thank you. i agree.

they did some really cool stuff!! Lots of different influences going on there.

The way the campaign progressed: The party ended up deciding to stop the Varangian Guard who were right there, then flea the city until things calmed down. They soon find out that the empress, a pixie, has been deposed, her wings have been clipped, and she's being sent to a monastery. The next day, PCs return and survey the damage, which includes the loss of the house of one of the PCs. But that PC has a wealthy family friend who lets the party stay elsewhere, though they really want the party to hear someone he knows out about a job.

So the next day, they have a meeting with the person who wants to hire them. It's a court eunuch who was a personal assistant to the empress. He tells the party that with the coup, he knows his days are numbered, so he wants to send some money to his family while he still can. They'll be rewarded if they take the four boxes of gold coins to his family a few days travel away, and he needed a small group of pretty much unknown people to sneak the money out. The party seemed really sympathetic to him. To the point where they didn't make any insight checks. I was surprised about that, but as soon as they were out of sight of the city, they ducked into a cave and immediately started picking the locks of those boxes to see if the eunuch was being straight with them. The first box was filled with precious gems that were easily worth far more than the gold they were told they were carrying. The second box was filled with deeds to imperial lands, again worth a fuckton of money. The third box was a reliquary containing the knuckle bone of a saint, a priceless object that as a gift, could end a war. Or start one. When they opened the last box, what they found was pixie in royal garb with clipped wings, and she looked pissed.

The empress was basically a combination of Irene and Justinian II. Her plan was to sneak out beyond the border of the empire to bribe the Bulgars Hengeyokai kingdom to join with her, invade the empire, and put her back on the throne. The party went with her at first, but when they met with the Hengeyokai queen, and it was clear that it wasn't going well, one of the PCs picked up the deposed empress, shoved her back in the box, and started negotiating to have the hengeyokai try to put one of the PCs on the throne instead.

From there, it was a quest to get back to the capital, deal with crusaders who were this close to trying to take the empire themselves, nobles who'd be willing to burn the empire down to control the ashes, generals who'd have a good shot of getting public support for taking the office, and the official government of the usurper. For years, I had wanted to run Paizo's Kingmaker campaign, but with this game, I finally had my Kingmaker, and it gave me and my players something better and more personal than a published adventure for a wide audience could provide.