Looking for some help with fleshing out a story and setting world. - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Looking for some help with fleshing out a story and setting world.

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
goujoe_the_bumpkin
Dec 12, 2009 5:10:56
Alright, this isn't so much about mechanical questions as it is about seeking help fleshing out an adventure I'm writing. I have a rather small amount of experience playerside and zero DMing (But have had large amounts of exposure to lore and game concepts, and I am learning 4e rules quite quickly), so at the moment I am focusing on the writing aspect and waiting to map out the nitty gritty details until I'm nice and comfortable with the rules and such. This thread's here to seek advice, suggestions, or feedback from DMs with some experience in the story telling and lore aspects of the game.

To start with, I'm using a rather tweaked incarnation of the Forgotten Realms setting. Basically just overwriting the, in my opinion, apocryphal story events and cosmology changes implemented in 4e FR (Mostly sticking with 3.5 lore, save for some small things from 4e and other things I'm changing). The pivotal concept of the change being an event called the “Portal Storm”, which caused an abnormally large amount of portals to open and close all over Toril over the course of about a decade or so. This event caused a large amount of planar creatures both sentient and otherwise to be stranded in Faerûn and beyond, and enough time has passed since this event (perhaps a couple centuries or so) to allow these planars on Toril to begin mixing and integrating into the environments and societies of the natives. These beings mostly consisting of aasimars, tieflings, gith, and especially genasi (I've got a thing for them), along with other planars exotic and otherwise that would have the ability to integrate at least somewhat successfully with existing Faerûnian cultures or start their own (I would greatly appreciate suggestions). Along with other changes such as more solidified nations and fewer independent city-states like those on the Sword Coast, a larger role played by off-planet influences (spelljammers would be uncommon, but far from rare), and other things. The more wide reaching aspects of the setting are not going to be explored too much in this adventure, but will be in the larger campaign that the adventure will sort of begin.

Now! On to the adventure itself! I haven't ironed out many details about the beginning of the adventure. What I've worked out so far is that the party is hired on by a dust genasi archeologist as part of an expedition to a strange archeological wonder. This wonder being a sort of floating island, hovering and perhaps drifting many hundreds of feet or more in the air. Built on and within this island is a large ruined citadel of a build unfamiliar to most who would see it (I.E. planar), and clearly very ancient. How the party reaches the island I haven't figured out, but after they reach the citadel they would begin the action with perhaps some sort of strange (low level) creatures living on the surface of the island, up until this point I have few details solidly worked out. Once the expedition enters the citadel however, I have a better plan for the story. After a bit of exploring and critter slaying in the top levels of the citadel, the expedition would be suddenly attacked by a huge behemoth of a creature. It is made as clear as possible that this monstrosity is well beyond what the party can handle, and they must flee. In the following chase scene, there is eventually a large collapse caused by the beast's smashing about the corridors. The party (which up until this point has consisted of many people other then the players) is sent smashing through an unknown number of floors into the depths of the ancient citadel, and when the dust settles and people start digging themselves from the rubble, it is quickly learned that the players are the only ones who have survived, leaving them stranded on an unknown level deep within the citadel. This establishes the overall goal of the adventure, which is simply: Escape. The party needs to find their way out of the citadel, somehow avoiding the behemoth on the upper levels and finding a way to return safely to the ground below.

This is when things really start to get interesting. As the party gets their bearings and begins to wander the citadel, they eventually encounter (the details of the encounter scene I haven't figured out) sentient denizens living in the ruins. These denizens consist of two opposing groups, one being a society of sentient constructs left behind by a powerful wizard who seemed to have used an area of the ruins as his lair, the other a society of sentient animated skeletons. The constructs were granted sentient thought for mysterious reasons lost to the construct's knowledge though arcane devices of a very exotic nature, and the skeletons were originally mindless undead guardians left behind by the citadel's initial inhabitants who were bestowed with intelligence through power leaked from one the wizard's abandoned creations that was drawn and gathered by magical gemstones placed on each skeleton's forehead. These two factions have been warring for many, many years, fighting over one of the old wizards largest artifacts, the details of I haven't worked out much of, other then it is a large orb of some kind. The orb's purpose seems to be to keep the constructs bound to the citadel, causing great pain should they ever leave to the surface of the floating island and quickly killing them should they ever try and leave, however, this artifact's leaked power is what allowed the skeletons to develop their sentience, making it the centerpiece of a war the two groups fight. The constructs seek to destroy the orb in order to end its grip on their minds and allowing them to escape the citadel, while the skeletons fight endlessly to protect the orb, and with it their continued existence. These sides have been for the most part evenly matched, their war largely at a stalemate, that is until the party is introduced to tip the balance of power. I want to make it very clear to the players that these groups are not the usual good vs. evil sort of pairing one might expect, if anything, it is more a conflict of chaotic against lawful (The freedom seeking constructs being chaotic, and the undead being lawful).

Wow... that's a lot more writing then I thought I was going to do, and it's rather late, so I will finish this up another time (There's still plenty of stuff and story to tell). Feel free to give feedback or suggestions or whatever in the meantime.
#2
forumite
Dec 14, 2009 6:53:25 How to enter a flying island?
Either wait for it to drift past a hill, or simply fire a ballista into the underside, climb up, and have the whole expedition take a few days climbing up to the surface. Or you could use magic/magical creatures to ferry them up but that´s too easy.

Denizens...
Who lives on a floating island? Flying people ofc! It has to either be flying or brought there before the abandonement of the ruins, so mutated birds, flying serpents, a few demons, oozes and failes experiments are perfect. How do you plan on keeping the fights challenging with another 20 characters along? Perhaps the players and 2-5 other mercenaries are tasked with scouting ahead and clearing away dangers.

Conflict!
Why doesn´t the skeletons want to leave? Are they content with guarding the artifact as prisoners or do they want a way to stay intelligent after its destruction, is that even possible? It looks to me like it´s a war for survival, the constructs want to flee, the skeletons want to survive, so unless the constructs are made to accept the life on the island then there is no peacefull solution, their freedom means the destruction of the skeletons (or at least their sentience). I suggest you look for ways to allow the conflict to end without the whole of one side eradicated. Also, why should the players help ANY side? their own goal is after all escape, but perhaps one side in the conflict holds the key to escape, a machine that will lift them to the ground, guards the door or force them to stay and choose sides. While a big conflict, nothing seems to stop the players from just slipping away, but if they have to get their flying machine first, parts of which is scattered between both sides, then they have to stay and end the war before they can flee.
#3
alfndrate
Dec 17, 2009 15:36:24 It sounds like you're using a plot point from Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark... If you wanted to, you could do something along the lines of what happened in the game... The golems want to escape for their freedom, but they need the power supply the undead creations are guarding. Helping the golems would probably span a few levels, if the golems needed things to house the power supply, or even develop their own. If they did the latter, then the undead could seek to destroy the new power supply to keep with their master's wishes to keep both the undead and the golems guarding the same area... Just a few ideas.
#4
goujoe_the_bumpkin
Dec 17, 2009 20:43:04
It sounds like you're using a plot point from Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark... If you wanted to, you could do something along the lines of what happened in the game... The golems want to escape for their freedom, but they need the power supply the undead creations are guarding. Helping the golems would probably span a few levels, if the golems needed things to house the power supply, or even develop their own. If they did the latter, then the undead could seek to destroy the new power supply to keep with their master's wishes to keep both the undead and the golems guarding the same area... Just a few ideas.

Well, I kind of don't want to emphisize one group or the other as protagonist or antagonist, as I want the players to essentially have as hard a time as possible coming to the ethical decision to side with one faction or the other. Neither side is intended to be either good or bad, simply desperate. You know? There would need to be plenty of ethical pros and cons about siding with either group, as well as not siding with any.

The skeletons are just as masterless as the constructs, and each culture has developed wholey on their own sentience and all that jazz.

And yes, I'll admit I got the inspiration for this from the quest you're talking about, but I'd like to at least make the attempt to build it in a distinct way.
#5
forumite
Dec 19, 2009 6:26:09 I think it´s hard to not brand one of them into the evil side, simply because the players will get their first impression and stick to it. I have two suggestions that might work. Either have the players get split up for a short time, where each half of the party meets different sides of the conflict, where the constructs/skeletons make a good effort to get on their good side, then once the party reunites after a session they will argue who to help. Or you can have the players get to know one side first, like them, decide to help, perhaps go along with attacking the other side, THEN you drop the bomb, it seems the conflict wasn´t between their good side and the evil enemy. I think both these methods should help making it more of a dilemma, rather than just a "I like them more, so lets fight the other team"

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 goujoe_the_bumpkin Dec 12, 2009 5:10:56	Alright, this isn't so much about mechanical questions as it is about seeking help fleshing out an adventure I'm writing. I have a rather small amount of experience playerside and zero DMing (But have had large amounts of exposure to lore and game concepts, and I am learning 4e rules quite quickly), so at the moment I am focusing on the writing aspect and waiting to map out the nitty gritty details until I'm nice and comfortable with the rules and such. This thread's here to seek advice, suggestions, or feedback from DMs with some experience in the story telling and lore aspects of the game. To start with, I'm using a rather tweaked incarnation of the Forgotten Realms setting. Basically just overwriting the, in my opinion, apocryphal story events and cosmology changes implemented in 4e FR (Mostly sticking with 3.5 lore, save for some small things from 4e and other things I'm changing). The pivotal concept of the change being an event called the “Portal Storm”, which caused an abnormally large amount of portals to open and close all over Toril over the course of about a decade or so. This event caused a large amount of planar creatures both sentient and otherwise to be stranded in Faerûn and beyond, and enough time has passed since this event (perhaps a couple centuries or so) to allow these planars on Toril to begin mixing and integrating into the environments and societies of the natives. These beings mostly consisting of aasimars, tieflings, gith, and especially genasi (I've got a thing for them), along with other planars exotic and otherwise that would have the ability to integrate at least somewhat successfully with existing Faerûnian cultures or start their own (I would greatly appreciate suggestions). Along with other changes such as more solidified nations and fewer independent city-states like those on the Sword Coast, a larger role played by off-planet influences (spelljammers would be uncommon, but far from rare), and other things. The more wide reaching aspects of the setting are not going to be explored too much in this adventure, but will be in the larger campaign that the adventure will sort of begin. Now! On to the adventure itself! I haven't ironed out many details about the beginning of the adventure. What I've worked out so far is that the party is hired on by a dust genasi archeologist as part of an expedition to a strange archeological wonder. This wonder being a sort of floating island, hovering and perhaps drifting many hundreds of feet or more in the air. Built on and within this island is a large ruined citadel of a build unfamiliar to most who would see it (I.E. planar), and clearly very ancient. How the party reaches the island I haven't figured out, but after they reach the citadel they would begin the action with perhaps some sort of strange (low level) creatures living on the surface of the island, up until this point I have few details solidly worked out. Once the expedition enters the citadel however, I have a better plan for the story. After a bit of exploring and critter slaying in the top levels of the citadel, the expedition would be suddenly attacked by a huge behemoth of a creature. It is made as clear as possible that this monstrosity is well beyond what the party can handle, and they must flee. In the following chase scene, there is eventually a large collapse caused by the beast's smashing about the corridors. The party (which up until this point has consisted of many people other then the players) is sent smashing through an unknown number of floors into the depths of the ancient citadel, and when the dust settles and people start digging themselves from the rubble, it is quickly learned that the players are the only ones who have survived, leaving them stranded on an unknown level deep within the citadel. This establishes the overall goal of the adventure, which is simply: Escape. The party needs to find their way out of the citadel, somehow avoiding the behemoth on the upper levels and finding a way to return safely to the ground below. This is when things really start to get interesting. As the party gets their bearings and begins to wander the citadel, they eventually encounter (the details of the encounter scene I haven't figured out) sentient denizens living in the ruins. These denizens consist of two opposing groups, one being a society of sentient constructs left behind by a powerful wizard who seemed to have used an area of the ruins as his lair, the other a society of sentient animated skeletons. The constructs were granted sentient thought for mysterious reasons lost to the construct's knowledge though arcane devices of a very exotic nature, and the skeletons were originally mindless undead guardians left behind by the citadel's initial inhabitants who were bestowed with intelligence through power leaked from one the wizard's abandoned creations that was drawn and gathered by magical gemstones placed on each skeleton's forehead. These two factions have been warring for many, many years, fighting over one of the old wizards largest artifacts, the details of I haven't worked out much of, other then it is a large orb of some kind. The orb's purpose seems to be to keep the constructs bound to the citadel, causing great pain should they ever leave to the surface of the floating island and quickly killing them should they ever try and leave, however, this artifact's leaked power is what allowed the skeletons to develop their sentience, making it the centerpiece of a war the two groups fight. The constructs seek to destroy the orb in order to end its grip on their minds and allowing them to escape the citadel, while the skeletons fight endlessly to protect the orb, and with it their continued existence. These sides have been for the most part evenly matched, their war largely at a stalemate, that is until the party is introduced to tip the balance of power. I want to make it very clear to the players that these groups are not the usual good vs. evil sort of pairing one might expect, if anything, it is more a conflict of chaotic against lawful (The freedom seeking constructs being chaotic, and the undead being lawful). Wow... that's a lot more writing then I thought I was going to do, and it's rather late, so I will finish this up another time (There's still plenty of stuff and story to tell). Feel free to give feedback or suggestions or whatever in the meantime.
#2 forumite Dec 14, 2009 6:53:25	How to enter a flying island? Either wait for it to drift past a hill, or simply fire a ballista into the underside, climb up, and have the whole expedition take a few days climbing up to the surface. Or you could use magic/magical creatures to ferry them up but that´s too easy. Denizens... Who lives on a floating island? Flying people ofc! It has to either be flying or brought there before the abandonement of the ruins, so mutated birds, flying serpents, a few demons, oozes and failes experiments are perfect. How do you plan on keeping the fights challenging with another 20 characters along? Perhaps the players and 2-5 other mercenaries are tasked with scouting ahead and clearing away dangers. Conflict! Why doesn´t the skeletons want to leave? Are they content with guarding the artifact as prisoners or do they want a way to stay intelligent after its destruction, is that even possible? It looks to me like it´s a war for survival, the constructs want to flee, the skeletons want to survive, so unless the constructs are made to accept the life on the island then there is no peacefull solution, their freedom means the destruction of the skeletons (or at least their sentience). I suggest you look for ways to allow the conflict to end without the whole of one side eradicated. Also, why should the players help ANY side? their own goal is after all escape, but perhaps one side in the conflict holds the key to escape, a machine that will lift them to the ground, guards the door or force them to stay and choose sides. While a big conflict, nothing seems to stop the players from just slipping away, but if they have to get their flying machine first, parts of which is scattered between both sides, then they have to stay and end the war before they can flee.
#3 alfndrate Dec 17, 2009 15:36:24	It sounds like you're using a plot point from Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark... If you wanted to, you could do something along the lines of what happened in the game... The golems want to escape for their freedom, but they need the power supply the undead creations are guarding. Helping the golems would probably span a few levels, if the golems needed things to house the power supply, or even develop their own. If they did the latter, then the undead could seek to destroy the new power supply to keep with their master's wishes to keep both the undead and the golems guarding the same area... Just a few ideas.
#4 goujoe_the_bumpkin Dec 17, 2009 20:43:04	It sounds like you're using a plot point from Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark... If you wanted to, you could do something along the lines of what happened in the game... The golems want to escape for their freedom, but they need the power supply the undead creations are guarding. Helping the golems would probably span a few levels, if the golems needed things to house the power supply, or even develop their own. If they did the latter, then the undead could seek to destroy the new power supply to keep with their master's wishes to keep both the undead and the golems guarding the same area... Just a few ideas. Well, I kind of don't want to emphisize one group or the other as protagonist or antagonist, as I want the players to essentially have as hard a time as possible coming to the ethical decision to side with one faction or the other. Neither side is intended to be either good or bad, simply desperate. You know? There would need to be plenty of ethical pros and cons about siding with either group, as well as not siding with any. The skeletons are just as masterless as the constructs, and each culture has developed wholey on their own sentience and all that jazz. And yes, I'll admit I got the inspiration for this from the quest you're talking about, but I'd like to at least make the attempt to build it in a distinct way.
#5 forumite Dec 19, 2009 6:26:09	I think it´s hard to not brand one of them into the evil side, simply because the players will get their first impression and stick to it. I have two suggestions that might work. Either have the players get split up for a short time, where each half of the party meets different sides of the conflict, where the constructs/skeletons make a good effort to get on their good side, then once the party reunites after a session they will argue who to help. Or you can have the players get to know one side first, like them, decide to help, perhaps go along with attacking the other side, THEN you drop the bomb, it seems the conflict wasn´t between their good side and the evil enemy. I think both these methods should help making it more of a dilemma, rather than just a "I like them more, so lets fight the other team"