Strength of Thousands

A magic school like no other! The oldest and most prestigious magic academy in the world is the Magaambya, an ancient institution founded by the greatest wizard the world has ever known. This wizard vanished long ago, but his sinister enemies plot against his school and those who attend it. Over their long academic career, the heroes rise from humble students to become teachers, and they ultimately hold the fate of the Magaambya magic academy in their hands. Graduates of the Magaambya are among the greatest wardens of the world, but if the heroes can't marshal the strength of thousands who have come before them, the venerable Magaambya might fall!

Campaign Overview

Campaign Description

What's cool about this campaign?

• The setting is not your traditional Tolkien-inspired fantasy. The societies of the Mwangi Expanse are new and fascinating, from the heroic Matanji, demon-hunting orcs, to the Mbe'ke dwarves and their cloud-dragon allies, to completely new ancestries, like the Anadi, a people of reclusive, sapient spiders. It's an opportunity to take fantasy roleplaying into a completely new and interesting setting.
• It takes place over the course of many years. The characters will begin as students, complete their studies, become teachers at the school, and eventually, become heroes to the entire Expanse. There should be lots of opportunity to play with the downtime rules, which will include rules for advancing your academic studies, but moreso, there will be lots of time for your character to develop narratively. Will your character settle down and start a family? Will they run a successful business on the side of their teaching? Will they become involved in the politics of Nantambu and drive the development of the city? There's room for them to grow in a long-term campaign like this.
• The campaign has more of a focus on roleplaying, solving mysteries, and diplomacy than other Pathfinder campaigns. Finding creative solutions to conflicts is welcome, and the Magaambya encourages its students find peaceful solutions when possible. That's not to say that there won't be any thrilling combats, but that there will be less than in other campaigns.
• There is more of a narrative-focus than, say, Abomination Vaults had. The campaign is overall, less of a sandbox: the narrative will generally push the players forward and drive them towards exciting conflicts and set-pieces.
• This will be the first full-length, campaign I've run for Pathfinder 2nd edition. Explore how the game plays at higher levels, and experience all those cool level 17, 18, 19, even level 20 character options.

Length

Strength of Thousands is a 6-part adventure path, broken up into 19 chapters, which takes characters from level 1 to 20. As such, I expect it will run for approximately 18-24 months.

Number of players

I'm planning to run this campaign for five players. For anyone who's interested in playing: I'd encourage you to sign-up, and then if we have too many players, I'll ask for volunteers to sit out. As a last resort, I'll make the final selection by random draw if necessary.

Player sign-up

• Jason
• Mike
• Ben
• Xjph

Characters

Character Creation

As outlined in the player's guide, members of any class will be welcome in the campaign! Don't feel like you're obligated to play a Wizard or a Druid, as usual, a diverse party will have a lot of advantages! We will be using the Free Archetype rule, which essentially allows each character to pick up the Druid or Wizard multiclass for free. This allows players the freedom to play the type of character they want, while also keeping within the theme of a magic school. Please see the player's guide for more details, or ask if you have any questions.

All common ancestries are allowed, and I expect any uncommon/rare ancestries to be acceptable too, but please check with me first. I'd encourage players to make characters from The Mwangi Expanse, or Garund, but if you really want to play a foreigner from north of the Inner Sea (or even further away!), I'm not going to stop you.

Official Player's Guide

Official Strength of Thousands Player's Guide

Setting

This campaign takes places in the Mwangi Expanse, a region in central Garund, south of Avistan and the Inner Sea. The Expanse is pretty different from your traditional fantasy settings, mainly consisting of African-inspired city-states and tribes. I would definitely recommend taking a look at some background information on the setting before creating your character, but I understand that not everyone has the time to devour 300+ pages of setting material (myself included!)

The best sources for information, in order of detail are:

• Player Core, page 33. A couple paragraphs, and some example characters.
• Core Rulebook, page 426. A one-pager with some information about the region (reproduced in GM Core p. 152)
• Lost Omens World Guide, pp 84-95. More details about the setting, specifically about the major city-states in the region.
• Lost Omens The Mwangi Expanse. The big one. 300-page setting book, with loads of details about the history, people, religions, geography, and places of the Expanse.

If you're looking for any of these books, touch base with me and I can lend you my copies. Or provide photocopies of the relevant bits, whatever. I'd suggest reading the Mwangi Expanse section in Lost Omens World Guide, and then maybe skim through Lost Omens The Mwangi Expanse and read any parts that seem interesting, or that could be relevant for your character. Additionally, the section in The Mwangi Expanse about Nantambu (pp. 232 - 245) is recommended for everyone.

Ruling & House Rules

We'll be using the Pathfinder Remaster rules for this campaign. If there's any question about which pre-remaster material is available, I'll be using the Pathfinder Society guidelines, see below. But feel free to ask if you have any questions.

Pathfinder Society and the Remaster

House Rules

• Persistent damage - Persistent damage ends automatically when combat ends.
• Being hit while dying - Any damage taken while you have the dying condition will not increase your dying value.
• Healing on a long rest - All HP are restored on a long (i.e. 8 hours) rest.
• If you cast Message, you can use it to demoralize opponents within Message's range, provided you are using language (no intimidating glare)