Finally go to play with my group. We started November and got only 4 sessions in, but finished the first book. I've changed a lot, because I wanted to set the game in Cormyr (Faerun, Forgotten Realms), just after the death of Azoun IV and the end of the Goblin Wars, so it's an ideal moment for a "evil plot" to happen in a weakened country. Almost everything stayed. I used NPCs from the first and later books to set the heroes that captured the villians and rolled with it. After setting everything up, we started. Everything went smoothly, no deaths, but I got two "rule munchers", who can search for many aides in the form of spells, infernal rituals (Book of Vile Darkness) and stuff, and also are pretty smart, so there's that.
The team is compromised of:
Two twins - Oracle and Wizard (specialist, Teleporter). Humans. Both STR 6.
A fighter with the archetype of Archer. Fetchling (planartouched Shadow Plane). WIS 6.
Magus. Always wanting to fight. Human. CHA 6.
Rouge, soon to be assassin. Human, cannibal. CON 6.
A merry party of villians. Especially that the twins were servants of a small Asmodean cult in Arabel.
Our forth session ended similar to Grunker's, the guys did everything there was, so the bugbears had no opposition. They had to stay in the vault for a week, since they made a lot of noise and death in the town, but where too soon to fire the flare. The faces were priceless - they were planning the attack, how it will go and all in one go, I suddenly ask "Wait... you know you have at least 7 days before you can shoot the rocket", "... what?" It couldn't be my fault since I was saying that since the start of the 4th session, that they have time, over and over.
The ending was the shortest. They used the rules in the Book of Vile Darkness about rituals. Took the innkeeper's wife and two dwarfs, sacrificed them in the tunnels and got a 44 on the test, so it was a Wish. They asked for help in their siege, anything magical. So the devil said he will teleport them straight to the paladin, to his room where he was sitting next to the cleric. Fight ended in the first turn, before the heroes could act. They used silence to do everything next quickly. Killed guards that wanted to check and their assassin fell one level down. How? Remember that item at the start of the game? The veil? That gives you a certain power? Making a hole? Yes. They used that to make a hole in the ground and get to the mage in an instant. Three major NPCs dead in less than 20 seconds. The paladin was raised as undead and his armor changed to the devilish one. I proposed to make him a death knight (template in Pathfinder), if the Oracle takes the Leadership feat and makes him his cohort.
The game ended good, so if we don't continue the campaign, I can call it "a short, but good campaign." I want to check if the 2nd 7th Sea will work with this group, since I want to try it out as soon as the first draft will show up for backers.
BTW. I tried to do the dwarf campaign from the other books from the author. Throne of Night. This might work for drow, but the Underdark campaign... I don't know... it didn't feel dwarven, at least the first book (which I didn't finish).