Help me with my Eberron Mcguffin / background - tie to Giant/Quori war & warforged

[Hyperlexic]

Hi, everyone -

I need some help with the campaign I'm running... help!!

After many years of not DMing (and not playing D&D - Rolemaster instead) I picked up the mantle about 2 years back. I've had the players running through a long quest after a McGuffin, that's taken them from level 3 to level 6/7. Unfortunately it's about time to reveal the McGuffin, so I need some help.

Here's the basics so far: the campaign takes place immediately after the last war. The party starts out as the remainder of a Karnnathi mercenary group, stranded in NE Breland. They get hired by a village to fight off some slavers. It turns out the slavers are run by a rogue Karnathi officer (named Gundherr), who is searching for a set of components (map, compass, ring) that will lead him to the 'Crown of Silmacar', which is a Titan artifact. After a fair amount of back and forth, the party and Gundherr end up in Sharn. Gundherr is killed by the Quori-possessed members of House Deneith, who take the ring, but the party essentially blackmails House Deneith into giving them the ring. They also get ahold of the map, which takes them Xendrik; they're about to get the compass, and with that they'll be able to find

Da-Da-Dum!!!

The CROWN OF SILMACAR

The only problem being of course that I don't have a great idea of what this does. I want it to link to some of the deeper themes / plot points of Eberron, notably the Giant/Quori war, the Titan 'Armageddon Magic' that ended the war, the manufacturing of the warforged, and the Mourning. Simple enough, right?

A few other background items:

• There's a major-league (artifact level) docent installed in (and occasionally overriding) one of the party members, a warforged. The Docent is trying to get them to go to 'Central Command'
• There's a rising Fascist wave in Khorvaire, especially in Breland. My idea is that this is being driven / manipulated by the Quori
• The party found a creation forge and turned it over to House Cannith (for various important favors)

Here's my basic idea at this point:

• The Quori are basically trying to pacify all of Eberron, to try to prevent another major change that would wipe out Dal Quor again
• The Crown of Silmacar allows the wearer to activate some of the Titan Armageddon magic from the end of the war.
• This magic is tied to the Daelkyr reality-warping magic. Basically the Titan Armageddon magic is a large-scale version of the Daelkyr 'warping magic' (I'm blanking on the name of the mutation-egg-machine they use)
• The same magic is used to create the warforged
• The same magic created the mournland (when House Cannith went One Step Too Far)

Does this all hang together? Any suggestions?

My only problem is that I'm not quite sure where to take the campaign after they find the Crown. Ideally what I'd like is that the characters return to Khorvaire, and get in a fight with the Quori, before figuring out that there's really a deeper enemy - the Daelkyr, and their various aberrant pawns (especially the Illithids).

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Hyperlexic

 

[Aeric]

IMC, the giants created the warforged to fight against the quori (warforged don't sleep, and are therefore immune to attacks from Dal'Quor). What if the crown gave the wearer control of all warforged within a large area, like a 5-mile radius? The wearer could be aware of all warforged within that area, give general commands, see through any of their eyes at will, and even take possession of an individual's body for a short amount of time. Such a tool would be immensely useful to someone trying to start a revolution, run a criminal organization, or simply track down the Lord of Blades.

 

[blargney the second]

Have a peek at the Quorcraft warforged in Secrets of Xen'drik. That might inspire something for you.

 

[doghead]

general - eberron mcguffin

Intersting. I thought I would have a crack at this as a challenge.

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Nope. Nothing. There is too much there I don't know enough about.

But personally, the Crown is something I would be tempted to keep either it or its power out of the hands of the PC's. On that I do have some thoughts.

There are plenty of ways you could keep the Crown out of the PC's hands, and keep it McGuffinland.

The Crown sounds like serious mojo, and so it would be the kind of thing some very powerful people, perhaps even gods, would be interested in. Eberron has plenty of organisations and power groups to choose from. Work out who is interested, why they want it, how much they want it, what they know about the state of play and then set them loose.

6/7th isn't that high a level. It may be relatively high level for Eberron characters. But there are still plenty of fairly 'ordinary' creatures that could present a serious obstacle. The PC's are not beyond being brought down by a larger group of lower level warriors with a little magic and some smarts. Any one of the Dragonmarked houses could probably muster a force strong enough to overwhelm the PC's in fairly short order.

Xendrik is a dangerous place. From memory (its been a while since I read the Eberron book) its home ground for at least on interested party. Other groups could get their act fast long enough to disrupt the PC's plans.

Even if the players do get it, its not like artefacts of this power are likely to be plug-n-play. Allow the PC's access to some minor powers perhaps (like the one mentioned, but without the control aspect), but keep the major ones out of reach, and unknown. Meanwhile, apply the pressure to the party until they decide the Crown is too much of a burden. Several interested parties gives the PC's several options out to choose from.

It sounds like an interesting game. Good luck with it.

doghead
aka thotd

 

[Cyberhawk]

Here's a few ideas:

The crown is actually the main control piece to the big bad Giant magic. If used in the right spot it could do some serious damage and/or affect the planes.

The trick is that it takes time for the crown to adjust to it's wearer and abilities slowly build up from there. This time lag makes sure that if a PC or NPC puts on the crown your campaign isn't immediately frakked.

Cool stuff you could do with the crown:

The wearer can control ancient warforged and constructs (like the docents) but has a harder time with the newer models, which were created with a slightly different process.

The crown, when charged, could either open or push away Xoriat (sp?). Thus all the big bad aberrations want it to tear open the dimension while everybody else wants it as a major defense against Xoriat if it ever does come back. (the dragons would probably get involved here too)

The crown, when charged, could initiate the next dreaming cycle. This means the dreaming dark will go to any and all lengths to destory it. The Kalashtar will go to any and all lengths to activate it.

The PCs, of course, are stuck in the middle no matter what happens.

Anyways, take any of these you like and have fun!

 

[The Lost Muse]

Keep in mind that the Inspired most definately have other groups at work in Xen'drik, as well a an entire city to stage any efforts from. It seems to me that the Dreaming Dark would subvert the party's guide and then ambush them at the last minute. (Kinda like Belloq from Radiers of the Last Ark.)

Also, the compass might have worked well in the past, but thanks to the weirdness of Xen'drik, the trip could take considerably longer to get to the actual site of the crown. (Or impossible to bring the crown anywhere.)

 

[Hyperlexic]

Thanks for the comments so far, everyone.

I like the idea of having the crown activate in stages, so it isn't overpowering for 6/7 level (agreed, that's not so high level, but it's certainly above average in eberron).

I also like two of the ideas presented so far... especially Cyberhawk's summary: having the crown control the warforged in some way; have it affect Xoriat; have it initiate the next dreaming cycle.

Maybe stepping back... what do you all think of my basic thought, that there's a link between the Daelkyr magic, the Titan Armageddon magic, the mourning, and the warforged? The hook for me is the similarity I see between the Daelkyr mutation engine, and the creation forges of the warforged. Here's the links I see:

• The Daelkyr magic has the ability to affect the basic structure of Eberron, and the Quori knew that
• The titans/giants were investigating arcane magics, and stumbled on the Daelkyr magic, and started playing around with it
• The giants used the Daelkyr magic to create the Docents FIRST, as sentient advisors/helpers
• In order to create the Docents, the giants needed to pull the souls from somewhere - this is what the Daelkyr magic enabled - and so the souls came from Dal Quor
• The Quori realized that this Daelkyr magic could wreck their plane, and further knew their souls were being pulled away from Dal Quor, so invaded to stop this
• In the war, the Giants invented the warforged, as non-sentient constructs to house the Docents
• Ultimately the Titans used the daelkyr magic as the Armageddon weapon
• Recently House Cannith discovered the warforged; merged the Docents with the warforged (creating sentient Warforged, but requiring the same soul-pull from Dal Quor)
• House Cannith in Cyre kept experimenting with Daelkyr magic, which caused the Mourning

Thoughts?

Based on this... I definitely like the idea of the Crown as manipulating powerful and dangerous Daelkyr magic. I think it has the power to open up gates to Xoriat, which can be used in several ways: direct energy attacks, or also to power the creation of docents and other items.

Hmm... not totally happy with this quite yet... any other suggestions?

 

[The Lost Muse]

Well, the idea of an indirect Daelkyr/Quori conflict is really interesting. Of course the Quori want Eberron stable so they can lock their plane into its present state. The Lords of Xoriat are much more concerned with destruction, so there is that. Plus, in causing souls to be sucked from Dal Quor, they'd be wreaking destruction on another level.

If you're going to use the crown as you've suggested, i'd take a look at the corruption rules in the SRD. Seems to me like accessing Daelkyr magic would have a corrupting influence.

 

[Hyperlexic]

ok, thanks for the input...