Retaking Myth Drannor?

[ruleslawyer]

Actually, you really will have to ditch pretty much all canon info about Myth Drannor if you want to enable this quest to happen.

Ed Greenwood's original conception of Myth Drannor was as the focus of a sort of adventuring "gold rush." The idea was that with the decline of the dwarves in the North and the Elven Retreat, ruins and strongholds would be left abandoned (and monster-infested!) for adventurers to plunder. A nice, easy hook for dungeon adventuring. With 3e, both the elven and dwarven races have assumed a growing presence in the Realms, but the abandoned sites are still there, Myth Drannor being the most prominent.

However, in both 2e and 3e, Myth Drannor is really meant to be too much of a challenge to actually retake, except perhaps over the course of centuries. The place is a storehouse of vast wealth, knowledge, and magic, but is overrun by demons, devils, dragons, nagas, phaerimm, undead of all descriptions, mind flayers, etc etc. The elves and the Knights of Myth Drannor patrol the surrounding woods to keep prospective adventurers out, not in order to preserve the ruins but rather to prevent these adventurers from going to their deaths or awakening a greater evil.

Thus, you'd really have to change this picture of Myth Drannor to make it possible for a retaking of the proposed sort to occur. The Attack on Myth Drannor adventure (in addition to being pretty poor-quality) is mis-named; the idea isn't that you're actually attacking the city, but dealing with a threat that lies within.

BTW: Thanks, Meepo! This sort of thing gets my goat as well...

 

[JacktheRabbit]

According to Canon FR stuff Myth Drannor is also currently inhabited by several hundred displaced Drow Elves. They would make mincemeant of any small elven party of several dozen who tried to enter the forest.

Furthermore there are litteraly dozens of factions with varying amounts of power in the ruins.

Alhoons - Mindflayer Liches
Phaerimm - Sorcerer Cone monsters
Drow - No comment needed
Devils - There used to be a portal in the ruins so there are still large numbers of devils in the area.
Cult of Dragon - Im sure there are a few Dracoliches laired in the forest.

These are just the items that come to mind. A retaking of the ruins would be a military campaign that could take years if not decades.

 

[Cedric]

Certainly a nice change from the usual plot...

Plunder Myth Drannor!!

Cedric

 

[Henry]

I do agree that if you wish to do the setting justice, it would take a party of high-level adventurers to spearhead the reconquest of Myth Drannor. If the PC's are merely low-level scouts, they might find the adventure unfulfilling - kind of like being Extras in the Lord of the Rings movie.

Indeed, Myth Drannor is currently a high-level Dungeon Adventure on LSD - there are many Devils running about, many monsters and adventurers searching for lost elven and human riches, and a Mythal that makes many magics chaotic in nature - especially enchantment and summoning magics.

Then, you have the Knights of Myth Drannor, an adventuring company whose main goal is to keep Myth Drannor guarded from the world, though it seems that they fail rather miserably at this job - the place is as preserved as the Lasceux Caves were - that is to say, bunches of groups running around and carting off interesting pieces and parts.

Oh, don't forget the Drow that are currently inhabiting parts of old cormanthor too. They would take to elves moving in rather poorly, to say the least.

Finally, trying to gate in an army within the mythal is risky at best because of the chaos of teleportation magics. Plus, if you teleport in an elven army into the dalelands or anywhere nearby, there is going to be enormous political ramifications. Especially since dales like Archendale and Daggerdale probably don't WANT to be part of Myth Drannor.

All these ideas can be found in both the 3E Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, and in the old Myth Drannor 2E Boxed Supplement, available on the Wizards of the coast ESD site.

You have an epic campaign idea on your hands. Good luck!

 

[dagger]

Yea that FR post was pretty moronic.

<rant>
For the love of...what is it with people always bashing the Realms? Why is it that anyone who posts a simple question about a FR campaign always gets one of these people complaining about how the Realms is too "high-magic?" Why shouldn't it be high-magic, if that's how you want to play your game? And what makes it so "high-magic," anyways? I don't see a single thing in the book that makes it seem any more or less magic than any other world. The DM decides how much magic to introduce into his game, so I don't see what the big problem is.

What's wrong with evil power groups? Bah.

And I have no clue where you're coming from on the pokemon part. Whatever.
</rant>

 

[green slime]

I actually had this quest lined up for my PCs in my home brew FR campaign. They had even petitioned several leading Elven communities, and recieved promises of aid towards their noble goal.

They were, of course multiclassed elves (this was 1e-2e time) of quite high level (10th to 12th), and it would have been a MAJOR undertaking... But time (we all started Uni) and other interests got in the way, the campaign ground to a halt when one of the major PCs suffered Death due to stupidity, and when 3e came out, it just seemed such a major pain to resculpt the characters.

Pity, as I was looking forward to it. That and the return of the PC as a major Vampire villian...

 

[SoulsFury]

You've all given me a great deal to think about, but I have no idea what the Knights of Myth Drannor are. They aren't mentioned in the FRCS or Lords of Darkness. I think I may still do this, or have the campaign last longer so that they are more of a major part in the taking, instead of them just being scouts. I'm also considering just having Evereska and Gray Cloak Hills be covered with forests and having a large kingdom of elves inside that rivals the population of dwarves in the great rift (1 million +) or having a large kingdom in the High Forest. Another thing I am considering is just having the retaking take place before my campaigns start and have Myth Drannor and Cormanthor be the kingdom of elves and have the elven court there. I'm now leaning towards having an elven kingdom in the High Forest, that area is just bland (so is the greenfields but I think I'll leave that like it is).

Nik

 

[Green Knight]

There's already a large elf kingdom which exceeds the dwarf kingdom in the Great Rift (1.6 mllion to the dwarves 1.3 million). It's called Evermeet.

 

[Green Knight]

as with anything FR, way too high magic, gun powder, evil power groups, pokemon, etc., but you're right, there is alot of info on this setting.

<rant>
For the love of...what is it with people always bashing the Realms? Why is it that anyone who posts a simple question about a FR campaign always gets one of these people complaining about how the Realms is too "high-magic?" Why shouldn't it be high-magic, if that's how you want to play your game? And what makes it so "high-magic," anyways? I don't see a single thing in the book that makes it seem any more or less magic than any other world. The DM decides how much magic to introduce into his game, so I don't see what the big problem is.

What's wrong with evil power groups? Bah.

And I have no clue where you're coming from on the pokemon part. Whatever.</rant>

Agreed. That was a stupid post, all around. Guess Ravenloft is a bad setting, to, because it's also got gunpowder. And God forbid if the designers of a setting create *gasp* VILLAINS for the heroes to confront! In this case the various evil power groups, which makes things mor einteresting than just encountering random monsters in the woods or in a dungeon.

And Pokemon? WTF? Err ... if it's a reference to being owned by Hasbro and WoTC which makes all sorts of Pokecrap, than that's a slam on D&D, in general, as it's also a part of WoTC. I don't know how else to take it, as I've played the Realms for YEARS and I have yet to see anything even remotely Pokemon related in the setting.

 

[SoulsFury]

There's already a large elf kingdom which exceeds the dwarf kingdom in the Great Rift (1.6 mllion to the dwarves 1.3 million). It's called Evermeet.

Yeah and its a thousand miles away from the other races and most characters aren't even allowed in, much less to adventure there. Thats boring.

Nik