Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Ramble Sep 11, 2010 17:47:34	G'day, I need some help with some ideas. So I am starting a campaign for our 4e group. I've read through the FR 4e Campaign guide and seen that Waterdeep got off light with the update, but for this campaign the goal is to shake that up. For those of you who go way back, Pools of Radiance/Ruins of Adventure (yes that far back) had a premise that the city of Phlan had fallen to beasty control for fifty years and now civilised man had taken a foothold in the towns docks and fortified themselves, needing adventurers to clear the rest of the city peice by peice till finally it and the evil influences on it are defeated. One of my most successful campaigns was that idea but the adventurers were a Cult of the Dragon cell, helping clear the city and eliminating the strongest forces of good, cultivating the corrupt New Phlan leadership. Well it like a band that doesn't change its style, i'm going for it again but on the grander stage. Currently I am working on this premise. After the battle that destroyed Mystra and caused the shake up, another powerful Dragonflight stormed out of the north and hit Waterdeep particularly hard. Just as it was recovering, Undermountain opened and Pirates carrying armies of inhumans rushed the city. For ninety nine years it has been a bastion of evil, a center for Sword Coast piracy, and a breeding ground of slavers and evil raiders of human and inhuman nature. Now the forces of the old Lord's alliance cities and with help from Cormyr and Sembia plans are made to reclaim the city, but adventurers must lead the path in identifying the big bads, opening up the opertunity to foothold, and sewing discent amoung the evil factions. The players will be coming in as one of the adventurer groups (secretly working for a faction or ambition of more than wealth and fame), and coming to clash with rival groups, enemy factions, allied agenders, etc, all as they liberate the City of Splenders. Now I have started rereading my old books, including four editions of books on the city plus like three volos guides, and few mods and dragon mag material, and have started a vague list of who the evil factions that seized the city were and why they allied. But I will no doubt miss some obvious players I have forgotten in the fifteen years since I used to read the Waterdeep material and desperately want to run a campaign in that city. The obvious mastermind for me to be behind a true fall of Waterdeep is Myrkle from his Bone Crown. Not sure if the Crown survived into 4e but in this case it has. As a god he has that nifty Anubis of Stargate knowledge from when he was a god to abuse to recruit a dream team, take the city, and abuse its secrets feel.  With him as my mastermind I look at my players and started putting together a natural general figures who my players would recognised back to our group's (we been together a long time) first forays into FR. In this case I picked Tyranthraxus, well he is a personal favourite for this work and Crenshinibon, the mystical artefact from the first Drizzt book, the Crystal Shard. Now for armies that would set thier sights on Waterdeep. Both of those as generals would easily recruit hordes of inhumans, but backing them up would be: The Cult of the Dragon, who influence the heavy strike of the Dragon Flight.  From Undermountain the slaver Xanatos (the Eye).  From under him the elite forces of Drow. Pirates of Luskan and Mages of the Host Tower of the Arcane. Evil mercenaries funded by Amn and the Knights of the Shield. Assassins and Sea power from the Kraken Society. More assassins and Infiltrators of the Unseen. The specifics of how and why they got together in this endeavour I am leaving vague because it will be most important when the players earn epic levels and look for solutions to finish the forces of evil in the city, but what I really need straight up is how the city would be changed by a century of evil occupation and what those factions would have done to the city to change its appearance. For instance the Drow have bad skin for sunlight so I envision if they stayed they may have made a giant web sail over a large portion of Castle Ward, a dirty undulating flow that keeps the sunlight and prying eyes from thier holding. Even more dangerous, is they brought the city down to thier level, the webbing hiding that the heat of waterdeep is a hundred feet down in a sinkhole.  Crenishibon would not sit in glory at the victory but seek war over the land so the shard sits locked in its tower reflection, cut off from the sunlight it needs at the bottom of the Drow sinkhole, waiting for some fool to defeat its captures and restart war on the realms. Tyranthraxus in his various incarnations always possessed some creature, a dragon, a storm giant, something cool. In this case the answer became obvious when I reread old notes on the Kraken Society and found they hated the Luskan Pirates and Host tower. So the alliance ended when the mighty spawn of Umberlee became the body of the demon general who now rests in the harbour. This gave the opertunity for a grand dock work, a shrine of a giant purple kraken made on the docks, its arms used as pully points for lifting cargo from the ships of the pirates. Hopefully the players will realise that the Kraken society would never treat the object of thier worship such and be on the lookout for Kraken agents in the factions who seek to liberate the city, thier own goal to free thier former master. While the magic over some of the noble houses might have kept them inviolate, some would be burned to the ground, others occupied, I like the image of a grand manor with a cave like hole in the side as dragon's lairs. Myrkle himself must rest on the brow of the lich Khelben himself, but I don't see him making any grand archetectual changes to draw attention to him and his home.  Though if he has an undead retinue to back him I have a vague vision of one of the last mighty stone golem guardians crouched over a noble home, casting perpetual shade on the Vampire noble family within. And of course much of the city is dirty, portions gutted by fires, defences raised through wards as humanoid factions within fought each other. But can anyone else suggest grand changes to the city that being in the hands of evil for so long might have wrought to really slap my players when their characters first see the city? Outside and martialing at defences around Castle Dragonspear or Triboar etc, I so far have Baulders Gate, Neverwinter, Silverymoon, some of the minor northern towns, as leading the push to reclaim the city. Backing them are Cormyr, Sembia and some powerful elves of Evereska. More nervously they are accepting aid from Zhentarium mercenaries, and Red Wizards. I have this idea that the first forays into the city before they can land a foothold will be Red Wizards teleporting Adventuring groups to the ruins of thier old Enclave in the city walls and letting them sneak out or through the sewer system. Amoung the adventuers and forces lesser factions have agents of course. agents of the merchants of Amn and Calimsha, the Fire Knives, the Shadow Thieves, Churches of Bane and Shar, Harpers, Silver Ravens, descendants of the fled Noble houses, the Paladins of Ilmartyr, etc. Anyone suggest any factions I have missed that would be interested? Or any thoughts in general?
#2 suin_bahhar_02 Sep 12, 2010 10:13:33	I really like your campaigns premise. Could be truly epic. I like the way you use mental images as notes to invision parts of the encounters you plan. This is an efficient way to plan out and eventually "wing" large parts of city adventures.  Perhaps try some of the newer Ed presents Waterdeep novels to generate some more images to twist to the dystopian tone you're about to set in the City of Splendors.  I get the impression this campaign will start at around mid heroeic tier. Some good early adventures might involve Downshadow, the upper parts of Undermountain that Waterdhavians have been trying to settle. It's a ragtag area of dungeons interspersed with ramshackle buildings and camps that house the seedy underworld of 15th century Waterdeep. Could be usefull for your campaign to have the drow (displaced from Skullport) occupy large swaths of these parts competing with bands of Luskan pirates, Half-Monster or Mongrelmen bandits and wandering Undermountain monsters. Another cool area is the floating shantytown in Dockward, where the flotsam of old and battered shiphulls have been reconstructed into a whole new bustling market area. This could very well be the new HQ of the (reborn) Kraken Society and house all manner of sea-based monsters such as Sahuagin clans, Sea Hags and even Aboleth. Waterdeep already was very vertical, but you could amp that up and try having the skies above Waterdeep be a playground in the paragon tier perhaps. Fighting dragons lairs in abandoned wizards higtowers, or rookeries of Kenku assassin guilds in the upper parts of the temples of Waterdeep can be real fun. Gargoyles or the Kir-Lanan or other flying creatures might be such a nuisance that evenutually the rooftops of Waterdeep become a new battleground. The Warrens sharply contrast with the elevated parts of Waterdeep by being build apon so many times that the lowerparts have become a maze of walls, cielings and floors. This part used to be the domain of many a smaller Fearunian folk such as gnomes, hin and dwarves. In your campaign goblins, derro and kobolds might have displaced them.
#3 Ramble Sep 13, 2010 9:00:20	Thanks Suin, I hope I can do that potential some justice. in my experiance the use of grand mental images is vital for really bringing in the players into a fantasy campaign. I find it akin to the backgrounds in a comic. Truly detailed environments are great but time consuming, something so big it becomes the focus that needs little support, is quick to describe, and just as quickly accepted. Haven't heard much about the Ed presents Waterdeep novels but will give them a read if I can track copies. The sewers and upper sections of Downshadow I was planning for Mongrelmen, Kobolds, isolated Vhaeraun Drow and the like, to be used as the main ways through the city to start with, and saving a foray against Downshadow and true Undermountain for Paragon. This choice is mainly because an adventurers graveyard like that should never feel cheap when they go back. As to the Mistshore, I was planning to keep that section for Tyranthraxus possessed Kraken but I think your spot on that making it a shanty town of boats inhabited by the aquatic and half aquatic rabble and simply have the mighty Kraken held in a water filled tower of the Lords Palace with the power to teleport out would be a surprise for the adventurers. The other benefit here is the rabble of those flotsam town could have spilled under dockward to the sewers giving the sewers under dockward a flavor of their own. I am thinking the current Kraken society of the city is not a schism but a complete fake made to appear as a schism. Rather they are the open face of the Unseen. This gives them their 'Lord' for the leadership meetings of Waterdeep, a mockery of the old secret lords of Waterdeep. My thinking is that each faction has a symbol from the leadership, pretty much a direct rip off of the Azurebonds, right on the arms. While normally hidden, the true symbol created by magic glows at the wearers wills or magical means of forcing it to, and identifies like a badge of office to those who have it. This is necessary to pass some checkpoints, magical traps, etc, plus used to show allegiances if you cross another faction. This is created by a rather cheap ritual but can only do the symbol of the casters faction to stop counterfeiting and even greater dopplegangers can't copy the genuine glow... yet. Left over when they die this will help the players account the major players of factions they have clashed with, especially as the Unseen aren't the only shapechangers on the loose in the city factions. I then plan to make some factions to be splinters of the whole. So while there may be one Lord of the Orcs, there are several Orc tribes. This lets the players play the tribes against each other as well as lets me use Orcs at low level and higher. At the moment the Orcs for example are lead under a brutal leader who keeps order between the five by limiting conflict between them to formal challenges, and every five year generation makes the best of the five tribes fight to determine the standings of the tribes. The lead tribe runs the Mount Waterdeep Aeiry which is the main flying force of the city, and also the best slaves and females are spread based on rankings. Right now I am thinking some kind of mounted flying Worgs but maybe Dire Wolveravens would be an appropriate Waterdeep mount. Each ranking of Orc tribe marks its weapon hilts, Gold for the best, then Silver, Copper, Bronze and Brass. The other tribes have similar systems to maintain order to greater and lesser degrees, though the pirates tend to settle disputes at sea, and the various Cults of the Dragon cells each stand alone behind their chosen lord, for example. Your ideas for the flying is very valid, and inspired the ideas under the orc riders above, but I think aerial combat might need to be saved for Epic tier so I'd probably save more elaborate fliers to when they can take on the big dragons and after the first majors ground war to climax paragon. The Warrens as for Goblins and Derro and kobolds is a good idea, but as I want to sink a lot of Castle Ward right through the main marked area of it, my thinking is that the Warrens is where I set the level ten climax, so that at the end the caves become balconies to their first peak under the webbing at the Sunken city, Crystal Tirith, and the Lloth Temple within. Nice guess on the start point, being 5th level. The very vague plan is start with visiting a rip on the slaver mods (A1 and A2) that gives clues needed by the armies preparing to retake Waterdeep. The abundance of Dopplegangers here will lead some clues to the unseen base in the Rathills for some wererat fun, and a first glimpse of the city. I hope I can lay out the massive 10 map set from City System box set and overlay it with a few clear plastic sheets drawn on with the major change points, Hopefully scoping out the city this way will have an impact. The introduction of the Red wizards to the allied forces backing them will open up missions of teleporting into the city and having to get back in a time frame to be teleported out and deal with some of the orcs and lesser groups. This then becomes a major operation with several adventuring team allies into the warren with the view as above. Paragon will be more ranging of the city and lead to a foothold establishment for the forces of good, though I expect the big clash of forces as they try to bring the full army in at twenty. Success or Failure will not be chosen by me but the players actions. Epic... hard to predict till get there but this will be when the big dragons unleashed and they are doing missions while warfare flares all around, either with the forces of good slowly reclaiming the city or the city mobilising for war on the realms. Then a final battle at 30 including dracolichs, flying citadel, and avatars of gods in the skies over a battlefield of forces all touched on in the levels leading up to it. At least that is the vague plan, it is so carved in nothing. Thanks for the thoughts, got any more :D T.
#4 Ramble Sep 14, 2010 6:23:52	Interesting thoughts Goldomark, With the selling of secrets, my current plans is that nearly all the sides are doing so. the unseen have thier dopplegangers and spies. Cult of the dragon has been making Draconians and getting Sivaks into lower positions in rival factions. The Host mages, Xanatos, and the Drow also have thier agents anmd methods who may become potential allies of convenience. Myrkle and Tyranthraxus use them all against each other to maintain power. The Cult harvesting Dragonborn eggs I find a great suggestion. Being I want a large land war and it is meant to be a grand campaign I intended to bring in old icons of our gaming groups past including the Draconians, but find thier given stats in the Metalic Draconomican rather lacking, especially when Ogre's are such a high comparitive level. Your idea gives me Dragonborn Draconians, filling the ranks of the Heroic tier and I can bolster the Draconians as a whole into Paragon. With Undermountain, it is a nice idea to have something that can sway the battle by controlling  the beasts of Undermountain. Toying with it I am thinking maybe a wand that can blast an area and banish beasties to the lowest levels of Undermountain. His own personal populator as it were to help soften up enemy lines and spear heads in the big battle scenarios. Trobriand I had completely forgotten about but I have been wanting something to finish the city skyline visual like a column of industrial smoke, ala the perpetually smelting pits of Saruman in Two Towers. If this is caused by Trobriands apprentice who is creating a few of Trobriand's automations and maybe Warforged troops, then a quest into deep Undermountain to rescue the imprisoned Trobriand (betrayed by apprentice) would let him turn the living construct army to thier side. Could also bring the pirates as a threat with advanced metal hulled ships that can't get involved in the land war, until they sprout legs and skitter onto the battlefield. I'm gonna need more quests through gates to free good societies from slaving Waterdeep oppression so they can send armies to aid the Coalition.
#5 eriksdb Sep 15, 2010 9:12:39	Have you considered the City of the Dead in your planning? Lots of potential there! I heartily agree with the advice to check out the Eddie Presents series. My own novel, Downshadow, and Jaleigh's Mistshore in particular contain a bunch of the flavor you may be looking for. Steven's Blackstaff Tower contains a whole host of nobles and cultural stuff you should look into (just make everyone a little more sinister, and you're golden), while Rosemary's City of the Dead might seem a little too light hearted for your campaign, but you should still work in comic relief (plus it contains a whole lot about how the graveyard functions with its wards and all). And there's Circle of Skulls and The God Catcher to add some nice and memorable locales to your campaign. On a slightly different angle, are there any "good" people in the city? Like resistance movements, or oppressed peasants, or captive nobility, etc., etc.? You have lots of potential for a harper/moonstar insurgency trying to take back their "Sin City" as it were. Also, the introduction of good elements into the city gives PCs someone to fight for, rather than just foreign interests. If they forge personal connections with a few cool and sympathetic NPCs, they're likely to fight all the harder to protect them/redeem the city. Also, this sets it up for some great betrayals/twists down the road, when it turns out that the beleaguered noblewoman whose honor they were fighting so hard to preserve turns out to have been one of their main enemies all along! Play with expectation in this way. D&D players tend to be used to good always winning, but evil should win occasionally as well. Send your PCs occasionally into battles that overmatch them, and watch them become more cautious. They should feel like the rugged heroes against the world (with maybe a few sympathetic elements), not just epic bad@$$es cutting a swath of destruction everywhere they go. Cheers
#6 Ramble Sep 15, 2010 21:29:23	Thanks for the reply Erik, Though I am far from set in stone this early, The City of the Dead seemed the logical warded home for the Crown of Bones Murkyl. I need to keep it semi social by making some intelligent undead with their own agendas around the mastermind so there is diplomatic options among even if only for the party to justify entering the ward. I had been toying with Murkyl moving Blackstaff Tower into the ward, living in the home would upset the broken willed Khelben the former god is co-habiting, but in rereading the campaign guide for 4e my thinking is the Darkhold Zhentarium ambition is seizing the tower for the potential aid it used to grant the Harpers. Blackstaff Tower and Waterdeep to become the new home to start the rise of Zentil Keep. Of course the fact that the remnant Harpers, and several other factions want the powerful site should make things a mess.  I will get to those novels but i haven't made it a priority as I still have a ton of material on the shelf to finish reviewing from years gone by first. I will prioritize Blackstaff Tower and City of the Dead though, the former sounds like it might have the political intrigue I can make a mockery of, and the latter sounds like good landmark material. After that Downshadow but I suspect I will be turning the upper most of that into slave holds at this time for the roaring slave trade. Vague feelings reminiscent of the slave pits in the evil tower city of Belgariad where they found the Marag slave girl who had never seen the sun. As for Good figures, for the most part I am looking at the city divided in two. The south end with the docks, the slave workers of the Trades ward, and what has become of the South ward is the more active end, with a lot of the light weight evil down that end having to co-habitat or face repercussions from the more powerful members in the northern half of the city. Some inhuman or evil human groups have fortified blocks of houses but the streets are kept relatively clear to keep trade moving. Cloaked groups can move relatively freely if they don't stare or take an interest in others looking for a fight, but if identified as unaffiliated to a group they will be targets for being shanghaied by pirates or enslaved by slavers as much as simply robbed and left in a well to dissolve the evidence. The northern districts are going to need help to infiltrate as the more powerful factions have better spies and agents, requiring better reasons for wandering that part of town forcing more objective based goals. This will be more for Paragon and Epic levels where the Azura Bonds as a form of passport system works out. Fitting good figures into either area of such power is at best awkward, though I had planned for slaves to be a source of information, and several unaligned and evil groups to be fairly social looking for allies to stand on to advance their agendas. I had been toying with the Wands family to have tried to protect the family and estate with a wish but in the unstable magics the head of the family was sacrificed as a mythal like creation formed over the estate and it has been keeping the few surviving family safe and violently ejecting threats. I am thinking that the head of the family has become a mind in the mythal hence if I can make a love interest work here they have to face her father as a near omnipotent entity. Outside of the city the 'coalition of liberators' will have the more traditionally good feel like Neverwinter and Silverymoon, Balders Gate is of the agenda of lessoning raiding and piracy and finding a new home for thier even bigger refugee city, Amn has been trading with evil Waterdeep but have gotten upset that that trade is very quickly drying up (Because Tyranthraxus is courting the Bandit tribes of the Murrandin for the next military operation and the conquest of the Western Heartlands. Cormyr has Netheril growing in the back yard and Westgate and Darkhold appearing as harder targets as Sembia tuts behind them, so join the coalition as a just action and to make a stronger North ally, hoping the coalition may stand and move on Darkhold and Westgates evils after Waterdeep is refounded. Then a lot of minor factions are taking an interest too. This is where much of the betrayal options will be most obvious. Jut to put that answer in perspective, I don't actually allow good players lightly in my campaigns. This decision has become easier with 4e having Unaligned but I find players of good characters tend to be reactive to the campaign and heroic in an obligatory manor. To my mind a police officer is a hero, but people tend to only acknowledge it when they go above and beyond the call of duty. Unaligned means that every heroic choice was because they didn't chose the convenient or lazy path. They stood up to evil because they couldn't abide it, not because they wrote they would be good on their character sheet. And removal of a good bias the players become more proactive and ambitious to pursue dreams other than stomp evil. That gives me as the GM a lot more feedback and inspiration. Evil character groups are even better for proactive in my experience. In this case given free reign my players have chosen to be junior members of a Amn merchant house who will be sent as an undercover adventuring group to the coalition. The Amn want to refound Waterdeep and make sure they get strongly in on the ground floor of economic potential of the city. The players while loyal to this goal plan to make this as powerful as possible and make sure they hold some of the power, if not turn it into an Amn franchise and put themselves to CEO. Last time they were Cult of the Dragon and had strong military bent so an economic and power control angle like this inspires entire new flavors. Especially as they back a group that will be influenced to give them contradicting orders by groups like the Shadow Thieves and Knights of the Shield. They will have to play politics with their masters, their nation, their coalition allies, and the evil that holds Waterdeep if they want to succeed. I will have to not use all the potential betrayal options lest they claim, 'Oh it's an even level, lets start a pool on who will betray us this time' Thanks for the ideas. T.