Post/Author/DateTime	Post
twilightronin 11-03-06, 10:38 AM	a few years ago dragon and dungoen mags did a thing on a githyanki invasion and how to run it in your campaign. i've wanted to do it for a long time and i think i'm going to now so i can accomplish some goals that i think my characters and my player's characters are both capable of and deserving of. we've been playing for a long time and have characters of various levels, classes, and races. i, for one, had a neutral drow long before ra salvatore started the craze. i spent many monthes infiltrating menzoberranzan, and building my minor evil house into a powerful "secretly" neutral house, using the menzo boxed set. when salvatore blew up house oblodra my wizards were there plucking the nobles from doom, right under loth's nose. i have an army of three thousand good-neutral drow stranded in menzoberranzan. we've got epic level characters to rival the great npcs of faerun, but nowhere to really call our own. since our characters became powerful and numerous, i've wanted them to have a nation of their own. that's what powerful adventurers would do, just like the explorers of centuries ago in the real world. the borderlands and bandit kingdoms are just not exciting enough. so i was thinking, i should start a new campaign in the moonshaes. i figure that when the time comes, if the players are successful, the moonshaes are isolated enough and minor enough to be ruled by the characters and not have it disturb the official history of the realms. it is close enough to the sword coast that i can launch the invasion in the savage north and have it dramatically effect the moonshaes, but not immediatly. there is a small community of elves in the moonshaes, dying out by low birth rate. in return for assisstance in repulsing the githyanki i could bring my drow from menzoberranzan to the surface, and have them live among those elves. i thought i could tweak the "against the giants" and "spider queen" adventures to work it into the story. the campaign would finnish up with the characters killing the lich-queen, breaking the githyanki incursion, claiming the realm of the moonshaes as their own, and founding the first neutral drow surface city in thousands of years. what do you think?
Zsych 11-04-06, 04:05 AM	I'm not sure I would kill of the lich-queen. There's something to be said for long term, powerful and extremely ****** baddies... plus, if she were easy to kill, she wouldn't have been around so long. Dark elves living with elves also seems like a stretch to me(doubt that even liberal dark-elves could accept them). But as far as other races go... I would think that if you have to live and fight together with a people for a fair amount of time, that you'd grow to accept them. Shouldn't let it become a simple rescue though.. let the people you're helping and joining have some standing as well(meaning that they should have a fair number of people, some background, and some powerful characters). Them allying with you just because they know they can't stop you from coming in and taking their homes would be a bit sad. (also, I'd expect some interference from the Realms more powerful NPCs.. however you use them) ------------- I feel uncomfortable giving advice to DMs who've done a lot more of it than I have :) ... Still this looks to me like something that should be done in a complicated way, over months.
lavekkia 11-04-06, 10:11 AM	i m running the same campaign but expanded to include all Realmspace and i'll strech it to epic levels (my Vlaakith is 40th lvl) Ask info if you want some help; maybe i could also ask you some ideas ;)
twilightronin 11-04-06, 01:08 PM	zsych, the adventure in dungeon mag allows for you to kill her, it almost seems as if you have to do away with her just to break the githyanki invasion, with their plane shifting and all... i think you're right about the drow and elves living together. like the middle east, the hates been there too long to just wash. how about just a drow town somewhere off the beaten path in the moonshaes? forgive me, but i don't understand the context relation with your third paragraph. please explain. and absolutely will the npcs of the realms be taking a part. lavekkia, oh my incursion will span the whole of faerun, the moonshaes will be somewhat of a "last stand" bastion. do you have the dragon mag that details how to run it? what level were you characters when you brought it in? how closely did you follow the guidelines? thanks for responding, both of you. i am glad that i have some people to bounce ideas around with, without giving up info to the players.
lavekkia 11-04-06, 01:33 PM	My players started from lvl 12. I have Dr309, Dun 100 and Poly 159 and pretty much everything published regarding githyanki. The invasion will place in the moonsea, Halruaa and Waterdeep (the last one is only a big diversive) Githyanki will invade also a region in Kara Tur, Anchorome and Osse. They will also settle for a base on the planet Karpri and try to wipe out the planet Glyth. Vlaakith has made use (and will do it again) of higly destructive epic spells and very complex tactics to get rid of powerful characters. I haven't deteiled everything (expecially after lvl 22) but the campaign will deviate from the guidelines (especially because the characters are not native of Toril, they came from mystara and also because i will include many elements from spelljammer)
Zsych 11-05-06, 12:26 AM	@lavekkia: Sounds nice. @twilightronin: I recall reading the adventure at some point, but don't recall the exact details. Not killing the lich queen rather, is something that I would do(although you would need to stop most of her forces).. Or you could make the attack in waves, with the first attack being more of a recon mission(but still managing to worry some nations very seriously.. and giving you some interaction with the lich queen somehow.. enough to annoy her :)) As for drow on the surface, Elistraee's drow are probably around somewhere, but I don't know much about them. They would certainly appreciate help from other decent drow. As for my third paragraph. My point was that if your characters can match some of the strongest in the Realms, then you would probably be far stronger than the people you mean to join(though I suppose if you want a country completely ruled by you, that might be alright). If you are too powerful, then the locals become insects and the place becomes primarily what your characters choose, rather than retaining a fair amount of it's own nature. .. there should be the possibility of interesting (non-master/servant) interactions, with the people in your country, even after the githyanki invasion is done with.... and for that, they too must have a fair amount of power, and must bring something valuable to your alliance(IMO, that means lore, magic items, and some powerful characters at least.. even if they were previously not well known(or are basically just your own creations :)) in FR. Let some of those characters be good and bad(siding with you out of necessity), and things could become somewhat more interesting. (then again... I suppose it all depends on how much time you spend RPing in your campaigns). btw, what's the situation with the lich-queen's phylactery? I'd expect it to be nowhere you can find(on some far off plane, and well hidden to boot). If you can't actually kill the lich-queen, and she wises up after the first near kill.. you'll need some other way to stop the githyanki forces.
miscellany 11-05-06, 02:27 AM	Don't mind me, I'm just reading and taking notes from all the good ideas and points made so far. Can I add that in a totally extreme end of the world scenario elves and drow just might be forced by circumstance to learn to work together? Another feather in the player character's cap if they could accidentally accomplish the previously unimaginable.
Zsych 11-05-06, 05:59 AM	Short of the war managing to last several hundred years. I think that old attitudes would return. Some people may have become more open minded, but most people(especially elves with their longer lives), don't change so easily. If it lasts only a few months, I expect that attitudes would end up changed little, and they'd be eyeing each other again(with people who ended up actually working together with dark-elves and having their lives saved by them, possibly taking a different view.. but most people would not find themselves in that position... Most elves would maintain no more than distant contact with the dark-elves except when necessary even in battle.. likely expecting some back stabbing or a long evil plot)