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SaveRaysBoxers 04-25-07, 08:26 PM

SPENCER DON'T READ ANY FURTHUR. My players are running Red Hand of Doom right now, and while we do that, I'm using my planning time to work on the adventure for afterwards. First off, this is all in my custom campaign world - called Tervanskanto. I set all the stuff from RHoD in the middle-south portion of the 'good' kingdom of Nattsmyg. I figure, perhaps with some hinting/hooking my players will travel east to the capital city called Daeserfort. There I will have the king meet with them for a little "thanks for helping save the elsir vale place" kind of thing, and maybe a little gold or something. From there I will work through the following adventure outline/basic idea: 1. King Cathal rewards players with a small share of gold and a great thank you. 2. Players are leaving the castle when a shady figure in a black cloak grabs them from an alleyway, pulling them aside. 3. They go into the shady figure’s dwelling place, where he unveils himself as the head of Nattsmygs military, Kolbein. He explains that the king is too timid to pursue his reports, but that there are shady gnomes coming and going from a newly organized Church of Pelor. He wants them to go infiltrate the Church and report anything they find. 4. The players go to this church, and ask around, hopefully finding a way to get into the deeper areas of the church, and perhaps snatch some items of interest. (RP/Sneak encounter) 5. The players return to Kolbein’s place afterwards and report their findings. He tells them to go about their business until he sends for them again. While the PCs wander about town, they notice shady gnomes following them, wearing black robes. Hopefully the PCs do not react, realizing the potential consequences of attacking people in the streets. 6. Eventually, within a few days, the PCs are called back for another meeting with Kolbein. He outlines to them the connections he has made. The same gnomes that have been coming and going from the church are also loading up ships every week in the port at midnight. He wants the PCs to get aboard the ship and take it over, then commandeer it to a cove south of the port about one hour. He will meet them there. (Fighting encounter) 7. At the southern port the PCs help Kolbein unload the ship and go over it’s contents. It is loaded with various gems and a stolen book containing research by a very reputable wizard in Daeserfort. The book contains information on both gems and some very confusing text about planar collapse on a miniature scale. 8. While the PCs are sleeping in this shelter, they are ambushed! A small party of gnomes in black robes, identical to those spotted in Daeserfort, have tracked down their missing ship. (Fighting Encounter) 9. Frantic, Kolbein addresses their need to have this book identified and explained by its original owner. He says that he must make it back to the castle, lest they notice his extended absence. He directs the PCs to the location of the wizard’s tower, half a day’s travel north of Daeserfort. 10. The PCs arrive there, to find it in a seemingly peaceful state. They come to the door, and it is answered by a tall wizard (actually the reanimated corpse of the wizard they came looking for), completely veiled in blue robes. He speaks roughly. If the PCs realize something is off, the battle begins, if not, then he leads them to his upper chamber, where they are then confronted by the High Priest of Nerull, Kaledon (A sorcerer). He uses some strange tactics, but the real surprise is his use of a gem to harm the PCs, via the newly discovered properties of gems. (Fighting encounter) 11. The PCs head back to Daeserfort, with little news to give Kolbein, except of course the wizard’s murder. Kolbein tells them that there is only one other place where they could possibly get the book interpreted: Draicon, far to the north. Getting there won’t be easy, but he thinks he knows a guide that can help them find the way there. 12. There are several small side-adventures along the way to make it more interesting. 13. They arrive at Draicon’s capital city, the majestic Helvete, full of spires that reach to the clouds, and contraptions of magic that would impress even the most seasoned wizard. They then seek out the Arch Magus Rarren himself, ruler of all Draicon, as Kolbein had advised them. They will have to roleplay their way to get to him. (Roleplay encounter) 14. Once they have a chance to speak the Rarren, they present him with the book they found, and he reads through several pages of it. He seems to understand what it is talking about, and goes pale at the prospect of what is in there. He explains to the PCs that this research, along with the gems being shipped out only point to one thing: Pavor (a rogue gnomish kingdom on an island off the western shore of Draicon) is uncovering a very dangerous weapon. They have found a way to magically cause the cores of various gems to implode on themselves, releasing fundamental planar energies capable of decimating entire areas, relative to the gem size. As they are speaking with him, a huge flash can be seen coming from an outlying island of the Pavor kingdom, which happens to be very close to Draicon. Rarren nearly faints at the sight, and tells the PCs that they must go there immediately to diffuse the threat. From what he understood of the book, there are four high mages working on this technology, on that nearby island in a fortress. The PCs have to kill each one of them individually, and burn the fortress to the ground, along with all the information regarding this gem technology: it is too powerful to be kept, lest it fall into the wrong hands. Rarren arranges for the PCs to board a boat along with him to take the island, just as they are about to leave the docks, and Rarren is about to jump in, a bright flash blinds the players for a moment. They regain their sight to see Rarren lying on the ground, his right arm and part of his neck completely missing as if is had been disintegrated in a perfect sphere. He yells for the PCs to continue, and several gnomes are heading toward the boat, so the PCs have to push off and continue on. 15. They come to the island, and have to fight the four mages separately, and go throughout the fortress, etc, etc. Big finisher adventure, woohoo. You get it. Red Hand of Doom is my first real purchased adventure, and I am trying to learn as much as I can from it so I can make my own neat adventures. I will eventually flesh out each of these outlined chunks similar to the way they are outlined in RHoD. Give me feedback about possible quips with this, and suggestions to make it better. So far the only thing I am worried about is the players deciding not to destroy the research stuff, and keeping it for themselves. I need a way to imprint on them how crucial it is that they rid to world of this horrible weapon. An explanation for how the gem thing works: They cast some special magic stuff to collapse the core of the gem, which creates a miniscule elemental plane, this plane, being totally unstable then implodes on itself and releases negative energy of a type corresponding to the type of gem, and this energy forms a perfect sphere of color which then eliminates itself by removing all the energy of that type within the sphere. An example of what I mean - Black Orpeculite gem's elemental energy is the essence of life itself. Thus, when imploded and released, anything within it's sphere, averaging about 5 cubic feet, loses all life energy. Bodies fall limp with no sign of harm whatsoever. Other examples of energies that there are would be - Heat, Living Matter, Air, Water, Ethereal Matter, Nonliving material matter, Incorporeal matter, etc. You get the idea.