Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Montonius1 Oct 12, 2008 2:43:02	Since the completion of the Grand History of Eberron a number of posters here have contacted me asking me how I have used my knowledge of Eberron lore to produce better campaigns. As this was an intriguing question I decided to compile a list of the various Eberron campaigns I ran over the years and make them available, if there was interest, here on the boards. To begin this experiment, I will include a collection of the characters and their early backgrounds from my very first Eberron campaign here. If you find these examples of how to carefully integrate Eberron lore into a campaign useful, let me know, and I will provide more details on how the campaign shaped up and even provide you with details on other characters and plots I ran over the years. Feel free to mine these character's backstories for your own ideas. These characters have all been translated from their original incarnation in the 3.5 Edition rules to 4E rules for your convenience. In terms of format, each entry is laid out as follows: Name of Character--race gender--class/multiclass (if appropriate)/eventual Paragon Path Alignment, Deity (if appropriate) Character Background and Description (can be quite long) Favored Weapons: 4E character build, preferred iconic weapons for the character The first set of characters I have called the Dauntless Defenders and their storylines were contained within what I called the Dauntless Campaign. The character entries follow; their backgrounds are current up through the first four levels of their characters as originally played.
#2 Montonius1 Oct 12, 2008 2:43:52	Rikard ir’ Karlach—half-vampire human male—fighter/warlord/Kensei Good, Three Faces of War and the Dragon Between Kaius ir’Wynarn, the man who served as both Karrnath’s King Kaius I and later, secretly, as Kaius III after he was transformed into a vampire during the early stages of the Last War by the lich Erandis d’Vol, kept a harem of young Karrn women who willingly gave him their blood. Sometimes, when a vampire like Kaius was fully sated on blood, the rush of life energy could restore some biological functions, like reproduction, of their otherwise dead physical forms. One such incident occurred in 968 YK when Kaius, after feeding, found his human lusts restored and he proceeded to impregnate one of his harem girls with an illegitimate and very rare half-vampire child. The boy’s birth killed his poor mother, but Kaius feared that the unnatural child would become an object of fascination for the Blood of Vol cult or could expose his own cursed existence as a vampire to the people of Karrnath. Unwilling to simply kill his own son to keep him out of the hands of the Blood of Vol or protect his own secret, Kaius arranged for the boy, named Rikard, to be raised by one of his best generals, the Warlord Rolund ir’Karlach. Karlach raised the boy as his ward on his own estate near the Karrnathi capital of Korth, where he received a first-rate education at the hands of private tutors and was then enrolled as a cadet in the Rekkenmark Academy. Rikard, blessed (or cursed) with the exceptional physical and spell-like abilities provided by his supernatural heritage, proved to be an exceptional cadet, if a somewhat insubordinate one. While he was a cadet, Rikard met the Lyrandar heir Morden d’Lyrandar during a ball held between the cadets of the Rekkenmark and the dragonmarked students of the arcane academy of the Twelve. The two formed a friendship that would carry on through the remaining years of the Last War. Following his graduation in 990 YK from the Rekkenmark Academy, Rikard entered the Karrnathi Army and proceeded to participate in several of the most disastrous campaigns ever fought by the Karrns, including the joint assault carried out by Karrnath and a fleet from the Lhaazar Principalities on the city of Sharn in Breland which was turned back with heavy casualties in 991 YK. Rikard also served in the aborted Karrnathi invasion of the dwarven Mror Holds in the same year. Rikkard’s greatest moment of military service came in 994 YK when he was part of the Karrnathi legion that broke the Cyran assault on the city of Atur where the Blood of Vol raised many of the undead troops that filled out Karrnath’s military. Rikard was decorated by his foster father for his valor during this campaign and King Kaius III noted with pleasure his secret offspring’s accomplishments. Rikard’s most fateful moment came in 994 YK when the Karrnathi high command ordered raids using the newly introduced Lyrandar airships on the northeastern plains regions of the Eldeen Reaches, both to try and tie down Aundairian forces and to seize needed agricultural stores for Karnnath. The raid included a small group of the Lyrandar’s airships, one of which had Morden d’Lyrandar as its first officer. Rikkard’s troops, which included a company of Karnnathi undead, managed to gain control of the Eldeen border town Redleaf, but the town was a trap and had been taken over by a group of the elite Aundairian Knights Arcane. Rikkard managed to extract his troops, but only by ordering his undead soldiers to slaughter Reacher civilians. This was standard Karrnathi practice by the end of the Last War since undead troops were considered more expendable than living Karrns. Rikkard was lauded for his actions when he returned to Korth, even being inducted into the elite Order of Rekkenmark by King Kaius III himself and promoted to the rank of colonel. But even though Rikkard had done as he had been trained to do by the Karrnathi military, he was subsumed by guilt over the civilian deaths in the Reaches. When the Last War ended with the Treaty of Thronehold in 996 YK, Rikard shocked his superiors and family by resigning his commission in the Karrnathi Army and leaving Karrnath behind for the splendid isolation of the Eldeen Reaches. In 997 YK Rikard reached his destination—the village of Greenleaf in the heart of the Reaches’ Towering Wood where he had an audience with the Great Druid Oalian, the ancient awakened greatpine that was recognized as the leader of most of the druid sects of the Reaches. Rikard sought out the Great Druid to make restitution for the massacre at Redleaf. Oalian told the half-vampire that he had been surrounded by only death since almost the moment of his birth and it was this that had led to the great tragedy at Redleaf. Only by serving the cause of life itself, the Great Druid explained, could Rikard find a measure of peace and reclaim his honor. Rikard next made a stop in the Shadow Marches, where he joined the Gatekeepers, pledging his life to protect Eberron from the ravages of the daelkyr and other unnatural beings who threatened the peoples of the world. By 998 YK, Rikard had returned to the Eldeen Reaches, where he served with the Eldeen rangers as the Gatekeepers’ representative based in Mossmantle. During his second audience with Oalian upon his return to the Reaches, Rikard was told that he possessed a great destiny that was intended to one day save Eberron from a terrible threat. The Great Druid explained that the first step on this destiny of meeting “the great storm” would begin with a “message from the sky.” This prediction came dramatically true in 998 YK when Morden d’Lyrandar, now in command of the elemental airship Dauntless, showed up above Mossmantle and offered Rikard work with the Blackwheel Company in Xen’drik. Mindful of the Great Druid’s words, Rikard accepted his friend’s offer against his better judgment and the airship sailed on to Sharn, the City of Towers to collect the rest of the crew. Along the way, Morden filled his friend in on the existence of the Crimson Codex and the Caldyn Fragments which could be used to prevent the outbreak of another war and reunite the Kingdom of Galifar. Rikard possesses a pale complexion and the pale white hair that he inherited from his vampiric father. Rikard’s eyes are normally hazel, but when angry or enraged they glow a sharp crimson, also a sign of his supernatural connection to the plane of Mabar, the Endless Night. Rikard has also recently manifested the Siberys Mark of Sentinel, though he has not made any moves to present himself as a foundling of the dragonmarked House Deneith. Favored Weapons: great weapon fighter build, bastard sword and shield, longbow, daggers
#3 Montonius1 Oct 12, 2008 2:44:23	Morden Valmont d’Lyrandar—half-elf (Khoravar) male—wizard/swordmage/Wizard of the Spiral Tower Unaligned, Kol Korran Morden Valmont d’Lyrandar and his twin brother Mordain was born to a dragonmarked Khoravar heir of House Lyrandar and his full-blooded elven wife from Aerenal. Morden was raised by his father in Stormhome, the weather-controlled city off the northern coast of the kingdom of Aundair that was the headquarters of House Lyrandar after his father’s marriage was met with strong disapproval from the Lyrandar house elders and his mother returned to her homeland. Morden developed a dragonmark like his father at an early age. Morden was intelligent and precocious, perhaps as a result of his more pure elven blood. He was somewhat too precocious for his superiors in his house and constantly got into trouble among the elders of Stormhome and was assigned for mentoring to Arianna Jace, one of the house’s best operatives (and also secretly the silver dragon Sky, a member of the Chamber). Morden flourished under his new mentor and when he was fourteen, the young Khoravar was shipped off to pursue arcane studies at the Twelve’s magical academy, a thirteen-tiered keep that floated above the city of Korth, the capital of Karrnath, on a scholarship provided by House Lyrandar. While there, Morden met Rikard ir’Karlach when he was an up-and-coming cadet at the Rekkenmark Academy during a joint masquerade ball held between the Tower of the Twelve and the Karrnathi military academy. The two formed a friendship that night that would last through the final years of the Last War. With a recommendation from Arianna Jace, Morden was assigned to the Lyrandar’s most important project—the development of the new elemental airships with the gnomes of Zilargo. In 990 YK the first Lyrandar airships began to make regular runs for both civilian and military purposes for the Five Nations and Morden was assigned as a crewman on many of these early voyages, gradually gaining both commercial and military experience. In 994 YK Morden served as the first officer of one of the Lyrandar airships used by the Karrnathi Army to carry out a raid on the town of Redleaf in the Eldeen Reaches. This raid was commanded by Morden’s old friend Rikard ir’Karlach, now a captain in the Karrnathi military. While Morden did not see the massacre that Rikard’s undead troops carried out in Redleaf, he saw the terrible toll that the battle took on his friend’s soul. It was after the signing of the Treaty of Thronehold that ended the Last War in 996 YK that Morden learned from Arianna Jace that she was also a member of the organization known as the Crimson Codex, which sought the portions of the Draconic Prophecy known as the Caldyn Fragments to prevent another war and reforge the united Kingdom of Galifar. Morden found himself drawn to the Crimson Codex’s goals and he agreed to pursue more information about the fragments by exploring Xen’drik in the guise of a mercenary of the Blackwheel Company. Since the Company served the interests of the dragonmarked houses anyway, it was easy for Arianna to arrange for Morden to be given command of the Lyrandar airship Dauntless as a privateer for the Lyrandar-controlled Windwright Guild. She also convinced the Lyrandar leadership that the secret to the creation of bound elementals like those used in airships and Lyrandar wind galleons could be found in Xen’drik, the same place the gnomes of Zilargo had learned those techniques. Since Lyrandar airships and elementally-bound galleons could only be constructed with the aid of the gnomes, learning the secret of binding elementals would break Zilargo’s monopoly and allow Lyrandar to save enormous costs on the construction of its most important assets. Like all Windright captains granted privateer status, Morden was expected to earn revenue for the house by seeking out his own contracts with the airship. The Lyrandar captain chose to offer his services to the Blackwheel Company which gratefully, if warily, accepted. Morden was also secretly ordered to take any opportunity available to search ancient giant sites in Xen’drik to learn more of their arcane secrets—particularly how to bind elementals into inanimate objects like airships. But Arianna also explained that the Caldyn Fragments required that Morden include a team of adventurers among his crew, and the first name on this list was Morden’s old friend Rikard ir’Karlach. Morden learned from an informant with House Phiarlan (who was also the dragon Sky in yet another different guise) that Rikard had left the Karrnathi military and now served the Gatekeepers in the Eldeen Reaches. Morden took the Dauntless to the town of Mossmantle in the Reaches and offered his friend the adventure of a lifetime. To his surprise, the soul-scarred Karrnathi agreed quite willingly to accompany him, and the Dauntless set sail for Sharn, the City of Towers, where the remaining members of the crew waited to be picked up for an adventure they did not even know was in the offing. Favored Weapons: battle wizard build, eladrin longsword, dagger
#4 Montonius1 Oct 12, 2008 2:44:58	Thalkad—Kalashtar male—rogue/cleric/Warpriest (Soulknife Jilashtora) Good, Path of Light Thalkad was born to the Alkad lineage of kalashtar in the monastery town of Haztaratain in the mountainous land of Adar on the continent of Sarlona. The Alkad kalashtar were all the descendants of one of the sixty-seven rebel quori spirits led by the kalaraq quori Taratai to Adar from Dal Quor, the plane of Dreams, in -802 YK. Taratai had been the founder of the Path of Light, the first to teach and write down its precepts. Alkad had himself been a tsoreva quori, the caste of quori who served as their race’s enforcers and soldiers. Like most kalashtar, Thalkad became a devotee of the Path of Light, the faith that held that one day il-Yannah, the Great Light, would defeat il-Lashtavar, the Dreaming Dark, that controlled the plane of Dal Quor as the current Quor Tarai, the collective guiding spirit of the Region of Dreams, and sought to gain control over all the mortals of Eberron to ensure that its control was never challenged. Thalkad, like many young kalashtar, decided to become a sheshantol or “shadow watcher,” in the Quori tongue, an adherent of the Path of Light who took action against evil and the Dreaming Dark directly rather than simply meditating to increase the power of the Great Light by increasing the store of loving-kindness in the world. Thalkad was trained in the martial disciplines common to all the monks of Adar, including the powerful sheshan talarash dasyannah—“path of shadows”—martial art. Thalkad also manifested the psionic talents so prevalent among the kalashtar and other creatures linked to Dal Quor, and combined the psychic talents of a soulknife with his monk abilities, becoming a jilashtora, or “flowing blade,” the most common of the martial paths among the quori. For one of the jilashtora, thought and fist were as one. Thalkad’s twin soulknives usually manifested as blazing flares of pure golden light in the shape of double-bladed shortswords. Thalkad believed that the great conflict between the Inspired and the kalashtar could be resolved within a single lifetime and that the solution to a defeat of the Inspired and the Dreaming Dark itself lay on the lost continent of Xen’drik. Guided by the Path of Light and il-Yannah, Thalkad took ship from Adar and made the long and dangerous journey to Khorvaire from the secret Adaran port of Dvaarnava and eventually took up residence in Metrol, the capital of the kingdom of Cyre during the Last War. Thalkad helped train many of his adopted nation’s warriors in the martial arts and became a valued member of Cyran society. However, just before the events that turned Cyre into the Mournland, Thalkad received what he believed to be a precognitive dream of impending disaster from il-Yannah itself which warned him to leave Cyre as soon as possible. Thalkad left Cyre that very day on the lightning rail from Metrol to Sharn, and was in fact on the last group of lightning rail coaches to leave Metrol before the Day of Mourning. Thalkad initially took up residence in New Cyre, the town for Cyran survivors in Breland that was allowed by King Boranel, and he became a natural leader of the small Cyran community of kalashtar. But in 998 YK, Thalkad again received what he believed to be a vision from the Great Light that instructed him to make his way to Sharn. In the City of Towers, Thalkad supported himself for several months by tutoring others in the martial arts and the teachings of the Path of Light and waited to be shown his own path towards the future. That future arrived in the form of Rikard ir’Karlach and Morden d’Lyrandar when they entered the Drunken Dragon tavern in Sharn. Morden had been told by Arianna Jace that he should be in the tavern at a specific time and his remaining crewmen for the journey to Xen’drik would make themselves known. Following the attack on their group by hobgoblin cultists of the Dragon Below, Thalkad realized that the Path of Light had shown him the opportunity he had been hoping for. He used his psionic abilities and skills in the Adaran martial art known as the path of shadows to aid the companions in defeating the cultists and accepted Morden d’Lyrandar’s offer of employment with the Blackwheel Company in Xen’drik, believing that the knowledge needed to defeat the Dreaming Dark still lay on that mysterious continent. Favored Weapons: brawny rogue build, psionically-generated twin mindblades
#5 Montonius1 Oct 12, 2008 2:45:29	Cantrip—male-personality warforged—swordmage/Anarch of Shyr Cantrip was among the first of a new breed of warforged produced in 993 YK for the kingdom of Aundair by House Cannith with the aid of the Arcane Congress that was based in the floating towers of the magical academy in the village of Arcanix. Designed to be the first warforged focused on arcane spellcasting as well as their traditional duties of serving as frontline warriors, Cantrip and his few counterparts were inducted into the elite Aundairian Knights Arcane to serve as knight phantoms, the best of the best in the Aundairian military. Cantrip was inducted and trained in the magic and combat techniques used by the knight phantoms by Riann ir’Maartel, the famed half-elven Knight Arcane. Cantrip and his fellow warforged Knights Arcane proved to be quite effective at repulsing Cyran, Brelish and Karrnathi raids into Aundairian territory, but the Last War ended in 996 YK before the new arcane-focused warforged could be put into mass production. The Treaty of Thronehold freed all warforged from compulsory national service and made them free individuals able to choose their own destinies. Cantrip chose to retire from the Knights Arcane, though at Riann’s urging he agreed to become an undercover operative of the Royal Eyes of Aundair with the rank of agent. Cantrip, seeking adventure and to serve as one of Aundair’s eyes and ears in Breland, chose to settle in the city of Sharn in 997 YK. In 998 YK Riann and the Royal Eyes learned through their own contacts (mostly in the Crimson Codex) that the Lyrandar privateer airship Dauntless intended to travel to Xen’drik and join the Blackwheel Company. Eager to learn why Lyrandar was so interested in Xen’drik that it would spare one of its precious airships, Cantrip was instructed to offer his services to Morden d’Lyrandar. Cantrip happened to be in the Drunken Dragon tavern when Rikard Karlach and Morden were attacked by the hobgoblin cultists from the Cogs. His blade and spells helped the companions put down the cultists, and he was surprised to be offered a place with the company of the Dauntless before he even requested it. Cantrip wears the long, black leather coat of the knight phantoms of which he is very proud and wields the same large Mror Holds-forged bastard sword that he used during the Last War, always strapping it to his back when it is not in use. Favored Weapons: assault swordmage build, greatsword, bastard sword, daggers