Storminator
First Post
This adventure came out of two things: 1) a PC (Grunnok, the bugbear warden) backstory, where he and 6 others were the only survivors of a rearguard retreat of the clan, and 2) a Postcards from the Dungeon podcast about running a Noir game.
This game reunited 6 of the 7 survivors of that rearguard. The 7th has gone missing, and his son has gone back to find dad's old friends to help save him. I gave each player (except Grunnok's player) a class/race combo, and a short description of the character. Something like "goblin thief, married family goblin that is secretly a serial killer." Or "bugbear slayer, still bitter from the war, you've abandoned the clan and waste your life drinking" The players then made their characters without further input from me.
This was one of our best adventures.
I used "voice over" techniques to do all the narration, hamming up my Dashiell Hammett voice. "It was raining in Rhukaan Draal, like all the angels in heaven were pissing at the same time . . ." The group had to go to the capital of the goblin nation (Rhukaan Draal) and figure out what happened to their friend, track down all the various conspiracies around him - the shady nightclub, the bank heist gone bad, the exiled Cyran nobleman, the gnoll enforcers, and finally find their friend. Dead. No happy endings in a noir adventure.
But in the midst of the carnage they inflicted on the city, they made a life long enemy of the former prince of Cyre. Despite killing him, his family is rich enough to resurrect him, so Babyface ir’Wynarn (because his resurrected body is brand new . . . ) has a permanent grudge against their clan. The assassins guild can't be called off until the clan can either outbid the Cyrans or one of them becomes "at least equal rank" i.e. prince of a kingdom.
This game reunited 6 of the 7 survivors of that rearguard. The 7th has gone missing, and his son has gone back to find dad's old friends to help save him. I gave each player (except Grunnok's player) a class/race combo, and a short description of the character. Something like "goblin thief, married family goblin that is secretly a serial killer." Or "bugbear slayer, still bitter from the war, you've abandoned the clan and waste your life drinking" The players then made their characters without further input from me.
This was one of our best adventures.
I used "voice over" techniques to do all the narration, hamming up my Dashiell Hammett voice. "It was raining in Rhukaan Draal, like all the angels in heaven were pissing at the same time . . ." The group had to go to the capital of the goblin nation (Rhukaan Draal) and figure out what happened to their friend, track down all the various conspiracies around him - the shady nightclub, the bank heist gone bad, the exiled Cyran nobleman, the gnoll enforcers, and finally find their friend. Dead. No happy endings in a noir adventure.
But in the midst of the carnage they inflicted on the city, they made a life long enemy of the former prince of Cyre. Despite killing him, his family is rich enough to resurrect him, so Babyface ir’Wynarn (because his resurrected body is brand new . . . ) has a permanent grudge against their clan. The assassins guild can't be called off until the clan can either outbid the Cyrans or one of them becomes "at least equal rank" i.e. prince of a kingdom.
