the return of Tabris [Archive] - Wizards Community

the return of Tabris [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
sciguy98
03-25-07, 06:33 AM Alright! I have a game running and I've run into a bit of DMs-block. I have a lot of options that I can go through, but the idea of my players getting this close to the BBEG is diverting my attention to 17-20th level, not 10-12 where they are now. (note that by "close to the BBEG" I mean close to figuring out who it is.)

My campaign world is a Magocracy. There are 16 settlements, ranging from small towns to a single metropolis, that are akin to city-states, each ruled by an arcane spellcaster. They feel that since most healing spells can be cast as arcane spells that there is no need for divine spellcasters and the general public looks down upon them. This continent has endured over a century of peace, so there really isn't much need for healing anyway. Because of this, the presense of religion is more scarce than other places. The primary deity here is Farlangen, since each of these states are at least a week's travel apart.
Because of this diminished good influence, a small number of demons have cultivated cults here. The very first opponents the PCs faced, were in fact, dretches under the command of an evil kobold. The PCs also recently encountered a group of Devils that were mostly just passing through. They have a contact on this material plane who provide them with slaves and souls. The Devils suspected demonic influence, but they hadn't really seen much sign of it.
Upon meeting these devils, the PCs bartered their knowledge of demonic numbers and motives to avoid combat. (Which the Cleric absolutely hated, but what can you do?)

In my game, the Pact Primeval is a bit more binding than presented in FC2. The Devils now find themselves obligated to rout out the demonic forces (which in fact are quite substantial), so in order to not make it a total loss, they figure they'll corrupt a few mortals in the process. Win-win, right? Afraid not, because the demons caught wind of this and thus are fortfying themselves. The Devils found out about this and instead of getting a dozen or so strike teams together to make it quick, are amassing a large army of Devils. The Demons will likely do the same as soon as soon as they get attacked for the first time.

After a century of peace, this continent is about to get caught in the middle of the Blood War. PCs were given fair warning that this war is brewing, so they're scrambling to get strong enough to protect as many people as possible.

This is not the main plot.

One of these city-states had an incident early on in the game. Every living being within the city limits (rather exactly the city-limits. One town's person was tending her garden just outside of the marked border when it happened) simply vanished. The only one who wasn't simply gone was the arch-mage, the ruler of this state, who was found in his chamber, dead, sans skin. I'm trying to go for a horror flavor for this main plot, so this seems to work just fine.
Unfortunately, the players think that the demons are responsible because when they went to investigate the town, a Bulezau (FC1) appearred and attacked. The Bulezau was actually sent to capture (not necessarily alive, mind you) the NPC that I added to the party to make up for their frail states at low levels. They hit 5th level, so they didn't need an NPC anymore, so *yoink*. This NPC was kidnapped for a reason mind you, but I haven't quite developed the purpose behind that yet...

Anyway, the true BBEG is a kid named Tabris (yes, the name was ripped from Evangelion). He was the Archmage of a town that was utterly destroyed in the last war. His town was out of the way, but the other archmages of the time conspired to draw the enemy into his realm and then nuke it. Tabris himself was away, but no one knew that, so he hid. Now that everyone's forgotten about him (one of the arch-mages went to the effort of erasing his name from most of the histories out of spite) he's decided to punish the human(oid) race(s) by destroying them en masse. He accomplishes this via a ritual that he can only perform once every second lunar cycle. He's decimated two towns thus far, neither of which have been the PCs favorites, but they're worried that one of their hometowns might be next. The only limitation of this ability seems to be that it can only affect areas within a certain radius of the originating site (fixed, immovable magical site) and it can't effect aberrations or undead. (I'll probably figure out more limitations as I go along and would like suggestions here as well.)
This Tabris kid is an Elan (Which is why he was so maligned in the first place. There's a lot of racism in this game.), and when the PCs encounter him, most of his protections are psionic in origin. I'm taking steps to make sure this isn't unbalanced, rest assured. I'm throwing in the psionics because I like surprising the players.

My problem is this, here they are, the war about to break out (which I intend to take them to 12-13th level) but beyond that I have a 4-7 level gap in plot. Any cool ideas on how I can tie the events of this war together with the main plot? I was thinking of having a large portion of the battle ground suffer the same fate as the magical disappearing townsfolk, but I dunno...

Suggestions?
taradusis
03-25-07, 10:21 AM A red herring?A shadowclave is an order of druids that exists as a conspiracy within the normal order of druids.They meet during the dark of the moon and wear animal masks to hide their identities.They wish to restore order and balance to the world by eliminating intelligent life forms.They feel there's no real difference between an orc or a dwarf if they're cutting down trees,or digging up stuff.They tend to poison wells and spread disease,drive off herd animals.Think of them as GREEN MEANIES.This would distract the players from TABRIS for a while?RANDOM THOUGHTS
sciguy98
03-25-07, 03:43 PM That's not a bad idea, considering that the players have had almost no contact with druids so far. If the Cleric population was down, I reasoned the druid population would be entirely underground. I made the secret society a true secret, lol. The few druids they have met have been extremely reclusive and come to think of it, haven't actually spoken to the players. They ask questions, the Druids draw a picture or point in a direction, then walk away.

So yeah, I could develop them a bit more. Thanks!

Any more suggestions?
KeshFerrar
03-25-07, 04:55 PM Here are a couple adventure ideas:

A friend/usual informant of the PCs is killed because he knew/learned too much. The characters can figure out who the killer is, but only get sparse clues as to why.
The vanishing act requires some very rare fiendish component; have the PCs crash a deal between a henchmen and the faction of choice.
Tabris is using the vanishing act to fuel a dark transformation. One of the fiend factions knows about it because Tabris has been planewalking to glean information about the transformation. This faction approaches the PCs because they don't want their opposition growing stronger, or Tabris burned them in a deal.

Hope those help.
sciguy98
03-25-07, 05:20 PM Here are a couple adventure ideas:

A friend/usual informant of the PCs is killed because he knew/learned too much. The characters can figure out who the killer is, but only get sparse clues as to why.
The vanishing act requires some very rare fiendish component; have the PCs crash a deal between a henchmen and the faction of choice.
Tabris is using the vanishing act to fuel a dark transformation. One of the fiend factions knows about it because Tabris has been planewalking to glean information about the transformation. This faction approaches the PCs because they don't want their opposition growing stronger, or Tabris burned them in a deal.

Hope those help.

I like that last one because that implies a reason why Tabris is using such an indirect method to his revenge rather than just walking into the lesser towns and fireballing everything. Perhaps I can reflect this by having the denizens of this process turn up undead in his now ruined city. A mad deposed spellcasting ruler is rough, but through in a few hundred undead and things get interesting...

I could even have a few demons/devils turn undead (which would be ironic because the demons are working for Orcus, lol)

In any case, I kind of want to see if I can get the PCs to work with the devils, just to add a small moral dilemma to the Cleric's mounting faith problems. XŞ
taradusis
03-25-07, 06:33 PM A Bohemian Movement?A group of Incubbi have been corrupting young mages.Preaching and practicing free love they prevent young mages from marrying and cause them to have illegetimate children.They stir up envy and sloth by saying the arch-magi should use their wealth and power to create a KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE.(Q.V.).Have been encouraging the young mages to create profane sculptures,poems and other artwork.Have performed acts of vandalism which the government will crack down on.the bohemians feel the goverment should erect a building with scrollcases of spells.These scrolls would be available for copying with the government providing paper and ink for any and all who ask.FREE MAGIC FOR ALL!The PCs could be mistaken for Bohemians,or caught up in a protest.
sciguy98
03-25-07, 07:55 PM A Bohemian Movement?A group of Incubbi have been corrupting young mages.Preaching and practicing free love they prevent young mages from marrying and cause them to have illegetimate children.They stir up envy and sloth by saying the arch-magi should use their wealth and power to create a KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE.(Q.V.).Have been encouraging the young mages to create profane sculptures,poems and other artwork.Have performed acts of vandalism which the government will crack down on.the bohemians feel the goverment should erect a building with scrollcases of spells.These scrolls would be available for copying with the government providing paper and ink for any and all who ask.FREE MAGIC FOR ALL!The PCs could be mistaken for Bohemians,or caught up in a protest.

That would work great as a campaign starter, but that might be a really sudden leap for my players. They're already in the good graces of the governent and while they may disagree with the guy who is technically in charge, they support the government as a whole.

Magic here is free. The number of arcane spellcasters is high because if anyone wants to hold any sort of office, he/she had better be able to pull out a few cantrips. Thanks anyway, though. ^_^
sciguy98
03-28-07, 02:24 AM Sorry for the double post, but...

:bump:
taradusis
03-31-07, 07:13 AM A Half-fiend who's playing both sides of the conflict?Pretends to hate being a Half-fiend but is waiting to betray the party.This could be a 2 or 3 level diversion as the party tracks him/her down for revenge purposes?RANDOM THOUGHTS
GoriceXII
03-31-07, 08:18 AM I know how you feel--I had to spend a while just brainstorming to get my war based campaign going.

If the players are good citizen types, then why don't you have their altruistic patriotism put to good use? Have them take part in ferrying refugees to a safe haven or something, have them at least partly responsible for the security of this movement. Perhaps they have to delay attackers or even do a general holding action to enable this exodus. Regardless, you could do such an intermediate stage in a few parts:
1. Exodus: refugees must be evacuated.
2. Preparations: Players are requested to help prepare defenses and recruit allies.
3. Intelligence: what is the enemy up to? The players must find out.

If you fit in some adventures to these parts you can also throw in bits of foreshadowing here and there via research done, npcs captured or rumors brought in by refugees.
sciguy98
03-31-07, 11:05 PM They aren't really good citizen types ^^;;

Chaotic Neutral Rogue
chaotic Neutral Artificer (who only wants to build stuff. he adventures to find rare materials and contructs)
Chaotic good Cleric (who is likely to lose his powers if he keeps up with general apathy)

And the Rogue is the most proactive about maintaining law and order because as long as their are rich political people, he'll have a job stealing from them.

It's hard to motivate a party when I throw a cool idea at them that their players may like, but they say, "Well, I like the idea, but my character wouldn't go for it, sorry..."
taradusis
04-01-07, 08:27 AM Not to be unduly critical but I think I have a few suggestions to improve your DMing experiance.#1 -Take a more proactive approach to party building,ask or insist that the players create heroic characters.Every player should be able to care about the never-ending battle between good and evil,or between law and chaos.#2-Try to get a "themed"party.All worship same god,all of same race,all wilderness experts...something.#3-Get another warm body at the table,your group seems small and probably lacks a natural leader.I hope you don't take these critisisms personally,everybody falls into the doldrums without realising it and its easier to spot from outside.good luck.
sciguy98
04-01-07, 06:58 PM Not to be unduly critical but I think I have a few suggestions to improve your DMing experiance.#1 -Take a more proactive approach to party building,ask or insist that the players create heroic characters.Every player should be able to care about the never-ending battle between good and evil,or between law and chaos.#2-Try to get a "themed"party.All worship same god,all of same race,all wilderness experts...something.#3-Get another warm body at the table,your group seems small and probably lacks a natural leader.I hope you don't take these critisisms personally,everybody falls into the doldrums without realising it and its easier to spot from outside.good luck.

You're absolutely right on all accounts. My players don't care about cohesion and two of them don't want play the hero or leader, and the one who does is a little... socially inept. He tries to lead the party, but into near suicidal situations which everyone immediately vetoes. He tells me that he wants to fight evil, but the party won't let him. The party tells him that they'll fight evil, but they won't waltz into Azzagrat without proper preparation to do it.

And I try to get a themed party going, but each one has class biases. None of them will play barbarians, druids, wizards, bards, or any race but humans and elves (although one player is on a goblin kick this month), my current Cleric will only play Clerics and fighters, my current artificer only plays spontaneous spellcasters (artificer is a stretch for him). And the rogue is a smartass who has only ever played rogue and theives in his 15 years of playing D&D. (And he still seems to not understand the flanking rules.)

And I should be getting a new player in a few weeks. She plays psionics, so I'm concerned about party cohesion... but she'll add a lot of versatility the party needs.

Maybe my main problems stem from my party's play styles more thana nything else?
taradusis
04-04-07, 08:29 PM C/N tends to be the "cop-out"alignment for players.It makes it really hard on the DM because D+D was originally a game of heroic fantasy and how do you have an adventure with people who are self-centered and disinterested?I mean in the original rules you couldn't play an evil alignment.You may have to push your PCs some on the alignment issue.An all elf campaign might be do-able with your group.Having an enemy who hunts elves could be a good 3-5 story arc.Maybe you could challange the PCs to show the new girl a good example,Nobody likes to look lame in front of the gamer chicks.RANDOM THOUGHTS

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
sciguy98 03-25-07, 06:33 AM	Alright! I have a game running and I've run into a bit of DMs-block. I have a lot of options that I can go through, but the idea of my players getting this close to the BBEG is diverting my attention to 17-20th level, not 10-12 where they are now. (note that by "close to the BBEG" I mean close to figuring out who it is.) My campaign world is a Magocracy. There are 16 settlements, ranging from small towns to a single metropolis, that are akin to city-states, each ruled by an arcane spellcaster. They feel that since most healing spells can be cast as arcane spells that there is no need for divine spellcasters and the general public looks down upon them. This continent has endured over a century of peace, so there really isn't much need for healing anyway. Because of this, the presense of religion is more scarce than other places. The primary deity here is Farlangen, since each of these states are at least a week's travel apart. Because of this diminished good influence, a small number of demons have cultivated cults here. The very first opponents the PCs faced, were in fact, dretches under the command of an evil kobold. The PCs also recently encountered a group of Devils that were mostly just passing through. They have a contact on this material plane who provide them with slaves and souls. The Devils suspected demonic influence, but they hadn't really seen much sign of it. Upon meeting these devils, the PCs bartered their knowledge of demonic numbers and motives to avoid combat. (Which the Cleric absolutely hated, but what can you do?) In my game, the Pact Primeval is a bit more binding than presented in FC2. The Devils now find themselves obligated to rout out the demonic forces (which in fact are quite substantial), so in order to not make it a total loss, they figure they'll corrupt a few mortals in the process. Win-win, right? Afraid not, because the demons caught wind of this and thus are fortfying themselves. The Devils found out about this and instead of getting a dozen or so strike teams together to make it quick, are amassing a large army of Devils. The Demons will likely do the same as soon as soon as they get attacked for the first time. After a century of peace, this continent is about to get caught in the middle of the Blood War. PCs were given fair warning that this war is brewing, so they're scrambling to get strong enough to protect as many people as possible. This is not the main plot. One of these city-states had an incident early on in the game. Every living being within the city limits (rather exactly the city-limits. One town's person was tending her garden just outside of the marked border when it happened) simply vanished. The only one who wasn't simply gone was the arch-mage, the ruler of this state, who was found in his chamber, dead, sans skin. I'm trying to go for a horror flavor for this main plot, so this seems to work just fine. Unfortunately, the players think that the demons are responsible because when they went to investigate the town, a Bulezau (FC1) appearred and attacked. The Bulezau was actually sent to capture (not necessarily alive, mind you) the NPC that I added to the party to make up for their frail states at low levels. They hit 5th level, so they didn't need an NPC anymore, so yoink. This NPC was kidnapped for a reason mind you, but I haven't quite developed the purpose behind that yet... Anyway, the true BBEG is a kid named Tabris (yes, the name was ripped from Evangelion). He was the Archmage of a town that was utterly destroyed in the last war. His town was out of the way, but the other archmages of the time conspired to draw the enemy into his realm and then nuke it. Tabris himself was away, but no one knew that, so he hid. Now that everyone's forgotten about him (one of the arch-mages went to the effort of erasing his name from most of the histories out of spite) he's decided to punish the human(oid) race(s) by destroying them en masse. He accomplishes this via a ritual that he can only perform once every second lunar cycle. He's decimated two towns thus far, neither of which have been the PCs favorites, but they're worried that one of their hometowns might be next. The only limitation of this ability seems to be that it can only affect areas within a certain radius of the originating site (fixed, immovable magical site) and it can't effect aberrations or undead. (I'll probably figure out more limitations as I go along and would like suggestions here as well.) This Tabris kid is an Elan (Which is why he was so maligned in the first place. There's a lot of racism in this game.), and when the PCs encounter him, most of his protections are psionic in origin. I'm taking steps to make sure this isn't unbalanced, rest assured. I'm throwing in the psionics because I like surprising the players. My problem is this, here they are, the war about to break out (which I intend to take them to 12-13th level) but beyond that I have a 4-7 level gap in plot. Any cool ideas on how I can tie the events of this war together with the main plot? I was thinking of having a large portion of the battle ground suffer the same fate as the magical disappearing townsfolk, but I dunno... Suggestions?
taradusis 03-25-07, 10:21 AM	A red herring?A shadowclave is an order of druids that exists as a conspiracy within the normal order of druids.They meet during the dark of the moon and wear animal masks to hide their identities.They wish to restore order and balance to the world by eliminating intelligent life forms.They feel there's no real difference between an orc or a dwarf if they're cutting down trees,or digging up stuff.They tend to poison wells and spread disease,drive off herd animals.Think of them as GREEN MEANIES.This would distract the players from TABRIS for a while?RANDOM THOUGHTS
sciguy98 03-25-07, 03:43 PM	That's not a bad idea, considering that the players have had almost no contact with druids so far. If the Cleric population was down, I reasoned the druid population would be entirely underground. I made the secret society a true secret, lol. The few druids they have met have been extremely reclusive and come to think of it, haven't actually spoken to the players. They ask questions, the Druids draw a picture or point in a direction, then walk away. So yeah, I could develop them a bit more. Thanks! Any more suggestions?
KeshFerrar 03-25-07, 04:55 PM	Here are a couple adventure ideas: A friend/usual informant of the PCs is killed because he knew/learned too much. The characters can figure out who the killer is, but only get sparse clues as to why. The vanishing act requires some very rare fiendish component; have the PCs crash a deal between a henchmen and the faction of choice. Tabris is using the vanishing act to fuel a dark transformation. One of the fiend factions knows about it because Tabris has been planewalking to glean information about the transformation. This faction approaches the PCs because they don't want their opposition growing stronger, or Tabris burned them in a deal. Hope those help.
sciguy98 03-25-07, 05:20 PM	Here are a couple adventure ideas: A friend/usual informant of the PCs is killed because he knew/learned too much. The characters can figure out who the killer is, but only get sparse clues as to why. The vanishing act requires some very rare fiendish component; have the PCs crash a deal between a henchmen and the faction of choice. Tabris is using the vanishing act to fuel a dark transformation. One of the fiend factions knows about it because Tabris has been planewalking to glean information about the transformation. This faction approaches the PCs because they don't want their opposition growing stronger, or Tabris burned them in a deal. Hope those help. I like that last one because that implies a reason why Tabris is using such an indirect method to his revenge rather than just walking into the lesser towns and fireballing everything. Perhaps I can reflect this by having the denizens of this process turn up undead in his now ruined city. A mad deposed spellcasting ruler is rough, but through in a few hundred undead and things get interesting... I could even have a few demons/devils turn undead (which would be ironic because the demons are working for Orcus, lol) In any case, I kind of want to see if I can get the PCs to work with the devils, just to add a small moral dilemma to the Cleric's mounting faith problems. XŞ
taradusis 03-25-07, 06:33 PM	A Bohemian Movement?A group of Incubbi have been corrupting young mages.Preaching and practicing free love they prevent young mages from marrying and cause them to have illegetimate children.They stir up envy and sloth by saying the arch-magi should use their wealth and power to create a KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE.(Q.V.).Have been encouraging the young mages to create profane sculptures,poems and other artwork.Have performed acts of vandalism which the government will crack down on.the bohemians feel the goverment should erect a building with scrollcases of spells.These scrolls would be available for copying with the government providing paper and ink for any and all who ask.FREE MAGIC FOR ALL!The PCs could be mistaken for Bohemians,or caught up in a protest.
sciguy98 03-25-07, 07:55 PM	A Bohemian Movement?A group of Incubbi have been corrupting young mages.Preaching and practicing free love they prevent young mages from marrying and cause them to have illegetimate children.They stir up envy and sloth by saying the arch-magi should use their wealth and power to create a KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE.(Q.V.).Have been encouraging the young mages to create profane sculptures,poems and other artwork.Have performed acts of vandalism which the government will crack down on.the bohemians feel the goverment should erect a building with scrollcases of spells.These scrolls would be available for copying with the government providing paper and ink for any and all who ask.FREE MAGIC FOR ALL!The PCs could be mistaken for Bohemians,or caught up in a protest. That would work great as a campaign starter, but that might be a really sudden leap for my players. They're already in the good graces of the governent and while they may disagree with the guy who is technically in charge, they support the government as a whole. Magic here is free. The number of arcane spellcasters is high because if anyone wants to hold any sort of office, he/she had better be able to pull out a few cantrips. Thanks anyway, though. ^_^
sciguy98 03-28-07, 02:24 AM	Sorry for the double post, but... :bump:
taradusis 03-31-07, 07:13 AM	A Half-fiend who's playing both sides of the conflict?Pretends to hate being a Half-fiend but is waiting to betray the party.This could be a 2 or 3 level diversion as the party tracks him/her down for revenge purposes?RANDOM THOUGHTS
GoriceXII 03-31-07, 08:18 AM	I know how you feel--I had to spend a while just brainstorming to get my war based campaign going. If the players are good citizen types, then why don't you have their altruistic patriotism put to good use? Have them take part in ferrying refugees to a safe haven or something, have them at least partly responsible for the security of this movement. Perhaps they have to delay attackers or even do a general holding action to enable this exodus. Regardless, you could do such an intermediate stage in a few parts: 1. Exodus: refugees must be evacuated. 2. Preparations: Players are requested to help prepare defenses and recruit allies. 3. Intelligence: what is the enemy up to? The players must find out. If you fit in some adventures to these parts you can also throw in bits of foreshadowing here and there via research done, npcs captured or rumors brought in by refugees.
sciguy98 03-31-07, 11:05 PM	They aren't really good citizen types ^^;; Chaotic Neutral Rogue chaotic Neutral Artificer (who only wants to build stuff. he adventures to find rare materials and contructs) Chaotic good Cleric (who is likely to lose his powers if he keeps up with general apathy) And the Rogue is the most proactive about maintaining law and order because as long as their are rich political people, he'll have a job stealing from them. It's hard to motivate a party when I throw a cool idea at them that their players may like, but they say, "Well, I like the idea, but my character wouldn't go for it, sorry..."
taradusis 04-01-07, 08:27 AM	Not to be unduly critical but I think I have a few suggestions to improve your DMing experiance.#1 -Take a more proactive approach to party building,ask or insist that the players create heroic characters.Every player should be able to care about the never-ending battle between good and evil,or between law and chaos.#2-Try to get a "themed"party.All worship same god,all of same race,all wilderness experts...something.#3-Get another warm body at the table,your group seems small and probably lacks a natural leader.I hope you don't take these critisisms personally,everybody falls into the doldrums without realising it and its easier to spot from outside.good luck.
sciguy98 04-01-07, 06:58 PM	Not to be unduly critical but I think I have a few suggestions to improve your DMing experiance.#1 -Take a more proactive approach to party building,ask or insist that the players create heroic characters.Every player should be able to care about the never-ending battle between good and evil,or between law and chaos.#2-Try to get a "themed"party.All worship same god,all of same race,all wilderness experts...something.#3-Get another warm body at the table,your group seems small and probably lacks a natural leader.I hope you don't take these critisisms personally,everybody falls into the doldrums without realising it and its easier to spot from outside.good luck. You're absolutely right on all accounts. My players don't care about cohesion and two of them don't want play the hero or leader, and the one who does is a little... socially inept. He tries to lead the party, but into near suicidal situations which everyone immediately vetoes. He tells me that he wants to fight evil, but the party won't let him. The party tells him that they'll fight evil, but they won't waltz into Azzagrat without proper preparation to do it. And I try to get a themed party going, but each one has class biases. None of them will play barbarians, druids, wizards, bards, or any race but humans and elves (although one player is on a goblin kick this month), my current Cleric will only play Clerics and fighters, my current artificer only plays spontaneous spellcasters (artificer is a stretch for him). And the rogue is a smartass who has only ever played rogue and theives in his 15 years of playing D&D. (And he still seems to not understand the flanking rules.) And I should be getting a new player in a few weeks. She plays psionics, so I'm concerned about party cohesion... but she'll add a lot of versatility the party needs. Maybe my main problems stem from my party's play styles more thana nything else?
taradusis 04-04-07, 08:29 PM	C/N tends to be the "cop-out"alignment for players.It makes it really hard on the DM because D+D was originally a game of heroic fantasy and how do you have an adventure with people who are self-centered and disinterested?I mean in the original rules you couldn't play an evil alignment.You may have to push your PCs some on the alignment issue.An all elf campaign might be do-able with your group.Having an enemy who hunts elves could be a good 3-5 story arc.Maybe you could challange the PCs to show the new girl a good example,Nobody likes to look lame in front of the gamer chicks.RANDOM THOUGHTS