Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Fyador 07-26-03, 03:50 PM	Well met, Hopefully some of you can slice me a few ideas on upcoming adventure location. Characters are a sister (Fighter/Paladin 2/12 of Tyr) and a brother (Fighter/Rogue/Barbarian 4/7/3) from Everlund. In their earlier years they had met with a young Lord Ardenn from Waterdeep. He is 21 years old and had ran away from his family to come to the savage Silver Marches to hunt down and capture ownbears and their young. He wanted to proof to his father that he is a capable young man. Ardenn merchant family (merchant noble, I don't care if merchant nobles are canon or not. =) ) is quite wealthy but not one of the richest. Eventually his father came up to Everlund with a huge escort of guards (well, around 20) to get his son back. Characters had made young Lord's trip a success and that smoothed his father a bit (later). That made it possible for young lord to plan return next summer. This time with plans to create a trading post for their company in Silver Marches. Iron Throne had set eyes on Silver Marches trade and had heard of Ardenn plans due to spy they have in their guards. They planned and executed a ploy to capture young Lord on his way to Everlund. Characters saved young Lord but alas sister died in attempt. Brother was nearly lost in insanity and it was due to efforts of luck and good faith and a good paladin's mount young Lord managed to get dead body back to Everlund. He was aware of existence of powerful magic that can bring back the dead. Before this characters had some dealings with elves of town (high mage's brother's daughter) and elves had nothing but good to say of them. Sister was raised after a lot of effort by young lord to plea elves to do their magic. Young Lord spent winter in Sundabar with characters and left back to Waterdeep without founding a trading post. Now characters are going to Waterdeep in a few sessions and are going to be welcomed by Ardenn family. What I have in mind I'd like to put on some city adventure for them. Iron Throne will surely try something - but not too directly. I don't want to get young Lord killed and mistargeted assasination would fit perfectly (poison). Maybe somebody else is scheming as well? Surely, I try to create another merchant family (which I will have to do anyway to create more suspects) but some other ideas are welcomed as well. Characters are accompanied by several NPCs (3 fighters and one bard/rogue/fighter). They are trusted companions and none of them have any bad in mind against characters. But then again, possession is always a nice possibility. After some (say two or three) dangerous attemps merchant family must act. I was considering that they would send their son away to south or to Moonshae if possible. Or maybe something would required to send him to Silver Marches again.. And to make things even more weird. Characters believe Zhentarims are nice guys. =D They only contacted their trading post in Loudwater. They don't care about Iron Throne but they don't hate them either (since they don't know IT is behind kidnapping of young Lord). I provided some background here I hope that help you to give me some new, hopefully fresh, ideas. =) Thank you, Fyador
RatoncitoGris 07-26-03, 04:40 PM	If you plan to use waterdeed merchant noble houses (and don't worry, you did not make them up; all of waterdeep noble houses are merchant houses, though they also hold great states in the area around the city), you need to read Dream Spheres, by Elayne Cunninham. In fact, all her Starlight and Shadows series are wonderful sources of information about waterdeep nobles (Danilo Thann, one of the heros, is the youngest son of the Thann family). But Dream Spheres deals with a war (well, the start of a war; it won't be much of a spolier to say than the heros win at the end and prevenne the actual street war!) between all of the city's important Houses, and shows much about the inner, and little known, intrigues, plots and allley deals than go on the city.
Fyador 07-27-03, 01:59 AM	Now that you mention it I have read those books. Maybe I'll revisit Dream Spheres in this light. Whatever I come up with I try to avoid city wide events. There are lots of powerful figures and guards in the city - they can handle anything that comes upon Waterdeep directly. I'd like to put characters into new situation where they don't know who their enemies truly are if possible. Skullport provides nicely supplies for enemies (at least to most vile of them) but if I go with another merchant families then they have to use more traditional approach. And I try to avoid using too much magic directly. Detecting truth later will become more difficult this way. I had some great suggestions a while back when I asked help for my Calimshan campaing. =) Luckily characters don't have direct access to divinations and don't have truth revealing spells. But Tyr's paladin can summon help from Tyr's church. This paladin is not very traditional paladin. She has learn to be a paladin by following one who was actually thrown out of order due to some mishaps (I am thinking about making this known to characters. First thing that came to my mind was that this ex-paladin revenged death of his lover or bride or somebody very close to him. Too bad that revenge as such is a evil act (he only knew who did it but could not produce evidence) and killed suspect was a noble.. Later this ex-paladin ended up in Everlund and started to make good by killing trolls and giants in Evermoors - until he and most of he's party was killed (excluding characters). Since character paladin acts on instincts (she is lawful good but she is not a lawyer) and church of Tyr is closer to court they will not agree on everything very easily. One interesting thing in characters background is that she can hardly read.. So basically characters are savages and now I put them into Waterdeep schemes.. Fyador
RatoncitoGris 07-27-03, 04:08 AM	I don't really like too wide schemes either, unless my palyers are high level. I only mentioned Dream Speheres because it had lots of intirgue between noble houses, so it cuold do for ideas (note than those nobles _were_ the great houses, and yours is a minor one, so they probably could not do city-wide problems if they tried). Skullport is always a good option, since many if not all noble houses trade there (see Dream Spheres again). Just make up (or download Volo's Guide to Waterdeep, which does not explain the houses but does mention their manor houses, thus givin us the family names) seeval minor houses, shamelessly steal one or two mayor ones from Dream Spheres, draw a diagram about which house is allied or enemy of another, and decided their main goals (to become a mayor house, to get a new trade route between the city and Chult, to corner the market of calishite imports, and so on). Adventures will create themselves once the houses begin to scheme "Hear, my friends. Another caravan has been lost on the road to Lolth. I suspect it is again a plot from those cursed Capulets! They won't stop at anything to prevent us Montescus form buying Anauroch Sand! Can oyu help us?" Also, why is that Paladin an ex-paladin? I could understand than he was kicked out of his order, but wheter he had proof or not is pretty irrelevant. He is a paladin of Tyr, not a lawyer. _Tyr_ knows wether the dead nobleman did it or not. in fact, if he did the crime and managed to flee justice by leaving no proof, the paladin is not only entitled but has the duty to dispense justice (-justice_, not law!). Perharps the next time your player meets that paladin she discovers than he has started a new, secret order who searchs for criminals who have fled justice and punnishes them? You could even make it a joint order of paladins of Tyr and Hoar, since Hoar is the god of poetic justice and retribution.
Fyador 07-27-03, 07:38 AM	I started to think a while back that maybe I don't want to get them too involved in Waterdeep politics. Just enough to make them cross a family or two.. And make friends too. Thank you for your ideas, I'll keep those in mind. About the ex-paladin. Originally he was a background story to get characters involved. Why they were troll hunters and how etc. That paladin died when he made a mistake, a mistake that caused the lives of hunting party excluding player characters (they were thought to be dead by trolls and orcs). Some time ago I started to wonder why would this guy have ended up squashing trolls in Evermoors. Nothing is settled yet. =) Maybe he was kicked out of he's order and maybe he took that so personally that he stepped off the of paladin. I was thinking that maybe he actually stole something from he's order when doing so and they tried to hunt him down and to retrieve their belongings. Alas they lost him when he entered Evermoors.. After some lonely years (maybe he was even a highwayman sieging opportunities to capture caravans) he finally got over he's anger towards humanity and got he's way into hunting trolls and starting to teach younger men how to fight them. He taught them the way of justice and Tyr might have approved what he was doing. At least partially. Later when he died hunting trolls justice may have been finally happened. Would that sound too off Tyr? Basically I am after that he outstepped and overreacted and ultimately atoned he's actions and was accepted back into Tyr's grace. In that path he taught this player character paladin he's aspect of Tyr, god of Justice. This player character is not interested of laws and regulations - he wants to right the wrong and do good. But foremost characters want Everlund to thrive. But that gave me another idea. Maybe I'll try to put this character into similar situation.. Somehow. =D Heh, maybe the nobleman ex-paladin killed was NOT the right one? ;) Characters might learn of this when they puzzle their way in maze of politics.. Using that information would make character paladin to seek out answers. Maybe the families involved have something to hide.. They actually have a small job to do. In their travels (when they were doing a pay-job to retrieve a item from Nameless Dungeon in High Forest - they want enought money to build a big manor for themselves) they encountered a lost mage school student. A young woman dressed to go to picnic into Waterdeep park walking in eastern High Forest. She explained that mage school teacher had tried to make an approach on her (she was under impression that they were going onto picnic) and when she rejected she found out she was in dense forest.. Characters are *not* happy what teachers actions. I am sure they'll visit Waterdeep mage school quite early when they get there. That should prove interesting. Protecting that young woman did not make their trip any easier. And they failed to retrieve the item becouse they estimated that it was too dangerous attempt (hundreds of Tanarukk control that hill). In fight against 10 they almost got killed. It was very interesting that all that 'sidetrek' started from one random idea. The one who hired them did not tell them that it is a sacred place of elves and they did not have any previous information of the place. Thank you again for feedback. I get new ideas when I write answers to you. =) Fyador
Alac Luin 07-27-03, 01:42 PM	Just an idea, they get to Waterdeep at a time the Iron Throne is trying to frame the Noble’s family with trading slaves or some such contraband. A slave wagon was found in Skullport with the family crest, or maybe just some papers with the crest. The siblings need to track this down, find the Iron Throne agent in the Noble’s house (caravan driver or something). Then they need to clear the family name to the authorities. A rival house convinces the open lord (can’t remember name at the moment) that the PC’s are the slavers and half the time they must be running from the law, agents are even sent to Skullport to catch them.
Rinonalyrna Fathomlin 07-27-03, 09:03 PM	Originally posted by RatoncitoGris If you plan to use waterdeed merchant noble houses (and don't worry, you did not make them up; all of waterdeep noble houses are merchant houses... If fact, a large portion of the nobility in all the Realms is made up of merchant nobles. :)