Did you ever let an adventure form by winging and realize you weren't sure what was going on? I'm hoping some of you kind folks can help me make sense of this situation. Can you help me fill in some blanks in "what's going on here"?
Campaign Setting:
Greyhawk, spun from Gygax version. Bissel has been invaded Ket. The PC's have been helping to defend Bissel by dealing with secondary issues as the army is at the front. Ket is (semi-)secretly aligned with Iuz (pre-FTA expansion) and using some humanoid mercenaries in addition to Perrelander mercenaries (like the Swiss) and wild Mongol-type light cavalry mercs. Bissel have pulled in a military order (Gran March) and allied troops from Veluna, plus it has a trained professional/mercenary army (the Border Companies) and the Knights of the Watch.
------------------Spoiler Alert for "The Standing Stones" module
Recent Background:
PC's completed The Standing Stones. I set it in an isolated area of the Dim Forest, beyond the control of any country.
------------Campaign Spoiler Alert -----------------
In my version, the Boss Monster -- Cuckoo the Bard -- was not a Vrock, but a Rakshasa (who after all, have shapechanging abilities). The villains were, as in the module, connected to a wider conspiracy, yet to be explained. The Boss Monster got away, using a Teleport scroll.
The village had been almost all killed by the baddies, who were replacing villagers with animals transformed into (guileless and completely untrained) humans by ancient druidic magic, built into the (immovable) Standing Stones surrounding the village. The baddies were cut off from expanding by a ghost and by grugach wild elves. The baddies goals are unclear, but PC's guess (rightly) that it was some combination of "because we can" and building an army for further power lust.
After defeating the baddies, the PC's trained the new humans and got the village running properly, over the course of a few months. This is good for region, as peace with the wild elves has been restored, and the dwarves of the Barrier Peaks no longer are as hard pressed for supplies (the village had supplied charcoal and food for the dwarves, who had to go on the war-inflated and distant open market in Bissel for supplies when the village was cut off).
So anyhow, the PC's returned to Bissel and heard that a bard was singing about their exploits in the Standing Stone adventure, up river from them. They were suspicious and decided to investigate.
They discovered the place upriver is a feudal manor (several hamlets, a tower, a mill -- "The Old Gristmill" WOTC had for free, and a quarry). The bard was not the old Boss Monster, but was trained by him, in the freetown south of the Dim Forest, Hochoch. They also discovered that this manor is under threat, by forces that seem very minor to them now (5-7th level). To the east, wolf attacks. To the west, orc raiders killed two farmers and torched some fields, forcing an evacuation. (For the manor, I'm using "Buckbray Tower").
I know what's going on here, but I want to make some sense of what's behind it. There are three forces at work here:
1) The Raiders. Led by a werewolf half-orc assassin, there's an elite strike team of evil werewolf adventurers. They are mercenaries working for Ket, with the goal of assassinating the manor's lord in his tower, for military-political reasons. The manor lord has held back his troops from the feudal levy because he thinks the area is unsafe, and he's right. Once he is dead, Ket hopes other lords will withdraw from the Bisselite army. The wolf attacks are a diversion, by the same guys. They also have a force of orc grunts.
>> Their secret secondary goal involves destroying the site at the Quarry. Werewolves do NOT like alchemical silver weapons foundries!
2) The Quarry. The dwarf who runs this place has a secret. He struck silver, and he hasn't told the lord of the manor. Paying off some gambling debts to the mob with his sneaky new wealth, he attracted attention down in the city. Seeing a chance for blackmail and big gains, the Big Baddy Conspiracy -- including Cuckoo -- decided to make alchemical silver weapons in a secret lab at the quarry. They sent the parties oldest nemesis, Aseneth, to do the alchemy.
>> Aseneth was a party member. She's a mage, and betrayed the party, getting them all captured and nearly sacrificied in the 2nd Edition version of Keep on the Borderlands. The baddy cult there is different from the Big Baddy Conspiracy -- the cult were small time but ambitious Baklunish (same race as Ket) followers of Hecate (Greek goddess of magic and secrets). One of the Hecate cult's allies was a mage called The Master, who Aseneth became an apprenctice of.
3) The Bard. Is the bard an innocent, or a spy for the Cuckoo? Her main purpose for the Cuckoo was to draw the PC's here -- to fight off the raiders and protect his interest in the Quarry, and hopefully get a few of them killed off or infected in the process. They were NOT supposed to check out the Quarry, and Cuckoo doesn't know they know Aseneth.
>> I figure the bard's a minor functionary in the Big Baddy Conspiracy, but her job here is done, so time to make tracks. Is there a better use for her?
So what the heck is going on here?
- Why is Aseneth part of the Big Baddy Conspiracy? Because it's cool. But I need an in-game reason. I figure The Master is a minor operative who latched onto the Big Baddy Conspiracy cause, and Aseneth joined with him.
- Why does the Big Baddy Conspiracy care about silver weapons? This is what I'm really not sure about, and want help with. Some ideas that seem lame to me:
--- Money. Hey, there's a good profit margin, especially in a war.
--- Rakshasa civil war. There's a special weapon in the DMG, Shifter's Regret or something like that, which shows a creatures true form when it hits and does additional damage to shapeshifters. This would be useful if the Rakshasa is fighting his own kind.
--- Silver weapons are obviously for killing lycanthropes. Eternal struggle of somebody (I guess Rakshasa) against Werewolves? Cats and dogs don't like each other, but this needs more backstory to be cool when the PC's eventually figure it all out. Native Outsiders don't like Lycanthropes because . . . I got nothing . . .
--- Greyhawk politics I. IMC, Iggwilv has used vampirism as a control method on her daughter Drelnza, who turned good temporarily and led the effort to overthrow her in Perrenland 200 years ago, before she was vampired into coming back on-side, and entombed in the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. In Living Greyhawk Gazeteer, the Tiger Nomads (northwest of Perrenland) have recently had problems with Werewolves and are secretly allying with Iuz (Iggwilv's son). Maybe Rakshasa HAD a unique influence over the Tiger Nomads, but have been pushed out by Iuz's influence, and they need to defeat the werewolves and are gathering forces to do so? Rakshasa make sense as a "Baklunish" monster (Asian flavor) and their definitely an ancient force of some sort.
--- Greyhawk politics II. The Big Baddy Conspiracy are Hierarchs of the Horned Society, in exile and hiding since Iuz took over their domain. They're scrounging for resources, followers, and money. They've got some superstars of evil, but "their bases are belong to Iuz". Messing with Iuz's werewolves is fun, but they are mostly in it for the money.
--- Mythology. Rakshasa are essentially shapechanging demons of Hinduism/Buddhism. They fought against monkey people of the forest and the gods. There's an Indian myth about Rakshasa in the forest attacking travellers, heroes killing them, and being bested by human heroes; one of the Rakshasa is convinced to turn good. In Angkor Wat in Cambodia, there's inscriptions of Rakshasa allied with Nagas, going to war on a bridge, I guess against the Monkey People & good gods. In D&D mythos, Nagas and Yuan-Ti are related. Thanks Wikipedia, but is there anything useful here for my game?
--- Future adventures. Don't know where we're going next, but the top contender is probably the Red Hand (or whatever the heck it's called) adventure about the goblin/dragon invaders.
Oh yeah, and who exactly is involved in the Big Baddy Conspiracy. Anything but demons/devils/evil gods, especially the one you've never heard of before . . . the campaign will end by 13th-15th level at most, and I think the Adventure Paths jump the shark when they get into "he who wants to destroy the world". Greyhawk has enough of those doods already.
So any good ideas on why this adventurous circumstance has come together? At this point, good is defined as a simple and "of course that makes sense" as possible, when the PC's eventually unravel it, but leading to further adventures.
Campaign Setting:
Greyhawk, spun from Gygax version. Bissel has been invaded Ket. The PC's have been helping to defend Bissel by dealing with secondary issues as the army is at the front. Ket is (semi-)secretly aligned with Iuz (pre-FTA expansion) and using some humanoid mercenaries in addition to Perrelander mercenaries (like the Swiss) and wild Mongol-type light cavalry mercs. Bissel have pulled in a military order (Gran March) and allied troops from Veluna, plus it has a trained professional/mercenary army (the Border Companies) and the Knights of the Watch.
------------------Spoiler Alert for "The Standing Stones" module
Recent Background:
PC's completed The Standing Stones. I set it in an isolated area of the Dim Forest, beyond the control of any country.
------------Campaign Spoiler Alert -----------------
In my version, the Boss Monster -- Cuckoo the Bard -- was not a Vrock, but a Rakshasa (who after all, have shapechanging abilities). The villains were, as in the module, connected to a wider conspiracy, yet to be explained. The Boss Monster got away, using a Teleport scroll.
The village had been almost all killed by the baddies, who were replacing villagers with animals transformed into (guileless and completely untrained) humans by ancient druidic magic, built into the (immovable) Standing Stones surrounding the village. The baddies were cut off from expanding by a ghost and by grugach wild elves. The baddies goals are unclear, but PC's guess (rightly) that it was some combination of "because we can" and building an army for further power lust.
After defeating the baddies, the PC's trained the new humans and got the village running properly, over the course of a few months. This is good for region, as peace with the wild elves has been restored, and the dwarves of the Barrier Peaks no longer are as hard pressed for supplies (the village had supplied charcoal and food for the dwarves, who had to go on the war-inflated and distant open market in Bissel for supplies when the village was cut off).
So anyhow, the PC's returned to Bissel and heard that a bard was singing about their exploits in the Standing Stone adventure, up river from them. They were suspicious and decided to investigate.
They discovered the place upriver is a feudal manor (several hamlets, a tower, a mill -- "The Old Gristmill" WOTC had for free, and a quarry). The bard was not the old Boss Monster, but was trained by him, in the freetown south of the Dim Forest, Hochoch. They also discovered that this manor is under threat, by forces that seem very minor to them now (5-7th level). To the east, wolf attacks. To the west, orc raiders killed two farmers and torched some fields, forcing an evacuation. (For the manor, I'm using "Buckbray Tower").
I know what's going on here, but I want to make some sense of what's behind it. There are three forces at work here:
1) The Raiders. Led by a werewolf half-orc assassin, there's an elite strike team of evil werewolf adventurers. They are mercenaries working for Ket, with the goal of assassinating the manor's lord in his tower, for military-political reasons. The manor lord has held back his troops from the feudal levy because he thinks the area is unsafe, and he's right. Once he is dead, Ket hopes other lords will withdraw from the Bisselite army. The wolf attacks are a diversion, by the same guys. They also have a force of orc grunts.
>> Their secret secondary goal involves destroying the site at the Quarry. Werewolves do NOT like alchemical silver weapons foundries!
2) The Quarry. The dwarf who runs this place has a secret. He struck silver, and he hasn't told the lord of the manor. Paying off some gambling debts to the mob with his sneaky new wealth, he attracted attention down in the city. Seeing a chance for blackmail and big gains, the Big Baddy Conspiracy -- including Cuckoo -- decided to make alchemical silver weapons in a secret lab at the quarry. They sent the parties oldest nemesis, Aseneth, to do the alchemy.
>> Aseneth was a party member. She's a mage, and betrayed the party, getting them all captured and nearly sacrificied in the 2nd Edition version of Keep on the Borderlands. The baddy cult there is different from the Big Baddy Conspiracy -- the cult were small time but ambitious Baklunish (same race as Ket) followers of Hecate (Greek goddess of magic and secrets). One of the Hecate cult's allies was a mage called The Master, who Aseneth became an apprenctice of.
3) The Bard. Is the bard an innocent, or a spy for the Cuckoo? Her main purpose for the Cuckoo was to draw the PC's here -- to fight off the raiders and protect his interest in the Quarry, and hopefully get a few of them killed off or infected in the process. They were NOT supposed to check out the Quarry, and Cuckoo doesn't know they know Aseneth.
>> I figure the bard's a minor functionary in the Big Baddy Conspiracy, but her job here is done, so time to make tracks. Is there a better use for her?
So what the heck is going on here?
- Why is Aseneth part of the Big Baddy Conspiracy? Because it's cool. But I need an in-game reason. I figure The Master is a minor operative who latched onto the Big Baddy Conspiracy cause, and Aseneth joined with him.
- Why does the Big Baddy Conspiracy care about silver weapons? This is what I'm really not sure about, and want help with. Some ideas that seem lame to me:
--- Money. Hey, there's a good profit margin, especially in a war.
--- Rakshasa civil war. There's a special weapon in the DMG, Shifter's Regret or something like that, which shows a creatures true form when it hits and does additional damage to shapeshifters. This would be useful if the Rakshasa is fighting his own kind.
--- Silver weapons are obviously for killing lycanthropes. Eternal struggle of somebody (I guess Rakshasa) against Werewolves? Cats and dogs don't like each other, but this needs more backstory to be cool when the PC's eventually figure it all out. Native Outsiders don't like Lycanthropes because . . . I got nothing . . .
--- Greyhawk politics I. IMC, Iggwilv has used vampirism as a control method on her daughter Drelnza, who turned good temporarily and led the effort to overthrow her in Perrenland 200 years ago, before she was vampired into coming back on-side, and entombed in the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. In Living Greyhawk Gazeteer, the Tiger Nomads (northwest of Perrenland) have recently had problems with Werewolves and are secretly allying with Iuz (Iggwilv's son). Maybe Rakshasa HAD a unique influence over the Tiger Nomads, but have been pushed out by Iuz's influence, and they need to defeat the werewolves and are gathering forces to do so? Rakshasa make sense as a "Baklunish" monster (Asian flavor) and their definitely an ancient force of some sort.
--- Greyhawk politics II. The Big Baddy Conspiracy are Hierarchs of the Horned Society, in exile and hiding since Iuz took over their domain. They're scrounging for resources, followers, and money. They've got some superstars of evil, but "their bases are belong to Iuz". Messing with Iuz's werewolves is fun, but they are mostly in it for the money.
--- Mythology. Rakshasa are essentially shapechanging demons of Hinduism/Buddhism. They fought against monkey people of the forest and the gods. There's an Indian myth about Rakshasa in the forest attacking travellers, heroes killing them, and being bested by human heroes; one of the Rakshasa is convinced to turn good. In Angkor Wat in Cambodia, there's inscriptions of Rakshasa allied with Nagas, going to war on a bridge, I guess against the Monkey People & good gods. In D&D mythos, Nagas and Yuan-Ti are related. Thanks Wikipedia, but is there anything useful here for my game?
--- Future adventures. Don't know where we're going next, but the top contender is probably the Red Hand (or whatever the heck it's called) adventure about the goblin/dragon invaders.
Oh yeah, and who exactly is involved in the Big Baddy Conspiracy. Anything but demons/devils/evil gods, especially the one you've never heard of before . . . the campaign will end by 13th-15th level at most, and I think the Adventure Paths jump the shark when they get into "he who wants to destroy the world". Greyhawk has enough of those doods already.
So any good ideas on why this adventurous circumstance has come together? At this point, good is defined as a simple and "of course that makes sense" as possible, when the PC's eventually unravel it, but leading to further adventures.
Last edited:
