The trouble is, I'd like try something new with regards to plot. Some of the things I done are:
-Flashbacks to the Last War
-The Mourning happening in-game
-The Mourning happening again
-Power plays between the Chamber and the Lords of Dust
-Interactions with Sarlonans, including Kalashtar terrorists, Riedran diplomats, a trip to Dal Quor and Adar
-Daelkyr and their aberrations
-Trips to the monstrous nations, like Darguun, Shadow Marches and Droaam
-Trips to Aerenal
-Stormreach, Xen'drik, and the giants and drow that live there
-Prison break from Dreadhold
-Trip to the Mournland, including meeting the LoBster
Which leaves with a few themes I can think of immediately:
-Going to Argonnessen
-Infiltrating Reidra
-The Next War (though I may be doing this soon in another game)
-Trips to planes other than Kythri and Dal Quor
-Eastern Khorvaire, including the Mror Holds, Talenta, Q'barra, Valenar
Nothing has inspired me so far, though. I know I'd prefer to stick with Khorvairian PCs, so that I can easily make use of all the crunch.
I'm also considering something episodic, with a Baddie of the Week with subtle links, with a big reveal at the end about how they're all connected. You know, with the whole "You were in the palm of my hand this whole time" speech at the end.
So does anyone have any ideas? What plots have worked well for you, short and long term? What hasn't?
The other one I had was essentially the A-Team. "In 998 a crack commando unit..." and each adventure would be completely unrelated to each other, with the added fun of cribbing actual A team episode plots whenever I could.
You can start with the Q'barra frontier, have the PC deal with different (week to week) threats: Lizardfolk, the Riedra beachhead conspiracies, demonic influences (an underwater dive to the sunken city of Mar'saval could be nice). Follow-up with the Dragonborn lost empire angle, leading to "Going (back) to Argonnessen": a Khorvairan Marco Polo like journey to Argonnessen where they will have to deal with draconic politics as they try to stop an impending Light of Siberys strike against Q'barra / Khorvaire.
How about an "Ice Station Zebra" like plot: a Twelve Warforged scrying Raptor crash in Frostfell, the Raptor's Final Messenger contains images and locations of all Hanbalanis in Riedra. The Raptor has crashed near Boroman station --an isolated Raincallers Guild weather controlled research station in Frostfell. Shortly after the crash the speaking-stones in this mostly warforged inhabitant station go silent (is there a sabatore among the station members?). Now a Zil elemental submarine carrying the PCs is in a race with the Inspired and their squad of of Taskaan Shifters at getting to the Final Messenger first.
Infiltrating Riedra --> Dal Quor Matrix style, give freedom back to Riedrans ! and with PH3 just out with that Dreamwalker paragon path, this just seems a right time to play this sort of game.
The Next War --> this opens many possibilities depending on how you make it happen and unfold. Amazing sandbox for DM and PCs alike. Though, each mission/quest may feel like your Last War flashbacks.
Trip to planes --> If you center a campaign around this, the only thing I can think of is to warn you of this: be carefull not to fall into the Dragonball trap. The second thing I can think of is this: you need to reach the Far Realm / Xoriat by travelling to the edges of the Astral Sea for X reason. Maybe the Seals of the Gatekeepers are being threatened from the other side of the portals, and Heroes need to take the long road to get to them and secure them. On their way, they meet many folks that share their goals, need defending against some form of (planar) invasion, or just want to board their Astral Ship.
Eastern Khorvaire --> Karrnath/Valenar warfare, Dinosaurs, Pirates, Q'barra, Dwarved treasures, Dhakanni ruins, First Human ruins.
Rekko
The player characters are citizens of a Riedran colony which is, 'like all Riedran colonies', under the psionic direction of an Overmind. What the citizens don't realize is that not only is being ruled by a mysterious Overmind not typical in Riedran society, theirs is the only colony which is sealed within an opaque, impassable dome.
The truth of the matter is that the citizens are members of a lost Riedran colony which was claimed by assorted psionic aberrations from Khyber. Their minds have been tampered with in order to make them accept the reality before them; they are psychologically incapable of seeing that the Inspired they follow are actually mind flayers, and that the Overmind is actually a mad elder brain using them all in strange, inexplicable psychosociological experimentation miles below the surface of Sarlona.
Basically mix equal parts Eberron, Paranoia, and Dark City. It could be anything from absurd cartoonish antics (depending on how mad the Overmind is) to two-fisted action (the 'troubleshooter' theme played straight) to an in-depth mystery plot (it's built right into the premise). My preference would be a blend of the three, borrowing liberally from the source materials.
This idea's probably no help to you; I was just seizing the opportunity to exorcise it into text.
EDIT: For an added dimension, the players realize over time that their characters aren't just ordinary commoners like the other citizens of the colony; eventually they discover/remember that they were a group of outsiders, adventurers who tried and failed to thwart the elder brain. This adds a dimension of fun as they try to piece together what went wrong last time so they don't make the same mistake twice. Bonus points if it turns out that the last time wasn't their first attempt, and that the elder brain keeps on resetting them to observe each fresh iteration of their actions. From the Paranoia perspective this adds the angle of the characters discovering that they're the Riedran equivalent of Commie Mutant Traitors; the dreaded foreigner.
Off the top of my head:
The player characters are citizens of a Riedran colony which is, 'like all Riedran colonies', under the psionic direction of an Overmind. What the citizens don't realize is that not only is being ruled by a mysterious Overmind not typical in Riedran society, theirs is the only colony which is sealed within an opaque, impassable dome.
The truth of the matter is that the citizens are members of a lost Riedran colony which was claimed by assorted psionic aberrations from Khyber. Their minds have been tampered with in order to make them accept the reality before them; they are psychologically incapable of seeing that the Inspired they follow are actually mind flayers, and that the Overmind is actually a mad elder brain using them all in strange, inexplicable psychosociological experimentation miles below the surface of Sarlona.
Basically mix equal parts Eberron, Paranoia, and Dark City. It could be anything from absurd cartoonish antics (depending on how mad the Overmind is) to two-fisted action (the 'troubleshooter' theme played straight) to an in-depth mystery plot (it's built right into the premise). My preference would be a blend of the three, borrowing liberally from the source materials.
...
An alternative path to achieving this kind of a Paranoia, and Dark City theme could be setting it in The Fortress of Fading Dreams.
For the Riedran colony concept you can use Dar Qat in Xen'drik then when the PCs escape it - you go more pulp in the sands of the Menechtarun desert (canyon tombs of powerful giant kings, gnolls, djinnis and demons).
The Purge - 28 Days Later with werecreatures instead of zombies. PCs playing a mixed squad of Silver Flame militants forced to band together with primal Shifters to survive in the depths of the Eldeen Reaches. Can they overcome their differences and defeat the Lord o fDust behind the evil in the region?
Psi-Force - A Riedran elite strike force sent into Droaam to track down dangerous members of the Heirs of Ohr Kaluun and the Horned Shadow who are hiding out across the sea. I like flipping things to have PCs being Riedran champions, and I like exploring Droaam.
Who Are We This Time? - All-changeling spy team, engaging in Mission Impossible tasks for one of the Five Nations.
I haven't quite had enough time in one place to get any of these going, but I've thought about it.
I've done that! Or rather, something very like it. We did a one-off session in Sharn in which all the player characters were changelings working more or less for the Tyrants/Cabinet of Faces. Their mission was to act as decoys while another group of adventurers (the players' regular party) slipped out of town. One changeling is fun; a whole party of changelings opens up strange new realms of identity games.
We did a one-off session in Sharn in which all the player characters were changelings working more or less for the Tyrants/Cabinet of Faces.
Sounds fun - I enjoy interesting one-offs. In this case I was talking with my group about having it as an ongoing (though admittedly as a secondary campaign when we felt like taking a break from the main one)... I liked the idea of being able to insert them into radically different situations each time. This adventure, they are infiltrating Riedra as a unit of the Harmonious Shield; next adventure they are playing barbarians in the Demon Wastes trying to infiltrate a huge gathering of the Carrion Tribes (a la The Warriors); next adventure they are pretending to be a Valenar warband; and so on.
For the heroic tier, the PCs are going through a series of short, isolated adventures, bouncing back and forth through time. The currenty time period adventures are highligting the rise in undead activity throughout Sharn.
The flashbacks started with the Mark of Prophecy adventure in the back of the ECG, where the PCs met Bren, the Brelish general. Spinning out of that first flashback to the Day of Mourning, each subsequent jaunt through time features a mission that the PCs had been sent on by Bren, who took them into his employ after they rescued him. Each mission has the goal of seeking out a particular prophecy mark that they are to collect in a dragonshard and return to Bren. Each of these missions takes place during a 2 year period, subsequent to the Mourning, that had vanished from the PC's memories.
Through a series of plot twists and prophecy revelations, the PCs regain their most pertinent memories, and ultimately will find out that Bren is not only a Brelish general, but an agent of the Chamber. And not only that, his true loyalty lies with the Blood of Vol and the Order of the Emerald Claw. This is where the PCs realize Vol is involved and the Prophecy Marks they had found for Bren actually give vital information that Vol needed in order to take steps to finally reawaken her dragonmark.
For the Paragon tier, I'm looking forward to checking out the 4e version of the Tomb of Horrors, and seeing how that "super-adventure" might adapt to using as Vol's homestead as opposed to Acerak.
The epic tier is still a bit fuzzy for me, but I do know that the Chamber and Argonessen will become more heavily involved as it becomes clear that undead invasion is not limited to Vol's scheming, but Katashka himself.
Characters can be a part of the warlord's hoardes, Akiak freedom fighters, Riedran defenders (a much more sympathetic scenario than most involving the Inspired), Adarians who are trying to figure out if these are potential allies or a new threat (the latter scenario possibly leading to a bizarre alliance between Inspired and Kalashtar), or Khorvarians sent by one of the Five Nations to assist their Riedran allies.
As the campaign progresses, it becomes more and more clear that the Seren barbarians are agents of the Chamber. Other draconic factions are split between those who favor this war-by-proxy as a safe means of neutralizing the Quori threat, and those who fear that Sarlona's absence from the Prophecy makes the continent too dangerous to meddle with in such a grand fashion.
Eastern Khorvaire --> Karrnath/Valenar warfare, Dinosaurs, Pirates, Q'barra, Dwarved treasures, Dhakanni ruins, First Human ruins.
That sounds like fun:
A new method of instantaneous transportation has been discovered, using airships. By bathing a Lyrandar heir in energies from the Elemental Chaos, their mind and psyche are warped so that they can achieve a much more intimate method of communicate between themself and the airship's elemental. By working together instead of flying through the air, they can use a special type of engine to simply disappear and reappear at their destination.
The players are aboard for the maiden voyage. Unfortunately just before the ship is about to leave an Orien spy assassinates the pilot, and so the airship disappears and reappears, but without a pilot it goes crashing into the ground. The survivors aren't sure where they are, there's no signs of civilization anywhere nearby. As they start walking through the forest, they realise they're actually in Breland still. In fact, they appeared above Sharn. But there's no cities anywhere. There's instead dinosaurs roaming the planes with halfling tribes living free and unrestricted.
The players can be part of the pivotal events where the goblins carve out a nation for themselves and push the halflings out of their land. Except, the halflings have never heard of goblins or any race that matches their description. That is, at least, until airships are spotted flying towards the bay where Sharn will one day sit. Immediately levitating platforms are thrown across the side and goods are clearly being piled atop them. Except you can't quite catch whose doing the lifting. Eventually the platforms fall down and you can clearly see goblins are doing the lifting. There isn't only one airship like this, but hundreds. You watch the goblins create camp, doing so with quite advanced equipment. Finally the rest of the passengers come off the airship and they are quite clearly the ones in charge. They order the rest of the goblins about quite a bit. Its late in the day so it takes a bit for you to get a good look at these people. You expect to see Hobgoblins, but as they step into the firelight you see they are, in fact, humans?
House Phiarlan/Thuranni: nasty intrigue with house Paelion survivors out for revenge/information. Khoirvaire wide with an anti-villain as the chief 'foe'. A noble elf Paelion 'villain' whose cause for revenge is quite legitimate.
Aberrant dragonmark:gritty noir in Sharn stock setting stuff
Invade/infiltrate Aerenal for a dragonmark item held there. A dragonmarked item of power has been revealed in Aerenal but the elves aren't parting with it and you're hired to go get it by a proper representative of the 12. (the players are the unwitting puppets of Vol, the item is a dragonmarked item but of the Mark of Death, the genuine representative from Korth is in fact a devotee of the Blood of Vol).
For a planar issue Dolurrh based monsters around Lake Dark and the Icetop mountains in Karnnathi
Counter intelligence: get the Reidran's out of Q'barra
Noble quest/combat: go to the demon wastes to help the Maruk orcs
Noble quest/combat: highlevel : go to Frostfell to reimprison a Rakasha overlord.
Diplomacy/Combat/Planar: something sets off a reality storm in Khorvaire and they need to get the Reidran Edgewalkers to help.
Why they are doing it I don't know, I'm tempted to steal the plot from the Voyage of the Dawn Treader and have them looking for lost lords or what happened to them. My Immram will head east (I'm sure St. Pat will damn my Irish hide for doing so.) and the characters will start in the Shadow Marshes or Drooam and head to the Lhazar Principalties or even another continent eventually.
Naturally, they'll have to move all over and make frequent stops along the way. A recurring villain who pops up and damages their airship often would be useful. I might include the Draconic Prophecies and have the PCs running contrary to it, so dragons show up to take a bite out them occasionally too.
My last Eberron campaign was a personal disaster. I allowed one player to play an evil character. He quickly converted everyone to playing evil characters and they really enjoyed themselves. I had them figuring out their twisted history in the Mournland and finally ended it with some Time Paradox that I found very satisfying, but they didn't like it. Serves them right, IMO, running amuck like that. Regardless, my next campaign will keep them so scared for their lives they won't have anytime to consider being rotten.
In one of my campaigns, the players were allied with Haka'Torvak (the dragon gaurding the demons in Q'barra). I made him a gold dragon instead of a black dragon to prey on my players' assumptions. Secretly, he had long ago gone mad and allied himself with the demons he was protecting- figuring that living free alongside them was superior to spending his whole life as their warden.
So he sent the PCs abroad on a bunch of dungeon delves related to the Age of Demons. Eventually they discover that the whole time he's been using them to help him uncover information about how the demons came to and maintained their power and how they may escape their bondage. The PCs eventually had to do battle with him inside his volcano lair.
In another... Keep in mind that this was about two years before Avatar came out.
The PCs had to try and negotiate between an expanding boom town in the Eldeen Reaches and the community of Ashbound Shifters upon whose hunting grounds they were encroaching. The townspeople talked about the Shifters like they were stupid animals and whenever one was killed, they'd hang it up in the center of town.
The PCs tried peaceful diplomacy, but the people weren't going to go broke or abandon their new homes. Likewise, the Shifters weren't going to leave theirs.
My PCs assumed that the Ashbound Shifters were noble savages. afterall, they seemed to always speak about living as one with nature, respecting the natural world, etc etc. Instead, they found strict believers in survival of the fittest and nature red in tooth and claw.
The PCs didn't much care for this, especially when they watched the Shifters set fire to a field and chase down and tear a child to pieces as she tried to flee. Eventually started to share in the townspeople's view of the Shifters as monsters. They figured they'd be clever and lay out poisoned meat to weaken the Shifters to and then lead the town militia in a raid on their den.
Only after initiating this did they find out that the Shifter carrying out the attacks were the younger, healtier, and more aggressive ones. They had been acting on their own, without the blessings of the pack leader- who had instrcuted members of the pack to stay away from the town.
They were protecting their own children, elderly, and those who had become weak due to lack of available game. It was a slaughter. They saw the townspeople doing some pretty despicable things, and the leader of the Militia was the Cleric's own father.
They felt like total jerks. The Cleric was so conflicted that her character ended up losing her faith and started suffering from mental/emotional issues.
My current campaign involves them investigating and uncovering a plot by the Cults of the Dragon Below and Lords of Dust to release the Overklord slumbering under Sharn. Along the way, they're going to be getting aid from the Chamber. When the time is right, they're going to discover that the Chamber's answer to solving the problem is to wipe Stormreach and all its inhabitants off the map- just like they did with the Giants/Elves/Drow thousands of years ago.
Theeeeeen...
I'm also running a solo campaign for my girlfriend where she'll be playing a Tiefling Rogue. She's going to be hunted by the Dreaming Dark and the Heirs of Ohr Kaluun.
Unbenknownst to her, she's the last remaining blood descendant of a fallen noble line that fled to Khorvaire generations ago. She is the key to the activation of a powerful eldritch machine. The Dreaming Dark managed to kill all other potential cantidates, while the Heirs of Ohr Kaluun have been trying to save them.
I predict that at first she'll gravitate towards the assistance of the Heirs. However, since her character isn't particularly evil and has no particular love of her fiendish heritage, when she learns how cruel and malicious their plans are, she'll likely back out.
At which point she should meet up a changeling vagabond that helps her go underground. I intend to play up this individual as a kindred spirit only to eventually reveal them to be an indoctrinated agent of Redria.
I have myself run a campaign which started in Sharn which involved the Quori. Somehow allmost all PCs started as muscle for the Boromar clan or allied with Morgraive university, so I used a professor interested in the history of the giants as the start. She had found some ancient templates for weapons in the war against the Quori (an item which would disrupt plannar connections within an area and a crystal golem created to oppose psionic opponents). While experimenting with these things she accidentally came across the Dreaming Dark, and became increasingly paranoid, borrowing large sums of money from the Boromar clan to finance her research. Just when the Boromar clan came knocking on her door to get their money back (although they would have accepted services as well) she was missing and their were signs of a struggle with Daask thugs. The PCs investigated the disappearence which ultimately would have lead to a confrontation with the Quori.
Vol has made a deal with Orcus, chained Demon Prince of the Undead: if she can wreck as much havoc as she can on the above world with legions of undead monsters, the resulting combined force of necrotic energy will free Orcus and he will impose his rule on the world once again.
Basically, a zombie apocalypse. Except it's a undead apocalypse to be more broad.
This is a very basic concept, and the primary locations is up to the DM.
Concept: the Dragonshard campaign
The party works for the Finders Guild (run by House Tharashk). Each session they must complete a different job (think dungeon delves in terms of length/format). You can easily string a few session together, ala multi-part episodes on TV. The running theme is that most/all of the work the team gets involves dragonshards.
(note: nice thing about the party being members of an organization like the Finder's guild, especially when coupled with this style of a campaign, is that it's very easy to rotate players and PCs in continuity).
Heroic tier focuses mostly on Khorvair. Q'barra, Droaam, the Mournland, and the Eldeen reaches could all make good areas to focus on. I have a small list of hooks that can form the basis of a session, and you can re-use them with a minimal amount of work.
Examples:
Party must recover a lost cache of shards.
Party must escort a shipment.
Party must secure a mining site.
And so on.
-J
Adventures will probably end up being a bit monster-of-the-weekish, with a metaplot involving the Twelve and the Chamber.
I took the idea of Karrn's Analects of War and posited a Dhakaani ur-text similar to The Art of War in concept. In my world that book was written by a monastic order of hobgoblin warriors who had retreated from the world to find meaning in their lives of war and violence, not by renouncing it, but by turning it into a philosophy.
Now the players are in pursuit of fragments of that text as well as several ancient schemas which appear to be part of the construction of an ancient form of warforged. In the wrong hands this warforged titan could be a devastating weapon, but it is also the living repository for the entire text, a body of philosophy developed by the Ashen Covenant.
There are several factions after the schemas, each for their own purposes.
It's about war, peace, and finding meaning in a life of struggle.
cheers,
Meshon
I'm about to start a superhero-themed campaign. The premise is that a party of adventurers goes into the depths of Sharn, where they encounter something eldritch that knocks them out. When they recover, each of them bears a Siberys dragonmark, and not always a race-appropriate (or even recognizable) one.
Adventures will probably end up being a bit monster-of-the-weekish, with a metaplot involving the Twelve and the Chamber.
I like this idea, but in order for me to run it I would have to know why. What did they encounter? Why do they all have Siberys marks? What does this have to do with the Twelve and the Chamber?