A TON with running this adventure. I think anyone who runs this adventure would benefit a lot from it. I also have other sources from Kobold Press to support those player backstories (and they are helpful as well). That said after using player content (classes, spells, etc.) I have come to realize that Kobold Press is more about quantity rather than quality there; they do much better in their lore building. It makes me sad but due to people caring more about player content and their upcoming RPG, I doubt they'll be making any long-term campaign soon. This means I'll probably stop using Midgard after this.
I love the darkness and nuanced darkness of the world. For me, that's a must for the grim style of d&d I like, but im a big osr fan.
I have so much Kobold Press stuff and was happy to see that I already own this one. I even picked up the physical Midgard Worldbook a while back because of your regular comments about the quality of the product. Thanks for the deep dive!
I have been running this campaign for my weekly tuesday group since the start of october 2022 and it's a blast. We are halfway the last chapter, the end is nigh. But i can concur: i added travel montages to keep the pace, skipping encounters and forgetting days of rolling random encounters. Next to that, due to the dark and mature contentI can see this campaign go right into depression with edge lords around the table and playing this is hard core mode. We were lucky, the party is happy go lucky positive naive with a bearfolk barbarian, a mushroom folk that digests all dead bodies, an erina wizard, a constantly low rolling warlock, a rogue dwarf that considers himself o so smart and a half elven cheerleader bard. The party brings a ray of sunshine in this dark dark campaign.
Awesome! I’m planning to run this whenever my current campaign comes to a close, and I’m excited to see you do a deep dive on it.
Got Empire of the Ghouls and City of Cats from a humble bundle earlier this year. Haven't read much beyond the intro and gazetteer, but seems awesome. Love what you said about not knowing how the world is going to react, that's how I try to run games. I might have a ideas, but I don't know what will happen until things start happening. Great video!
You already convinced me to buy it - now you're telling me I have to run it, too?!
But really: Thanks for the recommendation! I love a well-written campaign, and this scratches my Gothic itch without being a campaign that most people have played (like Strahd)
I think Uncharted Journeys would be useful for the travel scenes. It even has rules for scaling the length of the journey across time and distance, based on how much detail you want to roleplay or handwave.
There’s a Warlock Grimoire IV now!
How would you say adapting this module to a homebrew setting is? The module says you could use it on a homebrew adventure, as long as you have some underworld equivalent and a overland vampire kingdom.
Great review, but you never told us about the cat slides. What are they?
Awesome I really wanted to run this :) now it's officially approved ❤
Can you pretend like travel time is elapsing between game sessions? That might be cool, and I feel like it could work for Midgard.
Just bought your book, finally. Thanks for the vids!
literally just made 2 d&d travel videos and hit the export button right before you started talking about travel lol, oh life, it is a funny thing
Also really appreciate your fix for the fantasy slavery lore 👍
I love kobold press games but i like using the pf2e system . So i would need to do soo many conversion
@26:30 and @29:30, you said, "I ran this as a situation..." Please explain this? Is there a video describing a process for this?
Empire of Ghouls sounds like an upcoming WotC rebrand tbh.