Hi folks,
As you may know, I'm working on a new episodic-style campaign. I want to emphasize teamwork, as it's something my group really struggles with. I gave them a number of campaign setups oriented around being part of a team, and they've opted for having a patron or mentor who offers their PCs training, guidance, and leads on adventures (the examples I gave them were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Kung Fu Panda).
Here's what I'm thinking about the mentor:
He's actually a silver dragon who poses as a retired adventurer. For whatever reason, he has this grand vision of assembling teams of heroes and sending them out into the world to "do good". Of course, being a dragon, he's also hoping these heroes will (unwittingly) bring him more treasure for his hoard.
As a silver dragon, he'll have some kind of fancy house in a city and probably also an estate in the country, like a typical aristocrat. He may even *be* an aristocrat, I haven't decided yet.
Anyway, he likes to hang around taverns and the like, keeping a watchful eye out for anyone who looks like they might have hero potential. He's handpicked the PCs to be his latest batch of heroes and has given them a good amount of training. The first adventure I'm going to run is bawylie's tutorial dungeon, which I'm going to present as the mentor's "final test".
If the PCs pass the test, he'll declare them ready and send them on their way. Most of the time, they'll be acting autonomously, but he may sometimes give them specific missions to do. The main thing is that he'll provide them with a safe place to rest and to train, give them guidance when they need it, grant them access to his extensive libraries (and later on to his magic item collection) and influential connections.
Speaking of which, perhaps some of these influential connections are other metallic dragons in disguise. Maybe there's like a secret league of them - one of each color - and they've all got posh jobs. Maybe the gold dragon is a judge or a king or something, while the bronze dragon is an admiral. The copper dragon might pose as a famous bard, while the brass dragon poses as the lowly bartender in a posh pub. Just off the top of my head here. Anyway, the PCs might occasionally get to interact with these guys and do jobs for them too (or get favors from them and stuff).
Another thing I'm thinking about is giving the PCs some kind of magic device that lets them teleport back to a safe location, perhaps in the silver dragon's townhouse, on his country estate, or somewhere similar. Kind of like in the Diablo games. But the catch is that it's only one-way. So they can't use it to escape a tricky situation, rest up, and then pop right back in again. Mostly it's to let them get back to base quickly once they've finished a mission. If they use it as a "get out of jail free" card and decide they want to try again, they'll have to go back to the adventure location the long way, which gives their enemies time to regroup and get reinforcements and the like.
I'm thinking maybe they've got some device that opens a magic portal, but the only people who can go through the portal are people wearing a special ring that is keyed to the portal. So monsters can't follow them through it.
That's about as much as I've got so far. What do people think of that?
Has anyone got any advice on running a campaign where the PCs have a mentor or patron? What are some Dos/Don'ts of this style of play? Obviously I want to steer clear of making the patron a DMPC or anything like that.
Any questions or suggestions or advice or any other kind of constructive comment are more than appreciated!
Thanks,
Jonathan
I really like what you've put so far. At first blush the magical device seemed a little over-powered, but then I thought 'how many fantasy movies and novels are out there where the heros are given some kind of magical gift or rare artifact that gets them out of a jam down the road? Nearly all of them.'
I would make the mentor caring, but not forecoming with info. S/He tell the party what they need to know for their mission(s). Each mission the patron can be a little more open with the info as he feels he can trust them. Hopefully it plants seeds of curiosity among the party. "What's he really up to? What is this all about anyway?" Get them to want to come back for more missions - though the temptation of the library and collection of magic items might be enough.
Oh, and do the characters know that their patron is a dragon?
So you want to give them a "Rope of Dungeon Escaping" (from an old Ultima version)? Explain its limitations beforehand and see how they use it. Eventually it WILL be like Chekov in Star Trek 4: "Scotty, now would be a good time!" but most of the time they will check that all mission goals have been accomplished / tried and deaprt at their leisure.
Re: league of disguised dragons. Wait a bit and see how they react to the original patron. If the group buys in without issue, introduce the others over time. Do the dragons cooperate, compete, or something else? (I doubt they would fight directly, but I CAN see a race between two pawn groups to locate some singular object for their respective patron before the other group can grab it.)
For variety, have the group meet with a green(?) dragon (whichever color likes to manipulate other beings) who is not disguised, as part of getting the information they need to succeed in their real quest. This dragon will probably want to get a look at whatever they are REALLY doing, and decide if he wants to horn in on it.
rivals.
agents working for another dragon perhaps, or dragonslayers hunting for 'hidden' dragons, inquisition style. perhaps several dungeons are actually old hoard sites for fallen dragons and the mentor seeks specific items from them.
what setting are you using? perhaps include a dragon inquisition where dragons have been hunted down and are in hiding. maybe even forcing all dragons to work together. most dragons do not get along well together, even the good ones.
I like the concept, and I think it would be interesting to work out the backstory of the mentor more. Has he done this before in the past? What happened to his last group of students? Did they die? Or did they perhaps turn against him? Perhaps an evil dragon claimed his last group of adventurers, and set them on a path to destroying the mentor.
It would also be interesting to give the mentor a more important goal. Increasing the size of his hoard is nice and all, but not exactly a big plot point. Maybe there is something far more important that he is after? Maybe he is unable to turn back into his dragon form, due to a curse?
akr71 wrote:
Love the concept.
Just a random thought. As people have already mentioned. Why are the dragons in non-dragon form? Why are they working together in some capacity?
Maybe because something (???) has and still his hunting down all dragons. The dragons are essentially in hiding. They are doing this not only to maintain power but ultimately stop this creature/magic/whatever it is using these adventures as their weapons.
Just a thought 
Akrean wrote:
I played with a novice DM who used a very similar setup, and disliked it very much.
It always felt too convenient that our mentor had more knowledge and resources than the party, and yet wanted us to do his bidding. Not fun. Agency needs to belong to the players. Players need to feel in control of their own fate, and not like they belong to the hand of a mysterious NPC mentor. Your setup gives agency to a mentor NPC instead of the players and their PCs. That's bad.
It might be cool to meet a dragon NPC eventually, but I would keep him mysterious and singular. How would you like it if you discovered that you've been the pawn of a dragon? Now you find out there is a whole network of dragons? Feeling small yet? Not something I'm interested in after working my character up several levels, thank you very much. Way to make me feel like a peon again. Not interested.
Let the dragon NPC give them a one-time boon, perhaps as simple as saving their lives as part of the beginning of the campaign, and then disappear. Maybe 10 levels later, they find him, but wounded. He reveals his secret, and asks the PCs to do something important. The PCs are free to decline, of course, but won't as long as they trust the NPC. The dragon can reveal a hidden treasure or reward to the party, and this can set them up against a big boss. All the prior adventures should feel small compared to this new mission. Now they are taking on the mission their savior had failed at...now they are in a different league!
Qzoo wrote:
I like the idea that the dragons are in hiding, which was mentioned earlier. Maybe a threat is out there, that is hunting these dragons for their magic? What you could do, is use this concept and slowly weave clues to a greater plot in the short adventures that you throw at them. Perhaps a little bit about the truth is revealed with each adventure, and perhaps the players slowly learn things that even their mentor does not yet know. The players then have the agency to share this information with their mentor, or not. This allows you to slowly hand more and more agency to the players.
Don't forget to give this "dragon league" enemies. Someone hates these dragons for something, and will either try to kill the party out of spite, or will try to sway the party into,thinking the dragons are actually enemies.
Conflict adds drama.
Yeah, I'll definitely think about doing stuff like that. I don't want to spend too much time on that kind of thing right now, as I won't really know how much attention the players will give their mentor and his friends until after we've been playing for a few sessions. It's possible they'll get bored with the idea of having a mentor early on and just want to go their own way, which is fine by me.
By the way, I've come up with a good way to start my campaign:
I'm going to run a reskinned, non-FR version of the "Trouble in Red Larch" section of Princes of the Apocalypse, just as a way of letting the players put their new PCs through their paces and such. I've also got a new player joining us who's played D&D in the past but hasn't yet had a chance to try out 5e, so I want to start things nice and easy so he can find his feet before we dunk him into the deep end.
Anyway, the idea is that once they've had a few little mini adventures, word will get out that these guys are real heroes in the making. The patron, who lives nearby and frequently comes into town, catches wind of this news and decides to invite the PCs to dinner at his estate. One of my players is going to miss out on our first session, so I'll have his PC also show up at the dinner as someone whom the patron recruited from elsewhere or something. Over dinner, the patron will reveal his grand plan to put a team of heroes together to go out into the world and do good deeds (and acquire ancient artifacts in the process). Of course the PCs will all agree, and so the patron will give them a "test" (which is bawylie's tutorial dungeon).
Once they've passed that test, he'll give them each an identical magic ring. The idea with the rings is that anyone who wears one can use it to open up a one-way portal to a specific place. This makes it so that any of the PCs can open the portal, rather than only whichever one is carrying the device. But the thing is that you can also only go through the portal if you are wearing one of the rings. I might, at some point, have a villain figure this out and try to steal a ring so he can follow them through the portal, but I'd only ever do that once and only if it makes sense.
I wonder if I could make it so the rings have other powers too, though. Like maybe when the PCs are wearing their rings, they can all sense each other's location and distance and whether or not they're alive or dead. Maybe they can even use the rings to cast message to each other. Maybe the rings can be used to cast the light spell too. Lots of neat little utility effects these rings could have. I'll have to give it some more thought ...
My main advice centers on your return teleport idea. Helpful to get the PCs "home" after an adventure without worrying about playing out the fact they are 3 montsh from home by horse. However, subject to the abuse of diving into a dangerous situation planning on 'porting out at will. Make it to the bottom level of a dungeon leaving lots of mad and alive foes behind or attack the BVandit King then run up into the hills and t-port away. Make it a ritual object that takes ten minutes to use. Maybe a hulahope type ring that all have to hold. If it only works will all party members present then they have to have team work if they want the easy way home. (You can decide if a dead hand layed on the ring works so they can get back for a Raise Dead).
You will need a role play reason why the dragon doesn't just go take care of some things itself if they know the mentor is a dragon and they are not like 15th level. Perhaps it is to keep his identity a secret from the Dragon Hunter Society, or it made a vow not to move more than 20 miles from the town for X number of years, etc. Or maybe it's kind of a jerk that likes punt humanoid mortals to struggle.
WorBlade wrote:
As far as dragon leagues and possible other adventure hooks and the like go, I immediately thought of the Dragon Council from Knights of the Dinner Table.
In short, their patron (as well as a group of other dragons) have invested their hoards in one way or another. Maybe they have a futures contract on wheat or maybe they bought bonds from Generic Kingdom #1.
The missions are thus informed by their desire to protect their investments and thereby grow their hoard. This might lead to him yelling at the PCs for something that they thought was fine (most notably collateral damage. Perhaps he wanted them to save someone to help bring down the price of wheat, and they save him but burn down his wheat fields sending the price sky-high. Their patron would not be happy with them.)
I might scrap the league of dragons thing and just stick with the one for now.
I've had some other ideas:
- Perhaps the dragon is trapped in a specific humanoid form. That would prevent them from getting about without being noticed so easily. Part of their motivation for training the PCs might be to get them to help look for a cure (without necessarily telling them that that's what they're looking for).
- Along those lines, perhaps the dragon has some other problem. Maybe it's blind in both humanoid and dragon forms and hasn't ever been able to find any magic that will restore its vision.
- If I make the patron a gold dragon, that could help explain why they don't go out and do stuff themselves as much. Gold dragons are aloof and private and prefer to make their homes in out-of-the-way places. Perhaps the dragon poses as a hermit, occasionally wandering into town for food and news.
- Or, maybe the PCs *don't* get a patron as such, but instead a gold or silver dragon takes a fancy to them and keeps an eye on them, occasionally giving them guidance without them necessarily realizing it. So like, one idea I had for this campaign is that the PCs might occasionally bump into a character inspired by Choose Goose from Adventure Time. They might be able to get some fun magic items from him when they meet him. They might also be able to get news or rumors or adventure leads. Perhaps this wandering court jester-ish peddler is really the dragon in disguise and their "chance meetings" aren't as random as they seem.
If I did that, then perhaps the PCs don't get invited to dinner. Perhaps instead they receive an anonymous tip to go to some place, where they end up in the tutorial. When they pass the "test", then they are greeted by the hermit or whoever, but he doesn't take them on as his permanent students. Instead he gives them a bit of training (enough to get to 3rd level) and then sends them on their way, but occasionally pops back into their lives at "random" times, partly to see how they're doing and partly to give them some gentle nudging.
I'm thinking kind of like what the god Paladine does in the form of Fizban in the Dragonlance Chronicles.
In situations where a mentor character DOES work, like Kung Fu Panda, etc, is where the PCs are gathering information and concocting goals, but go to the mentor for advice and information relevant to the plan the PCs wish to pursue. The mentor doesn't go personally due to advanced age, debilitating condition, or they run the risk of attracting bad attention if they show themselves (a bad group could have banished the mentor from the land but does not recognize the protégés).
Instead of the mentor having their own plot they push the PCs along, however, consider the mentor having their own project, and the PCs having theirs, and it gradually becomes apparent to both mentor and students that the two projects are connected, and at that time the mentor reveals herself/himself/whatever to the PCs. If you choose this set-up, try littering hints early on: times when the mentor was out "seeing a friend", or wanted the PCs to deliver a package "as long as you're going in that direction".
The mentor's motive in training the PCs could be to carry on an art, to lend stability to a troubled region, or because the PCs pre-campaign had insisted to become the mentor's students for their own reasons, each proving themselves worthy in their own way (in fact, each player coming up with how their character proved their worth could really build character).
You can also emphasize the group nature of the PCs by havng multiple "schools" of adventurers in the region (perhaps some of the best are led by different dragons). Getting an idea from varied NPCs the reputation of the school to which they belong, the PCs may feel it is up to them to protect (or redeem) the reputation of their school.
Well, as I said, the mentor thing isn't going to be the primary focus of the campaign. I'm mainly going to be using it in place of a faction (I had previously considered having the PCs be members of an adventurers' guild). Their mentor will mainly be there to give them guidance, as well as to provide them with a safe place to rest and train. Occasionally the mentor might ask them to do something for him, but the majority of the campaign will consist of the PCs acting autonomously. The main thing is that the mentor will have, hopefully, taught them to live by the code of the silver dragon: do good deeds, don't cause undue harm to the undeserving, and actively oppose those who openly commit evil acts and/or harm the innocent.
That's it really. If my players want to make the mentor more of a focus, that's cool. I'll endeavor to work them into the story more. If not, that's fine too. Since this is going to be an episodic campaign, a lot of the mentoring can take place off-screen as well.
In terms of specifics, since I'll be using Red Larch and the early 1st-2nd level adventures from PotA, I'm thinking I'll make it so the dragon is the (mostly absentee) lord of the region. With silver dragons, the book says they often go off to tend their hoards only to return many years later to find that the humanoids they'd befriended have died or whatever. So I'm thinking that the mentor will pose as an elf or half-elf who is rarely at home. In fact, sometimes maybe the mentor takes on a different disguise to go into town and spy on the locals to see what they're up to or whatever.
If I go with a gold dragon, that could work too. They could be a sort of absentee landlord. Or it could just be that the locals know there's a hermit who lives in the hills nearby ... but little do they know that the dragon also takes on the guise of a peddler when he wants to come into town and find out what's happening.
So many ideas! It's hard to choose. At least I've bought myself a few more weeks before the mentor will actually show up in the game.
I really like this concept. I don't really think there's a problem with having the mentor give them quests, leading them along to some purpose or another, so long as the PCs do have autonomy, which I do believe you've stated they have. They can always refuse a quest and decide to set out on their own, or change the parameters of a quest on the fly if they feel it wise/necessary/more exciting.
I say go with the silver dragon. I like the idea of him being trapped in humanoid form for some reason or another. Maybe it's a shameful secret, some kind of punishment? Maybe an old enemy did this to him, and that enemy is a danger to the kingdom/region/whatever. The dragon knows his old foe needs to be put down, but in his limited form he cannot do it, so he seeks to turn the PCs into heroes capable of taking big ol' baddy down. Perhaps the foe is so fearsome that he keeps the true purpose of his mission a secret, knowing that if the PCs knew what they were up against they would never agree to help him because they don't think it's possible for them to beat this enemy, even when they are stronger.
DM_Craig wrote:
I love the concept so far and may very well blend something like it in with my current campaign.
pukunui wrote:
I love it. I'd probably spend a lot of time designing all the secrets in the inn. It could be a ton of fun for the players to slowly discover how magical the inn really is.
Maybe there's an extra floor that you can only visit if you walk backwards up the steps.
Maybe the mirror inside one of the wardrobes is also a portal, but it is missing a shard, which they find somewhere else.
Maybe one of the bedrooms has a magical doorknob, that you can unscrew, and attach to other doors, to open portals.
Maybe the paintings in one of the halls are also magical, and show an image of the worlds that the inn links to.
The rooms themselves can be portals. I suppose if actual guests stay at the inn and they get sucked to some other part of the continent or another plane, it could be bad for business...
Unlocking the door with a magical key opens a portal rather than to an ordinary guest room at the inn. If you feel the party is itching for some freedom to explore, the mentor goes off to check on its hoard... mischief ensues
bakerjw wrote:
pukunui wrote:
The mirror-portal could lead to a hallway with other mirrors.
Much like Monsters Inc, the door-portal only works if the thing is intact. One tiny splinter missing will mess it up. Can you locate the splinter that came off THIS door, please?
At some point, the PCs might find a portal to someplace that they will want to run back home in haste and shred the door themselves before nasty things can catch up to them.
I'd definitely play up the Harry Potter vibe with this. Turn the inn into a magical theme park of magic and wonder. Don't just stop at the portals. Maybe everything in the inn is magical?
-Maybe even the decorated railings of the stairs have images of dragons carved into them, which are animated, and alive.
-Maybe the inn has many strange magical drinks in between all the normal wine bottles, and how weird would the wine cellar then be?
-Maybe the knockers on the doors of the inn can talk, and can share gossip with the players. (Like in the movie Labyrinth)
-Maybe some of the tapestries come alive when you stare at them for a while, and they show ancient events
-Maybe the fireplace is enchanted, and never runs out of wood. Maybe the burning embers are revealed to be tiny fairies up close.
-Maybe the wood carvings on the doors of the rooms react to things they see. If the players undress, they cover their eyes, for example.
Imaculata wrote:
Neat ideas! I think I'd prefer to keep the magical nature of the inn subtle. There'll be at least one wardrobe that leads to another place (eg. Narnia). There'll be at least one tapestry that you can step through to another place (eg. the hunting lodge from HotDQ). There'll be at least one magic carpet that opens into a pocket dimension (eg. the Minotaur's Labyrinth from the AD&D 2e Treasure Chest supplement). Perhaps everything appears mundane unless you know what to look for. Or maybe you somehow have to be in on the secret to notice these things. Maybe you need some magical artifact. I dunno.
I ran my first session of the new campaign on Friday night. The players really enjoyed it, and they seemed to hit it off well with Kaylessa. One of the PCs is a dwarf, and his player decided he'd never seen an elf (or a half-elf) before, so he decided he was quite smitten by the woman, hanging on her every word. For instance, one of the other characters asked her about the history of the old tombs in the hills, and I had Kaylessa reply that she could tell them a bit but that she didn't want to bore them. The dwarf's player replied, "Nothing you say could ever be boring!" 
Now here's the thing: one of the PCs is a dragon sorcerer. Her heritage is a red dragon but she's not evil. She was described to me as being like an anime character that is all sweet and charming and demure until she gets angry. Like Unikitty from The Lego Movie. Anyway, since she has draconic heritage, and since this gives her a bonus on Charisma checks to interact with dragons, I feel like I should be dropping some hints about Kaylessa's true nature. What do you guys think? I don't want it to be so obvious that the player figures it out right away ... I want it to be something that she might wonder about for a while.
So like maybe I could have her character get woken up in the middle of the night one night because she thought she heard footsteps and what sounds like the murmurings of magic. If she goes out to investigate, she finds Kaylessa looking somewhat guilty out in the hall. If confronted, Kaylessa will say something about how she was just checking on the inn's wards or something ~ when in fact she was using her magic to try and find out about the sorcerer. Something like that.
Sounds like you're off to a great start, and everyone is having fun. Keep us up to date, and we may have more ideas for you further into the campaign.
Thanks! Will do.
Add the sorcerer's +2 bonus "behind the screen" - until she makes a roll (with mods) and somebody else with the exact same roll (with mods) fails it. That should set her to thinking. Give her a week or so to cogitate, then side-session her to point out the mechanical "+2 to CHR rolls vs. Dragons" feature. Let her bring it up to the table and talk over what it might mean. Let them do some of the work for you, by setting out a (non-fatal) Mystery to solve. Who knows, they might come up with some cool background story in the process.
Yeah that might work. Thanks.
OK so now I'm kinda feeling like I've painted myself into a corner by having the PCs' mentor be tied down as guardian of the inn's portal network. I did that as a way of clipping her wings, so to speak, since I made her an "all powerful" dragon rather than a regular humanoid like the PCs. But at the same time, I now feel like I have to make it so they can get back to the starter town easily in order to have regular access to their mentor. And yet, that magical one-way teleporting device just seems a bit odd now. It doesn't really feel like it fits with what I've established for the dragon. I've made her an innkeeper rather than a noble. She shouldn't necessarily have a whole lot of whizzbang gadgets at her disposal. She's not running some top secret organization for which the inn is just a front.
She's just a silver dragon who made a solemn vow to watch over and protect the strange network of portals that happen to have cropped up in this country inn.
I also feel like it doesn't make sense now that she'd give them any sort of formal training or send them on a "test" mission or anything. I'm thinking maybe she just teaches them to "unlock their inner potential" and tries to encourage them to do good and oppose evil and stuff like that. Her inn can be a safe place for them to rest. Maybe she has contacts who can help them in other ways.
What do you guys think? Should I still give them some kind of special device? Perhaps it's a ring or an amulet or something similar that gives them one-way access to one of the portals in the inn, so they can get back there easily enough if they want to. But if they were to then turn around and access the portal from the inn's side, it wouldn't take them straight back to the same place they'd just left. I don't want it to be Diablo-esque two-way town portal thing where they can just jump back into town, sell their loot, heal up, then jump right back to where they were before. I want it to be a hard decision. I want it to be that if they choose to teleport out of the dungeon, it's because they're either finished or they're aborting the mission. If they abort and later decide they want to go back, then they've got to go back the long way, which means the bad guys have time to recover and prepare.
But does it make sense that the guardian of the portal network would have something like that? What do they call those teleport things in Harry Potter? "Portkeys"? Maybe she's got something like that. All the PCs have to be touching it and then someone has to perform the ritual or whatever to make it work, but it's hardcoded to only take them back to the inn. Maybe the dragon doesn't know why it was made; she just knows that it "came with" the inn. (I've already established - in my mind at least - that she's not the original guardian of the inn.) And she's willing to lend it to a group of adventurers who prove themselves trustworthy. But what if they lose it? I suppose she'd have to have the ability to shut down that portkey. Or maybe to change the access codes. Maybe she has the means to create these keys too. So if one gets lost or stolen, she can still prevent unwanted access to the inn.
This is starting to sound too sophisticated.
EDIT: In addition to - or instead of - the "portkey", I could have Kaylessa give them one of a pair of sending stones so they can stay in communication with her even while they're out on adventures. They might want to seek her advice from time to time.
You'll have to make a decission whether you want their mentor to be an obvious sage, with much access to magic, or a humble tavern owner who is a dragon in disguise.I'd personally hold back on all the magic gizmos. Do you really need them to have an instant teleport device? Why can't they just travel back and forth on foot? Why not write the plot in such a way, that a return to the inn is required for more information, and for the next quest?
Ugh. Maybe I shouldn't have offered a mentor as one of the options. It would be so much easier if they didn't have one. My initial thought was that the PCs would either have a trainer or belong to a guild or something that would sort of wind them up and then let them go, and the campaign would mostly consist of the PCs just wandering from place to place doing good deeds and finding treasure in ancient dungeons and the like.
But the players voted in favor of having a patron or mentor. Unless said mentor travels with them, this necessitates a home base of sorts. Yes, I could base most of the adventures I want to run in the area around the starter town I've set up, rather than letting them range far afield across the nebulous face of the world. I mean, if they wander off and end up in a big city, why would they want to go back to some little inn in the country just because there's a friendly innkeeper there who knows stuff? There will be people who know stuff in the big cities too.
That's part of why I was thinking that a one-way teleport back to the location of the mentor would help. It would give them good reason to regularly go back to their mentor.
Add to that the idea that there's this inn full of portals to other places, and the PCs could end up just about anywhere. They need a way to get back to where they started - at least if they want to be able to regularly access their mentor.
I think the idea of a mentor could work fine. Maybe the mentor has a special adventurers guild, and everyone who proves himself (by doing a quest) is given a magical mark. Only by joining hands and reciting a sacred chant, can they teleport back to a chamber inside the inn. This way they don't need to carry an item around, and they can't travel back and forth. The mark is only visible on the hands of the players, when it is magically revealed, or being used. But otherwise it seems to vanish after a few seconds. Reciting the chant takes about a minute, and is not something that can be done in a hurry or during combat. And they need to be together for it to work. If one of them is missing, they can't teleport. Perhaps this is a rule the mentor enforces to make sure that the group does not fall apart, nor leaves people behind.
Imaculata wrote:
BRJN wrote:
OK, so I'm quite liking the idea that there's this semi-secret Jedi-like organization called the Order of the Silver Dragon. It was perhaps the Jedi Order of its age, but since the empire it served fell long ago, it has faded away into obscurity. Now there are only a handful of adherents out there still dedicated to fighting the good fight. The order's tenets are founded on the "code of the silver dragon" (that is, do good deeds, don't cause undue harm, and oppose those who openly commit evil acts or harm the innocent; also, seek out lost lore and ancient relics [because those are the sorts of things that silver dragons like to collect]).
With that in mind, Kaylessa the innkeeper could still either be a real silver dragon herself, or she could be a half-elf sorceress with silver dragon lineage. I'm not fussed either way really. The latter might make more sense. I dunno.
Anyway, once the party has finished with the "Trouble in Red Larch" mini-campaign, I'll have Kaylessa try to recruit them into the order. Because the order is so diminished from its glory days, Kaylessa is essentially operating on her own. For all I know, maybe she's the last one and she's trying to keep the dream alive by recruiting worthy heroes. Whether or not there are others, the chances are that the PCs won't ever meet them during the course of the campaign. Or maybe they will. Who knows?
The thing is: before they can join, Kaylessa makes them take a test, and here's where I'm stumbling a little bit. I have some ideas on what I want the test to be like (it's meant to be something of a team-building exercise, where the goal is less about successfully completing the mission and more about bonding and learning stuff about yourself and each other and how to work together), but I'm not sure how to insert it into the campaign world plausibly. Back when I was planning on having the PCs be part of an adventurer's guild or something, the test was going to be just that: a test to see if you were good enough to join the guild. I had planned to have it be physically set on the plane of Ysgard, so that death wouldn't be permanent, and the opponents were essentially paid actors (or just the spirits of dead warriors spoiling for a good fight).
Now, I could still do something like that and say that it's a remnant from when the order was strong and had proper initiation rituals and all that ... but does that make sense? If the order is so far diminished as to be practically non-existent, wouldn't it make more sense to have something more like Luke's training with Yoda in the swamps of Dagobah than the training that padawans underwent in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant before the fall?
I could, however, make it a genuine quest. Perhaps she sends them to find something and it just so happens that the encounters are set up as a kind of tutorial / test. I'm really liking the idea of doing something similar to the Urn of Sacred Ashes quest from Dragon Age: Origins. When you finally figure out where the ashes are, you go to this remote village full of cultists, and you have to fight your way through cultists guarding a ruined temple and a dragon hatchery cave before coming to an Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade-like "gauntlet" called the Test of Faith. There you have to answer riddles, solve puzzles, fight shadowy versions of yourselves, and walk through fire to get to the urn.
I want to do something like that, where the goal isn't necessarily to get whatever I put in place of Andraste's ashes. The goal is to learn about yourself and your teammates, to build trust and openness. See my other thread about "teamwork tests" for more.
EDIT: I should probably also make it so the PCs are tested on how well they are able to uphold the order's tenets. They've already done some good deeds by helping out the townsfolk of Larchwood. They've also shown that they can refrain from causing undue harm by taking the bandits captive instead of slaughtering them all and even going so far as to help one escape the hangman's noose by setting her up as a chambermaid in the town's boarding house. And they're currently showing that they will oppose those who commit evil acts and harm the innocent by combating the necromancer - and will do so again later when they take on the evil cultist corrupting the town's elders. So as a final "test", she can send them on a quest to retrieve an ancient artifact for her. It could be a random thing, or it could be something she needs to use as part of the ritual to induct the PCs into the order.
What you could also do, is have them perform a test where they discover which tenets best fit them. Perhaps the original founders of the order all had their own tenets associated with them, and together they formed various aspects of the complete doctrine. Perhaps inside an old temple they have a test set up that makes them face moral choices, and will eventually reveal whose teachings they will follow. Once this has been determined, maybe the next test will be to step into the footsteps of that founder, and walk the path that he/she once walked. This could reveal a lot of lore regarding this particular character, and about the history of the order.
Because what is it that the order does exactly? Do they just fight evil, and do good? Or is it more complicated than that? What are the rules and limitations in which the order operates, and how do they pick a side in a dispute in which the bad guy is not so clear cut? These are interesting themes to explore, and you could perhaps even throw some interesting philosophy in there.
As for the portal, perhaps the silver dragon/sorceress has some sort of scrying device so that she can keep tabs on the party. If they get into a situation they can't handle or are in desparate need of healing/rest she can open a portal for them at her end. No magical devices necessary, no worries about consious or living party members - the party just has to haul the others with them.
You could include a passcode or secret word to get her attention - that could lessen the feeling that they are being watched every second.
Imaculata wrote: