1001 Plots for the LoD and Dreaming Dark.... [Archive] - Wizards Community

1001 Plots for the LoD and Dreaming Dark.... [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Charles Phipps
03-30-06, 05:58 PM This is a thread about sharing plots for the Dreaming Dark's use and the Lords of Dust in Eberron. A lot of people complain that its impossible to do them subtlely and this is a thread for helping overcome those blocks. Complaints are quite welcome and positive feedback in addition to adventure ideas.

I'll start us off...

1. A beautiful Reidran ambassador is known for her voracious appetite sensually and her string of important and powerful lovers (possibly she's accompanied by her equally largess using brother). Their lovers are all deeply affected by her presence even as they return fully and completely devoted to the Dreaming Dark.

This is because instead of romantic tetes, they're being psychically conditioned.

2. Machurian candidate. The Riedrans are forwarding the Democracy Movement in Breland with a Prime Minister candidate whose mother is utterly and completely loyal to the Dreaming Dark (A Reidran wife of a prominent Breland politician---in fact she's probably Inspired).

The Quori intend to frame the monarchy for his murder and bring down the monarchy with a wave of quori inspired violence against the Royal Family soon afterwards.

3. The Quori have created a special variant of Dreamlilly which makes a person utterly and completely under the command of its dealers. They are making a huge number of addicts in the lower reaches and intend to start a massive riot that forces Breland to call upon Reidran troops to aid in their putting down.

The Reidrans hope to foster long term anti-non-human sentiment in the region.

4. The Quori are offering through their agents to adopt children through their agency. This institution is a front for training/conditioning the children to be loyal sleeper agents of the Dreaming Dark. Already, the six year olds are taught to use weapons and in other languages. The fourteen year olds are almost ready for deployment and are uttely willing to die for the cause.

5. The Quori intend to blow up Sharn and restart the Last War. Having developed psionic field generators (in the shapes of Obelisks), they're going to move Sharn from the Manifestation Zone and blame it on Aundair by harvesting negative feelings.

To that end, they've been attempting to foster ill will and hatred throughout Sharn through various agencies and only by uniting the people of Sharn Ghost Buster's II style and destroying the Quori at the center of the ritual (by briefly entering the Dreamlands) can they end their threat forever.

6. A artificer scientist has created a weapon for the Quori that will break down the very soul of a dream creature so that it cannot be reformed (distilling the 'immortals' into pure magical energy for harvesting of potions). The Quori fostering it is insane and doesn't realize that it can be used against his kind as much as the Kalashatar.

The Players must go against him as well as the Quori out to destroy him for his madness.

7. A Radiant Idol has come to utterly hate and loathe the Quori for attempting to steal his worshippers, so he's begun a massive movement to kill all Riedrans in the city of Sharn through his cultists by framing them for horrible crimes.

Do the players help or attempt to protect the largely innocent Reidrans?

8. A Dragon is studying the Quori and has decided to have the players capture one for his own use in experiments. Outfitting them with weapons that will suck the soul of it from its Inspired Host, the capture is the easy part as the Dreaming Dark goes BALLISTIC with the sudden threat to them.

9. The Quori are attempting a takeover of the Aurrum by foisting their own candidate to take over their Hellfire like Club by slowly driving the current head of the Shadow Cabinet insane while working other methods.

The Players can save the Aurrum and will be well rewarded by the decadent and evil rivals of the Quori (including minions of the Lords of Dust)

10. A Wizard has unearthed a portal to the Dreamlands and is attempting to repair it as the Quori themselves are fostering his research, realizing a Quori was captured half-way between it.

Thus exotic spell components and kidnappings for ingrediants like life force plus dragonshard purchases are at all all time high while he attempts to unlock the mystery.

11. A Quori Inspired contacts the players to attempt to defect but this is of course just an attempt by them to infiltrate the Kalashatar. The two play a game of cat and mouse with the players inbetween as they both intend to lure large numbers of the others into a killing field with the "defector" even as the Quori itself starts to realize that his masters intend to kill him in order to reincarnate him to make sure he's not corrupted....and he develops an irrational fear of this fate (possibly fostered by the Kalashatar).

Special thanks to Stargate for that one.

12. A child adopted by a couple from Riedra is an inspired that the Kalashatar want to protect from becoming a soulless host of them. They believe he's not fully of the bloodline and they have a small window of opportunity to prevent his posession. What they don't realize is the child IS a defective Inspired and the Quori is trapped inside the mind of the psychopath and being tortured by the enormously powerful psionicist as he slowly 'bleeds' him for psionic power.

Special thanks to Angel for this one.

13. A Lord of Dust has decided that the Quori are "poaching" on his territory and that the Riedrans must be taught a lesson. To that end he's been kidnapping members of the cult for some time. The Quori suspect the Kalashatar even as unbeknownst to the Kalashatar, one of their members (of the LE persuasion) is responsible for aiding him.

The Lord of Dust has developed a nightmarish plague that he intends for the PCs to be immunized to and carry to Riedra on a 'very dangerous mission' that he believes will release horrifying death on them all.

It's a game of chess between the LoD and the Quori as they spread disinformation to the Kalashatar, Quori, and the like about what is REALLY going on to try and get the box to either go off in Khovaire territory or in the continent of Riedra.
Startoman24
03-30-06, 06:27 PM 14. The Inspired are trying to start a war between New Galifar and the lizardfolk. They seek out holy icons and infuse them with a quori. The quori not only spies upon the lizardfolk, but also speaks to them in their dreams. Saying how New Galifar took their land, etc. The hope is that New Galifar requests more troops from Riedra and they take over Q'barra.

The PCs need to stop them by either preventing them from stealing the icons, or killing the leaders of the lizardfolk.
Tonpa
04-01-06, 08:47 AM 15. A lone lord is being revived by small cult of devoted ones, forming a lone family line of minor nobles. They hope to achieve a child of pure blood, who could be inhabited by the imprisoned lord. By the visions the mother who could be having this child, has an omen and in the dark of night runs away. Traveling mercenary captain, coming from the front and who took her with him, founds the young girl. By the time they reach civilization, some form of affection has been growing between them. The lord notices his vessel being endangered by this intrusion, orders his cult to move against this mercenary, crossing the borders of two nations. The cult family is not consisted by warriors but wealthy decadents of all known vices, so they put their money on move.

The captain could be the leader of returning mercenary PC:s or an old friend of theirs.
SiouLubb
04-04-06, 05:26 PM 16: (Could be either faction starting this one) Can it be true? adventurers in the Mournland have found the evidence that conclusively proves what caused the destruction of Cyre! The news is spreading rapidly and the rumours all contain a common thread: the Cyrans had built a weapon and that weapon can never be recreated.

The adventurers may be dupes or agents of the masterminds behind the scheme. The scheme is simple: remove the factor that is most restraining the Five Nations from going back to war. To do this, the cause of the mourning must be faked convincingly. Perhaps the PCs are the tools that "discover" the proof that has been cunningly laid in their path. Perhaps it is other adventurers who are the tools that find the proof. Remember that the masterminds wish to see the information spread to all nations, not be kept a secret. Perhaps the dupes who find the "proof" are charging anyone who wants to examine it. Maybe they are auctioning the proof to the highest bidder....

If you ever wanted to mash almost every nation and faction into an adventure, this would be the one, because if credible proof were found as to the cause of the mourning, they'd all come running.

How can the PCs expose the fraud? Even if they expose it, can they persuade the Five nations that the truth still remains unknown to all and to back away from war?

Hell, if the "proof" were to be destroyed in an attack, what nation would dare assume that it was truly destroyed and not in the hands of their enemies? No matter what happens, the scheme would be very likely to move Khorvaire closer to resuming the war.
Endless_Helix
04-06-06, 06:41 PM This is going to be a looong post...

17

"Dream a little dream of me..."

Underneath a massive stone edifice in Xen'drik, a very strange, pulsating ring was found. It was about 1 foot in diameter and covered in a runic script beyond the excavators. It was shown at the library of Korranberg for two months, and deemed that the language might be some sort of derivitive of quori, but the scholars weren't sure. In any case, the Zil scholars couldn't read them. It's now at Morgrave University.

Since then, the inspired ambassadors have been seen nowhere near it, despite many invitations to visit it. This is because one of the properties of the ring is to destroy vessels of extraplanar creatures. If you're running the spell compendium in your game, note to any binders you may have that they get a vague sense of revulsion from it. Kalashtar have a similar reaction as well. Inspired, well, can't go near the thing and erupt in screaming fits complaining of horrid visions if they are forced near it.

Now, the ring has been stolen. And the inspired are scared. This ring has the potential to destroy all their plans and now they don't know where it is. Someone might know their achilles heel and how to activate it, and it's just as possible that they could have it... This amounts to a national emergency for the quori... or did the quori arrange for it's "disposal"? Odds are highly against that, because it would be obscenely difficult to destroy. They'd prefer it hidden in some musty vault at Morgrave, completely forgotten, than even attempt it. I'd have indestructible while at least one possesed creature lives as one of it's properties, which would put it's demise out of the question. Basically the quori are now going to have to rethink their plans, and they're goign to have to get it back to Morgrave. Basically a huge sum is named as a reward for this ring, and half the adventuring community is out looking for it. This is where the PC's enter it. They find it on a quest randomly on a semi BBEG, who mentions a name, The Arch of Bane (or something a little more ominous) in conjunction with the ring. They've no idea what it does (I'd make it highly resistant to divination magic/seeing powers, but it also grants this ability to those who bear it.

PC's finish adventure, go back to Sharn or suitably large homebase city, hear about a large reward for a ring matching the one they found and as far as they can tell, is useless, and get it over to Morgrave. As far as the PC's know, it's the end of a story arc...

The Quori now have a large security breach.The PCs. The PCs got the ring from somewhere, and they might know it's function. Since the PCs had it, scrying on them is out of the picture for the quori, and the quori need them in a place where they can write them off as "out of the picture".

Namely Dolurrh.

The PC's are contacted by a mindseed of the quori, who apparently needs a favor done. He needs some papers stolen from the mayor's office, he says that he's trying to bring democracy to Breland. At this point the PC's are appropriately powerful to sneak into the mayor's palace. It's a set up of course. When the PC's break in, they're surrounded by guards. IF the PC's can cast a still and silent spell (like charm person) or have web handy they can get away fairly easily, and they might even get what they came for. If they do, the information could easily benefit the quori by setting up a new regime in parlement that looks very favorably on sarlonan imports. Odds are, they won't get what they came for though.

They get away, and they should begin to question about who gave them the job, and why. They should begin questioning about the guy's past. Have several rivals locked away in mental institutions, with some very strange stories about what he did to them, generally involving wierd slug-like demons. People talk about it a lot in jest, but do think he's a bit wierd. Anyway, the PC's try to find the guy, but discover that he was murdered recently. Have the chase heat up on them. Let them sweat as the reward on their heads increases. Then finally, the inspired ambassador offers them political asylum, on account that they were trying to help sarlona in the past or saved some riedran citizens from being eaten by a gibbering mouther recently or something

Then the players have to accept ot fight their way out of it...
Ellorin
04-07-06, 03:45 AM 18.The Lords of Dust way of blowing up Sharn:create an eldritch machine capable of cancelling out the manifest zone, or play with the volcano.
19.The Quori gain access to the Kundarak vaults and start buying Khorvaire out.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Charles Phipps 03-30-06, 05:58 PM	This is a thread about sharing plots for the Dreaming Dark's use and the Lords of Dust in Eberron. A lot of people complain that its impossible to do them subtlely and this is a thread for helping overcome those blocks. Complaints are quite welcome and positive feedback in addition to adventure ideas. I'll start us off... 1. A beautiful Reidran ambassador is known for her voracious appetite sensually and her string of important and powerful lovers (possibly she's accompanied by her equally largess using brother). Their lovers are all deeply affected by her presence even as they return fully and completely devoted to the Dreaming Dark. This is because instead of romantic tetes, they're being psychically conditioned. 2. Machurian candidate. The Riedrans are forwarding the Democracy Movement in Breland with a Prime Minister candidate whose mother is utterly and completely loyal to the Dreaming Dark (A Reidran wife of a prominent Breland politician---in fact she's probably Inspired). The Quori intend to frame the monarchy for his murder and bring down the monarchy with a wave of quori inspired violence against the Royal Family soon afterwards. 3. The Quori have created a special variant of Dreamlilly which makes a person utterly and completely under the command of its dealers. They are making a huge number of addicts in the lower reaches and intend to start a massive riot that forces Breland to call upon Reidran troops to aid in their putting down. The Reidrans hope to foster long term anti-non-human sentiment in the region. 4. The Quori are offering through their agents to adopt children through their agency. This institution is a front for training/conditioning the children to be loyal sleeper agents of the Dreaming Dark. Already, the six year olds are taught to use weapons and in other languages. The fourteen year olds are almost ready for deployment and are uttely willing to die for the cause. 5. The Quori intend to blow up Sharn and restart the Last War. Having developed psionic field generators (in the shapes of Obelisks), they're going to move Sharn from the Manifestation Zone and blame it on Aundair by harvesting negative feelings. To that end, they've been attempting to foster ill will and hatred throughout Sharn through various agencies and only by uniting the people of Sharn Ghost Buster's II style and destroying the Quori at the center of the ritual (by briefly entering the Dreamlands) can they end their threat forever. 6. A artificer scientist has created a weapon for the Quori that will break down the very soul of a dream creature so that it cannot be reformed (distilling the 'immortals' into pure magical energy for harvesting of potions). The Quori fostering it is insane and doesn't realize that it can be used against his kind as much as the Kalashatar. The Players must go against him as well as the Quori out to destroy him for his madness. 7. A Radiant Idol has come to utterly hate and loathe the Quori for attempting to steal his worshippers, so he's begun a massive movement to kill all Riedrans in the city of Sharn through his cultists by framing them for horrible crimes. Do the players help or attempt to protect the largely innocent Reidrans? 8. A Dragon is studying the Quori and has decided to have the players capture one for his own use in experiments. Outfitting them with weapons that will suck the soul of it from its Inspired Host, the capture is the easy part as the Dreaming Dark goes BALLISTIC with the sudden threat to them. 9. The Quori are attempting a takeover of the Aurrum by foisting their own candidate to take over their Hellfire like Club by slowly driving the current head of the Shadow Cabinet insane while working other methods. The Players can save the Aurrum and will be well rewarded by the decadent and evil rivals of the Quori (including minions of the Lords of Dust) 10. A Wizard has unearthed a portal to the Dreamlands and is attempting to repair it as the Quori themselves are fostering his research, realizing a Quori was captured half-way between it. Thus exotic spell components and kidnappings for ingrediants like life force plus dragonshard purchases are at all all time high while he attempts to unlock the mystery. 11. A Quori Inspired contacts the players to attempt to defect but this is of course just an attempt by them to infiltrate the Kalashatar. The two play a game of cat and mouse with the players inbetween as they both intend to lure large numbers of the others into a killing field with the "defector" even as the Quori itself starts to realize that his masters intend to kill him in order to reincarnate him to make sure he's not corrupted....and he develops an irrational fear of this fate (possibly fostered by the Kalashatar). Special thanks to Stargate for that one. 12. A child adopted by a couple from Riedra is an inspired that the Kalashatar want to protect from becoming a soulless host of them. They believe he's not fully of the bloodline and they have a small window of opportunity to prevent his posession. What they don't realize is the child IS a defective Inspired and the Quori is trapped inside the mind of the psychopath and being tortured by the enormously powerful psionicist as he slowly 'bleeds' him for psionic power. Special thanks to Angel for this one. 13. A Lord of Dust has decided that the Quori are "poaching" on his territory and that the Riedrans must be taught a lesson. To that end he's been kidnapping members of the cult for some time. The Quori suspect the Kalashatar even as unbeknownst to the Kalashatar, one of their members (of the LE persuasion) is responsible for aiding him. The Lord of Dust has developed a nightmarish plague that he intends for the PCs to be immunized to and carry to Riedra on a 'very dangerous mission' that he believes will release horrifying death on them all. It's a game of chess between the LoD and the Quori as they spread disinformation to the Kalashatar, Quori, and the like about what is REALLY going on to try and get the box to either go off in Khovaire territory or in the continent of Riedra.
Startoman24 03-30-06, 06:27 PM	14. The Inspired are trying to start a war between New Galifar and the lizardfolk. They seek out holy icons and infuse them with a quori. The quori not only spies upon the lizardfolk, but also speaks to them in their dreams. Saying how New Galifar took their land, etc. The hope is that New Galifar requests more troops from Riedra and they take over Q'barra. The PCs need to stop them by either preventing them from stealing the icons, or killing the leaders of the lizardfolk.
Tonpa 04-01-06, 08:47 AM	15. A lone lord is being revived by small cult of devoted ones, forming a lone family line of minor nobles. They hope to achieve a child of pure blood, who could be inhabited by the imprisoned lord. By the visions the mother who could be having this child, has an omen and in the dark of night runs away. Traveling mercenary captain, coming from the front and who took her with him, founds the young girl. By the time they reach civilization, some form of affection has been growing between them. The lord notices his vessel being endangered by this intrusion, orders his cult to move against this mercenary, crossing the borders of two nations. The cult family is not consisted by warriors but wealthy decadents of all known vices, so they put their money on move. The captain could be the leader of returning mercenary PC:s or an old friend of theirs.
SiouLubb 04-04-06, 05:26 PM	16: (Could be either faction starting this one) Can it be true? adventurers in the Mournland have found the evidence that conclusively proves what caused the destruction of Cyre! The news is spreading rapidly and the rumours all contain a common thread: the Cyrans had built a weapon and that weapon can never be recreated. The adventurers may be dupes or agents of the masterminds behind the scheme. The scheme is simple: remove the factor that is most restraining the Five Nations from going back to war. To do this, the cause of the mourning must be faked convincingly. Perhaps the PCs are the tools that "discover" the proof that has been cunningly laid in their path. Perhaps it is other adventurers who are the tools that find the proof. Remember that the masterminds wish to see the information spread to all nations, not be kept a secret. Perhaps the dupes who find the "proof" are charging anyone who wants to examine it. Maybe they are auctioning the proof to the highest bidder.... If you ever wanted to mash almost every nation and faction into an adventure, this would be the one, because if credible proof were found as to the cause of the mourning, they'd all come running. How can the PCs expose the fraud? Even if they expose it, can they persuade the Five nations that the truth still remains unknown to all and to back away from war? Hell, if the "proof" were to be destroyed in an attack, what nation would dare assume that it was truly destroyed and not in the hands of their enemies? No matter what happens, the scheme would be very likely to move Khorvaire closer to resuming the war.
Endless_Helix 04-06-06, 06:41 PM	This is going to be a looong post... 17 "Dream a little dream of me..." Underneath a massive stone edifice in Xen'drik, a very strange, pulsating ring was found. It was about 1 foot in diameter and covered in a runic script beyond the excavators. It was shown at the library of Korranberg for two months, and deemed that the language might be some sort of derivitive of quori, but the scholars weren't sure. In any case, the Zil scholars couldn't read them. It's now at Morgrave University. Since then, the inspired ambassadors have been seen nowhere near it, despite many invitations to visit it. This is because one of the properties of the ring is to destroy vessels of extraplanar creatures. If you're running the spell compendium in your game, note to any binders you may have that they get a vague sense of revulsion from it. Kalashtar have a similar reaction as well. Inspired, well, can't go near the thing and erupt in screaming fits complaining of horrid visions if they are forced near it. Now, the ring has been stolen. And the inspired are scared. This ring has the potential to destroy all their plans and now they don't know where it is. Someone might know their achilles heel and how to activate it, and it's just as possible that they could have it... This amounts to a national emergency for the quori... or did the quori arrange for it's "disposal"? Odds are highly against that, because it would be obscenely difficult to destroy. They'd prefer it hidden in some musty vault at Morgrave, completely forgotten, than even attempt it. I'd have indestructible while at least one possesed creature lives as one of it's properties, which would put it's demise out of the question. Basically the quori are now going to have to rethink their plans, and they're goign to have to get it back to Morgrave. Basically a huge sum is named as a reward for this ring, and half the adventuring community is out looking for it. This is where the PC's enter it. They find it on a quest randomly on a semi BBEG, who mentions a name, The Arch of Bane (or something a little more ominous) in conjunction with the ring. They've no idea what it does (I'd make it highly resistant to divination magic/seeing powers, but it also grants this ability to those who bear it. PC's finish adventure, go back to Sharn or suitably large homebase city, hear about a large reward for a ring matching the one they found and as far as they can tell, is useless, and get it over to Morgrave. As far as the PC's know, it's the end of a story arc... The Quori now have a large security breach.The PCs. The PCs got the ring from somewhere, and they might know it's function. Since the PCs had it, scrying on them is out of the picture for the quori, and the quori need them in a place where they can write them off as "out of the picture". Namely Dolurrh. The PC's are contacted by a mindseed of the quori, who apparently needs a favor done. He needs some papers stolen from the mayor's office, he says that he's trying to bring democracy to Breland. At this point the PC's are appropriately powerful to sneak into the mayor's palace. It's a set up of course. When the PC's break in, they're surrounded by guards. IF the PC's can cast a still and silent spell (like charm person) or have web handy they can get away fairly easily, and they might even get what they came for. If they do, the information could easily benefit the quori by setting up a new regime in parlement that looks very favorably on sarlonan imports. Odds are, they won't get what they came for though. They get away, and they should begin to question about who gave them the job, and why. They should begin questioning about the guy's past. Have several rivals locked away in mental institutions, with some very strange stories about what he did to them, generally involving wierd slug-like demons. People talk about it a lot in jest, but do think he's a bit wierd. Anyway, the PC's try to find the guy, but discover that he was murdered recently. Have the chase heat up on them. Let them sweat as the reward on their heads increases. Then finally, the inspired ambassador offers them political asylum, on account that they were trying to help sarlona in the past or saved some riedran citizens from being eaten by a gibbering mouther recently or something Then the players have to accept ot fight their way out of it...
Ellorin 04-07-06, 03:45 AM	18.The Lords of Dust way of blowing up Sharn:create an eldritch machine capable of cancelling out the manifest zone, or play with the volcano. 19.The Quori gain access to the Kundarak vaults and start buying Khorvaire out.