All the PCs start the session not knowing each other (or at least they don't need to). They've all booked passage on a Lightning Rail headed toward New Cyre. The first few days of the journey are normal and they can roleplay meeting each other in the dining cart or whatever.
During this beginning phase, remark on an NPC family having trouble keeping their child under control. The child is obviously adopted as it doesn't share any of the same ethnic characteristics as the parents. The child, about six or seven years old in appearance, just keeps wailing in the night. The child wont talk to strangers and just repeats "leave me alone" over and over if anyone tries to calm her down with a Diplomacy check (if they use Intimidate the child just cries harder and the parents get upset.)
After a couple of days of this, the PCS suddenly wake up in the middle of the night. If they are in private cabins, they notice after a moment (and a moderate Perception check) that the raport of thunder from the Lightning Rail engine is more frequent than normal, meaning that the train is going faster than it should be. Once they leave the cabin, they see the hallway smeared with blood splatter, covering the windows walls and floor. Looking out the window reveals a barren landscape of grey wasteland illuminated solely by the lightning of the rail's engine rocketting past them. There are no stars, moon, or Ring in the sky.
Once they enter the common carts, or if they woke up there, they see everyone else in the cart but them and fellow PCs horrible mangled and mutilated in their seats and the aisle, blood splattering the floor and windows. While exploring, describe a bone-chilling pall coming over them whenever they pass from cart to cart. No actual cold damage yet.
Once they team up to figure out what's going on, (or interrupting any argument they may be having), the sound of the child crying echos in the train.
They come upon the child in the dining cart, huddled under a table, rocking itself, facing away from them. It cries continuously. High DC Perception checks reveal something wrong with the skeletal structure of the child (its spine is too pronounced and nobby to be human). The child ignores all attempts to calm or reason with it, it just keeps wailing. Touching the child causes it initiate combat, revealing itself to be some twisted aberration.
After PCs deal with the creature, they hear the child wailing again, echoing from somewhere toward the rear of the train, even though the corpse is right in front of them. That is, until they all take their eyes off it, then it disappears.
If they ignore the wailing and head toward the front of the train instead, they open the dining cart's front-end door to reveal pitch blackness, unnatural. Cautious experimentation (poking it with a weapon, putting a hand through it) causes the darkeness to start spilling into he cart, herding the PCs toward the rear of the cart. Just walking into it causes the PC to emerge in another cart. But now the wailing child's cries echo from further up, not toward the back. (The PC has been teleported to the rearmost passenger car, and the position of the wailing relative to them has changed).
In either case, before the PCs get into the cart where the second wailing is coming from they come upon a cart where they can see humanoid-shaped beings huddled in a corner loudly and messily devouring something. They make no move to notice the PCs before they enter the cart. Ranged attacks at them from outside the cart oddly pass right through them as if they were illusions. The second a PC enters the first square of the cart, combat starts, with the creatures rushing and attacking. When they abandon their huddle it's revealed they were eating corpses of the passengers.
After the combat, the crying child's wails stop. A moment later, there is loud rumble of thunder that keeps on rolling and the PCs are jostled as they feel the train pick up even more speed. (Looking out the window will confirm it). The PCs should come to the conclusion that they need to get to the engine and stop the train. If they don't, and keep exploring aimlessly, a little while later they are thrown to the floor as the train takes on another burst of speed and flat-out tell them that if the rail goes any faster, it will likely "jump the stones" and crash, killing everyone aboard.
Going towards the front, the pitch-black wall at the front end of the dining cart is gone. However when they reach the door to the engine, it appears as a large iron vault door. (If the PCs went up to the engine while exploring the train before waking up this night, it wasn't nearly as imposing.) Remind them of the grave chill getting colder around them as they attempt to get past the door.
If the PCs attempt to pick the lock, their pick breaks in the keyhole, jamming it. If the PC rolled really well, tell them there is no way that should have happened. They didn't mess up, the door *ate* their pick. Attempting to bash the door in causes a few dents in the door... then the metal realigns itself and shifts, taking on a bluish hue (nature check = "door turned into adamantine"), then ratchets out expanding locks and bolts and fortifications, right before their eyes. If they look around, mention a vertical rung of bars to the side of the platform between the engine and the first passenger cart (or tell them about if they don't actively try to find a way around the doors). The PCs can climb to the roof of the racing train, and jump over to the roof of the lightning rail engine.
The roof of the engine sports three spires, with lightning arcing between them continuously, stray bolts striking the metal walkways around the spires, leading to an access hatch at the front-end of the engine. The PCs must make their way across the walkways which are seven squares wide (with spires extending from the central row), dealing with gale-force winds and sporatic lightning strikes. The lightning should be treated as a trap that attacks Reflex, deals Lightning damage, and pushes 3 squares. If PCs aren't in the center row of squares, they can potentially be pushed off the side of the railing. (Give them the stanadard save to not be pushed into hindering terrain, then an acrobatics check to grab onto the side if they fall. If they fail both, they're dead.)
To make things worse, onl a quarter way across the roof of the engine, roll intiative for two insubstantial undead that deal cold and necrotic damage, the source of the death-chill pall, as the PCs stayed outside long enough for them to manifest.
Once across the engine, whether or not the undead have been dealt with, the PCs are free to open the hatch to the engine. But when they open it and look in, they don't see an engine room. They see a cave with angry red Prophecy Marks (like giant aberrant dragonmarks) illuminating the interior. Dropping into the cavern, the PCs are confronted by the sight of the crying child, only it's cries are muted and whimpering now. The child looks malnourished and pale. Behind it is a horrible monstrocity out of nightmare. In fact, it is a nightmare. A Hard Arcana check tells the PCs that this is as Quori. An easy Arcana check at least tells the magically inclined PC that thing entity is feeding psychically on the child's fear.
There is only one type of quori officially stated up in 4e so far. It is a Hashalaq, which unfortunately doesn't fit this type of encounter. Feel free to use a demon or devil or aberration of appropriate level for the party. Make it a solo. (Alternatively, a while ago, before the MM3 change to monster math, I updated all the 3rd edition quori to 4e. You can use my statblocks as a starting point if you like)
Surrounding the child and quori are gray nearly-featureless humanoids embedded in the cavern floor. If any of the PCs have died so far, they are present among these husks (and are recognizable to the other PCs). Treat them as being at 0 hit points and Stabalized. Any healing, including a Heal Check to activate their Second Wind, causes them to rise from the floor (not prone, standing) as a free action. Their color returns, they heal to their Bloodied Value (plus any additional healing if a power like Healing Word was used to heal them), and they are inserted into the initiative order directly following the PC who healed them's turn. (Inform the PCs of this when the fight starts)
When the Quori becomes bloodied, the cavern starts to split and shake. The prophecy marks become hazards that deal fire+psychic damage. The Quori also begins to generate 4 minion quori as a Recharge 5 free action power.
This battle can be won two ways. Kill the non-minion Quori, or wake the child. This has all been her nightmare. If the PCs have figured that out they can attempt to wake the child with a skill challenge during combat. 4 Moderate Diplomacy or Intimidate checks before 3 Failures causes the child to wake up. If the PCs are feeling particularly brutal, any combat damage to the child will do the same. Otherwise the child is not targetted by any of the quori.
If the quori is destroyed or the PCs succeed in the skill challenge, the child slowly stops crying and seems to recognize the PCs. The child smiles...
And then everyone wakes up in their seats aboard the Lightning Rail.
Session end.
(The child was a Kalashtar orphan adopted by unwitting human parents. Proximity to the Mournland along the journey caused the kalashtar child to become vulnerable to attack from Dal Quor)
I like the setup, and I think it's a neat way to get people into one of the iconic adventures of an eberron game - something bad happening on a train. I was enjoying the description of the adventure and the eventual reveal as well, but are kalashtar still immunte to nightmare/dream effects in 4e or did they lose that in the conversion? Is part of the explanation as to why it was the child's dream because they got so close to the mournland?
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I like the setup, and I think it's a neat way to get people into one of the iconic adventures of an eberron game - something bad happening on a train. I was enjoying the description of the adventure and the eventual reveal as well, but are kalashtar still immunte to nightmare/dream effects in 4e or did they lose that in the conversion? Is part of the explanation as to why it was the child's dream because they got so close to the mournland?
As far as I know, Kalashtar mechanically have no immunty to "dream effects" in 4e. Flavor-wise, I still assert that Kalashtar don't dream. But with an untrained psychic child (whos parents don't understand, thus she has had no contact with a kalashtar society that can train her mentaly), the barriers between the planes were weak enough that the child's psychic beacon was enough for a more-powerful-than-normal quori to pull her through into the dream world, metaphysically.
...I.E. "The Mournland Did It!" deux-ex-machina.
I think I am going to have a division of the Cult of the Dragon below make a terrorist attack on Sharn. The PCs will deal with the monsters that the cultists summoned. At the same time the Cultists are stealing a relic from a church of the Silver Flame. They are going to use this relic to reawaken a Nightmare Dragon. The PCs need to stop them soon....mainly because there is a peace summit between the five nations coming up, and this disturb that.
I have also considered running a game in Xen'Drik. The PCs are hiried by one of the Dragonmarked houses to guard a series of Dragonshard mines. The houses have also hiried a group of mercaneries, lead by a super badass Colonel, who is a bit of a zealot. While the College of Sharn has sent a group of illusion mages to treat with the Drow by "turning" into them. Also the Drow have a "diety" that talks to them through the trees....except that it is a sleeping Daelkyr.
I didn't steal that idea from anywhere I swear!!
Just wanted to tell ya I'm stealing this, with a few mods, for my group.
I just started an adventure (discussed recently here) community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758... and got some great advice for my "enemy".
Because my players are far from Sharn and were about to go there, your train ride fits perfectly if I go with the Dreaming Dark suggestion. I already have an NPC that is tainted (the Dwarf from the Company "Dourgutt" ) and I will use the child "let me go, let me go" as an essence of the Dwarfs inner conscious calling out. In fact, the child will be a dwarf with his mother, unknown to the players till later , a reflection of Dourgutt as a child with his mother.
When the players are awoken to see what is going on Dourgutt cannot be woken. I may, not decided, even allow them to free Dourrgutt of his mind affliction by killing the Quori before they reach Sharn, or maybe not...
Thanks!
I'd be interested to know how your group liked it once you run it.The players LOVED the adventure.
I did a LOT of replacing in the adventure to fit my "dream-state" world. The child was a 40 year younger version of the Dwarf, same purple birthmark on its face as Dourgutt. My players missed the connection, but noticed the mark. Later when they realize that the dwarf is mumbling the same things the dwarf child screams, they connected the dots. When the battle ensues, I used a thougthstealer.
The 4 figures eating the body were only apparitions. They jump up and charge the players, +10 attack vs Will. Those that saved saw their apparition vanish, those who failed took 3d8 psychic damage and a -2 to all defenses for the next encounter due to fear. The apparitions were mutilated versions of their own bodies.
I used intellect devourer figures for the train top, electrical section. The spires on the train looked like a spine with nerve sequences as the lighting fired off and ran down the train, shocking a random (1d8 location) 3x3 roof area as it did. They picked up on that.
I was surprised, but not disappointed to see that a DC 26 arcana check was reached to learn the true nature of the Quori creature before them. They drop into the conductor car (no prophecy marks) to instead land on a very soft, wet, bumpy and often hindering pink surface that made movement like quicksand. Yes, the surface of a brain.
They defeated the Quori, and awake in their seats but the dwarf never awoke, instead stuck in a catatonic state. When they arrived in Sharn (our Paladin opted not to contact the Deneith enclave in advance) they are greeted by 2 Company of the Griffon ranking members and 4 Deneith guards. Rumor is out they have kidnapped the dwarf, and walking off the lightning rail with him in a catatonic state, does not bode well.
We stopped here as a suspense ending.
I like how you made it your own. I'm glad your player's enjoyed it!
How's this?...
It's awesome! That's how it is!
I will use this as well for my friday campaign startup. However, reflavoring bit of it. I had trouble figuring out how to make the first part of my adventure entertaining, but this has helped a lot! You should write a blog with ideas like this.
But I digress. In our campaign, the last adventure group messed up the campaign plot and made Dal Quor conterminous with Eberron. Woops. I will continue to use this event, making the world feel a real.
The entire campaign will be a re flavoring of China Mieville's "The Scar". Introducing the players to the power of The Scar early on. (The Scar is a place in the ocean where reality is unstable and possibilities are random... like a quantum rift... or a portal to madness... or a gate to Dal Quor).
In my version they will be on a elemental powered ship going through a stream of leakage from The Scar. Here, the nightmares will occur on their voyage. This will set them up for what happens later in the adventure. I guess they could be sailing on brain matter or some similar.
Anyhew, thanks in advance!
I'm glad my little one-shot is getting some traction. I would write a blog, but honestly I'm not that inspirational of a DM. I'm no slouch, but typical sessions I run, I think, are just pretty standard. Only once in a while does a single session stand out in my head like this nightmare lightning rail one.