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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Old One" data-source="post: 2455025" data-attributes="member: 83">Riggs,Sorry I won't be at the next NC Game Day...but here are a couple of random, non-ordered thoughts/questions...(1) What level are you planning to start them at?  Assuming they are survivors of Charm, I might suggest level 3 (or even 4).(2) I am assuming you are going to have the on-going PCs be Black Company, yes?  If so, I suggest a band of new(er) recruits that have joined the company since it followed Soulcatcher north across the Sea of Torments.  It could be a hodge-podge that was picked up during the retreat south from the Fortress at Deal/Roses/Meystrikt before the final showdown at Charm.(3) As far as setting, I would suggest somewhere to the east...perhaps around Rust or even the Kingdom of Tally.  These are "off-stage" for pretty much the whole series of novels, so you can pretty much have a free hand in creating "stuff".  Actions the PCs take won't have much of an impact on the "real" timeline in the novels and you will be able to use the action in the novels as a back drop for what is happening in the east.(4) As far as mission...a couple of things come to mind.  First, some of the rebel leadership escaped the Battle at Charm and scattered to the four winds.  One cell fled east and a detachment from the Company has been tasked with tracking them down and eliminating them (since the Lady doesn't trust the few remaining Taken).  Not wanting to send any of the "old" hands on such a mission, the Captain cobbles together a team from the more recent recruits, puts them under the command of a seasoned NCO and sends them off.  Another way to go - one you already mentioned - is trying to track down a "fallen, but not really" Taken (I would think about reserving this for later in the campaign, however...eventually setting up one of the Taken as an arch-nemesis).  Finally, it could be something less glamorous, but with the ability to pull lots of different elements together...like being sent to a remote monestary (I still like the east) to research the True Name(s) of one or more of the surviving rebel leaders.  From this humble start...you could pull in rebels (trying to protect the names), rogue Taken (trying to also find the names and/or the Lady's True Name), mercenaries/bounty hunters after the rebels, a secret order of Zealots dedicated to resurrecting the Dominator (and, of course, using the monestary as their HQ)...all kinds of fun stuff.For the last one-shot: Since I just finished re-reading Xenophon's Anabasis again, I would switch the order of your "practice" rounds.  I would take them through the "magic is different" and the "combat at different levels" scenarios first, but save the "surprise sound/combat is deadly".  I would have them make up their PCs after the first 2 "practice" rounds...but then give them the detachment leadership for PreGen's as the last iteration.  Have the head of the column (with the PreGen NPCs) get ambushed by rebels, bandits, bounty hunters, renegade imperials, or somebody else with a grudge against the BC and really pound them in the a$$.  At the end of the encounter...when the detachment leadership is dead and/or dying...then you start the campaign...2,000 miles away from home with no leaders, what do they do <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":]" title="Devious    :]" data-shortname=":]" />.  Of course, I tend to be an evil bastard like that <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />! Let us know how else we can help!~ OO</blockquote>

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