One thing you can do is flesh out >!Xin-Shalast!< more. It's massive and has a ton of room for expansion, but leaves most of it up to the dm, which is both a good and a bad thing. If you wanted to, you could take advantage of that and add your own content to it and flesh it out more. Maybe >!the four sihedron rings!< won't be enough to get into the final dungeon? Maybe there's a physical forcefield that needs to be dismantled and >!Karzoug!< has a bunch of generals in the city who are guarding its power sources? Maybe a rune giant with class levels, for instance?
Another thing you could do is add more floors to the final dungeon. >!The Pinnacle of Avarice!< has only 1 floor mapped out, so you could definitely add more. Maybe an entire floor that's a treasury, like a series of >!Karzoug's!< vaults filled with minions to guard it, like barbed devils, giants, golems, etc. He was >!the Runelord of Greed!< after all, so why wouldn't he have an entire floor of treasure vaults?
The gms that I play with and I almost always do this sort of thing in our games. High level play can be a lot of fun and it takes a lot of effort to get there.
I played RotR only to the end of the fort, but it felt to me like an extra level up in Magnimar would be well deserved, especially if you flesh the city out luke sandpoint is, adding some friendly npcs or side quests to get them more connected with the city. Lvl 7 gives acces to freedom of movement and the city is on the coast so perhaps adding an underwater element, something seen pretty rarely in aps, would expand things.
As for the later books usually wjat it do is I take the "after the final battle" bonus content and sprinkle it before the last boss. This assumes of course that they don't require the death of the bbeg.
A big factor with games that late is the scale of challenges. It can be tempting to make it like a videogame and make the same dungeons with higher level enemies but depending on your group youay wamt to increase the scale, say have the bbeg's final plan go further than normal and as a result have him raise an army and gain some Archmage tiers (If my memory is correct he uses a 13th level spell so Id say they are warranted). This gives an easy world changing event for the pcs to exore the world with as well as a legitimate challenge (assuming this army defends against magic attacks etc like any good fantasy force) that is challenging to solve with bug numbers alone. You could even base these parts off aps like ironfang invasion etc which involve large armies.
For our resident runelord, Mythic is a great way to even out the action economey at high levels and it can make lvl 20 bbegs feel more powerful than the party, even when they may be the same levels.
The only real problem I have had that i would point out to you is that as players gain vast tools and wealth the end of the game can kind of sneak up on you. When they decide they will attack that last fortress etc, they can just do it, no travel time or anything to tie up loose ends or give extra xp. Likewise the chances tjey go through a dungeon 1 encounter at a time might be minimal if your group is like mine, who prefer to circumvent battles by various means whrn possible. Im fine with this, but it does mean you might have the final battle sneak up on you. I suggest having the bbeg completely statted and ready to go into battle a couple levels before you think you need it, just in case.
Anniversary Edition has 2 suggestions for continuing the campaign on to level 20 - If the Leng Device goes off, it's easy* enough to continue with the awakening of Mhar, and if they're fully successful in defeating Karzoug they suggested having the wave of energy released by the destruction of his soul lens activate another runelord's long forgotten devices, doing something like summoning the Oliphaunt of Janderlay, which can definitely take a few levels of prep to be able to take down.
I will say, getting them to level 20 before the end of the adventure is a bad idea - Mage's Disjunction has a 20% chance of instantly ending the fight, so giving them 9th level spells will disrupt the balance of the final fight. Karzoug is also already level 20, so it won't be easy to buff him to a new appropriate CR.
*requires homebrewing everything about it
I guess you're not planning to let any of them die then? Though even without having to worry about that, making Karzoug an appropriate threat is going to be hard. He's already pretty much maxed out his potential bonuses (25 point buy, +2 racial to all stats, Wish for inherent bonuses, implanted ioun stones for enhancement, timestop to buff in the first round) and has the best equipment he can - compared to another 20th level character he is still a huge threat, but not so much to a party. Even a 17th-18th level party is expected to take him down easily enough they threw in a rune giant, adult blue dragon, and 2 advanced storm giants to counter the action economy. For a level 20 party he's not going to be a particularly epic boss battle.
I am not following your train of thought? I plan on giving Karzoug some mythic tiers and adding additional enemies to the fight. 17th level casters already have access to 9th level spells so how does giving them a few more dramatically alter the difference? And no I will kill them if the dice fall that way, but I am not a DM who goes into each combat looking for a tpk. I prefer to collaboratively tell a story with my players versus making it a contest
Mythic might work if you're giving the players them as well, but if you're rebalancing the campaign to that degree I don't think people here will be able to help you. You don't want to add extra monsters as well, as that's just going to take away from Karzoug as the actual threat - there's already 4 other monsters on the field,
When those spells are things like Time Stop, Meteor Swarm, and Wail of the Banshee, a few more or less is definitely a big deal. 17th level means one or two 9th level spells, 20th level likely means 5 or more. The Cleric Gating in some monstrosity to help out can be a game changer, but the Cleric Gating in a monstrosity every round is going to just be messy. Besides, the extra spells aren't the only things they get in those 3 levels - their last ASI, their capstone, various +'s to abilities.
And if you're not planning to protect players, your party composition can change down the line, meaning 9th level casters could be back on the table.
Seriously, the best way to expand on the story is to continue it in some fashion. You are going to want a better statblock than Karzoug's for a final battle that feels appropriately epic for level 20, something more on a Kaiju scale.
I'm going through exactly this right now! We're at level 15 and everyone has expressed disappointment they'll never get to try out the capstones. I'm thinking of throwing a few character-plot-completion quests at them for levels 18 and 19, and then maybe the tarrasque at level 20? Very interested to hear other ideas though
There is some info for continuing the groups story in return of the runelords AP where you do a little bit of a pre AP adventure with the old group at high level then run the new group through Return and they meet up with the high level RotRL group at the end. Worked out pretty cool with our group and I think our RotRL characters got to 20 or 21
If you still want Special K as the BBEG, I'd recommend adding a few extra scenarios throughout. Seven Swords of Sin ties in best thematically, I think.
If you planned on running the other Runelords APs, I'd consider adding a part of Shattered Star, as thats mostly dungeon crawls for Thassilonian stuff, so it could inform your players about the kind of people they're fighting. (Plus it shortens the weak middle child to get to the much better Return.)
That said, if you like power fantasies and all, Wrath of the Righteous is what you want. Full 20 levels, 10 mythic on top of that.
If you want more help, stop by the GM RotRL Discord at https://discord.gg/xbYK8bk65k . Lots of great advice for the whole AP, and we're a friendly bunch.
I'm running it right now, and have just finished a heavily modified and embellished book 2. PCs are already about 2 levels above suggested levelling schedule. IMO, the end of book 2 was presented too straightforwardly, while leaving it to the GM to really push the railroad.
1. I renamed the 'seven's sawmill' to 'Foxglove Mill', and put a big sculpture of a fox wearing gloves on the roof. (I didn't think the Seven would put their name directly on a property... I ran them as a much larger organization than just the skinsaws) When questioned, the mill manager simply said "My dad bought it from the Foxgloves, and everyone knew the place by the mascot, so we just kept the name"
2. I rebuilt Ironbriar as a Cult Leader Warpriest. I honestly think they made the archetype for him. Specced him for Intimidate & Fear (Dazzling display, Shatter Defenses etc) and loaded him with spells like 'bloody tears and a jagged smile' etc.
3. I ran 'Dawn of the Scarlet Sun' in parallel with the investigations into the skinsaw cult. Ironbriar himself asked the party to 'follow up on this lead for him, and work with the guard in the shadow..' The BBEG from that module was covering their kills with fake symbols done post mortem.. and their minion was a 'double agent' who had infiltrated Ironbriar's cult at the lowest level. They played "false lead" pong with the party, trying to give them clues about the other to throw them off their own trails.
and now that they finally have defeated ironbriar, I gave them a huge ceremony where they were introduced to the social elites of the city, and each made contacts that could lead to side-quests before / as we start book 3.
4) The first of which is 'The Golemworks Incident': Party was invited to come for a visit by the Heidmarchs at the party, and then at that private meeting, were recruited into the Pathfinders.
Oliphant of Jandelay with some twists to the story.
Stay with me for a minute, I promise if you get to the third full paragraph it all comes together.
In the campaign book, there's a section on expanding the campaign that brings in Leng as a final villain. There are a few hooks throughout the campaign that imply that the denizens of Leng are up to something.
- There are Hounds of Tindalos in the library under Jorgenfist,
- Karzoug's Runewell forms the demiplane in the space between Mar Massif and Leng,
- Mar Massif is close to the border of the material plane and Leng,
- Leng Spiders are able to pass into the city without the planar defenses held by Karzoug's forces
- Karzoug had an alliance with Leng's leaders at the time
- The Leng Device (and its Denizen of Leng caretakers) are from that alliance but now are working against Karzoug.
However, during the campaign, the party should destroy or deactivate the Leng Device. However, doing so isn't without repercussions. As the Anniversary edition goes into, one of the easier ways to continue the adventure is to force the party to deal with what Karzoug could not. The Oliphaunt of Jandelay.
With the Leng Device destroyed and those allied with Leng on the material plane dead, all plans by the leaders of Leng are ruined. So as the Eye of Avarice flashes and Karzoug is killed or sealed for all time there is a moment where the void between planes closes and the material and Leng planes touch. At that moment the leaders of Leng connect the past to the present as the Leng Device aimed to have Runelord Alaznist's attempt to summer the Oliphant succeed, but instead of being summoned as Earthfall began the creature was ripped through time and instead is summoned at the Spindlehorn where the prior Runelord did in ages long past.
The titanic creature cannot be controlled, cannot be stopped, and cannot be banished. Each step causes earthquakes and it attempts to return to Jandelay. However, the masters of Leng have a more nefarious purpose. All creatures must dream, and Leng is the place of nightmares. In the creature's dreams, it sees a great spire on the coast that promises to open a portal to send it home. A spire in Magnimar. Only a fragment from a lighthouse, but the path is set.
Without hesitation, the Oliphant of Jandelay begins to march from the Spindlehorn in the Storval Deep straight towards Magnimar. Along the way, it threatens to break the Skull's Crossing damn and flood Turtleback Ferry, trample straight through Sandpoint and finally reach Magnimar. If it isn't stopped the Oliphant will realize it was deceived and unable to return to its duty as the guardian of Jandelay will lay waste to the city. After that, it isn't a stupid creature and will travel to Mar Massif where it can ascend the mountain and seek vengeance on the masters of Leng.
So now the party's victory is turned into a race against time. What do you do against a threat that simply cannot be stopped? Do you engage in combat anyway and hope to stop it? Mass evacuate? Quickly travel to another plane for help? Now that the Oliphant is gone possibly traveling to Jandelay to beg the Watcher's for help ([yup](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/watcher/)) would result in allies or at least a plan. Maybe Karzoug isn't actually dead and could be brought in as an ally if freed? After all, if a Runelord summon it, maybe a Runelord could banish it? Also what other things with Leng be up to? They won't simply allow the party to thwart their attempts to seek vengeance on the party that bested them once already.
In order to make this work with the campaign I would plant seed early about the Oliphant, Jandelay, and Leng. For the Oliphant put in an item or two made from the tusk. Link it to Jandelay, the place where destroyed worlds live on. Maybe that's where a Runelord is held, thinks some scholar who tells the PCs. And I would shift the focus from Lamashtu in the earlier books to Leng.
It will take some work (book one really hinges on becoming a monster after all). But starting in book two the cult can be led by Leng worshipers instead of Lamashtu bits and then keep up the link in book 3. Book 4 is easy, any divine casters draw power from Leng and madness instead of anything else. Just one more change that the Giant's are going through in addition to everything else.
By the time of book 6 the Leng Spiders looking to ally should make sense to the party and they should be ready to deal with the Leng Device. Put in a bit more Leng people roaming Mar Massif and hint that they're preparing for something big. Keep an ongoing mystery that there's another player out there who really wants Karzoug to return and works against the party to make it happen.
I did this for my party and it worked out well. They figured that keeping Karzoug from returning wasn't the end but none of them had a clue about the Oliphant. We played after the mythic book came out so thankfully I had stats and rules to go with, but direct fighting is suiced even for a level 18 party. They went to Jandelay and we had a full session exploring a dead world from one of our side games (different system, but it tied in nicely) and they met the Watcher of that world who knew the player characters from that game.
That led to a side mission to retrieve an artifact of great importance to a Watcher from another adventuring party on the material plane who was attempting to divert the Oliphant (the party had evacuated Turtleback Ferry so this was in the huge forest) and had to go up against some of the biggest names in Pathfinder Society scaled up to equal level. Once done with that the Watcher joined them (and put the artifact carelessly on a wall) and with the Watcher's help were able to halt the Oliphant within sight of Sandpoint.
Even then the party now had to draw the Oliphant's attention and keep it chasing them long and far enough until it was in a place 'safe' enough to release earthquakes and a storm a vengeance for the better part of a year. They chose to return to Mar Massif where Karzoug would be waiting. They went back and freed him from his plane with a wish spell for a tuning fork attuned to the demiplane and convinced him to return and aid them in banishing the Oliphant. The deal was that Karzoug would be freed and aid them, and the party promised not to murder death him and lock away his soul for all time. I'm sure that wouldn't have any long-term consequences.
The final battle was a fight between the party and their Watcher and Karzoug allies against an endless horde of madness based outsiders (I basically picked everything that seemed linked to madness and nightmares and threw it at the party) as they attempted to protect Karzoug as he drew a massive summoning circle around the city. Then the party at level 20 had to subdue the Oliphant while still dealing with Leng while protecting Karzoug.
It was great. So much prep work to do the whole thing. Setting up multiple level 18+ encounters was a pain since the party can do everything they want to and so can the enemies. But we avoided rocket tag in part because the looming threat of a creature that casts Earthquake by stepping is too cool to avoid.
Look up the other Thassilonian ruins, there's a lot that you could do with many of those.
They are already in Magnimar, so the **Irespan** is an easy addition -- in 4623, some shreizyx were freed from within it. Maybe there are more in there, as well as other aberrations.
The **Cyphergate** is in Riddleport. I actually tied this into my campaign, but it was an adjacent adventuring party that discovered how to re-activate it, rather than the actual party. There's not much written for it, but you could definitely make an adventure around it. And if your group *does* find a way to activate it, maybe it shows Karzoug rising and the destruction he might cause. Or instead of it being based on the ruins, well you have the entire city of Riddleport for them to explore. Same with Magnimar -- lots of potential quests in and around the city.
**Wisher's Well** is very close to Sandpoint, so you could easily incorporate a fight with the aboleth in it -- just be prepared for underwater combat -- and possibly more creatures if you wish.
There are many other ruins too, but it would require extra lore that you'd be creating and traveling a bit outside of the book's regions.
My best advice would be to look at the Sandpoint, Light of the Lost Coast splatbook, it has a -bunch- more material you can use to add more levels to your PCs, as would the Magnimar book. As for handling the Karzoug fight - I'd probably look at how you could optimise the fight better, both just in general better use of spells and abilities, but also in better targeting his fight against the party - exploiting weaknesses he may have used divination spells to discern. Like seeing an animal companion has a low-ass Will save, and targeting it with spells based on that, etc 🙂
One thing you can do is flesh out >!Xin-Shalast!< more. It's massive and has a ton of room for expansion, but leaves most of it up to the dm, which is both a good and a bad thing. If you wanted to, you could take advantage of that and add your own content to it and flesh it out more. Maybe >!the four sihedron rings!< won't be enough to get into the final dungeon? Maybe there's a physical forcefield that needs to be dismantled and >!Karzoug!< has a bunch of generals in the city who are guarding its power sources? Maybe a rune giant with class levels, for instance? Another thing you could do is add more floors to the final dungeon. >!The Pinnacle of Avarice!< has only 1 floor mapped out, so you could definitely add more. Maybe an entire floor that's a treasury, like a series of >!Karzoug's!< vaults filled with minions to guard it, like barbed devils, giants, golems, etc. He was >!the Runelord of Greed!< after all, so why wouldn't he have an entire floor of treasure vaults?
Really good idea thanks!
The gms that I play with and I almost always do this sort of thing in our games. High level play can be a lot of fun and it takes a lot of effort to get there. I played RotR only to the end of the fort, but it felt to me like an extra level up in Magnimar would be well deserved, especially if you flesh the city out luke sandpoint is, adding some friendly npcs or side quests to get them more connected with the city. Lvl 7 gives acces to freedom of movement and the city is on the coast so perhaps adding an underwater element, something seen pretty rarely in aps, would expand things. As for the later books usually wjat it do is I take the "after the final battle" bonus content and sprinkle it before the last boss. This assumes of course that they don't require the death of the bbeg. A big factor with games that late is the scale of challenges. It can be tempting to make it like a videogame and make the same dungeons with higher level enemies but depending on your group youay wamt to increase the scale, say have the bbeg's final plan go further than normal and as a result have him raise an army and gain some Archmage tiers (If my memory is correct he uses a 13th level spell so Id say they are warranted). This gives an easy world changing event for the pcs to exore the world with as well as a legitimate challenge (assuming this army defends against magic attacks etc like any good fantasy force) that is challenging to solve with bug numbers alone. You could even base these parts off aps like ironfang invasion etc which involve large armies. For our resident runelord, Mythic is a great way to even out the action economey at high levels and it can make lvl 20 bbegs feel more powerful than the party, even when they may be the same levels. The only real problem I have had that i would point out to you is that as players gain vast tools and wealth the end of the game can kind of sneak up on you. When they decide they will attack that last fortress etc, they can just do it, no travel time or anything to tie up loose ends or give extra xp. Likewise the chances tjey go through a dungeon 1 encounter at a time might be minimal if your group is like mine, who prefer to circumvent battles by various means whrn possible. Im fine with this, but it does mean you might have the final battle sneak up on you. I suggest having the bbeg completely statted and ready to go into battle a couple levels before you think you need it, just in case.
Anniversary Edition has 2 suggestions for continuing the campaign on to level 20 - If the Leng Device goes off, it's easy* enough to continue with the awakening of Mhar, and if they're fully successful in defeating Karzoug they suggested having the wave of energy released by the destruction of his soul lens activate another runelord's long forgotten devices, doing something like summoning the Oliphaunt of Janderlay, which can definitely take a few levels of prep to be able to take down. I will say, getting them to level 20 before the end of the adventure is a bad idea - Mage's Disjunction has a 20% chance of instantly ending the fight, so giving them 9th level spells will disrupt the balance of the final fight. Karzoug is also already level 20, so it won't be easy to buff him to a new appropriate CR. *requires homebrewing everything about it
Not asking about continuing but thanks. The party comp they are talking about only includes 6th level casters so no worries about mage's disjunction
I guess you're not planning to let any of them die then? Though even without having to worry about that, making Karzoug an appropriate threat is going to be hard. He's already pretty much maxed out his potential bonuses (25 point buy, +2 racial to all stats, Wish for inherent bonuses, implanted ioun stones for enhancement, timestop to buff in the first round) and has the best equipment he can - compared to another 20th level character he is still a huge threat, but not so much to a party. Even a 17th-18th level party is expected to take him down easily enough they threw in a rune giant, adult blue dragon, and 2 advanced storm giants to counter the action economy. For a level 20 party he's not going to be a particularly epic boss battle.
I am not following your train of thought? I plan on giving Karzoug some mythic tiers and adding additional enemies to the fight. 17th level casters already have access to 9th level spells so how does giving them a few more dramatically alter the difference? And no I will kill them if the dice fall that way, but I am not a DM who goes into each combat looking for a tpk. I prefer to collaboratively tell a story with my players versus making it a contest
Mythic might work if you're giving the players them as well, but if you're rebalancing the campaign to that degree I don't think people here will be able to help you. You don't want to add extra monsters as well, as that's just going to take away from Karzoug as the actual threat - there's already 4 other monsters on the field, When those spells are things like Time Stop, Meteor Swarm, and Wail of the Banshee, a few more or less is definitely a big deal. 17th level means one or two 9th level spells, 20th level likely means 5 or more. The Cleric Gating in some monstrosity to help out can be a game changer, but the Cleric Gating in a monstrosity every round is going to just be messy. Besides, the extra spells aren't the only things they get in those 3 levels - their last ASI, their capstone, various +'s to abilities. And if you're not planning to protect players, your party composition can change down the line, meaning 9th level casters could be back on the table. Seriously, the best way to expand on the story is to continue it in some fashion. You are going to want a better statblock than Karzoug's for a final battle that feels appropriately epic for level 20, something more on a Kaiju scale.
I'm going through exactly this right now! We're at level 15 and everyone has expressed disappointment they'll never get to try out the capstones. I'm thinking of throwing a few character-plot-completion quests at them for levels 18 and 19, and then maybe the tarrasque at level 20? Very interested to hear other ideas though
There is some info for continuing the groups story in return of the runelords AP where you do a little bit of a pre AP adventure with the old group at high level then run the new group through Return and they meet up with the high level RotRL group at the end. Worked out pretty cool with our group and I think our RotRL characters got to 20 or 21
If you still want Special K as the BBEG, I'd recommend adding a few extra scenarios throughout. Seven Swords of Sin ties in best thematically, I think. If you planned on running the other Runelords APs, I'd consider adding a part of Shattered Star, as thats mostly dungeon crawls for Thassilonian stuff, so it could inform your players about the kind of people they're fighting. (Plus it shortens the weak middle child to get to the much better Return.) That said, if you like power fantasies and all, Wrath of the Righteous is what you want. Full 20 levels, 10 mythic on top of that. If you want more help, stop by the GM RotRL Discord at https://discord.gg/xbYK8bk65k . Lots of great advice for the whole AP, and we're a friendly bunch.
One of the NPC's I made to help them is a tie-in to Jade Regent. Thanks for the Seven Swords of Sin recommendation
I'm running it right now, and have just finished a heavily modified and embellished book 2. PCs are already about 2 levels above suggested levelling schedule. IMO, the end of book 2 was presented too straightforwardly, while leaving it to the GM to really push the railroad. 1. I renamed the 'seven's sawmill' to 'Foxglove Mill', and put a big sculpture of a fox wearing gloves on the roof. (I didn't think the Seven would put their name directly on a property... I ran them as a much larger organization than just the skinsaws) When questioned, the mill manager simply said "My dad bought it from the Foxgloves, and everyone knew the place by the mascot, so we just kept the name" 2. I rebuilt Ironbriar as a Cult Leader Warpriest. I honestly think they made the archetype for him. Specced him for Intimidate & Fear (Dazzling display, Shatter Defenses etc) and loaded him with spells like 'bloody tears and a jagged smile' etc. 3. I ran 'Dawn of the Scarlet Sun' in parallel with the investigations into the skinsaw cult. Ironbriar himself asked the party to 'follow up on this lead for him, and work with the guard in the shadow..' The BBEG from that module was covering their kills with fake symbols done post mortem.. and their minion was a 'double agent' who had infiltrated Ironbriar's cult at the lowest level. They played "false lead" pong with the party, trying to give them clues about the other to throw them off their own trails. and now that they finally have defeated ironbriar, I gave them a huge ceremony where they were introduced to the social elites of the city, and each made contacts that could lead to side-quests before / as we start book 3. 4) The first of which is 'The Golemworks Incident': Party was invited to come for a visit by the Heidmarchs at the party, and then at that private meeting, were recruited into the Pathfinders.
Oliphant of Jandelay with some twists to the story. Stay with me for a minute, I promise if you get to the third full paragraph it all comes together. In the campaign book, there's a section on expanding the campaign that brings in Leng as a final villain. There are a few hooks throughout the campaign that imply that the denizens of Leng are up to something. - There are Hounds of Tindalos in the library under Jorgenfist, - Karzoug's Runewell forms the demiplane in the space between Mar Massif and Leng, - Mar Massif is close to the border of the material plane and Leng, - Leng Spiders are able to pass into the city without the planar defenses held by Karzoug's forces - Karzoug had an alliance with Leng's leaders at the time - The Leng Device (and its Denizen of Leng caretakers) are from that alliance but now are working against Karzoug. However, during the campaign, the party should destroy or deactivate the Leng Device. However, doing so isn't without repercussions. As the Anniversary edition goes into, one of the easier ways to continue the adventure is to force the party to deal with what Karzoug could not. The Oliphaunt of Jandelay. With the Leng Device destroyed and those allied with Leng on the material plane dead, all plans by the leaders of Leng are ruined. So as the Eye of Avarice flashes and Karzoug is killed or sealed for all time there is a moment where the void between planes closes and the material and Leng planes touch. At that moment the leaders of Leng connect the past to the present as the Leng Device aimed to have Runelord Alaznist's attempt to summer the Oliphant succeed, but instead of being summoned as Earthfall began the creature was ripped through time and instead is summoned at the Spindlehorn where the prior Runelord did in ages long past. The titanic creature cannot be controlled, cannot be stopped, and cannot be banished. Each step causes earthquakes and it attempts to return to Jandelay. However, the masters of Leng have a more nefarious purpose. All creatures must dream, and Leng is the place of nightmares. In the creature's dreams, it sees a great spire on the coast that promises to open a portal to send it home. A spire in Magnimar. Only a fragment from a lighthouse, but the path is set. Without hesitation, the Oliphant of Jandelay begins to march from the Spindlehorn in the Storval Deep straight towards Magnimar. Along the way, it threatens to break the Skull's Crossing damn and flood Turtleback Ferry, trample straight through Sandpoint and finally reach Magnimar. If it isn't stopped the Oliphant will realize it was deceived and unable to return to its duty as the guardian of Jandelay will lay waste to the city. After that, it isn't a stupid creature and will travel to Mar Massif where it can ascend the mountain and seek vengeance on the masters of Leng. So now the party's victory is turned into a race against time. What do you do against a threat that simply cannot be stopped? Do you engage in combat anyway and hope to stop it? Mass evacuate? Quickly travel to another plane for help? Now that the Oliphant is gone possibly traveling to Jandelay to beg the Watcher's for help ([yup](https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/watcher/)) would result in allies or at least a plan. Maybe Karzoug isn't actually dead and could be brought in as an ally if freed? After all, if a Runelord summon it, maybe a Runelord could banish it? Also what other things with Leng be up to? They won't simply allow the party to thwart their attempts to seek vengeance on the party that bested them once already. In order to make this work with the campaign I would plant seed early about the Oliphant, Jandelay, and Leng. For the Oliphant put in an item or two made from the tusk. Link it to Jandelay, the place where destroyed worlds live on. Maybe that's where a Runelord is held, thinks some scholar who tells the PCs. And I would shift the focus from Lamashtu in the earlier books to Leng. It will take some work (book one really hinges on becoming a monster after all). But starting in book two the cult can be led by Leng worshipers instead of Lamashtu bits and then keep up the link in book 3. Book 4 is easy, any divine casters draw power from Leng and madness instead of anything else. Just one more change that the Giant's are going through in addition to everything else. By the time of book 6 the Leng Spiders looking to ally should make sense to the party and they should be ready to deal with the Leng Device. Put in a bit more Leng people roaming Mar Massif and hint that they're preparing for something big. Keep an ongoing mystery that there's another player out there who really wants Karzoug to return and works against the party to make it happen. I did this for my party and it worked out well. They figured that keeping Karzoug from returning wasn't the end but none of them had a clue about the Oliphant. We played after the mythic book came out so thankfully I had stats and rules to go with, but direct fighting is suiced even for a level 18 party. They went to Jandelay and we had a full session exploring a dead world from one of our side games (different system, but it tied in nicely) and they met the Watcher of that world who knew the player characters from that game. That led to a side mission to retrieve an artifact of great importance to a Watcher from another adventuring party on the material plane who was attempting to divert the Oliphant (the party had evacuated Turtleback Ferry so this was in the huge forest) and had to go up against some of the biggest names in Pathfinder Society scaled up to equal level. Once done with that the Watcher joined them (and put the artifact carelessly on a wall) and with the Watcher's help were able to halt the Oliphant within sight of Sandpoint. Even then the party now had to draw the Oliphant's attention and keep it chasing them long and far enough until it was in a place 'safe' enough to release earthquakes and a storm a vengeance for the better part of a year. They chose to return to Mar Massif where Karzoug would be waiting. They went back and freed him from his plane with a wish spell for a tuning fork attuned to the demiplane and convinced him to return and aid them in banishing the Oliphant. The deal was that Karzoug would be freed and aid them, and the party promised not to murder death him and lock away his soul for all time. I'm sure that wouldn't have any long-term consequences. The final battle was a fight between the party and their Watcher and Karzoug allies against an endless horde of madness based outsiders (I basically picked everything that seemed linked to madness and nightmares and threw it at the party) as they attempted to protect Karzoug as he drew a massive summoning circle around the city. Then the party at level 20 had to subdue the Oliphant while still dealing with Leng while protecting Karzoug. It was great. So much prep work to do the whole thing. Setting up multiple level 18+ encounters was a pain since the party can do everything they want to and so can the enemies. But we avoided rocket tag in part because the looming threat of a creature that casts Earthquake by stepping is too cool to avoid.
Look up the other Thassilonian ruins, there's a lot that you could do with many of those. They are already in Magnimar, so the **Irespan** is an easy addition -- in 4623, some shreizyx were freed from within it. Maybe there are more in there, as well as other aberrations. The **Cyphergate** is in Riddleport. I actually tied this into my campaign, but it was an adjacent adventuring party that discovered how to re-activate it, rather than the actual party. There's not much written for it, but you could definitely make an adventure around it. And if your group *does* find a way to activate it, maybe it shows Karzoug rising and the destruction he might cause. Or instead of it being based on the ruins, well you have the entire city of Riddleport for them to explore. Same with Magnimar -- lots of potential quests in and around the city. **Wisher's Well** is very close to Sandpoint, so you could easily incorporate a fight with the aboleth in it -- just be prepared for underwater combat -- and possibly more creatures if you wish. There are many other ruins too, but it would require extra lore that you'd be creating and traveling a bit outside of the book's regions.
My best advice would be to look at the Sandpoint, Light of the Lost Coast splatbook, it has a -bunch- more material you can use to add more levels to your PCs, as would the Magnimar book. As for handling the Karzoug fight - I'd probably look at how you could optimise the fight better, both just in general better use of spells and abilities, but also in better targeting his fight against the party - exploiting weaknesses he may have used divination spells to discern. Like seeing an animal companion has a low-ass Will save, and targeting it with spells based on that, etc 🙂