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#1 EnderXenocide0 Jun 13, 2015 12:16:05	Welcome to another installment of "How my campaigns are driving me crazy and it's really all my fault because I just don't know when to stop!". Yup. So anyone who has seen some of my other posts may have started to get the sense that my campaigns are needlessly complicated and that I'm digging myself into a gigantic crater of a hole. You're probably right. But, what's a DM to do? Make things simpler? Ha! That's what you'd think I'd do, since that would avoid a whole bunch of stress, but I like to do things the hard way!   Alright, enough of that. Here's where I'm at: I'm running two campaigns in the same universe. Let's call them A and B. Campaign A deals with the Dreaming Dark and their plan to save the Quori from the Turning of the Age by moving il-Lashtavar to the material plane. Campaign B is a heavily modified version of the Age of Worms adventure path, focusing on the threat of the Daelkyr. Campaign A progressed until 4 out of 5 of the PCs were transported into a dystopian future where the Inspired had "saved" Khorvaire (in the same fashion that they "saved" Riedra). Player #5, however, went off to basic training and wasn't able to game for a while, so his character remained in the present. Campaign A reached a point where the adventurers in the future discovered how the Dreaming Dark took over Khorvaire and were each flung into different parts of the past. The campaign went on hiatus and I decided to hold mini-adventures with each of the players in one-on-one sessions I refer to as Interim Stories. Right now, I'm about to run Player #5's interim story since he's been back from training for a while.   With me so far? Cool. Here's where it starts getting needlessly complicated again. You see, the Big Bad of the Dreaming Dark (name: Dura'zhash) was also flung into the past by the PC's actions in Campaign A. At the same time... Campaign B began in the present, but they were sent back in time to 993 YK, exactly one year before the Day of Mourning. Dura'zhash has been behind the scenes, manipulating the players in Campaign B to make his plan come to fruition, since the PCs of Campaign A know how he originally took over Khorvaire. So he needs a new plan. This one involves using the resurrection of Kyuss/Dyrrn (see other post) as a major distraction for the world while he does bad guy stuff.   In a few levels, Campaigns A and B are going to merge for an adventure. Campaigns A and B both return to the present. When they do... the campaigns are going to merge for an adventure. The two groups will meet each other, realize what's up, do something together, then separate again, to combat the two fronts of the Dreaming Dark's plot. One group finishes up the Age of Worms campaign, stopping Kyuss from rising. The other group heads to Sarlona to stop Dura'zhash from bringing il-Lashtavar into the world. Right, ok, so where's the problem? Well, I'm getting there, I promise. When the two groups part ways... I'm allowing some of them to switch which campaign they're a part of. Three players are in both campaigns, so they would have to move both characters if they wanted to move either. Now, I've told them all this in advance, so they can prepare. Remember Player #5? He has decided to switch. Okay, that's fine. But the thing is: I'm not sure how I'm going to get him involved in the Age of Worms AP. I have one connection to use, and it may work, but I need some overall help. So let's talk about the character.   Versvesh'ir, otherwise known as Vesh, is a dragonborn. He is, in fact, one of two dragonborn in existence. I run 3.5 and don't use much, if any, of the changes made in 4th edition to the setting. So the fact that he's a dragonborn is very special. He's unique. He began life as a barbarian of the Seren tribes. His tribe worshipped a dragon of the Light of Siberys and, as such, he has spent most of his life taught that while dragons are gods, there are good and evil ones and his tribe was given the task of stopping any Spawn of Tiamat from escaping the shores. So Vesh's personality is a bit like Conan the Barbarian, if Conan was also a holy warrior. One day, the Light of Siberys had some trouble containing Tiamat's spawn. A few made it to the shores along with some corrupted dragons. The Light of Siberys held battle with the dragons in the sky while the tribes fought the Spawn of Tiamat. Vesh (still human) fought the Spawn's general (an evil dragonborn) and almost defeated him, but he saw a tainted dragon strike a fatal blow against his patron dragon and rushed to his patron's aid. He managed to defeat the already weakened tainted dragon, but could not save his patron. His patron gave him a scale in gratitude before dying.   How did Vesh kill the tainted dragon, you ask? Why, it's simple. He grew to enormous size and struck it down with superhuman strength! What? Yeah... so... Vesh was made when my player asked me "How can I make The Hulk in D&D and also be a dragonborn?" It may have been a poor decision for me to take this question as seriously as I did when I helped him build the character. Let's just say there's some Goliath, Barbarian, and Frenzied Berserker in that build. So Vesh can Rage, and then Vesh can RAGE. Right now, his Frenzy is involuntary, like the Hulk's initially. He has a small chance of flying into a Frenzy and growing to Gargantuan Size (I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I ever did this). So that's a thing.   Anyway, the dragons came to Vesh and told him that Tiamat's general escaped Argonessen to Khorvaire. They can't be too active in the world right now since Tiamat is already stirring and they can't risk her gaining power from their actions, so they need to send someone to track down the general and bring him to justice. They want to send Vesh, but not as he is. They use his patron's scale in a ritual that transforms Vesh into a dragonborn, like Tiamat's general was. They tell him a bit about the prohpecy and Tiamat and all, but they're dragons. They're kind of jerks to him. They don't tell him everything and they tell him not to mess things up. The Eyes of Chronepsis are upon him. Anything he does they're going to see. When he's in Khorvaire, look behind him... 'cause that's where the Eyes are gonna be. Sorry, couldn't help myself, there. So they make him a Dragonborn and send him to Khorvaire to find the general. Things go south and Vesh hulks out in the underbelly of Sharn (promting rumors of a wingless dragon down in Khyber's Gate) and then again later in Fairhaven IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY.   Shortly thereafter, the party went through a series of tests to see if they were worthy heroes. The ghost of a dragon was guiding them through the trails, seeing if they would be worthy enough to wield a holy sword it was guarding. Vesh failed (partly intentionally). He went to remove the sword from it's holder, but since he wasn't worthy, ended up breaking the sword in his attempt. At the end of the session, the rest of the party traveled to the future while the ghost dragon told Vesh he had another destiny (this was my way of writing Vesh out of the story because I didn't know if the player would be coming back any time soon). So here's where we are. I'm about to run Vesh's interim story. And I'm having difficulties figuring out where to start and what to do. Let me tell you what I'm thinking of doing so far.   1. Vesh wants to reforge the holy sword and become a true hero. I'm cool with this. I like this. We're setting up a quest right off the bat. Perfect. I had some history for the sword that it was originally forged by the now-dead dragon and a Paladin of the Silver Flame. It was meant to be a sword that was particularly good at slaying evil dragons. So my idea: for Vesh to reforge the sword, he needs to have it reforged in the flames of a dragon (Red, Gold, or Brass). That seems pretty epic to me, really.   2. Vesh wants to learn to control his rage. This is also good. The player actually gave me some ideas. He mentioned, half-jokingly, about having some blind trainer that whips him into shape and teaches him how to act (he just watched the Daredevil series on Netflix). He seems to have forgotten a little tidbit of his backstory that he came up with where he had a brother, Shadar, that was exiled from Argonessen and became a blind archer elsewhere. I can't help but use Shadar now. I mean, I was handed this on a silver platter.   3. The player wants Vesh to learn that the dragons aren't gods. Okay, I can work with this, though doing it in a single adventure is pretty quick and may require some thought. He knows a dragon in Khorvaire that helped him out at the beginning of the campaign. The dragon is not with the Chamber, but does help them from time to time. She could help out. But what I was really thinking is that he could meet peple from other religions and have a talk with them. Vesh isn't an idiot. He might not understand the customs of Khorvaire, but he's moderately intelligent. Having a priest or Paladin just discuss religion with him might be useful. What I really want to do ties in with #4 below, so let's get to that.   4. I've had this idea in my head for a bit and am too enamored with it for my own good. The ghost dragon is rapidly fading since the sword broke and will give Vesh a cryptic message that says the sword was last with the Shield of Galifar. Recover the Shield, and he'll be on his way to reforging the sword. There won't be much other information. I want the player to seek out the Shield and discover that a mad wizard collector has it in the Mournland. He collects magical oddities. Vesh will traverse the Mournland, find and defeat the Collector (who, of course, wants to collect a dragonborn), and then locate the Shield. He'll see a knight who was turned to stone (or glass, or metal, or frozen in carbonite, or something). Unfortunately, the shield he is holding was broken into pieces. Maybe during the conflict with the Collector or maybe earlier.   Either way, he revives the knight anyway (I might have to find a reason for him to want to and a way for him to do this) and discovers that the Shield of Galifar isn't a physical shield, but a title given to one knight at a time during the Galifar Empire. They were exceptional knights that chose worthy successors to defend the empire. So in reviving the knight, he recovers the Shield of Galifar. The Shield is a Paladin of the Silver Flame and was the last person to wield the dragon slaying sword, but he left it for those who could pass the hero's tests (that Vesh failed) because he'd done something that made him question whether or not he was worthy (I'm thinking maybe he was part of the Purge and followed an order to kill Shifters even though he wasn't sure they were a danger, like the lycanthropes and regretted his decision ever since).   Why's that important? Well, the test that Vesh failed was one about learning not to simply follow the ghost dragon's orders just because he was a dragon. In the Shield's eyes, a true hero doesn't merely, or always, do what he is told. That's the distinction between a hero and a soldier. So the Shield, failing his own personal test, can mirror Vesh failing the hero's test. And then, we've got a Paladin of the Silver Flame, guys. The Shield could discuss religion with Vesh. Maybe he knows a little of the history of the Flame, beyond what the church teaches. He might know that the sacrifice of the couatl created the Flame. He might point out to Vesh that Vesh killed a dragon in his backstory. He essentially killed a god. Can he do that? The sword is designed to slay dragons. How can you slay a god if you're not a god yourself? Point out some logical fallacies in his belief system, perhaps.   5. I'm not entirely dead-set on what I'm about to propose, but the player likes combat with Vesh. He likes to hit things, really hard. So I want to have encounters ready for him. I figured this: The Eyes of Chronepsis know that Vesh hulked out twice in hugely crowded areas. They are not pleased with him and the Conclave decides Vesh had his chance and failed. Time to be done with him. So they send assassins after him (I've got plenty of NPCs built for this). He beats them all, of course. So one dragon gets fed up with Vesh and decides to go himself and fight Vesh. Wouldn't hurt if it was, say, a Red Dragon, right? I have some problems with this. How does Vesh get out of this? Let's say he beats all the assassins and the dragon, like the hero should. I don't want the rest of the campaign to be Vesh looking over his shoulder for the next attack. He's got to solve this somehow. Maybe he can show them that he's mastered his rage. That's all well and good, but is that enough? I thought maybe he could show them that he reforged this blade. Well, cool, but do they care? Maybe he can do something that shows them he's trustworthy. But what? Was the Red Dragon really tainted by Tiamat? I don't know. I need help with this part.   6. In what order do things happen? Vesh is in Fairhaven right now. The Collector is in The Mournland (but I suppose I could put him anywhere). His dragon friend is in the Lhazaar Principalities. Shadar could be anywhere. The culmination of the adventure should probably be the reforging of the sword, which should probably be preceeded by reviving the Shield. And if he needs to prove himself to the Conclave, he needs to have met Shadar first. But which is first, the Shield or Shadar? Is everything else in the right order?   7. Hoo boy. Long post, I know, but we're almost there. Stick with me. There's one last issue. Remember that the player decided to move Vesh to the other campaign? Yup. Our last question is: "How, oh how, do I tie this into the Age of Worms?" The AoW has a number of evil dragons in it, which is one connection. Maybe the Conclave trusts him at the end of his interim story and tells him that they've learned of tainted dragons performing some strange ritual dealing with the Daelkyr? Is that too convenient? Should I throw in something about the Draconic Prophecy? And what about Tiamat's general? Vesh hasn't stopped him yet. That's his endgame. His final confrontation at the very end of the campaign is definitely going to be the general. He's been a recurring villain for Vesh and the satisfaction of defeating the general is something I'm saving up for later.   So there it is. We've really just scratched the surface of things. If you think is needlessly complicated (which it is), you should see my outline for both campaigns. It's just a mess. This is the tip of the iceberg. And... I could use some help before I drive myself crazy. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to speak your mind. The only thing I ask is: please don't suggest any retcons. I'm not going back and adjusting things that have been established in the game. That said, anything else is welcomed advice.
#2 Beoric Jun 13, 2015 18:31:11	Re:  point 3, my suggestion is that he come face to face with a dragon's, or dragons', fallibility.   Re:  point 5, sometimes dragons work against each other.  It may be easier if it is a rival dragon, or group of dragons, in which case after it is resolved he doesn't have to spend the rest of his llfe looking over his shoulder.   Re:  point 7:  sometimes proximity is all you need.  Get him in the right place at the right time (easy if you can have the other party just appear with time travel shenanigans).  They become allies out of convenience.  Write connections later.  Maybe the AoW dragons are associated with the rival group from point 5, which wants to bring about the AoW because of a particular interpretation of the prophecy.