Campaign Story Arc with the Lord of Blades [Archive] - Wizards Community

Campaign Story Arc with the Lord of Blades [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Tukadian
03-08-08, 05:13 PM Okay I have the following story arc started for my players. It's fairly largescale and a lot of it will be behind the scenes. Anyway read on and suggestions are welcome.

Overview - The Lord of Blades is attempting to enhance his Warforged army, as well as recruiting and secretly creating more, in order to declare an independant nation called Forgehome in the Mournland. He has several plots in order to accomplish this, and they are all interlinked.

1) Inciting hostilities between Thrane and Breland to draw attention away from Forged actions and weaken future opponents - They already don't get along so well, so the set-up is good. Any overtly hostile action that the Forged make will be under the guise of Thrane or Brelish soldiers or citizens. Also helping on this front is a changeling named Riot who is working under several assumed identities for the Lord of Blades. He travels between nations inciting riots, leading lynch mobs and attacking national symbols. He will also attempt to drag Aundair into wherever he can, just for added confusion.

2) Stealing Conductor Stones - One of his Lieutenants is a superb artificer and has much interest in the Conductor stones. They have been salvaging them to build an underground railroad to speed travel around the mournland and for a variety of other weapons. For use as a high powered magical ram to batter down the walls of fortresses, and to use as a rail-gun type launcher to launch aerial units from a land platform.

2.5) Stealing Lhazaarite ships - This is for the attack on Sharn and to launch an expedition to Sharn. It will be done as covertly as possible, by a platoon or so, of Warforged dedicated solely to the task.

3) Attacking Sharn - This is for two reasons. First is to steal a few Warforged components integral to his plan. They are stored in Morgrave University. He plans to enhance his personal disciples and himself, and he needs a particular Docent from Xen'Drik which will help him in the later phases of his plan. The second reason for the attack is to simply throw Sharn and Breland into chaos, as well as announce himself as the ruler of his new nation.

4) Stealing Xen'drik Artifacts - He knows that his races origins lie in Xen'Drik, and he has devoted significant resources to recovering them. This is accomplished through several routes. a) Legitimately buying them from Wayfinder Foundation expeditions (Done by a human proxy of course) b) Stealing them from Universities and Collectors (Done by talented rogues and assassins in his ranks) and finally later in the game c) Leading an expedition to Xen'Drik himself to look for a final clue in what created the Mournland

5) Once all of this has occured he must make a final trip to Argonesson in which he has to deal with a few Dragons to get them to come back to The Mournland with him and create a safe zone within it for his capital. This will be done using an Artifact he recovered in Xen'Drik, which his Docent told him was integral to the creation of the mourning and it's reversal. What he does not know is that Riot, his changeling spy, has been mind controlled by an Illithid minion of the Daelkyr. When Riot learned of his plan to steal the Docent, he snuck in ahead of time and replaced it with a fake which was actually a Daelkyr bound within a Khyber shard and cunningly magically camouflaged to hide the fact. Since the Lord of Blades had stolen the fake he has slowly been going mad from the Insanity leaking into him and more importantly the Daelkyr has lied to him and the artifact combined with the Dragons magic will actually tear a portal open to Xoriat instead of creating a safe zone. If this happens it is a mad race to close the portal, and the PC's will even have to team up with the renegade Forged in order to stop the Mad Plot.

Now because the Daelkyr are involved in this any attempts that the PC's make to stop the LOB will be noticed by Xoriat and they can sure expect a few Illithid, Beholder and other Abberation types to interfere. Oh and the attack on Sharn is going to be huge. Launched from the sea, with living spells, warforged titans and winged forged flying around the towers just causing widespread havoc.

Anyway any suggestions for ways to flesh it out would be great, as well as any ways you can see other factions getting involved in the whole conflict. I was thinking maybe getting the Drow of Xen'Drik allied with the party after the LOB steals their artifacts.
Shady314
03-09-08, 05:31 PM 5) Once all of this has occured he must make a final trip to Argonesson in which he has to deal with a few Dragons to get them to come back to The Mournland with him and create a safe zone within it for his capital.

Safe zone? How do you mean? The Mournland is already perfectly suited to warforged.
Tukadian
03-09-08, 07:09 PM Safe zone? How do you mean? The Mournland is already perfectly suited to warforged.

Well sure they don't have to worry about healing and what not, so a lot of the natural hazards of the mournland don't amount to much, but there are a lot of threats besides. Who wants a living spell to materialize within your kitchen, or have a main city street that randomly shifts throughout the city or starts bleeding every day at noon. It's a comfort thing; and besides the Daelkyr in the docent has started to corrupt the LOB so he would see the reason in making the city out of pancakes if it wanted him to.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Tukadian 03-08-08, 05:13 PM	Okay I have the following story arc started for my players. It's fairly largescale and a lot of it will be behind the scenes. Anyway read on and suggestions are welcome. Overview - The Lord of Blades is attempting to enhance his Warforged army, as well as recruiting and secretly creating more, in order to declare an independant nation called Forgehome in the Mournland. He has several plots in order to accomplish this, and they are all interlinked. 1) Inciting hostilities between Thrane and Breland to draw attention away from Forged actions and weaken future opponents - They already don't get along so well, so the set-up is good. Any overtly hostile action that the Forged make will be under the guise of Thrane or Brelish soldiers or citizens. Also helping on this front is a changeling named Riot who is working under several assumed identities for the Lord of Blades. He travels between nations inciting riots, leading lynch mobs and attacking national symbols. He will also attempt to drag Aundair into wherever he can, just for added confusion. 2) Stealing Conductor Stones - One of his Lieutenants is a superb artificer and has much interest in the Conductor stones. They have been salvaging them to build an underground railroad to speed travel around the mournland and for a variety of other weapons. For use as a high powered magical ram to batter down the walls of fortresses, and to use as a rail-gun type launcher to launch aerial units from a land platform. 2.5) Stealing Lhazaarite ships - This is for the attack on Sharn and to launch an expedition to Sharn. It will be done as covertly as possible, by a platoon or so, of Warforged dedicated solely to the task. 3) Attacking Sharn - This is for two reasons. First is to steal a few Warforged components integral to his plan. They are stored in Morgrave University. He plans to enhance his personal disciples and himself, and he needs a particular Docent from Xen'Drik which will help him in the later phases of his plan. The second reason for the attack is to simply throw Sharn and Breland into chaos, as well as announce himself as the ruler of his new nation. 4) Stealing Xen'drik Artifacts - He knows that his races origins lie in Xen'Drik, and he has devoted significant resources to recovering them. This is accomplished through several routes. a) Legitimately buying them from Wayfinder Foundation expeditions (Done by a human proxy of course) b) Stealing them from Universities and Collectors (Done by talented rogues and assassins in his ranks) and finally later in the game c) Leading an expedition to Xen'Drik himself to look for a final clue in what created the Mournland 5) Once all of this has occured he must make a final trip to Argonesson in which he has to deal with a few Dragons to get them to come back to The Mournland with him and create a safe zone within it for his capital. This will be done using an Artifact he recovered in Xen'Drik, which his Docent told him was integral to the creation of the mourning and it's reversal. What he does not know is that Riot, his changeling spy, has been mind controlled by an Illithid minion of the Daelkyr. When Riot learned of his plan to steal the Docent, he snuck in ahead of time and replaced it with a fake which was actually a Daelkyr bound within a Khyber shard and cunningly magically camouflaged to hide the fact. Since the Lord of Blades had stolen the fake he has slowly been going mad from the Insanity leaking into him and more importantly the Daelkyr has lied to him and the artifact combined with the Dragons magic will actually tear a portal open to Xoriat instead of creating a safe zone. If this happens it is a mad race to close the portal, and the PC's will even have to team up with the renegade Forged in order to stop the Mad Plot. Now because the Daelkyr are involved in this any attempts that the PC's make to stop the LOB will be noticed by Xoriat and they can sure expect a few Illithid, Beholder and other Abberation types to interfere. Oh and the attack on Sharn is going to be huge. Launched from the sea, with living spells, warforged titans and winged forged flying around the towers just causing widespread havoc. Anyway any suggestions for ways to flesh it out would be great, as well as any ways you can see other factions getting involved in the whole conflict. I was thinking maybe getting the Drow of Xen'Drik allied with the party after the LOB steals their artifacts.
Shady314 03-09-08, 05:31 PM	5) Once all of this has occured he must make a final trip to Argonesson in which he has to deal with a few Dragons to get them to come back to The Mournland with him and create a safe zone within it for his capital. Safe zone? How do you mean? The Mournland is already perfectly suited to warforged.
Tukadian 03-09-08, 07:09 PM	Safe zone? How do you mean? The Mournland is already perfectly suited to warforged. Well sure they don't have to worry about healing and what not, so a lot of the natural hazards of the mournland don't amount to much, but there are a lot of threats besides. Who wants a living spell to materialize within your kitchen, or have a main city street that randomly shifts throughout the city or starts bleeding every day at noon. It's a comfort thing; and besides the Daelkyr in the docent has started to corrupt the LOB so he would see the reason in making the city out of pancakes if it wanted him to.