I've run the Forgotten Forge three times now, so for my next group of new players I'm going to switch things around by casting House Tarkanan as the bad guys instead of the Lord of Blades.
The adventure can stay pretty much identical, substitution aberrant-marked mooks for warforged mooks, but I need to figure out what the relic is that Lady Elaydren is searching for if it's not a schema. It needs to be some kind of relic from the War of the Mark that both Houses Tarkanan and Cannith are interested in, but I have no idea what that could be.
If the relic is in several pieces and provides an excuse to finish the rest of the adventure path, all the better, but I'll settle for something that will make the Forgotten Forge adventure make sense.
Thanks in advance for your help!
-Part of a weapon designed by a rogue Cannith who was helping the aberrant 'marks during the War. It never got assembled before Sharn went kablooie and the War ended, but now Tarkanen wants it as part of a power play and Cannith wants to use their rogue member's creation as a prototype to create new weapons to replace the warforged market.
-A device that, rumor has it, enhances the power of a dragonmark. Even shadier rumors say it could actually cause an individual to manifest a 'mark, aberrant or otherwise, even if they were not of the normal races/bloodlines. It was taken apart and smuggled out of Sharn piece by piece during the siege, as part of a plan to continue the War, but things fell apart before the final piece could be evacuated, and the plan never came to fruition . . . until now.
-Part of a weapon designed by a rogue Cannith who was helping the aberrant 'marks during the War. It never got assembled before Sharn went kablooie and the War ended, but now Tarkanen wants it as part of a power play and Cannith wants to use their rogue member's creation as a prototype to create new weapons to replace the warforged market.
-A device that, rumor has it, enhances the power of a dragonmark. Even shadier rumors say it could actually cause an individual to manifest a 'mark, aberrant or otherwise, even if they were not of the normal races/bloodlines. It was taken apart and smuggled out of Sharn piece by piece during the siege, as part of a plan to continue the War, but things fell apart before the final piece could be evacuated, and the plan never came to fruition . . . until now.
Thanks! I like these ideas.
Tell me more about this weapon that's going to replace the warforged?
Last year, I had a solo campaign focusing on dragonmarks. Th story of that game might help you with your own, so here goes:
Artix d'Cannith (he may be your rogue Cannith) is an artificer working for the Twelve. His peculiar research lead him in finding how Dragonmarks function in the world. He hires a Deneith bodyguard to accompany him on his quest to collect what he thinks are the original Dragonmarks, which are scaterred across the globe, mainly near Dragonshards sources. This would seem impossible, however, Artix made an unbelievable discovery. Throughout history, the lesser races and the monstrous races have come across these origin 'Marks and reproduced them in work of arts. As such, Artix possesses the first replica, a carfully detailed Sentinel Mark of Siberys engraved on an orb that he found in Karrnath's Crown Museum.
His quest is thus to find these replicas or the original dragonmarks. He believes that placing the replicas in a pattern that would represent to smaller scales the positions of the original Marks on the globe would create a magical location / eldritch machine in which the power to create would be phenomenal (truenaming, d'marks enhanced, d'marks creater, etc)
In the game, something went wrong. The PC slowly started to develop each and every dragonmark, believing he'll eventually receive the power of creation, or as some say, God.
For your game, Tarkanan might want to acquire some pieces to shape a world where they'll be accepted. Or they might be working for the Lords of Dust, a Daelkyr or even the Dragons or Quori. Also, in the ECG, it says that the Heart os Siberys lies in Shavarath and that armies of immortals fight over its control. It is also said that the Heart holds the true power of the creation. Maybe that is where the first Origin Mark lies, or it is a region where all sort of magics and artifacts of creation are attracted to. Maybe they work for Vol and the restoration of her Mark of Death, maybe the Mark of Death is a dragonmark of life creation, truenaming?
Hope it helps.
Rekko
-Part of a weapon designed by a rogue Cannith who was helping the aberrant 'marks during the War. It never got assembled before Sharn went kablooie and the War ended, but now Tarkanen wants it as part of a power play and Cannith wants to use their rogue member's creation as a prototype to create new weapons to replace the warforged market.
Thanks! I like these ideas.
Tell me more about this weapon that's going to replace the warforged?
Well, the idea is that Cannith is simply looking for a source of income to replace the one they lost, so anything that could supposedly end up being produced in decent numbers and sold for a profit could work.
- weaponized aircraft such as ornithopters. Would've been very nasty in the pre-airship days of the War of the Mark, still a very powerful idea in modern times, especially in Sharn.
- some sort of dragonshard-powered weapon, such as a cannon or large gun.
- a more primitive (thus more unstable, hilarity ensues) but more powerful version of construct that lacks the sentience of the warforged, thus placing them outside of the Thronehold Accords.
Make them up. 