Airship Antics (plot help requested)

[The_Warlock]

Were-princess.

So, does that mean she's only lady-like under the full moon, and otherwise she's like Luna?

On the other hand, having her being a were-creature AND having the hots for Gareth would be hysterical.

 

[KB9JMQ]

Maarashi are from MM2. I've used them myself on occassion, especially because the special disease and taklif arrows are useful abilities. Especially if your PCs have to protect someone who woundn't stand a good chance of making the saves against them.

Yeah that is them. Player's had never seen them before so it was a great surprise to have them drop down from above.

 

[shilsen]

Nicholas Loque wrote an adventure called "Voyage of the Golden Dragon" which dealt with exactly this.

I think they had sabateours trying to banish the air elemental powering it and an attack of drow on flying dinosaurs.

Although some of the ideas here sound cooler I have to say...

Yeah. I need to keep reminding myself about putting up such threads. It's amazing how many horribly sadistic and devious minds there are on ENWorld

If you go with the fake out by the agitating nobles, it might be fun to drop a classic spy clue by having one of the boarding party carrying a copy of the Sharn Inquisitive. One of the across/down pairings in the crossword could be the x/y locus of the attack.

Nice. Especially since the PCs met Haftak ir'Clarn, editor of the SI, at the Tain Gala and the alienist sweetly informed him that he could cast disintegrate.

As for weird cargo, how about something with troll parts - ie, since the largest part of a dead troll regenerates into the troll, have a couple cargo containers marked "Regeneratives" on board at the behest of whoever is staging this (or one of the groups staging something). Each has a chunk of troll which is slowly growing back to full size.

Hah! That's nice. Now I just need to turn it into undead regenerating snakes.

Also, as a red herring, you could have an individual or group who has a bone to pick with your PCs (there seem to be a few in the Storyhour) who don't have an agenda against Breland, they just want to frame/hurt the rep/maim or kill the PCs for past indignities. Meanwhile someone has political motives, this group, like an influential backer or supplier of the gladitorial contests in Sharn, is just out to blacken the eyes of the Guardian Angels. This may trigger before, during, or after the "real" kidnapping/murder attempt. This gives an option for one or other of the plots to allow the PCs to think they've got past the "rough spot" of the voyage, only to have the other group strike.

Now you're reading my mind! I just made notes today to have something just like the above, though I haven't decided what the source will be yet. As you mentioned, I have a lot of possibilities for people pissed at the PCs.

Having 3 or 4 groups all fighting each other for victory on the airship (whatever victory means to them) can also be something of a hoot, as alliances change from round to round as the PCs and various "villains" work together to play "keep away" from whoever is going to do something to or with Haydith that will ruin someone elses plans:

Group 1: Wants to Kidnap for Ransom
Group 2: Wants to Kidnap for Love
Group 3: Wants to Murder for political reasons
Group 4: Wants to protect the princess to gain royal favor (hired group 3 to kill her to make sure would have an opportunity to protect her) to gain court access to kill other monarchical targets
Group 5: Mars needs Women (A cross dimensional Githyanki voidjammer looking for breeding stock appears and want to enslave the women)
Group 6: Wants princess to live, but be infected with a subtle disease, parasite, magical effect to be triggered at a later date
Group 7: Wants to do things throughout voyage to ruin rep of Angels, possibly permanently hurt or kill them, or foil their task for completely personal reasons

Mars needs women?

 

[shilsen]

Were-princess

You are a bad, bad man

So, does that mean she's only lady-like under the full moon, and otherwise she's like Luna?

*rimshot*

On the other hand, having her being a were-creature AND having the hots for Gareth would be hysterical.

Dammit, man - stop tempting me!

Yeah that is them. Player's had never seen them before so it was a great surprise to have them drop down from above.

Look! It's a bird ...

It's a plane ...

No, it's a flying hyena ...

And it just shot me in the face three times

 

[Sandain]

Do the PC's have any powerful enemies?

Why not make the PC's the very assassins they were hired to protect? At the start of the journey a court mage could offer to give them a long lasting telepathic bond - but in reality its a custom spell that also drastically reduces thier will saving throws.

A spy on the ship could slowly dominate the PC's and have them attack. During the fight the PC's would make saves and one by one would become undominated and realise what was happening.

 

[The_Warlock]

Dammit, man - stop tempting me!

I thought that was the whole POINT of this thread?

Tempting you...to challenge and confuse your players...


Yes, Mars Needs Women, bad movie, but bad guys stealing the women-folk has a tendency to get most PCs agitated. Especially the women-folk PCs as they get stolen....

 

[Solarious]

How about throwing in the Dreaming Dark for some good old fashioned psionic fun? It's been way too long since they went through that possession episode, and this would be an interesting renewal of the plot hooks that were planted so long ago. The Dreaming Dark's main goal is to infiltrate and gain control of Khorvaire from the inside so they can raise more of those damn monoliths to freeze Dal Quor's cycles, and a reboot of the Last War provides many opportunities to extend offers of 'defensive troops', 'supplies', and 'potent weapons'. All of which come with the millions of the proverbial invisible fishooks, of course.

On the other hand, the Dreaming Dark might have manipulated/provoked the Order of the Emerald Claw into a kidnap attempt, which they fully intent to help foil (not too much, naturally, it would be suspicious), and gain the trust of Breland/Karnnath for further insidious infiltration. Which probably brings up the interesting question: are Kalashtar Avaists who have also infiltrated the ship going to foil the Emerald Claw, or actually help the kidnap process because they know it's a Dreaming Dark plot? It would be most interesting if they meet someone they knew from before, who has advanced quite a few levels to become a psudo-peer of the Angels. And then attempted to convince them to help him/her kidnap the princess too, Mordain-style.

Ah, loose-loose situations. You can't help but win, no matter what.

 

[shilsen]

Do the PC's have any powerful enemies?

Right now, actually, none that are in their league. They haven't seriously pissed off anyone in a while But they have a lot of potentials waiting and watching below the surface.

Why not make the PC's the very assassins they were hired to protect? At the start of the journey a court mage could offer to give them a long lasting telepathic bond - but in reality its a custom spell that also drastically reduces thier will saving throws.

A spy on the ship could slowly dominate the PC's and have them attack. During the fight the PC's would make saves and one by one would become undominated and realise what was happening.

Nice idea, but with almost every PC walking around with a huge Will save and having an Exorcist of the Silver Flame in the group, not very likely. But there is this one warforged PC with comparatively lower Will ...

I thought that was the whole POINT of this thread?

Tempting you...to challenge and confuse your players...

True, but you guys just throw out so many great ideas that I'm tempted to use them all, and I can't do that. But I'm definitely planning to have this voyage be longer and much more memorable than I originally planned, thanks to all of the great ideas on this thread.

Yes, Mars Needs Women, bad movie, but bad guys stealing the women-folk has a tendency to get most PCs agitated. Especially the women-folk PCs as they get stolen....

Never actually seen the movie, though I've heard of it. And let me just say that nobody, absolutely NOBODY, in their right mind would steal the one female PC in the group. Unless they were jonesing to get burned and electrocuted and mauled and very badly mutilated.

How about throwing in the Dreaming Dark for some good old fashioned psionic fun? It's been way too long since they went through that possession episode, and this would be an interesting renewal of the plot hooks that were planted so long ago. The Dreaming Dark's main goal is to infiltrate and gain control of Khorvaire from the inside so they can raise more of those damn monoliths to freeze Dal Quor's cycles, and a reboot of the Last War provides many opportunities to extend offers of 'defensive troops', 'supplies', and 'potent weapons'. All of which come with the millions of the proverbial invisible fishooks, of course.

On the other hand, the Dreaming Dark might have manipulated/provoked the Order of the Emerald Claw into a kidnap attempt, which they fully intent to help foil (not too much, naturally, it would be suspicious), and gain the trust of Breland/Karnnath for further insidious infiltration. Which probably brings up the interesting question: are Kalashtar Avaists who have also infiltrated the ship going to foil the Emerald Claw, or actually help the kidnap process because they know it's a Dreaming Dark plot? It would be most interesting if they meet someone they knew from before, who has advanced quite a few levels to become a psudo-peer of the Angels. And then attempted to convince them to help him/her kidnap the princess too, Mordain-style.

You know, I've actually been thinking Dreaming Dark recently, esp. with the PCs having gained a significant amount more notoriety than they already had (thanks to events in Sharn and the now weekly article on them in the KC), and I do have a couple of ideas in play under the surface. Whether that'll actually kick in during the flight or not is yet to be decided. One thing's for sure, if the Dreaming Dark finds out about the details of what's going on with Nameless and the nuke in his chest, they'll be very interested. After all, they want Eberron and would hate Xoriat and the daelkyr to get it. So they might just feel like they absolutely need to help the PCs. The only thing worse than having the Dreaming Dark as an enemy is having them as an ever-helpful and omnipresent buddy

Ah, loose-loose situations. You can't help but win, no matter what.

If "you" here refers to me, then why, yes, you're absolutely right

 

[Solarious]

I thought myself to be improving my RBDM skills, but I was wrong. I thought of enemies, and you came up with allies. I bow to your superiority of RBDMness. The Dreaming Dark as allies. I wonder what their definition of 'smoothing the road ahead' is.

And hey, the only people the Angels can really trust are the evil ones, isn't that right?

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

Have the sabature on board start activating multiple immovable rods to slow the airship down enough to be boarded.