Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Charles_Phipps Jul 01, 2012 4:41:54	Hey guys, It's coming to the climax of a current game where the PCs are working against the Emerald Claw and it's constant, never-ending, plot to rule the world. One of these plots is building a kind of Mourning-esque weapon called the "Death Fog" which will turn anyone it touches into undead. Worse, undead who are absolutely loyal to Erandis D'Vol because she's expending oodles of magical energy to prepare to bind them all. The fog will be generated by a converted Eldritch Machine and cover all of Karrnath. Karrnath's new forces will then conquer all of Khorvaire and the living will all be forced as nothing more than breeding stock/food for future undead. Lich Queen rules all, yada yada. The PCs, being the PCs, will thwart this with the aid of one of the Artificers involved with the project. He's less than keen on genocide and wants to actually regain Karrnath's glory. So, with the substitution of a specially prepared Siberys shard in place of the Khyber Shard at heart of this, the Death Fog will produce Positive Energy and wipe out all undead in the country at once. Poof, they're all dust. Kaius III, by this point, will be dead as the PCs have already killed the Homonculus the Emerald Claw replaced him with. So....what now? This is a BIG change to the Eberron setting.
#2 Starsomava Jul 01, 2012 4:53:55	Step one:  I cry. Step two: I gather a batch of Necromancers to make sure Queen Aurala and Cardinal Krozen don't get any funny ideas. Kaius III, by this point, will be dead as the PCs have already killed the Homonculus the Emerald Claw replaced him with. Do you mean the actual Kaius III or Kaius I (the one that is a vampire in disguise).
#3 Charles_Phipps Jul 01, 2012 6:01:42	Yeah, it's the ultimate moment for Karrnath. It's the chance to cast aside Negative Material Undeath and build a new life where they can recover their pre-Emerald Claw martial glories. It's also when they're going to be militarily weakest for a while. Parties in Thrane may or may not think of this as the perfect time to invade and attempt to convert people to the Silver Flame away from the EVIL Blood of Vol religion. (heavy sarcasm) The Valenar elves might see this as the perfect time to strike as well. Aundair would love to but Thrane is in the way. The Warlords, of course, will have taken a heavy hit but it'll be up to the PCs or whoever to help SOMEONE claim the crown. The actual Kaius III might be too crazy from his long imprisonment to do it.
#4 Ogiwan Jul 01, 2012 6:08:22	What is your goal? Who/What's the big bad? If the MacGuffin Machine is the center of the campaign....are you just done with it? Or, is The Machine just the first step in a convoluted plot? Hmmmmmm. My usual Chessmaster is a Lords of Dust, but.....what if its actually a plot by the Dreaming Dark to get a larger foothold on Khorvaire? As in, Karrnath, wracked by instability, reaches out to the Inspired for aid, and they are more than gracious to assist in creating stability and prosperity in Karrnath....
#5 Starsomava Jul 01, 2012 8:31:05	Yeah, it's the ultimate moment for Karrnath. ultimate downer moment maybe Parties in Thrane may or may not think of this as the perfect time to invade and attempt to convert people to the Silver Flame away from the EVIL Blood of Vol religion. Jaela is against any major hostilities, but Cardinal Krozen could do something and "forget" to tell her about it  The Valenar elves might see this as the perfect time to strike as well. They want to pick a fight with a worthy foe, not to kick someone while they are down  Aundair would love to but Thrane is in the way. Aundair and Karrnath share a border across the Scion's Sound. Also if Krozen sends the Thranish army to Karrnath, Aurala may decide to invade Thrane, or at least retake Thaliost The Warlords, of course, will have taken a heavy hit but it'll be up to the PCs or whoever to help SOMEONE claim the crown. what is the party's opinion of karrnath in general?  in the game i run the PCs would take the chance to do every bit of harm they could to Karrnath.  They only work for Kaius because he is the only one willing to give them any support at all in their quest to fix the stuff "the Queen of Death" is messing up.
#6 Charles_Phipps Jul 01, 2012 16:54:03	What is your goal? Who/What's the big bad? If the MacGuffin Machine is the center of the campaign....are you just done with it? Or, is The Machine just the first step in a convoluted plot? Erandis D'Vol is the big bad but the PCs are spies for the most part, working for a nebulous shadowy organization. (Actually, the poor guys don't know it's actually the Dragons) This will be the end of the "mid-point phase" of the campaign with the second part being the reprocussions. Hmmmmmm. My usual Chessmaster is a Lords of Dust, but.....what if its actually a plot by the Dreaming Dark to get a larger foothold on Khorvaire? As in, Karrnath, wracked by instability, reaches out to the Inspired for aid, and they are more than gracious to assist in creating stability and prosperity in Karrnath....  Possibly. I'm debating there's some good candidates to replace Kaius as ruler but I'm not sure Kaius III's kids in Breland are the best choices. Mostly, I want to give PCs a moral dilemmna. They can redeem Karrnath's soul or they can destroy it militarily, which is hard since a couple are Karrns.
#7 Charles_Phipps Jul 01, 2012 16:56:56	what is the party's opinion of karrnath in general?  in the game i run the PCs would take the chance to do every bit of harm they could to Karrnath.  They only work for Kaius because he is the only one willing to give them any support at all in their quest to fix the stuff "the Queen of Death" is messing up.   In general, they go with the idea Karrnath used to be this awesome nation which was badly misused by Erandis D'Vol and has become reliant on soulless automatons. The Karrns in the party don't actually necessarilly HATE necromancy but they hate the "mindless zombie hordes" almost universally. Doubly so because the souls of the dead are imprisoned inside them in my games. (The afterlife is a mystery but it's considered a fate worse than death) One of them would like to see Karrnath return to its previous glory days where war had honor, a questionable assertion but an appropriate one for the setting I think. Mostly, all of the party hates the Emerald Claw and would see this as a major blow to their efforts even if Kaius I is their enemy.
#8 Edymnion Jul 03, 2012 15:13:35	Now, thats not exactly correct. Karnnathi was a large, powerful nation (the strongest of them all, founded by Karn the Conquerer), but the Last War had it fighting on all sides (resources stretched thin) and then horrible weather devastated their crops leading to mass famine.  Either one the nation could have dealt with, but both combined meant it was going to fall.  It couldn't weather the storm of famine and disease *AND* keep up the strong military front required to keep it from being overrun by the other nations. What they did was turn to the Blood to raise the dead to bolster their military strength.  Even the Karnnathi's didn't really like that part, but it was the last ditch emergency effort to keep from going under.  While Erandis did twist that to her advantage, its not like she was the one to put the country in that state to begin with.  She saved it (and then proceeded to do pretty much whatever she saw fit with it). Its been years since all that occurred, but I don't think its been enough that Karnnath can stand on it's own without the undead propping it up.  They simply don't have the manpower to feed themselves yet.  Without some massive influx of support from the other nations, destroying all of the undead at once like that would likely destroy the nation as a whole.  Not only would it be completely undefended from outside attack, I would think it would no longer be able to support it's own living population without zombies and the like doing the menial labor that makes civilized life for the living possible. Your players, by destroying every undead, would also be destroying Karnnath itself.
#9 Charles_Phipps Jul 03, 2012 17:42:27	Ooo dear, well that wouldn't work in my games. I've prestablished with my players that negative energy kills plants and that Karrnath is suffering crop failure, horrid weather conditions, and worse because the undead are present in such ridiculous numbers. Zombies, in short, are TERRIBLE farmers. I guess this is non-canoning my campaign but the undead would solely be part of their military in this.
#10 CorrinAvatan Jul 03, 2012 22:58:50	.  While Erandis did twist that to her advantage, its not like she was the one to put the country in that state to begin with.  She saved it (and then proceeded to do pretty much whatever she saw fit with it). Just to nit-pick: the 3e books give the implication that the Blood of Vol and Emerald Claw had prepared for the famine and plagues before they arose.  In typical Eberron fashion, it is not spelled out if they had a hand in it, just saw it coming, or just got lucky; however, I do remember that the Blood of Vol religion gained a lot of power and influence when they shared food and medicine that they just so happened to have in storehouses throughout all of Karrnath.  I'm pretty sure it's in the 3e Eberron Campaign Guide, if not there then it's in the Faiths of Eberron book. Given the fact that the entire thing is run by a Lich who, according to the books, is working on her millenia-long plot of regaining the ability to use her Dragonmark, I would actually find it difficult to think that she DIDN'T have a hand in the plague/famine: it pretty much gave her an undead army that she didn't even have to hide. In any case, unless you want to have Karrnath carved up and served to the rest of the Five Nations, you're going to need to have Karrnath make another desperate move: I really like the idea of asking for help from Riedra, as I feel that the Inspired/Riedra/Dreaming Dark/Quori would jump on the chance to get a foothold on the continent, especially with all the bad dream mojo that would be running around now. Or, throw this in for a twist: due to some ancient Elven prophecy/religous belief (Path of the Ancestors or whatever it is called), the Valenar decide to ally themselves with Karrnath unconditionally, and start a campaign into Thrane.   Basically, without the undead, Karrnath is no more, unless someone else steps in.  Heck, if you wanted, you could probably turn that into an excuse to have a bunch of Dragonborn raiders, then an invading army of Dragonborn, end up taking that part of the continent over (who are actually there to do something Draconic-Prophecy-ish.) As an aside: the 4e Eberron book notes that Karrnath doesn't have enough farmers to have enough food to feed everyone, but that they are able to export beef, cheese, and other meat products to other nations.... if your people are starving, why are you exporting your food (maybe they are trading their meat/cheese for grains?)?
#11 Charles_Phipps Jul 04, 2012 22:15:44	To be fair, many real life starving nations were exporters of food. They just had really really cruddy leaders. But yes, I think I'm going to go with the idea the Karrns are crippled militarily when the Valenar join into the battle and help defeat the Thrane, though much of Western Karrn is taken. The PCs will be able to negotiate a treaty at that point because they're that awesome.
#12 Captain_Kobold Jul 06, 2012 9:45:43	There is a fair chance that once Thrane discovers the status of Karrnath, it will begin a massive incursion - to deliver food and supplies to the crippled nation. The event may well kick off a political struggle in Thrane itself. The devout will want to give aid to ensure that Karrnath does not have to resort to undead again. The secular rulers and military might want to remove Karrnath as a threat completely, or just bite off a chunk of territory. (Unlikely however if the land is known to be poor.) It depends upon how you want to/have already portrayed Thrane and the Silver Flame in your campaign. Part of the next stage of your campaign might even be to penetrate into Thrane to bring the news of what is actually going on to the ears of the Church leaders.
#13 Ogiwan Jul 06, 2012 10:46:44	To be fair, many real life starving nations were exporters of food. They just had really really cruddy leaders. Well, one possibility that I see is that Karrnath exports high-priced foodstuffs (Nightpale Ale, Karrn smoked cheese, and the like) and uses that money to buy larger quantities of mundane foodstuffs. I mean, its been mentioned in canon that Nightpale and Karrn cheese travels with a Deneith guard, so its probably worth a lot. Why not use the money gained from trading a couple dozen carts of these high-value goods to get a couple of dozen tons of grain?