Help with an Eberron Campaign - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Help with an Eberron Campaign

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
Noctaem
Oct 24, 2012 18:45:35 Hey everyone !

I'm currently Dming an Eberron setting campaign and the players are now level 6 going to 7. They just completed the Ashen Crown module. Instead of going with the party simply killing off the BBEG at the end or having her escape and come back later I decided to tie in one of my characters background. During the battle an agent of the Templars who operate in the Queendom of Aundair came forth and declared the BBEG under arrest for various horrible crimes there. The agent managed to convince the group to come back to Aundair with her to witness the trial and possibly be witnesses. It helped that the representative was the god-mother of one of the characters and combined they managed to convince the party. It also helped that the Brelish Crown is currently hunting for them and they were in Sharn with no real plan on how to get out incognito.

Anyway they are currently in Fairhaven, Aundair. The BBEG has been remanded into custody and the trial is about to get under way.

For fun I gave a little homework to the players for them to create a rumor each about the world. Here's some of the stuff they came up with:

A group of men is looking for an elf with a military background and offering gold for information. (one of the players is playing an elf with a military background)

A port town to the west of Aundair is struggling with attacks from various factions. It is very close to the borders of Drooam, Breland and Aundair. House Deneith and House Kundarak have decided to help each other resolve this issue since they both have interests in danger.

Towns and villages in the south of the continent are being attacked by Giants. They seem to appear and disapear as if by magic (they use underground caves and passages). The threatened settlements have banded together to raise a large reward for anyone who is able to stop these attacks.

The lightning rail is being attacked by bandits and robbed. House Orien is desperate to have these attacks stopped. They have been on-going for over a year and seem to happen over a specific part of the track. No one has ever been caught and no one seems to know these robbers.

Anyway the point of this thread is that I was wondering if anyone had modules I could use that could incorporate these rumors or ideas on how to work them into the campaign. Any help is appreciated !

#2
Ogiwan
Oct 25, 2012 13:32:46 Well, I don't recall there being many modules for Eberron period. How do you feel about whipping up your own metaplot?
#3
Noctaem
Oct 25, 2012 15:04:36 Yep I figured I would might have to and I am prepared to do so. I do find it surprising though that there's so little stuff published for such a large game world. I just remember seeing a lot of player made modules or mini adventures for other worlds and so figured that someone might have a link or something to a database or grouping. Anyway I wouldn't mind brainstorming with you all to see what we could come up with !
#4
nerraDetroK
Oct 25, 2012 15:22:48

Here's some of the stuff they came up with:

A group of men is looking for an elf with a military background and offering gold for information. (one of the players is playing an elf with a military background)

A port town to the west of Aundair is struggling with attacks from various factions. It is very close to the borders of Drooam, Breland and Aundair. House Deneith and House Kundarak have decided to help each other resolve this issue since they both have interests in danger.

Towns and villages in the south of the continent are being attacked by Giants. They seem to appear and disapear as if by magic (they use underground caves and passages). The threatened settlements have banded together to raise a large reward for anyone who is able to stop these attacks.

The lightning rail is being attacked by bandits and robbed. House Orien is desperate to have these attacks stopped. They have been on-going for over a year and seem to happen over a specific part of the track. No one has ever been caught and no one seems to know these robbers.

Anyway the point of this thread is that I was wondering if anyone had modules I could use that could incorporate these rumors or ideas on how to work them into the campaign. Any help is appreciated !

Not any Modules per se to bring this stuff up, but you can always edit Revenge of the Giants to handle the Giant rumor. The very first set of Giant attacsk deal with portals opening up and allowing giants and elementals through. You may want to read up on it ahead of time and toss in a few hooks now. such as introducing the human semi-BBEG (Breven Foss) as someone they deal with now. And you could introduce Gorodan the Ashlord from Droaam as a relative of the Fire Giants. Gorodan has been banished from Xen'Drik, but refuses to say why. You may need to edit the Primordial BBEG to something else, like a Lord of Dust.

As for the Lightning Rail- man there's so many cool adventures you can do with the Lightning Rail. Any idea where you wanted to have this section placed? In the West, or East, in Karrnath. Not sure how close it is to Taer Syraen, but a bunch of icy teleporting weird elves could make for a very cool enemy. Or it could be near the Aundair/Breland/Reaches border, by the mountains there where there's a guy who wants to secede. If I had my books with me, I could help more, sorry.

I don't know of many ports west of Aundair, since you have the Reaches and Demon Wastes before any real ocean again, except in the north near Stormhome (or whatever the Lyrandar vacation city is called).

I was reading a great book again the other day about 2 factions on the brink of war and how there were sub-factions manipulating everything. I won't mention the name of the book because this would be a huge spoiler, but PM me if you want the name. This could make for a great later adventure or story arc for an Eberron game.

Anyway, the empire was gearing up for war against a neighboring kingdom who had been forced to relocate after a LONG war. There were a group of resistance/instigators from the Kingdom in the Empire's capitol who were working to disrupt and delay the Empire's ability to wage war. But their true purpose was to incite the Empire into declaring war to put down these rebels who are now attacking the Empire in guerilla warfare. Add in that the real BBEG's are the original inhabitants of the land and wanted to have the Kingdom and Empire destroy each other so thay can take over again.
The Eberron counterpart in my mind is having the players take part as the guerilla/rebels in one of the 5 kingdoms, such as Cyre, distrupting trade between the other kingdoms. The player buy-in would be that they are trying to establish a true land for Cyre again, not just some land in Eastern Breland. The Goblins could be behind it, pushing the Cyrans into restarting the War so that the Goblins can claim more land for Darguun and Dhakaan. The kicker is that the Players shouldn't know that what they're doing is actually increasing the likelihood that the War is restarted, rather than lessening it.
#5
Noctaem
Oct 25, 2012 15:44:36 hmm that's all very interesting stuff. I've actually been looking at the revenge of the giants module and I've been thinking about doing pretty much what you describe except making it into an underground thing as per the players wishes. I'll have to read it completely now.

The player specified that it was in south Aundair near the border with Breland. Near a mountainous area from what I remember of the map, I'm at work so I can't check. If you could give me more info on that guy who wants to secede that might make things even more interesting !

It's a small port town.. The player have invented it but I'll ask him to double check. What is the name of the city you describe ?

The other things do sound interesting, I think one of the rumors also involved the heated tensions between aundair and a neighboring kingdom, I believe the one to the right of Aundair on the map, forget the name now of course...
#6
nerraDetroK
Oct 25, 2012 17:39:11 Yeah, I couldn't check while at work either.
Looking at the Eberron Campaign Guide, Cragwar is an outpost town at the northern part of Breland, bordering Aundair and Thrane. It is beset by monsters from the Blackcap mountains, and it has drawn 2 members of the Aurum Gold compact- Daeluse d'Kundarak and a changeling named Zeed. Zeed wants to restart the war between Breland and Thrane and create a tiny nation-state in between.

Easy enough to have Kundarak hire Deneith to protect their interests and to protect the town from the monsters.
Thrane is to the right of Aundair.
As for port towns, looking on the map: Stormhome is at the north of Aundair, with a place called Otharaunt at the northeast border. Passage, the home of House Orien, is on the shores of (Lake Brey?), as is Arcanix, where the major arcane university is. Stormhome is the vacationer's paradise created by House Lyrandar. It's huge- like a mix of Sun City in old South Africa and Las Vegas.

#7
Noctaem
Oct 25, 2012 18:41:58 thanks for the help, once I get home I'll be able to properly look over the info given. Should be in a couple of hours ^^
#8
nerraDetroK
Oct 25, 2012 19:00:50 I'm running through Revenge of the Giants now. It's a good design, but will need some tweaks to make it Eberron. I had ran my group through Seekers as well, but on an accelerated path so we could get to Paragon level. Then, after jumping to Revenge of the Giants, I decided to drop the Eberron connections because no one seemed to care about the world. I'd failed them in gathering enough interest.

If you eventually wanted to convert Revenge to Eberron, make a post and I'm sure the community would help. It's somewhat linear. I say that because it has some large dungeon delves and several side treks.
#9
Napolean_Warlord
Oct 27, 2012 9:18:01 I'm cobbling together my own meta-storyline (please feel free to comment on my thread, peeps!)

In short my players are working for Sharn out of Breland and did seekers as well. My plan is to have Emerald Claw, then Lady Vol, then one of the Lords of Dust be the meta-antagonists. My strategy has been to find adventures published in Dungeon and try to weave the BBEG into the plot.

For your rumors

1) A group of men is looking for an elf with a military background and offering gold for information. (one of the players is playing an elf with a military background)
2) A port town to the west of Aundair is struggling with attacks from various factions. It is very close to the borders of Drooam, Breland and Aundair. House Deneith and House Kundarak have decided to help each other resolve this issue since they both have interests in danger.
3) Towns and villages in the south of the continent are being attacked by Giants. They seem to appear and disapear as if by magic (they use underground caves and passages). The threatened settlements have banded together to raise a large reward for anyone who is able to stop these attacks.
4) The lightning rail is being attacked by bandits and robbed. House Orien is desperate to have these attacks stopped. They have been on-going for over a year and seem to happen over a specific part of the track. No one has ever been caught and no one seems to know these robbers.

1 - the elf could either be EC or (better in my view) Karnnathi regular forces pursuing anti-terrorist ends. You may want to build up additional dread of Karrnath and then have a reveal that not all of them are bad guys
2 - I don't fully get all the political machinations in Eberron, but the town could be kind of a post-WWII Berlin where the forces and agents of the different competing powers meet, scheme and occasionally assassinate each other.
3 - Revenge lead in. Just need to pick which nation is backing the Giant attacks to harm the other(s)
4 - Maybe Lyrander is trying to reduce confidence in the lightning rail to boost demand for airship service? Not sure how to tie that into your meta-story

In general I recommend picking a couple main cities in Eberron and then change all of your adventures to be located in those cities. Sharn is good because of the delving possibilities below the city. I'd drop encounters freely if they don't follow your meta-path. I'll update my thread with my current planned adventure path as it seems not a lot of folks are running paragon Eberron.
#10
nerraDetroK
Oct 27, 2012 17:00:03 Now that I think about it, there's a few Eberron specific Dungeon adventures.
Most are Backdrop articles- for Q'Barra, Taer Lian Doresh and Fairhaven, but they did have one adventure that's based on a novel, and then the new "Dead for a Spell" from September. Oh and the one I've been wanting to run FOREVER and I'm going to base my next Eberron campaign around: "Heart of the Forbidden Forge"

Haruuc's tomb: From Dungeon 176, for 7-8th level characters. It presumes Lhesh Haruuc is gone, and you have to break into his tomb. When I ran it, I replaced Lhesh Haruuc with one of the early Dhakhaani Warlords, and brought in the Kech Ghaalrac from July 2012's Eye on Eberron as an additional foil.

Heart of the Forbidden Forge is from Dungeon 167 and published in a hardcover Delve book.
It deals with a lost Cannith Creation Forge in Cyre, and deep inside is a warforged Dragon. There's also some new-ish Warforged Infiltrators in the pictures, that look like they have a fake skin covering them. Totally a Terminator inspiration.

I don't know of any Paragon tier adventures though.

Man, I really want to run a new Eberron campaign now.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Noctaem Oct 24, 2012 18:45:35	Hey everyone ! I'm currently Dming an Eberron setting campaign and the players are now level 6 going to 7. They just completed the Ashen Crown module. Instead of going with the party simply killing off the BBEG at the end or having her escape and come back later I decided to tie in one of my characters background. During the battle an agent of the Templars who operate in the Queendom of Aundair came forth and declared the BBEG under arrest for various horrible crimes there. The agent managed to convince the group to come back to Aundair with her to witness the trial and possibly be witnesses. It helped that the representative was the god-mother of one of the characters and combined they managed to convince the party. It also helped that the Brelish Crown is currently hunting for them and they were in Sharn with no real plan on how to get out incognito. Anyway they are currently in Fairhaven, Aundair. The BBEG has been remanded into custody and the trial is about to get under way. For fun I gave a little homework to the players for them to create a rumor each about the world. Here's some of the stuff they came up with: A group of men is looking for an elf with a military background and offering gold for information. (one of the players is playing an elf with a military background) A port town to the west of Aundair is struggling with attacks from various factions. It is very close to the borders of Drooam, Breland and Aundair. House Deneith and House Kundarak have decided to help each other resolve this issue since they both have interests in danger. Towns and villages in the south of the continent are being attacked by Giants. They seem to appear and disapear as if by magic (they use underground caves and passages). The threatened settlements have banded together to raise a large reward for anyone who is able to stop these attacks. The lightning rail is being attacked by bandits and robbed. House Orien is desperate to have these attacks stopped. They have been on-going for over a year and seem to happen over a specific part of the track. No one has ever been caught and no one seems to know these robbers. Anyway the point of this thread is that I was wondering if anyone had modules I could use that could incorporate these rumors or ideas on how to work them into the campaign. Any help is appreciated !
#2 Ogiwan Oct 25, 2012 13:32:46	Well, I don't recall there being many modules for Eberron period. How do you feel about whipping up your own metaplot?
#3 Noctaem Oct 25, 2012 15:04:36	Yep I figured I would might have to and I am prepared to do so. I do find it surprising though that there's so little stuff published for such a large game world. I just remember seeing a lot of player made modules or mini adventures for other worlds and so figured that someone might have a link or something to a database or grouping. Anyway I wouldn't mind brainstorming with you all to see what we could come up with !
#4 nerraDetroK Oct 25, 2012 15:22:48	Here's some of the stuff they came up with: A group of men is looking for an elf with a military background and offering gold for information. (one of the players is playing an elf with a military background) A port town to the west of Aundair is struggling with attacks from various factions. It is very close to the borders of Drooam, Breland and Aundair. House Deneith and House Kundarak have decided to help each other resolve this issue since they both have interests in danger. Towns and villages in the south of the continent are being attacked by Giants. They seem to appear and disapear as if by magic (they use underground caves and passages). The threatened settlements have banded together to raise a large reward for anyone who is able to stop these attacks. The lightning rail is being attacked by bandits and robbed. House Orien is desperate to have these attacks stopped. They have been on-going for over a year and seem to happen over a specific part of the track. No one has ever been caught and no one seems to know these robbers. Anyway the point of this thread is that I was wondering if anyone had modules I could use that could incorporate these rumors or ideas on how to work them into the campaign. Any help is appreciated ! Not any Modules per se to bring this stuff up, but you can always edit Revenge of the Giants to handle the Giant rumor. The very first set of Giant attacsk deal with portals opening up and allowing giants and elementals through. You may want to read up on it ahead of time and toss in a few hooks now. such as introducing the human semi-BBEG (Breven Foss) as someone they deal with now. And you could introduce Gorodan the Ashlord from Droaam as a relative of the Fire Giants. Gorodan has been banished from Xen'Drik, but refuses to say why. You may need to edit the Primordial BBEG to something else, like a Lord of Dust. As for the Lightning Rail- man there's so many cool adventures you can do with the Lightning Rail. Any idea where you wanted to have this section placed? In the West, or East, in Karrnath. Not sure how close it is to Taer Syraen, but a bunch of icy teleporting weird elves could make for a very cool enemy. Or it could be near the Aundair/Breland/Reaches border, by the mountains there where there's a guy who wants to secede. If I had my books with me, I could help more, sorry. I don't know of many ports west of Aundair, since you have the Reaches and Demon Wastes before any real ocean again, except in the north near Stormhome (or whatever the Lyrandar vacation city is called). I was reading a great book again the other day about 2 factions on the brink of war and how there were sub-factions manipulating everything. I won't mention the name of the book because this would be a huge spoiler, but PM me if you want the name. This could make for a great later adventure or story arc for an Eberron game. Anyway, the empire was gearing up for war against a neighboring kingdom who had been forced to relocate after a LONG war. There were a group of resistance/instigators from the Kingdom in the Empire's capitol who were working to disrupt and delay the Empire's ability to wage war. But their true purpose was to incite the Empire into declaring war to put down these rebels who are now attacking the Empire in guerilla warfare. Add in that the real BBEG's are the original inhabitants of the land and wanted to have the Kingdom and Empire destroy each other so thay can take over again. The Eberron counterpart in my mind is having the players take part as the guerilla/rebels in one of the 5 kingdoms, such as Cyre, distrupting trade between the other kingdoms. The player buy-in would be that they are trying to establish a true land for Cyre again, not just some land in Eastern Breland. The Goblins could be behind it, pushing the Cyrans into restarting the War so that the Goblins can claim more land for Darguun and Dhakaan. The kicker is that the Players shouldn't know that what they're doing is actually increasing the likelihood that the War is restarted, rather than lessening it.
#5 Noctaem Oct 25, 2012 15:44:36	hmm that's all very interesting stuff. I've actually been looking at the revenge of the giants module and I've been thinking about doing pretty much what you describe except making it into an underground thing as per the players wishes. I'll have to read it completely now. The player specified that it was in south Aundair near the border with Breland. Near a mountainous area from what I remember of the map, I'm at work so I can't check. If you could give me more info on that guy who wants to secede that might make things even more interesting ! It's a small port town.. The player have invented it but I'll ask him to double check. What is the name of the city you describe ? The other things do sound interesting, I think one of the rumors also involved the heated tensions between aundair and a neighboring kingdom, I believe the one to the right of Aundair on the map, forget the name now of course...
#6 nerraDetroK Oct 25, 2012 17:39:11	Yeah, I couldn't check while at work either. Looking at the Eberron Campaign Guide, Cragwar is an outpost town at the northern part of Breland, bordering Aundair and Thrane. It is beset by monsters from the Blackcap mountains, and it has drawn 2 members of the Aurum Gold compact- Daeluse d'Kundarak and a changeling named Zeed. Zeed wants to restart the war between Breland and Thrane and create a tiny nation-state in between. Easy enough to have Kundarak hire Deneith to protect their interests and to protect the town from the monsters. Thrane is to the right of Aundair. As for port towns, looking on the map: Stormhome is at the north of Aundair, with a place called Otharaunt at the northeast border. Passage, the home of House Orien, is on the shores of (Lake Brey?), as is Arcanix, where the major arcane university is. Stormhome is the vacationer's paradise created by House Lyrandar. It's huge- like a mix of Sun City in old South Africa and Las Vegas.
#7 Noctaem Oct 25, 2012 18:41:58	thanks for the help, once I get home I'll be able to properly look over the info given. Should be in a couple of hours ^^
#8 nerraDetroK Oct 25, 2012 19:00:50	I'm running through Revenge of the Giants now. It's a good design, but will need some tweaks to make it Eberron. I had ran my group through Seekers as well, but on an accelerated path so we could get to Paragon level. Then, after jumping to Revenge of the Giants, I decided to drop the Eberron connections because no one seemed to care about the world. I'd failed them in gathering enough interest. If you eventually wanted to convert Revenge to Eberron, make a post and I'm sure the community would help. It's somewhat linear. I say that because it has some large dungeon delves and several side treks.
#9 Napolean_Warlord Oct 27, 2012 9:18:01	I'm cobbling together my own meta-storyline (please feel free to comment on my thread, peeps!) In short my players are working for Sharn out of Breland and did seekers as well. My plan is to have Emerald Claw, then Lady Vol, then one of the Lords of Dust be the meta-antagonists. My strategy has been to find adventures published in Dungeon and try to weave the BBEG into the plot. For your rumors 1) A group of men is looking for an elf with a military background and offering gold for information. (one of the players is playing an elf with a military background) 2) A port town to the west of Aundair is struggling with attacks from various factions. It is very close to the borders of Drooam, Breland and Aundair. House Deneith and House Kundarak have decided to help each other resolve this issue since they both have interests in danger. 3) Towns and villages in the south of the continent are being attacked by Giants. They seem to appear and disapear as if by magic (they use underground caves and passages). The threatened settlements have banded together to raise a large reward for anyone who is able to stop these attacks. 4) The lightning rail is being attacked by bandits and robbed. House Orien is desperate to have these attacks stopped. They have been on-going for over a year and seem to happen over a specific part of the track. No one has ever been caught and no one seems to know these robbers. 1 - the elf could either be EC or (better in my view) Karnnathi regular forces pursuing anti-terrorist ends. You may want to build up additional dread of Karrnath and then have a reveal that not all of them are bad guys 2 - I don't fully get all the political machinations in Eberron, but the town could be kind of a post-WWII Berlin where the forces and agents of the different competing powers meet, scheme and occasionally assassinate each other. 3 - Revenge lead in. Just need to pick which nation is backing the Giant attacks to harm the other(s) 4 - Maybe Lyrander is trying to reduce confidence in the lightning rail to boost demand for airship service? Not sure how to tie that into your meta-story In general I recommend picking a couple main cities in Eberron and then change all of your adventures to be located in those cities. Sharn is good because of the delving possibilities below the city. I'd drop encounters freely if they don't follow your meta-path. I'll update my thread with my current planned adventure path as it seems not a lot of folks are running paragon Eberron.
#10 nerraDetroK Oct 27, 2012 17:00:03	Now that I think about it, there's a few Eberron specific Dungeon adventures. Most are Backdrop articles- for Q'Barra, Taer Lian Doresh and Fairhaven, but they did have one adventure that's based on a novel, and then the new "Dead for a Spell" from September. Oh and the one I've been wanting to run FOREVER and I'm going to base my next Eberron campaign around: "Heart of the Forbidden Forge" Haruuc's tomb: From Dungeon 176, for 7-8th level characters. It presumes Lhesh Haruuc is gone, and you have to break into his tomb. When I ran it, I replaced Lhesh Haruuc with one of the early Dhakhaani Warlords, and brought in the Kech Ghaalrac from July 2012's Eye on Eberron as an additional foil. Heart of the Forbidden Forge is from Dungeon 167 and published in a hardcover Delve book. It deals with a lost Cannith Creation Forge in Cyre, and deep inside is a warforged Dragon. There's also some new-ish Warforged Infiltrators in the pictures, that look like they have a fake skin covering them. Totally a Terminator inspiration. I don't know of any Paragon tier adventures though. Man, I really want to run a new Eberron campaign now.