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Campaign Idea help.

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
bennyg
Sep 06, 2010 13:15:19 I have a campaign idea that revolves around white skinned fay called Elivanin. Essentially when the first defiliers started drawing life from Athas, these fay wanted to wage war on Athas to destroy all traces of the arcane from the world. Unable to get the rest of the fay to agree, they retreated underground in the Faywild creating the Underfay. They cut all ties to the surface and used the primal and psionic powers at their command and created a race build for conquring Athas. Rendering themselves resistant to the Arcane as well as becoming veritable masters of psionics, the Elivanin bred and built for war. In recent days their shamen have deemed it time to reenter the Faywild and start their conquering of Athas. When they reopen their path to the surface, they find the Faywild devistated, only pockets left, seperated from each other and only connected to the deep wastes of Athas. From their they send out scouts to infiltrate the cites and gain as much reconnasiance as possible then they start their invasion.

In my ideal, this will take place in the paragon tier with the players, at least the more skilled ones, having gotten clues about the invasion. Also in my idea, there will be something tying them to Athas as defenders against the invasion. I don't think I will even require them to be non-evil. But the Elivanin have two goals, wipe out the arcane in its entirety, defiler or preserver mean nothing to them and enslaving/killing everyone else on the face of Athas. Only when the world is completely conquered can they start to rebuild. But I need adventure ideas for the heroic tier to carry them into the war.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks,

BennyG
#2
lord_rock
Sep 06, 2010 13:44:07 lvls 1-3
Heroes are for hire merc's traveling the wastes, slaying monsters, investigating ruins. To culminate lvl 3 they fight a big baddie in the ruins, find emmense wealth, and in trade thier former masters employ them to run the trade business in a new location. These ruins are near the new locations. Ruins have unidentifiable carvings/language that talk about the world beyond.

4-6
Heroes learn the trade gig. They are now centrally located in a city and fight off/ally with the local gang, templars, and maybe get into slaving or gladitorial works. Thier own caravans begin to get attacked by an unknown elf tribe in the nearby wastes.

7-10
Inside the walls business is up. Outside the city it is way way down. They go back out with thier caravans and discover the unknown tribe of elves are the Elivanin. Track them back to the ruins they first encountered and discover thier plots. Thier new homes and their buisness is now on the line...
#3
jedi_revenant
Sep 06, 2010 16:50:35
From my point of view you have 2 ways in this idea:

First: The PCs work in behalf of athas, or the sorcerer kings. In this way you may let you players use arcane magic, even take the templar theme and so on... You can make your Characters be good, fighting to defend athas, or be evil, fighting for the kings, for the "survival" of arcane magic.

Second: The PCs work for the fay. Here I cannot came up with a quick way to the PCs get envolved with the fay. But there is a lot of things you could do! They can even work for the fay with no knowledge of that.

Can i use the begin of your Ideas for one of my own?
#4
naxel
Sep 07, 2010 20:35:51 These mystical fey you're describing sound similar to how the setting guide posits eladrin: ancient, bitter fey whose world has been literally crumbling away at the hands of defiling magic, and they've become masters of the psionic arts instead of arcane.

Maybe keep that in mind? It doesn't change too much I guess, just sort of gives you a foundation for mechanics and possibly fluff
#5
bennyg
Sep 08, 2010 9:56:53 @goldomark: I don't have any PCs yet. I would like to fully flush this idea out before I make the game.

@Lord-rock: I like the basic idea, though I was thinking it would be a novel idea if the PCs were actually given the option of being tied to a particular DK as templars or warlocks (or both). One of the things I really loved about the Prism Pentad by Troy Denning was the fact that none of the main characters were necessarily good. Tithian was certainly evil and I would like to give players the option of being like that but motivated by a common purpose.

@Jedi_Revenant: I would like the PCs to be part of the first. I want the Elivanin to be evil. Most of them would purge the world of Athas of all sentient life as it has clearly let the world get to this point. Although they will use agents in the beginning, they will betray them once their powerbase is large enough to sustain their plans. I am thinking they will take a city over, killing the Dragon King in it and that will be their base of operations on Athas. And yes, you can use my ideas. I will be placing their writeup in my profile after this post.

@Naxel: The elivanin see the eladrin as fallen cousins. Even thought they gave up their arcane ways, they did not side with them back when they went into hiding and now have failed the world of Athas because of it. Although an eladrin would probably be the only race of PC that they would truly consider allying with but he/she would never be considered an equal.
#6
bennyg
Sep 08, 2010 10:02:16 Here is my writeup for them:
community.wizards.com/bennyg/blog/?messa...

#7
bennyg
Sep 10, 2010 8:14:46 I love the response so far, but could still use some more help. I am not used to coming up with ideas for players who could, and likely will be, evil as well as good or unaligned.
#8
citizencoyote
Sep 11, 2010 0:19:44
I love the response so far, but could still use some more help. I am not used to coming up with ideas for players who could, and likely will be, evil as well as good or unaligned.

Remember that evil is not necessarily homicidal, it's just as likely (if not more so) to simply be self-serving. The main difference between a "good" and "evil" character can be attributed to altruism. A good character will help the little old lady across the street (or through the desert) simply because it's the right thing to do as she'd get run over or eaten on her own. The evil character may also help her, but doing so will directly benefit him and he ultimately won't care what happens to her once that benefit comes to fruition.

With that in mind, the way to properly motivate unaligned and evil characters is to impact them directly. Something they value must be threatened sufficiently that they are forced to deal with the problem. Lord_rock's idea of the players becoming part of a merchant house (or running their own) is an excellent example of how to do this, but it doesn't have to be monetary. It could be their pride, reputation, or even their freedom. Or, the group could be in the employ of a sorcerer-king, and it is his/her interests that are threatened so s/he sends the party out to deal with the problem (and one can think of all sorts of clever ways an SK might motivate reluctant lackeys).

The only approach that won't work is trying to guide them via the "for the good of Athas/civilization" approach, unless/until it threatens them directly and isn't something they can just weather by hunkering down and ignoring. By then, of course, it's moved beyond altruism and into survival, and that's the key for dealing with non-good characters.

#9
lord_rock
Sep 12, 2010 17:14:53 If you're wanting them to get hooked up with a templar or Sorc King the merchant house they are originally funded by can be funded by the templars or socr king. If you want more templars and warlocks involved they have to pay "protection money" to keep running thier business or eventually the local templars make it so impossible to do business and suddenly offer "buy them out". Suddenly business is easy and the templars offer to let them keep thier jobs and still run the business but make them do things that are borderline evil. PCs eventually find out the templars were making it impossible to run a successful business behind the scenes in order to take it over.

The whole "evil" aspect can be played out as your PCs are forced to do less than good things to make thier business survive. Business is about $ but the ways in which you make $ are often not tied to money changing hands: bribes, threats, scams, set ups, false reports... But in the end every $ you earn is a $ someone else loses and in the "small" market of 1 city your winning business can easily be mirrored and seen by the place across the street having hard times and slowly closing down and falling into seedy business to survive (even have them play it up as the PCs fault for doing such good business!).

You are taking from people and trying to give as little in return. Your "evil" PCs will emphasize this thinking more in thier business ventures (as well as being told by thier superiors they need to keep finding ways to improve profits and given "evil" examples of how to do so) than your unaligned or even good PCs.

As citizencoyete says: survival has to be threatened to really feel the difference in non-good and good PCs. Its how they react in response to the threat that determines alignment.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 bennyg Sep 06, 2010 13:15:19	I have a campaign idea that revolves around white skinned fay called Elivanin. Essentially when the first defiliers started drawing life from Athas, these fay wanted to wage war on Athas to destroy all traces of the arcane from the world. Unable to get the rest of the fay to agree, they retreated underground in the Faywild creating the Underfay. They cut all ties to the surface and used the primal and psionic powers at their command and created a race build for conquring Athas. Rendering themselves resistant to the Arcane as well as becoming veritable masters of psionics, the Elivanin bred and built for war. In recent days their shamen have deemed it time to reenter the Faywild and start their conquering of Athas. When they reopen their path to the surface, they find the Faywild devistated, only pockets left, seperated from each other and only connected to the deep wastes of Athas. From their they send out scouts to infiltrate the cites and gain as much reconnasiance as possible then they start their invasion. In my ideal, this will take place in the paragon tier with the players, at least the more skilled ones, having gotten clues about the invasion. Also in my idea, there will be something tying them to Athas as defenders against the invasion. I don't think I will even require them to be non-evil. But the Elivanin have two goals, wipe out the arcane in its entirety, defiler or preserver mean nothing to them and enslaving/killing everyone else on the face of Athas. Only when the world is completely conquered can they start to rebuild. But I need adventure ideas for the heroic tier to carry them into the war. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks, BennyG
#2 lord_rock Sep 06, 2010 13:44:07	lvls 1-3 Heroes are for hire merc's traveling the wastes, slaying monsters, investigating ruins. To culminate lvl 3 they fight a big baddie in the ruins, find emmense wealth, and in trade thier former masters employ them to run the trade business in a new location. These ruins are near the new locations. Ruins have unidentifiable carvings/language that talk about the world beyond. 4-6 Heroes learn the trade gig. They are now centrally located in a city and fight off/ally with the local gang, templars, and maybe get into slaving or gladitorial works. Thier own caravans begin to get attacked by an unknown elf tribe in the nearby wastes. 7-10 Inside the walls business is up. Outside the city it is way way down. They go back out with thier caravans and discover the unknown tribe of elves are the Elivanin. Track them back to the ruins they first encountered and discover thier plots. Thier new homes and their buisness is now on the line...
#3 jedi_revenant Sep 06, 2010 16:50:35	From my point of view you have 2 ways in this idea: First: The PCs work in behalf of athas, or the sorcerer kings. In this way you may let you players use arcane magic, even take the templar theme and so on... You can make your Characters be good, fighting to defend athas, or be evil, fighting for the kings, for the "survival" of arcane magic. Second: The PCs work for the fay. Here I cannot came up with a quick way to the PCs get envolved with the fay. But there is a lot of things you could do! They can even work for the fay with no knowledge of that. Can i use the begin of your Ideas for one of my own?
#4 naxel Sep 07, 2010 20:35:51	These mystical fey you're describing sound similar to how the setting guide posits eladrin: ancient, bitter fey whose world has been literally crumbling away at the hands of defiling magic, and they've become masters of the psionic arts instead of arcane. Maybe keep that in mind? It doesn't change too much I guess, just sort of gives you a foundation for mechanics and possibly fluff
#5 bennyg Sep 08, 2010 9:56:53	@goldomark: I don't have any PCs yet. I would like to fully flush this idea out before I make the game. @Lord-rock: I like the basic idea, though I was thinking it would be a novel idea if the PCs were actually given the option of being tied to a particular DK as templars or warlocks (or both). One of the things I really loved about the Prism Pentad by Troy Denning was the fact that none of the main characters were necessarily good. Tithian was certainly evil and I would like to give players the option of being like that but motivated by a common purpose. @Jedi_Revenant: I would like the PCs to be part of the first. I want the Elivanin to be evil. Most of them would purge the world of Athas of all sentient life as it has clearly let the world get to this point. Although they will use agents in the beginning, they will betray them once their powerbase is large enough to sustain their plans. I am thinking they will take a city over, killing the Dragon King in it and that will be their base of operations on Athas. And yes, you can use my ideas. I will be placing their writeup in my profile after this post. @Naxel: The elivanin see the eladrin as fallen cousins. Even thought they gave up their arcane ways, they did not side with them back when they went into hiding and now have failed the world of Athas because of it. Although an eladrin would probably be the only race of PC that they would truly consider allying with but he/she would never be considered an equal.
#6 bennyg Sep 08, 2010 10:02:16	Here is my writeup for them: community.wizards.com/bennyg/blog/?messa...
#7 bennyg Sep 10, 2010 8:14:46	I love the response so far, but could still use some more help. I am not used to coming up with ideas for players who could, and likely will be, evil as well as good or unaligned.
#8 citizencoyote Sep 11, 2010 0:19:44	I love the response so far, but could still use some more help. I am not used to coming up with ideas for players who could, and likely will be, evil as well as good or unaligned. Remember that evil is not necessarily homicidal, it's just as likely (if not more so) to simply be self-serving. The main difference between a "good" and "evil" character can be attributed to altruism. A good character will help the little old lady across the street (or through the desert) simply because it's the right thing to do as she'd get run over or eaten on her own. The evil character may also help her, but doing so will directly benefit him and he ultimately won't care what happens to her once that benefit comes to fruition. With that in mind, the way to properly motivate unaligned and evil characters is to impact them directly. Something they value must be threatened sufficiently that they are forced to deal with the problem. Lord_rock's idea of the players becoming part of a merchant house (or running their own) is an excellent example of how to do this, but it doesn't have to be monetary. It could be their pride, reputation, or even their freedom. Or, the group could be in the employ of a sorcerer-king, and it is his/her interests that are threatened so s/he sends the party out to deal with the problem (and one can think of all sorts of clever ways an SK might motivate reluctant lackeys). The only approach that won't work is trying to guide them via the "for the good of Athas/civilization" approach, unless/until it threatens them directly and isn't something they can just weather by hunkering down and ignoring. By then, of course, it's moved beyond altruism and into survival, and that's the key for dealing with non-good characters.
#9 lord_rock Sep 12, 2010 17:14:53	If you're wanting them to get hooked up with a templar or Sorc King the merchant house they are originally funded by can be funded by the templars or socr king. If you want more templars and warlocks involved they have to pay "protection money" to keep running thier business or eventually the local templars make it so impossible to do business and suddenly offer "buy them out". Suddenly business is easy and the templars offer to let them keep thier jobs and still run the business but make them do things that are borderline evil. PCs eventually find out the templars were making it impossible to run a successful business behind the scenes in order to take it over. The whole "evil" aspect can be played out as your PCs are forced to do less than good things to make thier business survive. Business is about $ but the ways in which you make $ are often not tied to money changing hands: bribes, threats, scams, set ups, false reports... But in the end every $ you earn is a $ someone else loses and in the "small" market of 1 city your winning business can easily be mirrored and seen by the place across the street having hard times and slowly closing down and falling into seedy business to survive (even have them play it up as the PCs fault for doing such good business!). You are taking from people and trying to give as little in return. Your "evil" PCs will emphasize this thinking more in thier business ventures (as well as being told by thier superiors they need to keep finding ways to improve profits and given "evil" examples of how to do so) than your unaligned or even good PCs. As citizencoyete says: survival has to be threatened to really feel the difference in non-good and good PCs. Its how they react in response to the threat that determines alignment.