ZEITGEIST Converting Zeitgeist 5th edition to the Eberron world

[paulstrait]

Awesome! I'm going through the adventure carefully asap to make a flow chart and figure out what I want to keep etc. I was hoping to make the ship an airship, but that might be a bit convoluted, so sticking Axis Island in Lake Galifar might make the most sense. For adventure 2 I replaced Macbannin with Duke Jalnar ir'Edar and Leone Quital became Leone Cannith. The wand of Egal the Shimmering became (we are using PF2e as our system):

 

[reighndragon]

Well I hadn't read about Duke Jalnar ir'Edar and so he's not in my player's guide. Now I just need to find a way to introduce him in my campaign, because it's an interesting canon story in Passage. Thanks for pointing him out to me.

My first inclination was to make Leone Quital into Leone d'Cannith, but I changed it to a different race and backstory:

Leone Toldrath
Dwarf steelshaper from the Mror Holds. He’s an early discoverer of the Realm Below in the Mror Holds discovering the ancient steelshaping techniques of Sol Udar: The Realm Below. When he combined this technique with his aberrant dragonmark abilities, this resulted in incredible powerful effects. This discovery made him a rich person. He became a member of the Aurum and is a current member of the shadow cabinet. His aberrant dragonmark is hidden under his clothing and not generally known to the public.

I thought this gave a better explanation of his incredible powers.

I'm not really familiar with PF2, so it's difficult to grasp the effects of the activations. Looking at the description I assume you changed Egal the Shimmering to one of the Rakshasha leaders of the Lords of Dust? Did you make him an ally of one of the known overlords?

 

[paulstrait]

My first inclination was to make Leone Quital into Leone d'Cannith, but I changed it to a different race and backstory:

Leone Toldrath
Dwarf steelshaper from the Mror Holds. He’s an early discoverer of the Realm Below in the Mror Holds discovering the ancient steelshaping techniques of Sol Udar: The Realm Below. When he combined this technique with his aberrant dragonmark abilities, this resulted in incredible powerful effects. This discovery made him a rich person. He became a member of the Aurum and is a current member of the shadow cabinet. His aberrant dragonmark is hidden under his clothing and not generally known to the public.

I thought this gave a better explanation of his incredible powers.

Hmm, yeah that makes a lot of sense. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the Cannith stuff. I had set it up as potentially part of a power struggle within the Cannith West branch, and at the end, once the Duke killed himself in jail, I had them vacate the building they were doing business in in Passage. The scandal was all the opportunity House Orien needed to eject them essentially from the city.

I'm not really familiar with PF2, so it's difficult to grasp the effects of the activations. Looking at the description I assume you changed Egal the Shimmering to one of the Rakshasha leaders of the Lords of Dust? Did you make him an ally of one of the known overlords?

So I haven't really decided exactly. Eldrantulku is an overlord and he works through Rakshasa, and there was an old Dragon article about Duke Janar ir'Edar that had him involved with a cult connected to the Lords of Dust, so I figured I throw stuff out in that direction and then figure it out later (sometimes I just give clues and such out like that and see what my players end up caring about before I figure out the fine details).

As for what the PF2 stuff means, basically the first activation allows them to cast the spell Dimensional Anchor which essentially dispels efforts to teleport a target from one plane to another. For the wielder, any attempt to teleport them would be dispelled (essentially the wand would make a roll against the DC of the spellcaster trying to teleport them). That stuff was to try to replicate the original ability of the wand. I added the second activation because Eldrantulku encourages paranoia and discord -- basically it allows a once per day casting of the spell Paranoia after a critical hit with a spell attack. That spell causes someone to temporarily turn on their allies if they fail a saving throw.

 

[reighndragon]

Hmm, yeah that makes a lot of sense. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the Cannith stuff. I had set it up as potentially part of a power struggle within the Cannith West branch, and at the end, once the Duke killed himself in jail, I had them vacate the building they were doing business in in Passage. The scandal was all the opportunity House Orien needed to eject them essentially from the city.

I also didn't want to have multiple House Cannith members being part of this Obs cell. I wanted to change Alexander Grappa to be Aaren d'Cannith, father of Merrix d'Cannith from Cannith South. According to Eberron lore Aaren was the one advancing the warforged creation of his father by giving sapience to the warforged. When he saw that his creations were sold by House Cannith as slaves and warmachines, he was appalled. His pleas to stop this lucrative business were ignored. In 970 YK, Aaren was excoriated - formally disinherited from House Cannith. Following his expulsion Aaren disappeared. His fate remains a mystery, and diviners and inquisitives have found no traces of him. This sounded like the perfect fit for Alexander Grappa. He hasn't been found because he joined the Obs.
To make this even more interesting, one of the PC's is unknowingly a son of his. And half-brother of Merrix. I'm already looking forward when he finds out who his real father is. Especially when in adventure 6, they will encounter Merrix at his creation forge in Droaam as the Steel Lord.

 

[reighndragon]

@TFL I didn't want to put my notes into your recap. So I thought I would add them here. The conversion is written as my personal notes, so not everything is spelled out or in perfect English. Some parts are just copies from text in the adventure to make them easy to reference for myself during the adventure. If you have any questions, please ask.

I do wonder why you chose to have the murder of The Dying Skyseer take place in Journey's Home. What is in the notes stolen by Nilasa from House Orien? In my campaign the Obs are secretly pushing the rivalry between the three House Cannith factions. As such Cannith South is involved with the smuggling operations and buying industrial facilities in Passage. Some hard to trace evidence of this can be found in the notes stolen by Nilasa. Cannith South is unaware part of the smuggled wares are used to built a warforged colossus inside Cauldron Hill.

 

[TFL]

I agree that Journey's Home isn't the most natural choice for Nilasa's murder, but I went with it for a few reasons. I really wanted to focus on the effects of the houses for this campaign, and their actions tracing all the way back to the War of the Mark. A Cannith enclave would be the first choice, but my players a quite savvy, and the moment they hear "Big construction going on and having to do with House Cannith", they're going to immediately think Warforged Colossus. Plus, the campaign that was run in Sharn focused a lot on Cannith South and Merrix d'Cannith, and I didn't want to retread that ground so soon. Not that I neglect them entirely.

Additionally, I wanted to give House Orien a good shake, as we are in the heart of the House. So the notes that Nilasa stole from Baron Kwanti show large amounts of high value and magical resources struck from cargo manifests, deeds of facilities and industrial factories hidden behind enough ownerships to throw off any ties to Orien, and all covered by independent Brelish owners, seemingly unrelated. Even some supplies acquired from Cannith South with promises of more on the way. All in all suspicious, but not damning by itself.

In this campaign, House Orien is quickly overtaking the fractured House Cannith as the largest house, thanks in no small part to acquiring a way to cross the Mournland in a lightning rail (thanks to the events of the previous campaign), convincing Thrane to rebuild the White Bridge connecting Thaliost and Rekkenmark, and House Cannith being in scandal and shambles, with Merrix d'Cannith even having disappeared after his illegal warforged were discovered. Will likely have him join the Ob.

 

[reighndragon]

I've written most of my conversion notes down for the 3rd adventure. It's become an extensive document. It needs to cover both the planar conversion, but also the travel to the different ziggurats. I've covered most things allthough I need to write down some details, including the background of Rock Rackus. I need to check with the other adventures featuring him to finish this.
I'm also not yet certain how to incorporate the frost giants, as giants live on Xen'drik and not on Khorvaire. I might add them to the Icetop mountains, but not yet certain, so the links in Kvarti's description are still not definitive.
Because the travel time from Passage to the location of the Sunken Zigurat is very dependent on the means of transport. So I think the date of the gala is not yet set, when they leave, so I can adjust it to their return to Passage.
If anyone has anything to add I haven't thought about I would very much appreciate the feedback.