My take will be a bit different. My Pcs started in Melvaunt and ran a couple Mysteries of the Moonsea quests, one pulled from dungeon, and the Twilight Tomb.
My wizard is a necromancer and through a connection at the local underground Velsharoon cult, they will be find themselves in the middle of a schism within the Velsharoon church as to whether or not to ally with the Church of Shar. Since Velsharoon pays lip service to Azuth I am playing out the Cormyr, Shadowdale, and Anurauch modules from the point of view of the Church of Velsharoon. Although the Pcs do not see the split coming, I have placed them within the Mystra camp and developed a growing animosity for the church of Shar in the local brach which the PCs have taken to perfectly.
Since they are just beginning to make thier way into the inner circles of the Velsharoon cult (which is quite new itself) I can slowly bring them into this religous fallout.
As to Velsharoon himself, he has been cananocally stated as being on the fence as to whether or not a shift from Azuth to Shar is in his best long term interest and in the jump to 4th, I am not aware of any info stating his ulimate choice (let me know if there is). For the moment he is willing to sit back and let hsi church battle it out themselves while keeping tabs on Shars progess
Getting them into Cormyr should not be so difficult. Possibly the home of a Velsharoon operative who they must drop off the dracolich horn from Twilight Tomb to.
Even the Twilight Tomb fit flawlessly since the main item in the module is the horn of a dracolich which is highly sought as a phylactory and prime picking for the church of Velsharoon.
Running Shadowdale might be awkward since their charactors have no incentive to fight for Shadowdale. I will probably need to skip part one and four of that book and have them sent to sneak into the warzone to foil the destruction of the Weave.
One of the NPC's is a Zhent operative (although they dont know that yet) and using his cover abilities and inside connections they will be able to slip into Shadowdale, taking out the Zhent captain stationed at the Oakwood Knoll as an inside hit and to cover up the Zhent treachery.
At first I was afraid running an Evil campaign wouldnt work within the modules, but then I realized the Zhents just want Shadowdale, after that, they have every reason to turn on Shar to sever any powersharing deals with the Shade camp. The PCs themselves (outiside of the NPC) have no concern over the fate of Shadowdale work solely with the Zhents to achieve their own goals as Velsharoon operatives.
And since most current necromancers and Velsharoon lackeys lack the high 16 wisdom requirement for the Shadow Weave feat, they have the most to lose from a shift to the Shadow Weave.
Plus as the 4e FR has clearly shown, without the Shadow Weave feat, the destruction of the Weave makes for a bad time for magic users (liches especially)!
Also, as a nice compliment, one of the PCs is of distant Netharese decent (a Halruuan orphan escaped from slavery during the 1369 Zhentil Keep destruction) and for those Netherese survivors, the return of Shade threatens thier age long plans to create thier own Netheril rebirth.
Aumvor the Undying is definately an NPC that fears the Shades and covets the Nether Scrolls and an alliance offer from his operatives could provide a great hook to get them fully onboard to run the Anurauch module.
So far this is my rough sketch of how I might fit this all together. This of course is all assuming they survive, which I plan on them being able to do without me having to fudge too many rolls *crosses fingers*
But all in all, since this is an Evil campaign, I need to make sure the hooks are a bit stronger than a simple "Look, a bad guy! Sick em!" that normally manages to keep good aligned PCs on path.
Of course there is a ton of FR lore out there that Im sure I havent run across yet that could be useful to weave in, so I am welcoming any thoughts and suggestions any of you might have to better craft a great Evil storyline.
Plot-holes and corrections are also welcome. This is the Pcs first foray into FR (and D&D) so this will all be new and hopefully captivating for them
As to Velsharoon, he was killed in Dweomerheart when it exploded after Cyric and Shar offed Mystra, so I'd guess that he stuck around with Azuth and never sided with Shar. Although it could be possible that he had a secret alliance with Shar and was able to get Cyric and Shar in without Mystra, Azuth and Savras knowing about it.
While I am the DM and could easily just legislate her survival, I feel that that vampirism would make for an easier transition and give her something interesting to play while the 10 years dead magic are happening.
Anyone know if Open Grave has undead class progressions similar to 3.5 Libris Mortis? That would certainly help. Of course that is considerably far into the future, but I feel having a good story planned well in advance makes it more engrossing and gives it more life.
I'm not real familiar with thos particular modules, but I like what you got goin on here. Its very interesting to me to have evil PCs be the "heroes" of the story. Interesting twist right there!
As to Velsharoon, he was killed in Dweomerheart when it exploded after Cyric and Shar offed Mystra, so I'd guess that he stuck around with Azuth and never sided with Shar. Although it could be possible that he had a secret alliance with Shar and was able to get Cyric and Shar in without Mystra, Azuth and Savras knowing about it.
no he wasnt, he was thrusted in the astral soup way back when Cyric gave Mystra a lethal spanking killing her and Lord Savras.
Azuth was offed by a terminal dinner date with Big A Lord of the 9th.
and velsharoon the eternal god of whiners, got beech slapped by the lady Symbul the witch queen of aglorand, er say the form witch queen of aglorand. His no longer animated undead body still lies in aglorand.
I imagine they will be quite aside themselves to learn that all that work failed in the end and to top it off, thier god has been obliterated.
I'll need to craft some other plot and storylines alongside these to help anchor them into the campaign. I dont want them to be completely without direction after all this goes down.
Guess Ill need to craft some more enduring plots and storylines between Cormyr (4th level module) and Shadowdale (9th level module)
Maybe end with Castle Spulzeer which ends by sending them to Ravenloft. Then they can be in Ravenloft until the Spellplague dies down. That would be even better. They can come back to a post-apocolyptic Realms and because they are not FR novel and suppliment readers they will not see it coming!
Of course they could die tomorrow or derail the story and then its all up in smoke!
Liches could still survive the Spellplague, There still some running around that existed before the Plague hit, like Szass Tam for instance.
And thank you sfdragon for correcting me, I thought for sure Velsharoon was in Dweamoerheart when it went boom, I could of sworn I read that somewhere. So yeah I guess it is very possible he ended up siding with Shar.
And no the open Grave source book doesnt have level advancement for the undead, mostly Templates, Monsters, and Necromatic rituals. Its been a little while since ive read through that one, I'll look through it again just to be sure.
and velsharoon the eternal god of whiners, got beech slapped by the lady Symbul the witch queen of aglorand, er say the form witch queen of aglorand. His no longer animated undead body still lies in aglorand.
That could make for a great Epic Level campaign. Especially if I can combine that with some of the Planescape stuff and get them to track down his essence Since Symbul is in hiding from what I understand, she might be in a tough position to stop them. Hmmm, that idea will have to stew for a while.
Liches could still survive the Spellplague, There still some running around that existed before the Plague hit, like Szass Tam for instance.
Ok. And good point about Szass Tam.
Though the fact remains that in 3.5ed the Shadow Weave feat requires a minimum of 16 Wisdom.
And Im sure we all can admit that a Wizard with 16 Wisdom is not exactly commonplace, which gives the average necromancer quite a strong reason to oppose Shar's dismantling of the Weave.
Personally, I cant see Velsharoon siding with Shar at all, unless she gave VIP access to the Shadow Weave to his necromancer followers.
Otherwise he would lock out most of his base.
So in that case, no matter how strong the necromancy school is within the Shadow Weave, if his current followers cant use it, its of little use to him.
So unless something comes out that specifically states that Velsharoon switched to Shar before his death, Im playing it that he sticks with Azuth to protect his current necromaner followers.
So I feel pretty confident that thats what Velsharoon ended up doing.
Letting his followers battle it out to see which camp comes out the strongest and then siding with them.
And I doubt many of the Shadovar came flocking to him since they are so tied to Shar.
So within the native necromancers, most would have stayed with Mystra due to the Shadow Weave Wis restrictions and thus so did he.
Yeah having the players in Ravenloft and then arriving back to a vastly altered Toril is an excellent idea! They might get some strange looks to if they start talking about things from before the Spellplague, like "Hey! where the hell is the local temple to Mystra!?"
Yes, that could be woven in quite nicely since the module begins with PCs being tricked into retrieving an item for a lich/necromancer.
a simple matter of them doing it willingly for thier church should work.
A few classes in Zhentarim Spy for the NPC would work to totaly fool the lord of the castle into falling for thier "noble" goals hook, line, and sinker
Then at the end *poof* a perfectly canon shift to Ravenloft!
Well technically it will be the Gem Domain of Aggarath
Velsharoon was killed in 1425 DR The Year of the Chosen by the Simbul...
Ok, so he stick around for a while after the spellplague
Thanks!
1425 DR (Year of Seven Sisters) The Simbul is thought to have perished in the fire that destroyed the god Velsharoon. In truth, she survives in the Dalelands. FRCG 88
;)
if it could be absorbed, one could become a god or demi god over night
Shar might try to weave a sweet series of lies in order to trick Velsharoon into accepting her help with some form of undead research, but Velsharoon should be smart enough to realize that her ultimate goal is the annihilation of everything.