Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Pigus Wgmmg 12-27-05, 10:39 AM	Hi all, ((First of don’t blame me for bad spelling, I will do my best to use proper English (got Dyslexia and English aren’t my mother language).)) I’m a quite experienced DM but this is my first serious try whit D&D material and I like to share my experience and hope you will give me some good comments and ideas for upcoming stories. So I first started a quite big group (Seven players) and I called the campaign ‘A simple twist of faith’ (Astof) and it started 1 Zarantyr 998 whit the ‘forgotten forge’, and after that I have followed up whit ‘Queen whit burning Eyes’ and ‘Fallen angel’. Between each story I have hade about a weeks downtime and this far I have not implanted to much own material except for some shorter texts to raise the atmosphere in between each section. I plan to run ‘Shadows of the last war’, ‘Whispers of the vampire’s blade’, ‘Grasp of the emerald claw’ and ‘Steel shadows’ whit some smaller stories that I create my self that I wove in between. I later started another campaign (smaller group 5 players) called ‘A Dream of Galifar (Cyre United)’ (CU) that I started 14 Eyer 992. In this campaign I have been able to play two stories this far: ‘Recruitment day’ and ‘War! (Heroes of battle?)’. Those I wrote my self and in this storie I also use texts in between to create an atmosphere. One of my player once gave me a painting that he hade made, on it there was a mystic figure hided in a cloak and in his hand he hold the object of studied and it was the earth. I got it because he thought that it was a god description of my storytelling technique and I don’t want to disappoint them so off cause both stories are woven together. This far I have only ideas of how I will work this out (I have used some NPC in both stories and in the last path of CU I put the characters in a situation that the characters in the Astof campaign will investigate in their next session). Well I think I start whit a brief presentation of the different characters: Here are the Astof characters and their start lvl: Lothos (Male, Human, Monk 1) Lothos lost his family as a childe during the last war, all he remembers is the horrid night when the soldiers came and killed his family and burned their estate. He was saved by a lady called Nyarlin that used magic to save him. She placed him in a monastery to the Sovereign Host and there he was raised by the books. He has now left the monetary to find new knowledge on the way. Gera (Female, Shifter, Ranger 1) Gera was raised in Eldeen Reaches and in early age she was involved in the guerrilla war, where she lost many friends and her family. When the war ended she felt urged to leave her home and when the druid Nyralin needed someone to look after a young Aundarian monk Gera was the one to accept the call. Vlad From Rekkenmark (Male, Human, Wizard 1) What ever could go wrong when wrong when Vlad glowed up, he’s father left he’s mother went crazy the only comfort he found at a local magewrite. But Vlad’s mind never settled and one day he got the idea that his teacher was a fool so he killed him stole his spell book and decided to travel to Sharn for “glory and power”. Gunloda (Female, Dwarf, Fighter 1) Gunloda always got in her bigger brothers shadows, and on the party when she hade a bit too much to drink she made a wove she now wish she never hade done. She left Mror Hold and started travel towards Sharn, and when she one night found a lost human in the forest she helped him and found out that they hade some similar goals, well glory is nice and money gives power right? Lady Aribeth d’Deneith (Female, Human, Dragonmarked, Fighter 1) Lady Aribeth was raised in an enclave in Cyre, because of her Dragonmark she had a quite protected childhood that finally (in her teenage “rebellion”) made her go to war for Cyre. She served well and on the day of mourning her patrol was way down in Darguun on a mission. The patrol found it’s way to what would become New Cyre but divided up. Whit out no true goal and no country she decided to go to her house enclave in Sharn to make up whit her family. Tinker (Male?, Warforged, Artificer 1) Tinker remember his birthplace in Cyre, remember the war. Now when it’s over he has nothing to do. So he follow his only fried from the war, Aribeth is nice. Gundigot Eckel Gostigotel (Female, Gnome, Bard 1) Gundigot wants to write the perfect chronicle, she wants to be the best of the best, most famous reporter for Khoranberg. She’s a gnome so off cause there is more to her then one see at first, her father disappeared at the peace negotiation in Thronehold, her mother is rumoured to be aligned whit the Trust. Well when she arrived at the first tower she met a lot of nice people and when she explained that she was really small and Sharn really big they all realised that together the would have a much bigger chance to get what they all wanted, Fame. And here are the CU characters and their start levels: Untamo ir’Thelem (Male, Human, Aristocrat 1) Untamo is rased in one of the oldest noble houses in Cyre, but it’s a house that have stayed well out of the politic arena and instead involved it self in decadent and amoral behaviour. Now the other families have started to accuse ir’Thelem for being cowards, so Lord Aun decided to send his grandson to apply to the defence of Cyre. Something Untamo aren’t to pleased about. Arden Akkalah (Male, Human, Expert 1) Arden comes from a quite influential family of merchants. He lost his mother and father early and if it wasn’t for his sister’s marriage whit house Deneith he could have ended really badly. He moved in to an enclave and started working for them in exchange for quite a good life. He finally fell in love whit one of the houses daughters, namely a young lady called Aribeth. When the leaders of the enclave found out about the romance they hired Arden to the army of Cyre. Degen Jaezer (Male, Human, Expert 1) Degen once owned a Inn in southern Cyre, where he lived a quite good life whit his wife and two children, but then the Goblins came, burned the village to the ground and whit it his tavern, and they took his son Rislinto as prisoner. He sent his wife to security in Eston and travelled to Methrol to recruit him self into the army. Darakath Ahn (Male, Human, Expert 1) Darakath is a hunter from south-western Cyre, he lost his whole family to the Valenar and he hates them. He have promised him self to be as good as them in the art of stealth and he will kill them. Quite soon he also realised that alone he could not do much so he travelled to Methrol, not to defend his country but to kill, Elves. Cadwyn (Female, Human, Warrior 1) Cadewyn comes from a shoemaker family, but to be able to support the family her father sent her to the local lord (of house ir’Thelem) to be trained as a soldier. When the war got close to the region he took his court and moved to a relative out of the war zone and Cadewyn boiled of anger inside, so one night she escaped this decadent court and travelled to Methrol to fight for her country, Oh beautiful Cyre. Ok, that’s the two tropes in a short summary. I will post more soon just realised that the time is more then I thought it was and I have some other things to do now.
Pigus Wgmmg 12-27-05, 03:30 PM	First post was a”short” description of what I have played and a short introduction to the characters. In this post I’m going to give some back story to the characters that I have based on their backgrounds: Astof: Lothos The player of Lothos wanted to come from a noble family that have been killed so he would be “the last Heir” of its lineage. I thought it was workable and told him that he was from western Aundaire. So who killed his family and why? And how come he’s alive? Well my Idea was simple, Lothos family opposed First Warlord Adal so Adal decided hat “the wild beasts” of Eldeen Reaches was easy to blame if one of the families on the front where to be killed. Now the druids (I have not decided what sect) found out about it and sent one of their own to save their oldest son. The idea is simple if Aundair make a to big effort to get back the land who happens to tell the right owner of the borderland about who killed his family. If Aundair do nothing well, keep him away and all is fine. Gera I have yet to build up some master plan behind her but she is sent out by the druids to keep Lothos away from Aundair and Eldeen Reaches. She has made a lot to play on her self that makes it ok to wait whit master plots behind her character. (Been active in the war, her grandma telling stories about the lycanthropic purge and so on (she have humans as favoured enemy)) Vlad From Rekkenmark I made some plans binding him to Kaelys Tela (from Fallen Angel) before that adventure, the player feel that this character doesn’t fit in the group and have made a new one (no one except me and him knows that yet). So he is soon an NPC, and who dosent whan’t a crazy wizard as NPC. (By the way, Kaelys is a young Silver dragon working for the chamber in my campaign and I will eventually assassinate her so they finde out about it, but that’s far from where we are now.) The new character is a male human warlock who got his power by bargaining whit the fairies from Thelani, but more on him later. Gunloda Gunlodas brother is a part of the Aurum and wanted to recruit her. But the leaders are sceptic and what to test her so they arranged the scene where Gunloda was provoked into the wove that she should do a little bit more then she might be able to do. And now they have people that spy on her. (I have mad this clear whit atmospheric text between the sections but I have not confronted her in game whit it yet.) Lady Aribeth She is a dragon marked and I liked the idea of dragon marked being connected thru their marks (sharing destinies). So I have made this “paranoid” Half-orc of house Tharashk that have turned up now and then, nothing big have happened this far but it will come. (He is paranoid cause he feels like he’s being abused and manipulated by “the big ones” and I have mentioned him in connection whit Kayles and other NPC’s in texts in between sections (he spies on Gunloda for “the dwarfs” in one)) Tinker Tinkers have no actual plot yet but I have been trying to give him interesting points, like the meeting whit Smith, Crucible and Blue in ‘Queen Whit burning eyes’. Any ideas are welcome. This far I can say is that he doesn’t like lord of blades but is more into Smith’s idea of being Onatars chosen. I might introduce him to a warforge following Blood of Vol just to see what happens. Gundigot Well, her father disappeared during peace negotiations. In CU the characters will be there so that’s a story to come. Her mother is rumoured to be a part of the Trust, well I’m not sure yet but I know for sure when they come to Zilargo in ‘Whispers of the vampires blades’ I will have a gnomish funeral (as described in another post on this board, whit telling of her secrets). In the end of Fallen angel they killed the Memelith in the end (well to be more exact Gunloda got bored of talking to it and brutally cut it down). So I thought, hmmm this is great the dead one still want to talk to someone so I gave Gunloda the Memelith status instead of the level everyone ells got, and there I have a great plot generator from now on. Now over to back stories of CU Untamo Hey his family scream of corruption and no intention of doing anything good for Cyre. No talk about it Lord of Dust here you go. So he is a member of a family that have more then a few agents for the lord of dust and now after 2 sections he have started to understand that something is terribly wrong whit his family. Cadwyn More to come but she have worked for Untamos family that’s say something. Degen Well his son is kidnapped by the Goblinoids, what would make that worse? Someone ells want him to, hmmm, I haven’t used Blood of Vol yet. So I thought, his wife (he gave me a name that I thought sounded a bit elven) so if her family (Jaezer) is an mixture of humans and half elves, and long time ago the elves who mixed whit them was of the Vol line, no one would remember but Vol her self and she would look out for anything that even sounded like a dragonmark. Well an aberrant mark did turn up on Degens son, he don’t know cause the son only talked to his mother that promised not to say anything before checking it out (she hade no clue what it was). And a rumour started to spread. When he got kidnapped it was bad, when a Karrnathi General “popped up” and started asking question about his sun claming to searching for him “to become Immortal” it got worse. But more on that later. Arden Bind his story to Aribeth, whom I already have bound by her dragon mark as mentioned above. Well what to do but to make him a “dreamer” that never will get what he wants. Hey, that’s mean but well I’m a mean storyteller. But not that mean I have letting him get more knowledge about what going on then the others he now have a mentor (I will come to that later), and I have allowed him to get some minor psionic training. I use psionic in Eberron as something coming from Dal Quor so only Kalashtar and dreaming dark/inspired can be psionics. (one can play the substitution variations for shifter and changeling but whit some minor changes but not counted as psionics). So he got something special but will be a sad character. Darakath I have still to come up whit something here. Next will be about what have happened to this poor souls :P
Pocalem 12-27-05, 04:18 PM	Sorry to disrupt your posts, but you said you needed something for Tinker. If you check Hellcow's personal website, he has some unofficial Eberron NPCs. One of them, a magewright, relies on 3 warforged, and he mentions in its write-up how to connect another warforged with him. Could look into that.
Pigus Wgmmg 12-27-05, 05:01 PM	Ok, thanks for that advise Pocalem i will check it out :D Astof this far Here I will tell you how the Astof campaign have gone this far. I mostly have used bought material and therefore won’t go in to details about it only exception is for interesting situations and special differences. Text produced before the gaming session I: I produced three short texts that I posted to the players before the game (they are in Swedish so I only tell shortly what they are about) In the first one Vuulaytherus (yes the dragon) is studying some piece of the dragon prophecies talking about events to come. In the second is thinking about being used by both Kaelys Tela and Adal ir’Wynarn and the text reefers to things that later will come up to play. The third one is about two dwarfs in Mror talking about “her” and how she swallowed the hook so now they only have to get spies to follow her. It all starts in ‘The first tower’ where the character meets and are introduced to each other and to Sharn, where they search shelter in ‘Tooth & Nail’. I gave them some time to feel on the group whit no real action. Then a young Half-Elf searched them out and said that ‘Flamewind’ wanted to see them at Morgrave University. They agreed and where showed to the university, where they also meet a paranoid half-orc named Narik that mumbled about being used by “them”. I made the Flamewind meeting as confusing as possible (I played it really fast whit no time for interaction, cause I know that the most fun games are the one when I leave things for the players to try to figure out. (In an old vampire game I gave them a prophecy that they spent an hour per session to discus in character and we played it once a week for over a year)). I made it short only to introduce Narik and Flamewind for later. “The game have begun, there is players on all sides who want you as their piece. Don’t enter the mouth of the dragon because it will swallow you whole” And then they where asked to leave, and Narik left as fast as possible leaving them to get more in to their characters. And on their way back I started ‘the forgotten forge’ and played it without to much change in it. But we hade a great scene when they wanted info from Skakkan the goblin trader. First Vlad bought some rat to his Bat and started asking subtle questions, when Aribeth thought it was going to slow so she openly offered him ten Galifars to tell them where to go, Lucy for them they succeeded whit their intimidation not to get robbed after that. Text produced before the gaming session II: Here I produced three text again. The first one about Sgt. Dolom taking a beer whit his cousin Kafton discussing the problem in the cogs. Dolom remember these adventures he meet a week back or so in a murdercase that might be wiling to help. “And by the way Kafton, it’s a dwarven lady that doesn’t seem married and you know what our family thinks about you being a bachelor”. The second one is called ‘now and then’ and is written I two parts, the first one is about one youngster arguing that someone have to do something about the prophecy while the old one says no, the argument ends whit a fast fight and the young one flees into the night. (“Kaelys” fighting whit Vuulaytherus way back in time). The second is about Kaelys ready to start the game and how she has manipulated Narik. The last one is a letter to Vlad from Kaelys, she praise him and his own studies of magic and offer him some spells and her teachings. (A way to give him his new spells for going up in lvl) I first have about a week of downtime letting them try to get work and other stuff they like, they sell of what they got during the first section and Aribeth gets her self and Gunloda some simple guard jobs via her house. (Vlad happens to both get a good friend and deeply insult members of the Death gate adventure guild in a try to become a member). The player of Lothos hates me because he did the worse fort save and got sick for most of the downtime. Second of is ‘Queen with burning Eyes’. Some small changes in the story, Gunloda thought Kafton was too weak so she was not interested in marriage. The most interesting scene was after searching thru the complex (only talking to the kobolds (I made them more whit accesses to parts beyond the players reach)) they came to the room whit the “Queen” and there the kobolds decided that it was time to do something about these intruders and stormed them so they hade to flee. When they came to the room where they hade the rope to clime up everything when smooth until only Gera and Lothos was left down there, and they starts to argue of who should go up first as the kobolds showered them whit arrows. Well they got out but were really angry at each other (IC). They got back and got poisoned buy the Nobleman except Tinker that thought it was a good idea not to fight the one that was there to abduct them, and then tey kicked the ass on the queen and it was a “happy ending”. Text produced before the gaming session III: Here I produced two text again. The first is short and is called ‘Wait’ and goes something like “An motion a eye cant understand, not even the dragons can interpret the motion. Xulo smile, Xulo waits” (a little different actually but it got the point) The second is in three parts, the first is in Syrania and describe how Sythrael gets banned, the second describe Sythrael arrogance when he tries he can fight the Lord of dusts and how he gets turned into stone and the third part describes when the the green glass tower falls. Here I hade another downtime, Gunloda got a dream about a graceful man called Thakakadharath that warned her for being ”here”. (More to come on this). Vlad get more friends in the adventure guild (he dose not offend any more) and the other works. And here I played ‘Fallen Angel’ some minor rework made it one of the best sections this far. I succeeded in playing Kaelys so that everyone felt that she was a bit creepy whiteout doing her obviously “evil” (I have not decided if she is evil but what I meant is that the players said they thought she was a bit creepy but “not a bad guy”). Lothos got his wisdom drastically lowered by the Alipph (well I deemed that Kaelys paid for him to get it healed even though that was a bit nice for my usual style but the player made a really god journal and played really well on his tormented mind so I deemed that it was a good reward for good playing). And as I mentioned before the Memelith moved to Gundigots mind when Gunloda killed the first one. That’s how far I have played this far whit this part. I have made four scenes that I have put out and waiting for next part. First one is about Kaelys feeling happy about how the other succeeded and how this will help her in her fight whit the Lord of Dust. And how she thinks that she is right and Vuulaytherus is wrong. The second is about Narik spying on Gunloda for “the dwarvs” The third is about Gunloda and Gundigots new house (they decided to hire a house together after the last section) and how Gunloda is going crazy because of the strange noises and stuff that’s happening. (Off cause I asked the player for permission before posting it). The last one is in three parts, the first is about ol’ grandma Ebinor opening her door to see her son who have been in the war. The second is about Ot a changeling seeing ol’ grandma Ebinor open the door and feel tat he cant say that here three children have died. And the last is about ol’ grandma Ebinors brother beating up this “thief/murder/changeling” because of doing this horrible….. Well it’s a rework of steal this hook and that’s what I’m up to next section. I will start of Shadows and on the way to Darguun they will be forced to make a judgement on Ot and his crime. (Vlad will leave them I Sharn and another character will be on the journey so this is a way to get them together, and most of them I Lawful or good or both and it’s fun to see how they judge him, he have broken the law but for a good purpose) In next post I will start describing what have been going on in CU and there I will give you more details cause most is written by my self even though I hade to “steal” the idea of the “cow from hell” from Hellcow (reworked though)