[KOTS] Help me come up with a first encounter that doesn't suck

[Wednesday Boy]

One of the PCs is a Paladin of Ioun and is a contemporary of Kalarel, who in my campaign was originally a cleric of Ioun who got corrupted by Orcus.

I don't know if it would be easy to integrate into the rest of the campaign but what if Kalarel got corrupted by Vecna instead of Orcus? Since he was originally a cleric of knowledge (Ioun's domain) the allure of secrets and a desire to control knowledge (Vecna's domains) would be an ever-present source of corruption for Ioun's followers.

 

[Phebius]

I don't know if it would be easy to integrate into the rest of the campaign but what if Kalarel got corrupted by Vecna instead of Orcus? Since he was originally a cleric of knowledge (Ioun's domain) the allure of secrets and a desire to control knowledge (Vecna's domains) would be an ever-present source of corruption for Ioun's followers.

I'm doing something with that later. The PC paladin is an escapee from a cult of Vecna who had a conversion moment when she was sent on a suicide mission by the cult leader because he feared her eventual replacing of him. That cult will show up later and I'm going to have fun playing the two cults not only against the PCs but against each other.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Very cool! I love when there are more than one factions invested in the plot.

 

[Phebius]

Ran a short session today for two of the characters (Halfling rogue and the Tiefling Paladin) The Tiefling spent the session doing a skill challenge to try to understand the content of a text she found in the first session. The book seems to be read in a dialect of Supernal, but she can't make heads or tails of it, (and once the player found out about what Supernal's supposed to be, she bit on that hook like a starving bass.) She wound up falling asleep after staying up half the night trying to make sense of it, wound up having some rather terrifying dreams. When she woke up, the book was open to a page on which she could suddenly understand a particular couplet. (three guesses what it was. My Orcus cult is about to get some particularly fun trappings. )


The halfling rogue went to visit one of his contacts, a female half-elf sorceress, to ask her about the Slaying Stone and about Spyder. She learned some general things about artifacts and decided that the whole party needed to have a chat about this before they figured out what to do with it. (about bloody time someone did) On the way out, she spotted Bairwin moving with purpose somewhere, decided to tail him, lost him, and got attacked by zombies. Things looked really bad for her until suddenly help arrived-in the form of Spyder and some of his gang. "A good businessman protects his investments"




So when I initially decided to run this campaign, I had planned to do a more or less straightforward adaptation of Slaying Stone and then KOTS with minor tweaks. I seem to have gotten a wee bit away from that.

 

[Rechan]

[MENTION=12648]Phebius[/MENTION] Do you plan to use any other published adventures?

 

[Phebius]

[MENTION=12648]Phebius[/MENTION] Do you plan to use any other published adventures?

At least in part. This campaign is rapidly becoming more sandboxy so it'll be more like, the locations in the adventures will be there if they decide to go to them. I will most likely do a version of Thunderspire, due to the Vecna connection. I also plan on having some of the Winterhaven NPCs from Gardmore Abbey be around and hint at some of the events in there. And one of the PCs has one of the cards from the Deck of Many Things but doesn't know it yet.

 

[Rechan]

Sweet. I don't know Gardmoer Abby (I'm getting to play it! ) So I can't help you there. But if you do plan ahead as far as say, King of the Trollhaunt, I can think of a few ways to plop in those connections now.

 

[Phebius]

Sweet. I don't know Gardmoer Abby (I'm getting to play it! ) So I can't help you there. But if you do plan ahead as far as say, King of the Trollhaunt, I can think of a few ways to plop in those connections now.

Go ahead. I welcome all ideas.

 

[Rechan]

The basic jist of Trollhaunt is that there's a troll leader who wishes to claim the lands of the ancient troll kingdom (which happens to be in the Nentir Vale). The Town of Moonstair is relevant (Moonstair has a gate to the Feywild and is the city closest to the troll's hangout, thus the first place to be conquered). Finally, one of the hooks in the adventure is that the Baron of Therund's son is killed trying to take on the head troll and his ancestral sword left in the warren - PCs are tasked to give the news to the Baron, and the Baron asks them to take vengeance upon the trolls/retrieve his son's body/sword.

So there's a few things here.

1) Integrate the Barony of Therund and the Baron's son Eteran in early, so that his death means something to the PCs. Not in the "high level NPC that saves the day", but a nice guy. Maybe he gives the PCs some of his loot his crew doesn't need, maybe he is passing through and gives the PCs some vital info, maybe he's there in Winterhaven (trying to cross the mountains) and is gearing up to face Kalarel when the PCs return from vanquishing Kalarel (so he is very gracious and honors the PCs' actions). Maybe he's passing through Thunderspire with his party when the PCs are. This way, the PCs are like "They killed Eteran! Those Bastards!" When he dies in Trollhaunt, he's actually on a layover, returning from battling a Cult in a Distant Land (hint hint, CUUUULT).

2) Have Moonstair come in at some point. Just so the PCs have heard of it, have been there, maybe they needed to cross over into the Feywild an that was a reliable, easy way with an established, safe path on the feywild side. It's located in the southwestern part of the Nentir Vale.

3) Drop hints about the ancient Troll Kingdom. I.e. PCs wandering through the forest stumble upon an ancient statue that looks like a troll seated on a throne. They could find a cave mural that has clawed giants with many subjects, eating them in a big celebration. Perhaps the Deva fought in the war against the trolls.

If you are however ending up sandboxing the Nentir Vale, you might want to check out the book "Threats to the Nentir Vale". It is a hook/info goldmine of the region.

Oh. I can also write up my notes on the Parliament of Jagged Crags, the fey court on the Feywild side of Thunderspire, if you want to implement fey in in any way in TL. I figure the Vecna guy would at least have some relationship with fey, given how they love lore/knowledge and Vecna is all about secrets (and since that guy wants to do a coup of the Mages, members of the Court may be for or against that).

 

[Phebius]

Get to have our fourth session in a while. The wizard and the paladin accidentally completed 2/3 of a ritual while studying some of the papers they found. This will both alert Kalarel to their presence and make life interesting for them until sunrise. Anyone have any last minute suggestions about atmosphere and stuff I can throw at them?