Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="arwink" data-source="post: 518738" data-attributes="member: 2292">The Meta-Game NotesThose of you who just want the story, skip ahead to the next post.  The early posts in this thread are undergoing some slight renovation in the coming months - mostly checking for spelling mistakes and minor re-writing.  I settled into the style a little more comfortably in later updates, so I want to give that feel to the entire thread if I can.DM’s Campaign NotesIn the beginning, there’s nothing truly ambitious about the Copperheads campaign.  I was running Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, but there were two main problems – one was a couple of players who worked shifts, and the other was an itching on my part to explore a world outside of the mega-dungeon.  The copperheads started to solve both problems.  It gave the rest of us something to do on weeks when the shift-workers couldn’t make it, and it let me run adventures that went a little beyond the Elemental Evil.  The original plan was to have the two campaigns twist around one another, with some crossover of NPC’s and locations, so the players were told to create characters that would work in relation to the church.  They could start out as a sort of clean-up squad, I figured, doing all the behinds the scenes stuff the other group didn’t have the time or inclination to do due to the narrow focus of their mission.Naturally, it didn't work out that way.  Strange how that always seems to happen.Instead the Copperheads became a game based on dealing with the politics of the Church of St Cuthbert, running off into the wilderness so they never heard a thing about Elemental Evil after the first adventure, and thwarting the will of numerous power groups across the length of two continents.  It also became a game about watching a succession of kobold monks get killed off, one by one, in particularly messy ways.  It developed the wider scope I was hoping for, has allowed for long-term story-arcs and player development, and exists now long after the Elemental Evil group has fallen apart due to time constraints and lack of interest (although the aborted storyhour of the mega-module game can be read <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=28666" target="_blank">here</a>.The game starts at first level, and despite the mention of a few elements from Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, the Storyhour has nothing to do with the mega-adventure aside from one NPC and a reference to the Elder Elemental Eye.If you have questions, comments or suggestions about the past, present or future events and locations in the game, please head over to the <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=35013" target="_blank">Seldarn Empire Notes, Suggestion and Discussion Thread</a> or just head to my website at <a href="http://arwink.themadship.dhs.org" target="_blank">http://arwink.themadship.dhs.org</a>  (If you're a player in my games, please keep out - we'll be talking about you over there <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />)Current Cast – A running list as of members as of the last updateGeoffrey Cromwell - Geoffrey is a human cleric of St Cutherbert, a young man with a calling a tendency to be a little more neutral that good in his approach.  He's gradually driving towards the Warpriest prestige class, but hasn't quite made it there yet.  Halgo Torke - Halgo is a dwarven diviner (who was an illusionist under 3.0) who took up the wizards calling after an arrogant elf told him dwarves couldn't possible be wizards.  He keeps his beard in a short goatee to stop it from dipping in alchemical solutions, and is largely along for the ride because he owes the Church of St Cuthbert a favor.  Now that he's mastered magic, Halgo's main focus tends to be on gaining power, and staying with the Copperheads lets him do that.Blarth - Blarth was abandoned by his father at a young age when the orcish mercenary went chasing after a bounty hunter who'd kidnapped Blarth's mother.  Blarth was then raised by an elderly Psi-Warrior who served the Angelic Mardak - Leader of St Cuthbert's Drakkarim (Essentially Holy Bodyguards and Fists of Vengeance).  Blarth is enormously strong, not that smart, and collecting heads under the belief that Mardak will eventually show him to his parents should Blarth prove to be a not-puny warrior.Yip II - The Church of St Cuthbert maintains a small force of brainwashed kobold monks that they send hurtling through sewer drains to route thieves’ guilds.  Almost all said monks are named Yip and have little by way of personality.  This Yip was sent out into the world because, honestly, he's a tad strange.  Much better at sneaking than his Yip brethren, and he has a tendency to pick weak points and low blows when he gets into a battle.  Hopefully, by being exposed to the positive influence of the Cuthbertite cleric, he'll learn to become one with the Yip's in the future.Amarin Yarrow- A pale, schollarly human from the Old Kingdom of Charos, Amarin is a psionic shaper who specializes in manifesting astral constructs.  He was lured to the northern continent of Bor by an omen, then stuck around in order to work out what was causing the northern continent's weather to act so strangely.  While there, he joined the Copperheads and has adventured with them ever since because, really, they're such a bunch of interesting fellows.  Amarin is far too nice to be an adventurer, and his somewhat naive outlook can cause trouble when he deals with his comrades.Been and Gone – Briefly PC’s, but now part of the NPC unwashedBrind - Human Fighter.  A seldani by his appearance, this mercenary fighter wore chain and used a bastard-sword with great skill.  Cheerful a touch undisciplined and played by Mantreus for a single session before real life made it impossible for him to game with us.Thrash - A human ranger with a slight drug addiction and spiky hair.  It is known that he's been raised from the dead, but certainly not by any of the Copperheads.  Deceased – Were Player Characters, Now Fond MemoriesBrother Yip - The first Yip, who was a good monk and followed orders.  Inevitably, he ended up dead because of those very traits.  Spoiler Listing:  Modules and Dungeon Adventures Used in the StoryhourOf Sound MindA Heroes Tale (2e adventure)King Oleg's Dilemma (2e Adventure from Dungeon)Depths of Rage (Dungeon 83)</blockquote>

Verification