Help with Creating a complete heavy Eberron adventure! - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Help with Creating a complete heavy Eberron adventure!

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
pivotal
Aug 02, 2009 21:54:48 With Eberron entering 4.0 I will be starting an Eberron Campaign this fall and I could use some input on what I have so far.

Premise/Synopsis
Three Factions; House Cannith, Lord of Blades and Vol are looking for missing schemas to activate a psiforged forge hidden in Lhazaar Principalities.

I will be using a Eladrien of sorts from Shadows of the Last War. She will be a bit more eccentric and is not going to exactly have pure motives. She wants the psi-forged to be able to use its creations and the power of having to take control and reunite house cannith and also if she can she wants to start a new war so she can sell psiforged. Lord of Blades is going to be a side enemy of sorts. He is going to be harassing the PC's and the plan is for him to eventually steal one of the schemas forcing the PC's to follow him into mournland and fight him directly for it. Lord Vol wants the schemas, not to make psiforged, but she has other uses for the forge. She is cooperating with Inspired and they are going to try and reverse her lichdom (activating her mark) through the psionic powers of the forge. The psiforge thing is very much inspired from the blade of the flame novels.

The PC's

Warforged Ranger
Character is not done yet, but background is being a scout for Cyre while it still existed. On the day of mourning he was out scouting Brelish troop movement and came home to the Mournland. After a while he joined up with Lord of Blades and his warforged in Mournland and he hoped he could rebuild Cyre as it was the only loyalty he knew. After some years there he realized that Lord of Blades was not the best way to rebuild Cyre and he left and ended up in Sharn

Elf Wizard
A young Wizard from Aerenal. She grew up a child prodigy and the Court took a lot of interest in her. She however grew tired of the Court always trying to control her life and left for Khorvaire. She doesn't really know what she wants to do but as a character she is heavyily into Aearanal culture with a tatooed death mask and so on. Left for Sharn.

Half Elf Warlock
Hard to explain this character but he has a starpact and is sort of mad. He believes himself to be an abberation god or some such from another world trapped within Eberron. He belives Eberron is just a dream of sorts, but that he need to become powerfull and survive this "dream" to be able to return to his rightfull glory again. Grew up in Thrane but was chased out of the country when he was 14 after he killed a dog with his strange powers. He fled to Breland, discovered they didn't like to be called foul Heathens and settled in Sharn :P Has Abberant mark of madness.

Human Warlord
Not too complicated character. Raised by the Church of the Silver Flame after his parents died as they were strong believers. Not much of a believer himself. Was in the Aundarian army during the War and went quickly up the ranks being both smart and inspiring. However war ended and because of some issues within the military he left seeking fame and adventure elsewhere. Traveled with some other adventurers for a while, but left them and ended up in Sharn. Has Mark of Warding and keeps it hidden.

Goliath Warden
Grew up between Elden reaches and the Demon Wastes in a small goliath mountain village. Learned the way of the warden through contact with druids in the area. Defended the village from deserters and bandits during the last war. Afterwards he left the village to gain power and experience the world. Left for Sharn.

WHat I have planned so far:
I will start rather dramaticly with the famous falling tower encounter in Sharn. This will give them a intensive and strong intro to the campaign and it will be the reason they meet up as they will be the only ones surving. They fight as the tower falls downwards and I have converted the encounter quite sucsessfully to 4.0 changing a few details to balance it for third level and to make it less tedious.

WHen the tower reaches the bottom of Sharn it doesn't crash but lands smoothly. WHen the PC's climb out of the partially destroyed tower they see Elaydren and a artificer by her side looking worn out. She congratulates them on surviving her test to find worthy adventurers. Some of the party will react rather badly to this test considering all the damage it has caused and nearly killing them in the process. However, I have lots of excuses planned here and how its for the greater good and everything. The fate of the world depends on them and promises of great rewards should be enough to get them on her side.

From this point on I will be running the Shadows of the last war adventure mostly with some changes, expansion and such. They start at lvl 3 and I want them to be at lvl 7 at the end. What I have planned so far: They get their mission from Elaydren. No Attack by warforgeds or similar here.

They travel get their backpack with supplies and such from here and travel to Darguun. I will run the sea travel encounter more or less the same. Finding Failin at the bloody market will be run as a skill challenge. Failing the skill challenge gets them into trouble. After paying Failin they will be ambushed by hobgoblins and I also want to include another encounter before they get out of there. Most likley a classic changling ambush. A changling gang snatches one of their valuables and runs into an alley. Party runs in following them and is ambused by a larger group of skirmishers and lurkers.

They get to the cart and drive away towards Rose Quarry. They stop one night to sleep. They set up camp and depending on how well guarded it is they might not be surprised by the band of Hobgoblins raiders that come from the nearby Seven Caves. The hobgoblins manage to snatch Failin via magic, poison, etc and they get away on mounts. The party unable to use the cart themselves go after the bandits to the seven caves. There they fight themselves in, but are soon surounded and outnumbered. They loose and are taken prisoners. The hobgoblins however do not have the equipment to make proper wards against their magical powers so they manage to break free and get back their gear. They fight their way out through a couple of encounters I hope to make more interesting then a straight up hacknslash. They find Failin being interrogated by a group of Warforged and Hobgoblins. The Warforged in the party recognizes the Warforged to be some of his former companions working for the lobster. They wanted him and his cart services permanently since he is an expert of the difficult task of getting in and out of Mournland. They rescue him and return to the cart resuming their travels towards Rose Quarry.

Rose Quarry I want to run pretty normally trying to give them their first look at Garret and I want to make them believe he is a vampire. Scouting the city will probably be a hard skill challenge. One way or the other they get access to the map room and they have to complete the puzzle.

When the puzzle is solved for some good xp they can continiue on towards Mournland.

After they come into Mournland I want to use some of the encounters that the adventure uses and perhaps a few more. Ideas here on good mournland encounters would be nice. This is also gonna be an area of major loot for several levels really.

The Cannith lab I am keeping as is, perhaps expanding a bit on the areas locked in the original. Any ideas here would be nice.

As for how to do the final showdown with Garret I am unsure atm, but I like the idea of Failin betraying them to Garreth somehow.

After this they will return to Elaydrien with the schema and be allowed a bit down time.

For the second schema I have several idea, including using sending them up against House Cannith in Aundair and adding the Aundair royal eyes into the mixup creating loyalty issues for the warlord. Here I also want some good general ideas to build on. By the end of getting this schema I want them to be at lvl 13 or so. Getting the third schema should be the most difficult and I have no real idea how to do this very well. I know I want it to be stolen by Lobster when theyre at lvl 17-18 so I can make the fight epicly for it in Mournland where they can get to kill the lobster. But I want the search for the third schema itself to have some kind of major impact on the world as they are paragon by then. I have some vauge ideas about them exposing and fighting (but not killing I think) King kaius, causing another minor mourning incident, etc. When they give the third schema to Elaydrien she won't reveal her evil intent ofcourse and the PC's will get some good down time. However, while they are relaxing they will somehow get information that all the schemas has been stolen and Elaydrien kidnapped. This is the work of Vol herself. The PC's will follow in an airship and I want some kind of Airship battle here while they follow Vol towards the forge in Lhazaar Principalities. By now they should be nearing Epic levels. When they get to Lhazaar principalities and find the forge they will first have to fight a lich or vampire elaydrien first. Then they will fight Lady Vol. She herself will not be a huge threat to the PC's but her minions and the Inspired certainly will. She is trying to comlete the Psionic Ritual during the combat. The PC's will fail here (for the adventure to go on). Vol will be restored to life and she will use her dragonmark together with her strong magic to prove quite an opponent for the party. However, being weakned by the ritual she is forced to flee and the PC's will be held at bay by the Inspired. Here comes epic level and my plans are even more vague. But they include a increasingly more powerfull Vol as she learns to master her mark again. The chamber is involved as it knows what has happened. The Chamber attacks all places of Vol worship trying to kill of all her followers. I also want Vol to complete some kind of extreme ritual making the mark of death reappear in the elven bloodlines all over Khorvaire (but especially Aeranal) leading to a new War of the Mark. I also want the elf in the party to manifest the mark of death adding more intrigue with the Undying Court as they want even more then ever to use here, perhaps even offering her Undeath and a seat on the court (epic destiny ftw). The PC's will have to travel to Sarlona to be able to fix all this, perhaps by releasing or at least consulting one of the flames/demons there perhaps even resulting at the end in a way to defeat Vol but then they have to defeat one of the Lords of Dust as a final battle.

So yes thats about it :P

First of all I need input about spesific ideas for changed, encounters, expansions and so on for the first part of the adventure. Anything really helps here. Also, I want to somehow include the chamber much earlier but I am not sure how. I don't want them to really take up time, but I want the characters to be part of the prophecy and I want there to be signs of the Chamber watching over them. Perhaps I will use the chamber to help them if they get in trouble or stray far off course of the story.

And ofcourse more ideas for more epic story at the end or in the middle is welcome, but not first priority as it will take some time to get there.
#2
pivotal
Aug 03, 2009 14:43:53 Aww come on people. I know its a bit much to read. But some general ideas and feedback would be awesome.
#3
badmeditation
Aug 17, 2009 18:12:32 Okay I made it through about 3/4 through the post. First bit of advice. Shorter posts dude. Secondly, not everyone understands what your talking about? What famous falling tower scenario? I haven't read the adventure your talking about so a bit of this stuff is going right over my head.

The other thing is Elaydren (I think) I she really just going to come out and say "It was a test." That stretching it a bit. I don't see House Cannith or Merrix d'Cannith allowing Elaydren to destroy a tower just to test some adventurers.
Can you imagine the politics that would occur after something recklessly done by House Cannith like that?

Shorten the post. Work on the explanation for the falling tower. (If the explanation is yours if it's from the adventure...well I don't know what to say about that.) Just give the important bits. try to sum up all the stuff above into say, three four sentence paragraphs?
#4
d_gibb
Aug 29, 2009 12:43:24
I'm actually running an intro to Eberron campaign along a similar premise. I used The Forgotten Forge conversion to 4.0 by w0nkothesane on the forums here. Continuing with Lady Elaydren d'Cannith as my party's contact, I have a short adventure for a second schema where they have to raid the vaults of an uncooerative museum (who don't really know what the schema is that they have).

As an interlude, one of my party members is going to DM a couple sessions and derail the party from the third schema by getting the party captured and sent to a death arena in Droaam.

Back on track, a diplomatic mission to a cranky retired Cannith Magewright will get the third, and the fourth will take us to the Mournland, whereupon we will also find the forge. I think by this point, we will be near level 7, and I will run the Dungeon magazine Forge adventure with the construct dragons.

Afer that, who knows. Maybe the secrets learned there will take the party to Xen'drik, or somewhere else. Let me know what you think about this bare outline; I think it should run pretty well. I just have to keep creating Warforged to fight!

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 pivotal Aug 02, 2009 21:54:48	With Eberron entering 4.0 I will be starting an Eberron Campaign this fall and I could use some input on what I have so far. Premise/Synopsis Three Factions; House Cannith, Lord of Blades and Vol are looking for missing schemas to activate a psiforged forge hidden in Lhazaar Principalities. I will be using a Eladrien of sorts from Shadows of the Last War. She will be a bit more eccentric and is not going to exactly have pure motives. She wants the psi-forged to be able to use its creations and the power of having to take control and reunite house cannith and also if she can she wants to start a new war so she can sell psiforged. Lord of Blades is going to be a side enemy of sorts. He is going to be harassing the PC's and the plan is for him to eventually steal one of the schemas forcing the PC's to follow him into mournland and fight him directly for it. Lord Vol wants the schemas, not to make psiforged, but she has other uses for the forge. She is cooperating with Inspired and they are going to try and reverse her lichdom (activating her mark) through the psionic powers of the forge. The psiforge thing is very much inspired from the blade of the flame novels. The PC's Warforged Ranger Character is not done yet, but background is being a scout for Cyre while it still existed. On the day of mourning he was out scouting Brelish troop movement and came home to the Mournland. After a while he joined up with Lord of Blades and his warforged in Mournland and he hoped he could rebuild Cyre as it was the only loyalty he knew. After some years there he realized that Lord of Blades was not the best way to rebuild Cyre and he left and ended up in Sharn Elf Wizard A young Wizard from Aerenal. She grew up a child prodigy and the Court took a lot of interest in her. She however grew tired of the Court always trying to control her life and left for Khorvaire. She doesn't really know what she wants to do but as a character she is heavyily into Aearanal culture with a tatooed death mask and so on. Left for Sharn. Half Elf Warlock Hard to explain this character but he has a starpact and is sort of mad. He believes himself to be an abberation god or some such from another world trapped within Eberron. He belives Eberron is just a dream of sorts, but that he need to become powerfull and survive this "dream" to be able to return to his rightfull glory again. Grew up in Thrane but was chased out of the country when he was 14 after he killed a dog with his strange powers. He fled to Breland, discovered they didn't like to be called foul Heathens and settled in Sharn :P Has Abberant mark of madness. Human Warlord Not too complicated character. Raised by the Church of the Silver Flame after his parents died as they were strong believers. Not much of a believer himself. Was in the Aundarian army during the War and went quickly up the ranks being both smart and inspiring. However war ended and because of some issues within the military he left seeking fame and adventure elsewhere. Traveled with some other adventurers for a while, but left them and ended up in Sharn. Has Mark of Warding and keeps it hidden. Goliath Warden Grew up between Elden reaches and the Demon Wastes in a small goliath mountain village. Learned the way of the warden through contact with druids in the area. Defended the village from deserters and bandits during the last war. Afterwards he left the village to gain power and experience the world. Left for Sharn. WHat I have planned so far: I will start rather dramaticly with the famous falling tower encounter in Sharn. This will give them a intensive and strong intro to the campaign and it will be the reason they meet up as they will be the only ones surving. They fight as the tower falls downwards and I have converted the encounter quite sucsessfully to 4.0 changing a few details to balance it for third level and to make it less tedious. WHen the tower reaches the bottom of Sharn it doesn't crash but lands smoothly. WHen the PC's climb out of the partially destroyed tower they see Elaydren and a artificer by her side looking worn out. She congratulates them on surviving her test to find worthy adventurers. Some of the party will react rather badly to this test considering all the damage it has caused and nearly killing them in the process. However, I have lots of excuses planned here and how its for the greater good and everything. The fate of the world depends on them and promises of great rewards should be enough to get them on her side. From this point on I will be running the Shadows of the last war adventure mostly with some changes, expansion and such. They start at lvl 3 and I want them to be at lvl 7 at the end. What I have planned so far: They get their mission from Elaydren. No Attack by warforgeds or similar here. They travel get their backpack with supplies and such from here and travel to Darguun. I will run the sea travel encounter more or less the same. Finding Failin at the bloody market will be run as a skill challenge. Failing the skill challenge gets them into trouble. After paying Failin they will be ambushed by hobgoblins and I also want to include another encounter before they get out of there. Most likley a classic changling ambush. A changling gang snatches one of their valuables and runs into an alley. Party runs in following them and is ambused by a larger group of skirmishers and lurkers. They get to the cart and drive away towards Rose Quarry. They stop one night to sleep. They set up camp and depending on how well guarded it is they might not be surprised by the band of Hobgoblins raiders that come from the nearby Seven Caves. The hobgoblins manage to snatch Failin via magic, poison, etc and they get away on mounts. The party unable to use the cart themselves go after the bandits to the seven caves. There they fight themselves in, but are soon surounded and outnumbered. They loose and are taken prisoners. The hobgoblins however do not have the equipment to make proper wards against their magical powers so they manage to break free and get back their gear. They fight their way out through a couple of encounters I hope to make more interesting then a straight up hacknslash. They find Failin being interrogated by a group of Warforged and Hobgoblins. The Warforged in the party recognizes the Warforged to be some of his former companions working for the lobster. They wanted him and his cart services permanently since he is an expert of the difficult task of getting in and out of Mournland. They rescue him and return to the cart resuming their travels towards Rose Quarry. Rose Quarry I want to run pretty normally trying to give them their first look at Garret and I want to make them believe he is a vampire. Scouting the city will probably be a hard skill challenge. One way or the other they get access to the map room and they have to complete the puzzle. When the puzzle is solved for some good xp they can continiue on towards Mournland. After they come into Mournland I want to use some of the encounters that the adventure uses and perhaps a few more. Ideas here on good mournland encounters would be nice. This is also gonna be an area of major loot for several levels really. The Cannith lab I am keeping as is, perhaps expanding a bit on the areas locked in the original. Any ideas here would be nice. As for how to do the final showdown with Garret I am unsure atm, but I like the idea of Failin betraying them to Garreth somehow. After this they will return to Elaydrien with the schema and be allowed a bit down time. For the second schema I have several idea, including using sending them up against House Cannith in Aundair and adding the Aundair royal eyes into the mixup creating loyalty issues for the warlord. Here I also want some good general ideas to build on. By the end of getting this schema I want them to be at lvl 13 or so. Getting the third schema should be the most difficult and I have no real idea how to do this very well. I know I want it to be stolen by Lobster when theyre at lvl 17-18 so I can make the fight epicly for it in Mournland where they can get to kill the lobster. But I want the search for the third schema itself to have some kind of major impact on the world as they are paragon by then. I have some vauge ideas about them exposing and fighting (but not killing I think) King kaius, causing another minor mourning incident, etc. When they give the third schema to Elaydrien she won't reveal her evil intent ofcourse and the PC's will get some good down time. However, while they are relaxing they will somehow get information that all the schemas has been stolen and Elaydrien kidnapped. This is the work of Vol herself. The PC's will follow in an airship and I want some kind of Airship battle here while they follow Vol towards the forge in Lhazaar Principalities. By now they should be nearing Epic levels. When they get to Lhazaar principalities and find the forge they will first have to fight a lich or vampire elaydrien first. Then they will fight Lady Vol. She herself will not be a huge threat to the PC's but her minions and the Inspired certainly will. She is trying to comlete the Psionic Ritual during the combat. The PC's will fail here (for the adventure to go on). Vol will be restored to life and she will use her dragonmark together with her strong magic to prove quite an opponent for the party. However, being weakned by the ritual she is forced to flee and the PC's will be held at bay by the Inspired. Here comes epic level and my plans are even more vague. But they include a increasingly more powerfull Vol as she learns to master her mark again. The chamber is involved as it knows what has happened. The Chamber attacks all places of Vol worship trying to kill of all her followers. I also want Vol to complete some kind of extreme ritual making the mark of death reappear in the elven bloodlines all over Khorvaire (but especially Aeranal) leading to a new War of the Mark. I also want the elf in the party to manifest the mark of death adding more intrigue with the Undying Court as they want even more then ever to use here, perhaps even offering her Undeath and a seat on the court (epic destiny ftw). The PC's will have to travel to Sarlona to be able to fix all this, perhaps by releasing or at least consulting one of the flames/demons there perhaps even resulting at the end in a way to defeat Vol but then they have to defeat one of the Lords of Dust as a final battle. So yes thats about it :P First of all I need input about spesific ideas for changed, encounters, expansions and so on for the first part of the adventure. Anything really helps here. Also, I want to somehow include the chamber much earlier but I am not sure how. I don't want them to really take up time, but I want the characters to be part of the prophecy and I want there to be signs of the Chamber watching over them. Perhaps I will use the chamber to help them if they get in trouble or stray far off course of the story. And ofcourse more ideas for more epic story at the end or in the middle is welcome, but not first priority as it will take some time to get there.
#2 pivotal Aug 03, 2009 14:43:53	Aww come on people. I know its a bit much to read. But some general ideas and feedback would be awesome.
#3 badmeditation Aug 17, 2009 18:12:32	Okay I made it through about 3/4 through the post. First bit of advice. Shorter posts dude. Secondly, not everyone understands what your talking about? What famous falling tower scenario? I haven't read the adventure your talking about so a bit of this stuff is going right over my head. The other thing is Elaydren (I think) I she really just going to come out and say "It was a test." That stretching it a bit. I don't see House Cannith or Merrix d'Cannith allowing Elaydren to destroy a tower just to test some adventurers. Can you imagine the politics that would occur after something recklessly done by House Cannith like that? Shorten the post. Work on the explanation for the falling tower. (If the explanation is yours if it's from the adventure...well I don't know what to say about that.) Just give the important bits. try to sum up all the stuff above into say, three four sentence paragraphs?
#4 d_gibb Aug 29, 2009 12:43:24	I'm actually running an intro to Eberron campaign along a similar premise. I used The Forgotten Forge conversion to 4.0 by w0nkothesane on the forums here. Continuing with Lady Elaydren d'Cannith as my party's contact, I have a short adventure for a second schema where they have to raid the vaults of an uncooerative museum (who don't really know what the schema is that they have). As an interlude, one of my party members is going to DM a couple sessions and derail the party from the third schema by getting the party captured and sent to a death arena in Droaam. Back on track, a diplomatic mission to a cranky retired Cannith Magewright will get the third, and the fourth will take us to the Mournland, whereupon we will also find the forge. I think by this point, we will be near level 7, and I will run the Dungeon magazine Forge adventure with the construct dragons. Afer that, who knows. Maybe the secrets learned there will take the party to Xen'drik, or somewhere else. Let me know what you think about this bare outline; I think it should run pretty well. I just have to keep creating Warforged to fight!