[4e] Campaign discussion thread (Full)

[Sparky]

Great collaboration Atan and Shayuri. That all works out just fine.

---

Sorry for the lull in posts and progress.

---

Naedur is the city... The City. Carved from the stone of the mother mountain, Naedur is the shield that protects his citizens from the darkness of Outside. His echoing halls, his chill caverns, his thrumming bellows, his hissing cataracts, his close chambers and firelit hearths... these sights and sounds are not just constants in the lives of the City's inhabitants, they are the whole world. Unmoveable, unchanging, stalwart.

Naedur changes only slowly. And then begrudgingly and with great complaint. In the time of Legends, before the great war there were other Cities. Other Cities were rumored to have been livlier, more agile, more daring than the staid and stalwart Naedur. Other Places. There was Outside.

No one in Naedur was living when Outside fell into Darkness. It was many generations ago. And though Naedur's recordkeepers are dutiful, the stories scribed and re-scribed generation after generation seem with each transcription more fanciful and more improbable to all but the youngest of children. Or those whose vocation it is to believe the improbable. Or those who have come from Other Places...

---

Very briefly, everyone will start out in Naedur (this is the short version of the city's full name, it means, roughly, 'Stone Shield') as a citizen of some kind or other. The city is entirely shut off from the outside world. It is entirely self-sufficient and relatively stable at the moment IF nothing changes dramatically (say a population increase or a crop failure - even a small one could have dramatic effects).

@Atan and Shayuri, how recent is the escape? Yesterday? Last month? A year ago? And what would the two of them think about escaping an essentially idyllic place for the dark, close caves and halls of Naedur?

@Redclaw and nerdytenor, your two characters represent two clans of Dragonborn, one that went into hiding with the dwarves centuries ago - the Balash - and another that went into hiding on their own and only relatively recently discovered the dwarven city - the Dragh. How do you imagine that your clans get along? Poorly in all probability, given the history, but do the Balash and Dragh show a united front to the dwarves despite bad blood? Is the leadership of each clan unified or splintered? Basically, what do you see as important to each clan with the addition of the Dragh to the carefully balanced ecosystem of the City and, like with Atan and Shayuri, how long do you imagine that the Dragh have been in the picture? Less than a year? More than a year? Around ten years or more (that timeframe would mean that Krik was just a tyke when he discovered the ways that lead to Naedur).

@Tallarn, I've got nothing for you at the moment beyond what we already discussed about Zlatan being an apprentice of the Adversary. Naedur's church will focus on Moradin, Erath and Bahamut and will mostly be centered around duty and keeping order in a carefully balanced community. Zlatan himself has adopted (or been adopted by) the patron saints Murn and Brackan.

---

Everyone is welcome to participate in the discussion of the various elements mentioned above, with Given the above food for thought, PM me a short sketch of a day in your PCs life in Naedur. Be sure to include:

1. How any elements described are usual/unusual
2. The names of one to three important NPCs and who they are
3. What your PC thinks about his or her life in Naedur

It doesn't need to be long, just a sketch and some hooks for me to grab on to.

---

@Eoghan, garyh, Steve Gorak, still hoping to hear from you three. If you're going to play or pass, I'd like to know either way. Though, I think there's an implicit 'pass' in the lack of comms. Hope not. I have some ideas on how to integrate the 'time swamped' that I've wanted to try out for a while now.

 

[Atanatotatos]

Uhm... interesting. This changes slightly my perspective. Since it'd be interesting to play the immediate reaction to the difference between the free and beautiful Feywild and such a closed environment as Naedur, I'd want Belleros to have been there for no more than a day or two. And he surely isn't happy, but it's not like he can go back,right? And he wouldn't because he's like a teen, and teens are stubborn
But hey, I wanto to wait and hear what Shayuri thinks about this.
...Shayuri?

 

[Shayuri]

Interesting...

Well, lets nail down why we left the Feywild. Was it curiosity? Perhaps we found an old portal and didn't know it was still working. Or maybe we were exiled for doing (or getting framed for) some crime. Or we could be an official expedition, to investigate the material plane and see how things are going.

 

[Atanatotatos]

In Belleros' original background, he is just curious, rash, and bored of the eladrin court. Plus, the Arkeion family is shunned though powerful for some reasons no-one remembers anymore (that is, Trasimakos' deeds) and he wants glory.
But if this is too weak a reason, maybe Mask has a second motive. Maybe Belleros took the chance and went with him, or maybe Mask's reason is secret and it is him who took the chance and went with Belleros.
If you want to keep it simple, we can play with the contrast rash character-reflexive character, and have Belleros just have pulled Mask into trouble.
What do you say?

By the way, did I mention that I loved Thorn's story?

 

[Shayuri]

Well thanks!

Lets try this on for size:

Belleros, kind of an outsider in the Eladrin court from the very beginning due to the strange taint or curse on his House (not literal, but this is the reputation it has now), reacts by toeing the line and pushing back against the social order that rejects him for no fault of his own. He's rambunctious and rebellious, and one day he explores some forbidden cave...perhaps a storm had just opened it, or maybe he finally picked his way through its wards...

In the cave he finds a keystone, one of the few conduits to the World of Men. It seems inactive though, and he can't make it work. Wherever could he find someone more knowledgeable about such things, but who isn't beholden to the Court?

Mask is even more of an oddball, not only having been -adopted- into a cursed House, but more often than not engaged in arcane learning and research. She has a 'funny' reputation...many are uneasy about her, and so she doesn't have a wide social circle. Belleros entices her to the cave with tales of this unearthed magic thing...and she accidentally (??) activates it in her study of it, plunging them both into the material world, not far from a dwarf city...

And she seems unable to make it work again.

 

[Atanatotatos]

Perfect. I like it.
Now I have one question left. Aside from Belleros and other close people, is it known that Mask is a doppleganger? Or is appearing an eladrin a second nature to her by now?

 

[Shayuri]

Hm. Did we ever answer the question of how openly doppelgangers live in the Feywild?

My sense of it is that they most likely try to blend in, since they're refugees from a furious backlash. Even if they wouldn't necessarily be subject to that again here, they'd still tend to hunker down and assume the worst.

So lets say that the truth of Mask's identity is not widely known. This may have been the basis of any number of impish pranks in the past.

 

[Atanatotatos]

I agree. In my mind, dopplegangers don't really live openly anywhere. In a setting where they've been actively persecuted for a long time (as established in Thorn's story by you) all the less.
And then, it might be fun to play it. The other pcs, for example, wouldn't know...

 

[Sparky]

...and she accidentally (??) activates it in her study of it, plunging them both into the material world, not far from a dwarf city...

And she seems unable to make it work again.

Change 'not far from' to 'inside a cloistered' and you're golden. Great collaboration.

EDIT: And it's not so much that she seems 'unable to make it work again' as that the conduit opened was 'one way' or 'one time.'

You two should be grateful for dwarven hospitality laws.

 

[nerdytenor]

My suggestions (and only suggestions). Lemme know whatcha think.

• The Dragh beat the Balash in iconic battles in ancient times, but now the Balash are in the more enviable position, having allied themselves with dwarves during the time that the Dragh fled to their caves. (How long for the Balash/dwarven alliance? 100 years?)
• I think uneasy relations between the two dragonborn clans sounds interesting. No longer at war, per se, but some ancient prejudices and suspicions remain, and integration remains contentious.
• I think the Dragh clan is quite a bit smaller and more tribal in nature, and thus unified. Balash could go either way.
• I think the Dragh contacted the dwarves/Balash within the last few years, and are working on hammering out diplomatic agreements.

@Redclaw and nerdytenor, your two characters represent two clans of Dragonborn, one that went into hiding with the dwarves centuries ago - the Balash - and another that went into hiding on their own and only relatively recently discovered the dwarven city - the Dragh. How do you imagine that your clans get along? Poorly in all probability, given the history, but do the Balash and Dragh show a united front to the dwarves despite bad blood? Is the leadership of each clan unified or splintered? Basically, what do you see as important to each clan with the addition of the Dragh to the carefully balanced ecosystem of the City and, like with Atan and Shayuri, how long do you imagine that the Dragh have been in the picture? Less than a year? More than a year? Around ten years or more (that timeframe would mean that Krik was just a tyke when he discovered the ways that lead to Naedur).