H1-P3 Orcus Shadowfell Plot Fail - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

H1-P3 Orcus Shadowfell Plot Fail

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
nedmtrunks
Mar 18, 2009 23:00:22 So after picking up P3 today I came to the following conclusion

They must have 3 different writing staff teams for the first set of adventures.

Starting in H1, having to deal with undead, and orcus, and gaining knowledging of the shadowfell is awesome, altho i didnt like the overall story, not many plot hook twists besides Nina.

Then moving to H2, thunderspire, cool, awesome mountain lore in the vale, then having to fight miniatour and worishpeers of Veccna? That doesnt make a whole lot of sence to tie in the shadowfeel or orcus and the raven queen.

Finally at H3, a random prision, no ties to orcus or the raven queen, and no shadowfell.

Overall, i personally missed the overall background of the vale. Not much world interaction at all, a huge world with the players only going to winterhaven/keep/thunder spire and then the pyramid of power. Started off good and had a sad ending in my eyes.

The move onto P1 is nice, i look the town, however its not included in the map of the vale(located in the back of the DMG) Fighting Trolls is fun, but doesnt tie into the shadowfell or orcus or the raven queen.

P2 seams better, drow. But then again that has nothign to do with the starting theme in H1.

P3 is absolutly 100% mind blowing. I wont ruin it all but tying in the shadowfell and the raven queen was awesome, form what i read. Just seams too bad they couldnt have tied in all these adventures better.

E1 preview in the back of P3 seams like 100% complete awesomeness. 100% Ties into P3.

IMHO

H1 was a good start, could have been better,

H2/H3 shouldnt be done with p1, they should be stand alones.

P1/P2 are deffently stand alone adventures, P2 being a possible tie in story wize in with H2/H3 (MABYE).

P3/E1 Seams like a good storyline to continue if you do H1.
#2
Neutronium_Dragon
Mar 19, 2009 5:02:59 I'm not sure that it was *intended* that every one of the adventures involve the Orcus/Shadowfell plotline as a central feature. Not only might it start to wear thin after a while (especially since it'll involve similar enemies the whole time), but it would render the entire series unattractive if the group wasn't really interested in Orcus as a campaign theme.
#3
the_antra
Mar 19, 2009 8:29:33 If you´re really looking for an epic six-adventure saga, you have to check out this thread. It does exactly what you wanted from the adventures, and it keeps on adding as more adventures are released.

This adaptation is so good, it should have been in Dungeon mag or as an official supplement for D&D Insider subscribers.

Cheers!
#4
gregt_314
Mar 20, 2009 2:23:51 I'm currently in H2 now; I'm tiding over the non-Orcus plots by introducing a sub-theme of "doorways"; knowing that we're coming up to an endgame about death and undeath, and the nature of life, and death being natural as opposed to undeath being unnatural, I'm layering the idea of doorways over the intervening stories.

H2 is a gateway space; it's where the surface and the underdark meet. There's a running theme of barred doors throughout the mini-dungeons, leading up the Paldemar's "Tower With No Doors" for the conclusion. And all throughout it there's carved archways and portals and pretty much every faction you meet is trying to collapse the labyrinth and thereby close the gateway.

After the PCs going through hell in Keep to close a doorway, suddenly they're all about opening them.

And then there's Pyramid; the tiefling wizard there is locked in this prison; the act of opening the prison will destroy it and kill him, but he's still bashing at the bars of his cage. All the little factions want to close off the boundaries between themselves and their neighbours, and there's this running theme of finding keys necessary to enter the final chamber. Seeing as it caps off the Paragon tier I'm probably going to add a little something just before that final chamber to draw attention to the theme so far, and to suggest how the PCs are a little bit special and on their path to much greater things.

With P1 the PCs are again walking through gateways, hopping from the material realm to the Feywild and back again. Also, there's this dead hero who's gone before them, that I'm going to play up, to bring us back to our master theme of death and mortality.

Death and mortality comes up again as we step into P2, and we've got drow and Orcus, together at last, and the beginning of the buildup to P3 and onwards.

I haven't seen P3 and E1 yet, so here's hoping they hold true.
#5
CCS
Mar 20, 2009 2:57:33 My overall impression was that these adventures were largely independant of one another.
Sure, with some effort you could string them all into one plot line. But then the same could be done with any handfull of modules from previous editions....

For ex; Sometime here in '09 I'll run a module based game down at the shop. I'm going to start it off with Horror on the Hill (an old Basic era module).
It'll lead into The Forest Oracle (AD&D 1st ed), set up hooks to lead into Ravenloft (any edition of this module), branch off with a side trek into either Palace of the Silver Princess (another Basic) or Green Ladies Sorrow (AD&D 1st ed from Dungeon).
Then comes Red Hand of Doom (3.5) & more hooks towards Ravenloft.
Should the PCs survive meeting Strahd I'll throw them into one of the higher lv 4e modules (whatevers out by then).
After that? I'll write something to cap it all off.
NONE of these modules have anything to actually do with one another by themselves. They aren't written by the same people. Hells, they aren't even written for the same editions! But that's not going to stop a story from developing....

What each one of these 4e modules does do is present a series of (supposedly) lv appropriate challenges/rewards for the lvs they're listed for. How usefull you find any particular module may vary.
#6
gregt_314
Mar 20, 2009 5:57:32 I'm personally perservering with them out of bloody mindedness. Swimming uphill through the river of published crap has become something of a challenge and I'll be damned if I give up before I see it out.
#7
the_antra
Mar 20, 2009 8:37:09 The way I see it, it was the designers intention to create separate stories that COULD be woven together to create one long epica saga. If this was not their goal, why flip back and forth on the whole Orcus and undeath themes?

OTOH, if designers produced adventures that were 100% linked, it would lower their sales significantly (and people would be complaining that they "now have to buy every single adventure in the series" while calling WOTC evil... :D). The way they are now, someone could easily pick King of the Trollhaunt Warrens, for instance, and DM it as a solo plot, or as part of their own campaigns. Those who are playing the whole series, certainly can link the modules easily.

[SPOILER] In Myrhdraak´s adaptation (in this thread), the link is very simple and does the job very nicely: the one who opened the rift portal near Winterhaven was Karavakos, who was later imprisoned in the Pyramid of Shadows. Paldemar (Kalarel´s master and servant of Orcus) is plotting to free Karavakos and reopen the gate between the world and Shadowfell. [/SPOILER}

My point is to show how easy is to link the adventures. There´s very little (or none) crunch changes (all the changes in Myrhdraak´s version are optional and up to the DM´s personal taste) to create the whole saga.

And by the description of the "E" adventures, they follow the undeath theme nicely, most likely having the players fight Orcus itself in the final battle of E3.

Just a couple of CPs in the jar... ;)

Cheers!
#8
Vatras
Mar 24, 2009 6:36:40 The thing so many seem to have with Orcus (and I don't share the enthusiasm for him) has little to do with the modules. Only because someone implements a servant of Orcus somewhere does not mean, that the whole module series has to include him.

The threads to link the series are very thin and were only included in case someone wants to do this. I see the modules more or less as stand-alone adventures.
#9
korgoththeprist
Mar 24, 2009 10:58:42 Fortinatly for me and my players i got and read all of H1-H3 before playing though them and added in some of my own story plot twists that connected all of them (The end of the first i made it where the portal exploded and that a random mystrus stranger saved them and they went onto H2 to figure out more reason why and such) while in H3 there "helping" Out the stranger by trying to figure out the past life history that happined to the dude in H3 with the spirt shards (As the same thing happined to the guy who helped them kind of) While at the same time Orcus Followers and such are started up on other raids and such neirby wageing a war with Vecna people.

Though when i started reading P1-P3 i kinda just decided to say **** that ****. and decided to make my own Paragon teir play where players find out that the stranger thats helping them is a member of a differnt cult thats playing off of the other 3 cults (Raven queen whos arch rivles basicly with Orcus, Vecna whos trying to recover artifacts and other things stolen by them by the first two cults) but has involved the players into there sceems without them knowing about it.

As such paragon teir would be the PCS figureing this out and getting out of service from them along with attemping to stop the imidate problems (Such as them being blamed for murders and such from Shapeshifters that changed into uniq versions of the party) that they have to clear up.

there figure out that the guy who help them cult is that of Tharizdun. Whos useing the war of the other 3 dietys as a way to release himself from prision and the Main epic tier is having to deal with the 4 cults going at each other.

Once thats overwith im pretty much going to make a new game where its the aftermath of the first main adventure.

Of course ive played in plunty of small time adventures.

Ok i ramboled on ... I Agree with you in a way they where so pos to be run together (By the fact they all mention one another running together if you want to) is a horrible thing.

Thus i beleve you should change them and find your own way to bring them together and such and know when to just say stop.

Im thinking about allso having a ritual brining Orcus into the world some time or another in a differnt campain and having players try and deal with him and his followers.

One reason why ive asked for L4D monster statistics.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 nedmtrunks Mar 18, 2009 23:00:22	So after picking up P3 today I came to the following conclusion They must have 3 different writing staff teams for the first set of adventures. Starting in H1, having to deal with undead, and orcus, and gaining knowledging of the shadowfell is awesome, altho i didnt like the overall story, not many plot hook twists besides Nina. Then moving to H2, thunderspire, cool, awesome mountain lore in the vale, then having to fight miniatour and worishpeers of Veccna? That doesnt make a whole lot of sence to tie in the shadowfeel or orcus and the raven queen. Finally at H3, a random prision, no ties to orcus or the raven queen, and no shadowfell. Overall, i personally missed the overall background of the vale. Not much world interaction at all, a huge world with the players only going to winterhaven/keep/thunder spire and then the pyramid of power. Started off good and had a sad ending in my eyes. The move onto P1 is nice, i look the town, however its not included in the map of the vale(located in the back of the DMG) Fighting Trolls is fun, but doesnt tie into the shadowfell or orcus or the raven queen. P2 seams better, drow. But then again that has nothign to do with the starting theme in H1. P3 is absolutly 100% mind blowing. I wont ruin it all but tying in the shadowfell and the raven queen was awesome, form what i read. Just seams too bad they couldnt have tied in all these adventures better. E1 preview in the back of P3 seams like 100% complete awesomeness. 100% Ties into P3. IMHO H1 was a good start, could have been better, H2/H3 shouldnt be done with p1, they should be stand alones. P1/P2 are deffently stand alone adventures, P2 being a possible tie in story wize in with H2/H3 (MABYE). P3/E1 Seams like a good storyline to continue if you do H1.
#2 Neutronium_Dragon Mar 19, 2009 5:02:59	I'm not sure that it was intended that every one of the adventures involve the Orcus/Shadowfell plotline as a central feature. Not only might it start to wear thin after a while (especially since it'll involve similar enemies the whole time), but it would render the entire series unattractive if the group wasn't really interested in Orcus as a campaign theme.
#3 the_antra Mar 19, 2009 8:29:33	If you´re really looking for an epic six-adventure saga, you have to check out this thread. It does exactly what you wanted from the adventures, and it keeps on adding as more adventures are released. This adaptation is so good, it should have been in Dungeon mag or as an official supplement for D&D Insider subscribers. Cheers!
#4 gregt_314 Mar 20, 2009 2:23:51	I'm currently in H2 now; I'm tiding over the non-Orcus plots by introducing a sub-theme of "doorways"; knowing that we're coming up to an endgame about death and undeath, and the nature of life, and death being natural as opposed to undeath being unnatural, I'm layering the idea of doorways over the intervening stories. H2 is a gateway space; it's where the surface and the underdark meet. There's a running theme of barred doors throughout the mini-dungeons, leading up the Paldemar's "Tower With No Doors" for the conclusion. And all throughout it there's carved archways and portals and pretty much every faction you meet is trying to collapse the labyrinth and thereby close the gateway. After the PCs going through hell in Keep to close a doorway, suddenly they're all about opening them. And then there's Pyramid; the tiefling wizard there is locked in this prison; the act of opening the prison will destroy it and kill him, but he's still bashing at the bars of his cage. All the little factions want to close off the boundaries between themselves and their neighbours, and there's this running theme of finding keys necessary to enter the final chamber. Seeing as it caps off the Paragon tier I'm probably going to add a little something just before that final chamber to draw attention to the theme so far, and to suggest how the PCs are a little bit special and on their path to much greater things. With P1 the PCs are again walking through gateways, hopping from the material realm to the Feywild and back again. Also, there's this dead hero who's gone before them, that I'm going to play up, to bring us back to our master theme of death and mortality. Death and mortality comes up again as we step into P2, and we've got drow and Orcus, together at last, and the beginning of the buildup to P3 and onwards. I haven't seen P3 and E1 yet, so here's hoping they hold true.
#5 CCS Mar 20, 2009 2:57:33	My overall impression was that these adventures were largely independant of one another. Sure, with some effort you could string them all into one plot line. But then the same could be done with any handfull of modules from previous editions.... For ex; Sometime here in '09 I'll run a module based game down at the shop. I'm going to start it off with Horror on the Hill (an old Basic era module). It'll lead into The Forest Oracle (AD&D 1st ed), set up hooks to lead into Ravenloft (any edition of this module), branch off with a side trek into either Palace of the Silver Princess (another Basic) or Green Ladies Sorrow (AD&D 1st ed from Dungeon). Then comes Red Hand of Doom (3.5) & more hooks towards Ravenloft. Should the PCs survive meeting Strahd I'll throw them into one of the higher lv 4e modules (whatevers out by then). After that? I'll write something to cap it all off. NONE of these modules have anything to actually do with one another by themselves. They aren't written by the same people. Hells, they aren't even written for the same editions! But that's not going to stop a story from developing.... What each one of these 4e modules does do is present a series of (supposedly) lv appropriate challenges/rewards for the lvs they're listed for. How usefull you find any particular module may vary.
#6 gregt_314 Mar 20, 2009 5:57:32	I'm personally perservering with them out of bloody mindedness. Swimming uphill through the river of published crap has become something of a challenge and I'll be damned if I give up before I see it out.
#7 the_antra Mar 20, 2009 8:37:09	The way I see it, it was the designers intention to create separate stories that COULD be woven together to create one long epica saga. If this was not their goal, why flip back and forth on the whole Orcus and undeath themes? OTOH, if designers produced adventures that were 100% linked, it would lower their sales significantly (and people would be complaining that they "now have to buy every single adventure in the series" while calling WOTC evil... :D). The way they are now, someone could easily pick King of the Trollhaunt Warrens, for instance, and DM it as a solo plot, or as part of their own campaigns. Those who are playing the whole series, certainly can link the modules easily. [SPOILER] In Myrhdraak´s adaptation (in this thread), the link is very simple and does the job very nicely: the one who opened the rift portal near Winterhaven was Karavakos, who was later imprisoned in the Pyramid of Shadows. Paldemar (Kalarel´s master and servant of Orcus) is plotting to free Karavakos and reopen the gate between the world and Shadowfell. [/SPOILER} My point is to show how easy is to link the adventures. There´s very little (or none) crunch changes (all the changes in Myrhdraak´s version are optional and up to the DM´s personal taste) to create the whole saga. And by the description of the "E" adventures, they follow the undeath theme nicely, most likely having the players fight Orcus itself in the final battle of E3. Just a couple of CPs in the jar... ;) Cheers!
#8 Vatras Mar 24, 2009 6:36:40	The thing so many seem to have with Orcus (and I don't share the enthusiasm for him) has little to do with the modules. Only because someone implements a servant of Orcus somewhere does not mean, that the whole module series has to include him. The threads to link the series are very thin and were only included in case someone wants to do this. I see the modules more or less as stand-alone adventures.
#9 korgoththeprist Mar 24, 2009 10:58:42	Fortinatly for me and my players i got and read all of H1-H3 before playing though them and added in some of my own story plot twists that connected all of them (The end of the first i made it where the portal exploded and that a random mystrus stranger saved them and they went onto H2 to figure out more reason why and such) while in H3 there "helping" Out the stranger by trying to figure out the past life history that happined to the dude in H3 with the spirt shards (As the same thing happined to the guy who helped them kind of) While at the same time Orcus Followers and such are started up on other raids and such neirby wageing a war with Vecna people. Though when i started reading P1-P3 i kinda just decided to say ** that **. and decided to make my own Paragon teir play where players find out that the stranger thats helping them is a member of a differnt cult thats playing off of the other 3 cults (Raven queen whos arch rivles basicly with Orcus, Vecna whos trying to recover artifacts and other things stolen by them by the first two cults) but has involved the players into there sceems without them knowing about it. As such paragon teir would be the PCS figureing this out and getting out of service from them along with attemping to stop the imidate problems (Such as them being blamed for murders and such from Shapeshifters that changed into uniq versions of the party) that they have to clear up. there figure out that the guy who help them cult is that of Tharizdun. Whos useing the war of the other 3 dietys as a way to release himself from prision and the Main epic tier is having to deal with the 4 cults going at each other. Once thats overwith im pretty much going to make a new game where its the aftermath of the first main adventure. Of course ive played in plunty of small time adventures. Ok i ramboled on ... I Agree with you in a way they where so pos to be run together (By the fact they all mention one another running together if you want to) is a horrible thing. Thus i beleve you should change them and find your own way to bring them together and such and know when to just say stop. Im thinking about allso having a ritual brining Orcus into the world some time or another in a differnt campain and having players try and deal with him and his followers. One reason why ive asked for L4D monster statistics.