Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 moondoggy Jan 17, 2009 15:26:30	Okay, I've started running my first 4e campaign recently and I'm playing as well as DMing. I just wanted to post here what the main plot storyline is to see if anyone here had any ideas. I've hit writer's block and am pretty stuck. The PC's find a necromancer in the basement of an abandoned mansion after clearing out all of his undead. There's a guy in a cage in the lab who has amnesia and is a spellcaster. His spells invoke an odd blue fire (Spellscarred adaptation) and the PC's are trying to help him remember who he was. Over the course of the next few levels, he gets injured and they find that there is a large blue shard of some material lodged deep in his chest where his heart should be. Nobody has any idea what it does aside from apparently give the guy his arcane power and heal his flesh naturally. So the party decides to go to Shoak, the floating magic city, in order to determine whatever this thing is. On the way there, they get attacked by another blue flame wielding spellcaster and kill him. His body burns away in blue fire and all that is left is another blue shard and his possessions, among which are an odd metal shaft with indecipherable runes etched into it. They pick up the shard and the rod and carry it with them. They arrive at Shoak and ask around, research, do whatever they can to find information on the two mysterious objects they now carry. The discover the metal bar is the haft of the legendary Rod of Seven Parts, but find no information on the crystalline shard. Word gets around to the high-magister of Shoak of what they are doing/carrying and he agrees to an audience with the party. The party talks to the high-magister and takes the blue shard from them to examine it personally. The party is free to explore the city for the next few days, buying items and etc. until he calls for them again. While they are waiting, a team of blue flame wielding spellcasters assaults the party and takes the Rod part while another troupe attacks the city and destroys a large portion of it. The assailants break into the main citadel where the high-magister is and take back the shard from him. The high-magister summons the party if they have not already located him and explains to them that the shard was actually a core fragment from an ancient engine of destruction known as Erronyx. If all the shards are recombined and then placed within the heart of the thing, it will reanimate and be under the control of whoever has the Rod of Seven Parts. He beseeches the party to stop whoever is trying to awaken the thing and tells them that if they fail the world would enter a new age of darkness. Okay, for those of you that read through that, thanks. I'm stuck here and am not sure where to go. I've got the idea for what Erronyx looks like, but aside from that, I've got a blank. Any ideas?
#2 faulten Jan 17, 2009 15:58:03	Very impressive plot you have here first off. I like the idea of Shoak alot and how you set the party off in search of the Seven Parts rod seems pretty well done. It helps to create that sense of urgencey. Especially since your BBEG was able to overrun something as immpressive as a floating city of mages. It really goes to show how powerful and capable your storys antagonists are, which are vital in establishing a good campaign. Now for my suggestions on where you should go with this, when the party is talking to your high magistrate have him give them a map or a set of notes on where the last know locations of one or two of the pieces of the Seven Parts. Have him explain that they were at one point searching for the Rod of Seven Parts and were close to finding two of the pieces, but were never able to pin down there exact location and had given up the search thinking that the Seven Parts were simply another treasure lost to time. Now however the party's piece of the Rod, and the BBEGs attack seems to prove that the Rod still exists. With a map and two possilbe places to go this will give you two entire quests to help make up your campaign. Even more, depending on how big your campaign world is you may be able to fit in some smaller side-quests along the way. A quick example would be the party being robbed by bandits and having to get their treasure back. Returning to your main campaign though, with a map and a general idea of where two of the pieces of the Rod are you can have the chance to come up where and how the party will come to find them, and the shards too. Perhaps you'll have the shards and the pieces of the Seven Parts being kept together in deep, long forgotten dungeons that are filled with mind bending riddles and dangerous traps that your party must traverse and at the end of these dungeons give the location of another shard or Rod piece. This would be my first suggestions as I am a fan of creepy old dungeons that are filled with all kinds of nasty trapps. Although you can always try to break the mold and have other places for the party to find the shard pieces. Maybe the party will find that an antique collector has unkowningly stumbled onto a peice of the Seven parts or a shard piece and dosen't know how import those things are and the party has to now convince him to hand them over, the problem being that 1.) he has a particular fondness for those artifacts and 2.) the party does not have anything that they can really trade for them. This poses all sorts of possiblities for your party on how to solve this. Maybe if your party has a rogue, they'll sneak in at night and try to steal those pieces from him. Although you can always have the party try to nagotiate with the man and learn that he may be willing to part with the piece if the party will go and retrieve another particular artifact for him. From there you can wip up a whole other adventure where they have to find this rare artifact for this old man so they can trade it for those pieces of shard and one of the Seven Parts. You could even twist this so that when they finally get that rare artifact and come back they'll see that your evil spell weilding bad guys have killed the man and taken the shard piece and that section of the Rod. However, you'll have already rewarded them with a powerful artifact that they've already retrieved. = D
#3 moondoggy Jan 17, 2009 18:23:42	Thanks for the compliment, it's nice to know I'm not as bad a writer as I thought I was. Your ideas are pretty good, I especially like the "trade X artifact for Y artifact" notion. Kinda like a LoZ trading quest, only vital to the story instead of annoying. I've decided Erronyx is a long-submerged quadripedal colossus that cannot be fought from the outside (save for throwing chunks of continent at it) and the party is going to have to brave the interior of the beast in order to get to the core/command center if they fail at retrieving the Rod or if it gets stolen from them by the BBEG. The most fun thing is I've told my players that if they fail to stop this thing I'm going to have to remake my entire world map because this is going to affect my campaign world permanently. 2nd generation characters after this quest are going to know/experience what happened here depending on how this first major quest is dealt with. So, you like the idea of Shoak? Well, I've created my own campaign world and if you're interested I could post the finer points of it. Shoak is actually where Scyll, the god of knowledge, lives in my campaign world.
#4 faulten Jan 17, 2009 19:40:13	The Erronyx is a colossus? I'm sorry but I can't stop thinking about 'Shadow of the Colosus' now and all those giant beasts I had to beat, man that was a good game. xD All in all I have to say that's a neat idea, I'm sure that will make for an epic dungeon crawl at the end of the campaign of having to find a win inside the Erronyx and then dealing with floors of enemies, assuming they can't stop your BBEG from getting/stealing all the shards and Seven Parts. Infact, I'd almost prefer it that way... XD But yeah your campaign world has intrigued me and if you don't mind I'd like to hear more about it. So far your concepts of the floating mage city of Shoak and the doomsday colossus Erronyx. I'm currently working on a 1st time campaign myself for my D&D group and am needing feedback, so if you want to try bouncing ideas back in forth I'm up for it.
#5 johnnii Jan 17, 2009 20:08:42	I'm actually working on a very similiar campaign atm. But I'm also shamelessly stealing the whole idea from TESII: Daggerfall :P Basically, it also features a giant colossus/golem of godlike power, and the political games of warring factions around a land. The existense of this golem, called the Numidium, have sparked new tension between the factions and so they are spending all their resources to uncover the golem and get control of it, because the one who controls the golem will rule the land, maybe even the world. The golem is powered by a large elemental gem called the Mantella, and is controlled by a "Totem"
#6 faulten Jan 17, 2009 20:46:27	Hey man, everythings been done at this point, and besides to quote a famous person who's name eludes me at the moment, 'Good artists barrow ideas, great artists steal them.' Sounds like a good idea Johnni, I especially like the political aspect of your campaign as it adds to the realism of your campaign's world. I'm intrested in hearing as to whether or not the PCs can decide what side to join in this conflict, or are you having a strictly 'good' country vs 'evil' country war going on hear?
#7 johnnii Jan 17, 2009 22:42:51	They will definetily be able to join whatever side they choose, and no faction will be inherently evil or good (though some sides may have a slightly more benevolence than the other). 3 states forms the major powerhouses that strives to control the area (one being a Dragonborn kingdom), but there is also some "underground" factions that desires these artifacts (a benevolent and ancient lich that created the Mantella from start, a remnant spy-network from the Nerathi Empire and a powerhungry, Eladrin necromancer)
#8 moondoggy Jan 17, 2009 23:58:18	The Erronyx is a colossus? I'm sorry but I can't stop thinking about 'Shadow of the Colosus' now and all those giant beasts I had to beat, man that was a good game. SotC was a very good game, but far too easy in my opinion. Even on hard mode. But yeah your campaign world has intrigued me and if you don't mind I'd like to hear more about it. So far your concepts of the floating mage city of Shoak and the doomsday colossus Erronyx. I'm currently working on a 1st time campaign myself for my D&D group and am needing feedback, so if you want to try bouncing ideas back in forth I'm up for it. It took me eight months to fully create an entire world from nothing, timeline, creation lore, astral and elemental relationships to the material plane, feywild and shadowfell reactions, even my own pantheon. If you would like to utilize some of it you are more than welcome. I'm gonna go to bed soonly but I'll post more information as soon as I can.
#9 koradzi Jan 18, 2009 2:24:30	Sounds like the idea is that the party is caught in a race against time to find the pieces of the staff before the bad guys do. Globe-trotting and detective work meets dungeon crawling and some good old-fashioned action. Sounds to me like you're off to a good start; just a few random suggestions to throw out there. First: interesting locations. From the sound of things, you've got a very intricate and well planned-out campaign setting. Sending your players romping around the world in search of these artifacts is the perfect opportunity to showcase it. For every piece of the staff that you stick out in the lost ruins of no place in particular, put another in some major city that you'd like the opportunity to show off. Make the setting a part of the campaign. Second: an ever-present and menacing enemy. Don't just make the players fight a villain -- make them fight an organization. Give the antagonists some personality, and make sure that they're showing up at every turn. Force the players to confront them frequently, and they'll be more interested in beating them. And remember: outsmarting the villains, figuring the clues out before they do, can be just as satisfying as thrashing them in a straight-out fight. Third -- and I'm serious about this -- if you're ever in need of inspiration, go out and rent "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." :D
#10 moondoggy Jan 18, 2009 20:33:57	First: interesting locations. From the sound of things, you've got a very intricate and well planned-out campaign setting. Sending your players romping around the world in search of these artifacts is the perfect opportunity to showcase it. For every piece of the staff that you stick out in the lost ruins of no place in particular, put another in some major city that you'd like the opportunity to show off. Make the setting a part of the campaign. I was going to do that anyways because there are a lot of interesting areas that I've designed that would make fun encounters. Second: an ever-present and menacing enemy. Don't just make the players fight a villain -- make them fight an organization. Give the antagonists some personality, and make sure that they're showing up at every turn. Force the players to confront them frequently, and they'll be more interested in beating them. And remember: outsmarting the villains, figuring the clues out before they do, can be just as satisfying as thrashing them in a straight-out fight. I love it when my players come up with a way to out-think the epic villains that I throw at them, plus I'm generous with XP awards when it comes to that sort of things so my PC's know to keep an eye out for good role play situations. I was also going to make a member of the enemy spellcasters an ally to the PC's eventually so they can keep track of the enemy's progress. Third -- and I'm serious about this -- if you're ever in need of inspiration, go out and rent "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." :D Last Crusade was my second favorite Indy flick next to the newest one, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.[/sarcasm] But movies and other media are always a good source of inspiration, especially when you take a storyline the PC's are familiar with and completely throw a different hook into it that they weren't expecting. Thanks for the advice, everyone. I'll make a new thread to post the specifics of my homemade campaign world for those who are interested.