Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 greenfunkman Aug 09, 2011 3:47:00	Hello! I am getting ready to run a time loop adventure involving an Orcish keep under siege by Elves and infiltrated by cultists. This is part of my personal edit of H1 KoS - the shade of orky Sir Keegan sends the party back in time to right this wrong. The players awake as orcs in the infirmary and must repeat the day until they stop the lord of the keep from slaughtering his children, but in all other ways causality must be maintained. So, a huge blue dragon must die with the copper rod of Orcus in the throat, Sir Keegan must go mad and kill everyone and the keep must be destroyed by dragonfire. My timeline is such: PCs awake in infirmary 3 elves infiltrate the keep posing as refugees, magicked up to look like orcs. They carry a dragon's egg in a cart under straw and watermelons. An advisor Sir Keegan trusts gives him a suit of demon-possessed plate. In my world the rod is the symbol of Sir Keegan's house, and the corrupt advisor is trying to get to it. The elves besieging the castle begin their attack and block off any hope of retreat. The elves take the egg to the top of a tower, killing the guards on the way. The elves set off a magical beacon which alerts the dragons to the location of the stolen egg. All magic users pass out for 15 minutes due to the strength of the beacon. The magic emanating from the beacon activates Sir Keegan's demonically possessed armour - he begins to wrestle for control of himself. Sir Keegan begins his systematic slaughter of the keep and towards the shadow rift below. He cannot be stopped. PCs in his way die. The dragons arrive.  They are willing to talk/fight for a few rounds then one takes the egg and the rest utterly destroy the keep. If the PCs have saved the children, and the rod is in the dragon's throat, they wake up in their own bodies. Else, they wake up at the beginning of the loop in the infirmary. Any suggestions or feedback people have are most appreciated.  What pitfalls about the time loop should I look out for? Any fun mechanics to use? How should I handle the siege? What siege weapons would elves use? Any ideas for orky characters? So far I have a tribal barbarian, a avenger of the raven queen, a tribal earthshaker warden and a legionnaire (warlord).
#2 Drecon84 Aug 09, 2011 7:02:06	Really cool idea. One thing to watch out for though is that time loops tend to get boring from the third or fourth try if a lot of things stay the same. Also, the in between combats might be repetitive. Try to find a way to vary things like conversations and combat without changing the facts of the environment. It's really depressing to just "go throught the motions". Something fun though is to let the players use their precognition to have them alter big things in the timeline with really small actions of their own. One word here or action there and anything could happen. Elves would probably use living trees as siege weapons.
#3 BRJN Aug 19, 2011 22:33:12	How do you intend to get the rod from Sir Keegan to the dragon's throat? Some NPCs have bad aim, so you might want historical variety based on if the rod was in the dragons throat - or in his eye - or broke his wing and he fell to his death - or in his gut - or embedded in his tail - or the dragon somehow survives the attack but is crippled - or the rod ends up somewhere obscene/vulgar. If there is no way out of the castle, HOW do the PCs save the kids?  Is it good enough that they not die at Sir Keegan's hands (but by dragonfire instead)?