The main reason I'm typing this, though, is so that I can get my ideas out of my head and onto paper, and so that it might give someone else an idea for their campaign.The game starts in New Cyre, shortly after war has broken out between the human nations. Breland has its own problems, and isn't able to protect New Cyre from rising hoards from Darguun. After a large army is sighted marching torward New Cyre, they decide to evacuate.
The townsfolk have fled, but there is one caravan that contains New Cyre's valuables, mostly donations from Cyrians to show their support for the small town.
The first session consisted of the PCs defending the caravan from a few waves of hobgoblins and a ghoul or two as the caravan made final preperations to leave the city. The session ended with the caravan pulling out and heading to Arcanix. (..I just picked a random city. :P)
Why Arcanix?
One of the items in the caravan is a painting that used to be part of a small collection in one of the Cyrian Palaces. This series of paintings were done by an old and famous wizard, who enchanted his paintings to make them portals to the places depicted. The place in this painting is where they desire to setup the New New Cyre. (The place is still to be determined). Unfortunately, the painting is 18"x18", which is hardly large enough to transport an individual, let alone all that is needed to start the city. A wizarding circle in Arcanix agreed to help New Cyre with this difficulty.
While the caravan is in route to Starilaskur, the first major city on their path, they are ambushed by a lone archer standing in the middle of the road, his bow drawn. The archer wishes to steal the painting. He makes a simple request for it, and, when denied, he fires his arrow up into the air, a tall arc to land at the center of the caravan, and starts sprinting to the caravan. When the arrow hits next round, everything in its area of effect turns invisible, PCs and archer alike. When the effect wears off, the archer is gone, along with the painting.
There is some discussion about who stole the painting between the NPCs in the caravan, chiefly between their guide and the New Cyrian official. Their conclusion is that something must have slipped from the mouths of the wizards at Arcanix, and their best bet is to contact them when they reach Starilaskur.
When they reach Starilaskur, they are tasked by their guide to retrieve an updated map of the area with road safety information from House Orien. Unfortunately, House Orien is attempting to stay out of war, and so they will not disclose troop locations and the other atrocities war brings. So, instead, the PCs must break into the Orien station and find the information in question without letting House Orien onto what happened. This will leave one of the PCs to infiltrate the station, find the map, and memorize it, while the others distract the house Orien members outside. For every round the PCs can distract the members, the infiltrator PC will have six seconds, IRL, to open an envelope, find the map in question, memorize it, and put it back.
On the map, there will be a few markings of war and other trouble, but the main element will be a big green circle around Hatheril (the next city on their way to Arcanix). This green circle represents a Plague, a varient of Ghoul Fever, which is thought to be of Karnath's creation. Hatheril is locked down, with no one allowed out without forking over some cash to have a cure disease spell cast on them.
Regardless of what the PCs do, at some point one of them will catch the Plague (and if not the PCs, then one of the NPCs in the caravan). The remove disease spell actually only takes away the symptoms, but still leaves them contageous. This will cause the next town the PCs visit to become infected and the PCs trapped inside, fighting off the undead created by it.
A Warforged Fighter from Cyre. He was fighting in another land when the mourning happened. He's looking for purpose, and I believe is secretly sympathetic torwards the Lord of Blades. After the war, he took on odd jobs, and became a member of the guard in New Cyre.
A Dwarven Cleric, from Cape Far. Her father committed some sort of mis-understood sin, and thus was chased away from the Mror Holds. He met her mother shortly before working with a pirate crew and leaving for Sharn. The Cleric grew up with her mother. They were helped by the church of Onatar, which gave her her training. When she found that her mother was lying to her, and her father may still be alive, she began hunting him down. Her father was last seen working as part of a salvage crew in the Mournland, where he walked away from the salvage crew, stunned, wide-eyed and unresponsive. The Cleric was learning what she could about the Mournland in order to attempt to rescue/discover the rest of her father's story when New Cyre was attacked, and so she joined the escape effort.
An Elven Monk, lawful neutral, who secretly carries the mark of shadow. Her affiliations and motives are unknown.