Essentials Sequels...

[Baileyborough]

Hey all,

so I'm DMing Reavers of Harkenwold at the moment with my group, really enjoying it too. After this is through, we'll check out Cairn of the Winter King with the Monster Vault, thus bringing the guys (and girl) up to Level 4 or 5, and giving me a good foothold of DMing.

My question, if you could call it that, is basically, what now? I'm a new DM and working from a pre-genned story has been a good learning experience. I've got a lot of ideas for various quests and the like, but I'd like to know you guys' opinions - where have ye taken your adventures after the aforementioned quests? Should I crack back into the Iron Circle right away? Try some home-made quests where my chars explore the underworld of Fallcrest? Or try exploring some other parts of the Nentir Vale? I feel like they should be a bit closer to Paragon before leaving the Vale in general.

I realise it's mostly rambling musings, but what do you guys think?

Cheers,

C.

 

[Locutus Zero]

I was in the exact same boat about 6 months ago. I read ahead to the Winter King adventure and decided to merge the Ice Scepter idea and the Iron Circle. The overarching plot the heroic tier for my campaign is that the Iron Circle, who holds a large city south of the Nentir Vale, is looking for these 5 scepters. This was a great way to combine adventures that didn't really have anything to do with one another, just add a scepter.

I painted Dar, from Harkenwold, as an old adventurer. I decided that he had an old relic from his adventuring days, buried on his land. He knew it was important, but couldn't figure out what to do with it so he tried to get rid of it. The Iron Circle detected that it was nearby and that's what brought them to Harkenwold.

I've introduced the idea that these scepters are from the Feywild, so they should lead well into Paragon tier.

Edit: I did Bark at the Moon from Dungeon after Cairn of the Winter King. Since then I've been writing my own adventures.

 

[Klaus]

Hey all,

so I'm DMing Reavers of Harkenwold at the moment with my group, really enjoying it too. After this is through, we'll check out Cairn of the Winter King with the Monster Vault, thus bringing the guys (and girl) up to Level 4 or 5, and giving me a good foothold of DMing.

My question, if you could call it that, is basically, what now? I'm a new DM and working from a pre-genned story has been a good learning experience. I've got a lot of ideas for various quests and the like, but I'd like to know you guys' opinions - where have ye taken your adventures after the aforementioned quests? Should I crack back into the Iron Circle right away? Try some home-made quests where my chars explore the underworld of Fallcrest? Or try exploring some other parts of the Nentir Vale? I feel like they should be a bit closer to Paragon before leaving the Vale in general.

I realise it's mostly rambling musings, but what do you guys think?

Cheers,

C.

Here's what I plan to do:

At the end of Cairn of the Winter King, the PCs must boards the flying longship to return home, and the ship says its magic is rapidly fading. The session ends with the PCs falling to the ground far from their homeland.

The next session, they're gathering their whereabouts and find out they need to cross a very difficult mountain range to get closer to home. Of course, they could help these dwarves clear the pass that cuts through the mountain. This leads them to the adventure "Orcs of Stonefang Pass". By the end of it, they ought to be about 8th level.