Vempyre
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Dorgar campaign – conversion research on Red Steel in 4E
Background info
(skip ahead if you are only interested in the Red Steel discussion)
Well, 4E recently gave me the drive to try to convince my old group to start playing DnD again, if only thrugh the future tools that the game table will be or if I am lucky also locally with more recent friends. To do so I have decided to digg up my old campaign, the world of Dorgar.
Dorgar is a campaign world that had seen over 15 years of use starting when I was 15 years old and 1st got into the DM's jacket. It was (is) a world which borrowed many elements (places names and NPCS) from other settings including FR, Greyhawk, Lonewolf and DragonLance. I never was afraid to pick great ideas (and names) from tons of settings to put them into my own but it also had a lot of homebrew stuff to complement the “pilfered” ideas. Dorgar was a hugue place, with many continents mapped, empires, city-states, kingdoms, unexplored lands, mysteriou splaces, etc etc. It had a detailed pantheon which mixed other setting gods and some homebrew. Players had shaped it for hundreds of years and assisted to all the main events (big stuff always was player driven in my campaign, if it was big, the players were involved somehow).
And now to to the present. Dorgar already has had it's apocalyptic upheavals that will bring it to a 4E PoL setting. Years ago, in the last finale that has been played in this campaign, the god of Darkness was set loose among mortals (where other gods couldn't intervene) and he not only ravaged the world but after that went to the celestial kingdoms and pretty much exterminated all other gods, his own children included. That leaves us with a devastated world, where the gods are gone. The Creator sacrificed himself to stop the Dark One but only after all other gods but the god of Knowledge were dead or had fled this reality. There is no sun or moons anymore (they were all gods) and the planet (a cylinder, see Spelljammer) has been broken in two pieces.
My inspiration for the “new beginning” will be PoL Earthdawn-like. The main idea that I am stealing from Earthdawn is the idea of how ppl survived the calamities that perdured for centuries (with a few exeptions). They were hiding in cairns (of various designs) until the worst of it has gone by. And now they are emerging once again into a world without a sun, at least at the start of the campaign. Gods have been back for over an hundred years (new gods moved into the empty “power structure”, not the ancient gods).
And now on to the Red Steel discussion.
The old gods of magic were the three moons : Solamai (silver moon, good), Angomai (black-invisible moon, evil) and Henamai (red moon, neutrality). When they got destroyed, their physical body (they and Maahor the sun god were the only gods not residing in the celestial realms but instead quite literally living around Dorgar itself as moons and the sun) rained death and devastation down upon Dorgar with meteor showers and such, to the point that the planet (an hollow cylinder with ppl living outside and inside) broke in two.
Their magical and godly might permeated the world and created the Curse (which I want to be very close to the Red Curse from Red Steel) which the inhabitants of the cairns, when they come out, will be exposed to. Red crystals from Henamai will be teh equivalent of the Red Steel. And teh remains of Solamai and Angomai will form other substances, one of which will be used to stave of the Curse like cynnabril does in Red Steel and teh other will be used for a yet unknown special property.
Ok, now I have the basic idea layed out. But I have a difficult time thinking about a way to convert Red Steel stuff to 4E and it being “balanced” with 4E design. Red Steel modified and amplified the old Princess Ark articles by making the Red Curse more prevalent and powerful. I don't think I want it to be “that” powerful. Exemple : there was Disintegrate in the random Legacy tables for the Red Steel campaign! I havn't really liked Dragon Magazine's 3E conversion in issue 315 either, although it's closer to what I think I want in power, at least. I am also thinking of making The Curse being closer to Eberron's Dargonmarks in application and effect, with a Red Steel twist.
If only I could get my hand on the original Princess Ark articles for the original point of reference (at least fluff wise). They were my main inspiration for the Curse part of the rebirth of Dorgar and 2E's and 3E's rehash of the Red Curse feels empty fulff-wise compared to the articles. Anybody know where to get those articles still? Those Dragon Magazines are pretty old by now. Any idea on how to bring the Curse into 4E with a balanced effect? Powers? Feats?
Background info
(skip ahead if you are only interested in the Red Steel discussion)
Well, 4E recently gave me the drive to try to convince my old group to start playing DnD again, if only thrugh the future tools that the game table will be or if I am lucky also locally with more recent friends. To do so I have decided to digg up my old campaign, the world of Dorgar.
Dorgar is a campaign world that had seen over 15 years of use starting when I was 15 years old and 1st got into the DM's jacket. It was (is) a world which borrowed many elements (places names and NPCS) from other settings including FR, Greyhawk, Lonewolf and DragonLance. I never was afraid to pick great ideas (and names) from tons of settings to put them into my own but it also had a lot of homebrew stuff to complement the “pilfered” ideas. Dorgar was a hugue place, with many continents mapped, empires, city-states, kingdoms, unexplored lands, mysteriou splaces, etc etc. It had a detailed pantheon which mixed other setting gods and some homebrew. Players had shaped it for hundreds of years and assisted to all the main events (big stuff always was player driven in my campaign, if it was big, the players were involved somehow).
And now to to the present. Dorgar already has had it's apocalyptic upheavals that will bring it to a 4E PoL setting. Years ago, in the last finale that has been played in this campaign, the god of Darkness was set loose among mortals (where other gods couldn't intervene) and he not only ravaged the world but after that went to the celestial kingdoms and pretty much exterminated all other gods, his own children included. That leaves us with a devastated world, where the gods are gone. The Creator sacrificed himself to stop the Dark One but only after all other gods but the god of Knowledge were dead or had fled this reality. There is no sun or moons anymore (they were all gods) and the planet (a cylinder, see Spelljammer) has been broken in two pieces.
My inspiration for the “new beginning” will be PoL Earthdawn-like. The main idea that I am stealing from Earthdawn is the idea of how ppl survived the calamities that perdured for centuries (with a few exeptions). They were hiding in cairns (of various designs) until the worst of it has gone by. And now they are emerging once again into a world without a sun, at least at the start of the campaign. Gods have been back for over an hundred years (new gods moved into the empty “power structure”, not the ancient gods).
And now on to the Red Steel discussion.
The old gods of magic were the three moons : Solamai (silver moon, good), Angomai (black-invisible moon, evil) and Henamai (red moon, neutrality). When they got destroyed, their physical body (they and Maahor the sun god were the only gods not residing in the celestial realms but instead quite literally living around Dorgar itself as moons and the sun) rained death and devastation down upon Dorgar with meteor showers and such, to the point that the planet (an hollow cylinder with ppl living outside and inside) broke in two.
Their magical and godly might permeated the world and created the Curse (which I want to be very close to the Red Curse from Red Steel) which the inhabitants of the cairns, when they come out, will be exposed to. Red crystals from Henamai will be teh equivalent of the Red Steel. And teh remains of Solamai and Angomai will form other substances, one of which will be used to stave of the Curse like cynnabril does in Red Steel and teh other will be used for a yet unknown special property.
Ok, now I have the basic idea layed out. But I have a difficult time thinking about a way to convert Red Steel stuff to 4E and it being “balanced” with 4E design. Red Steel modified and amplified the old Princess Ark articles by making the Red Curse more prevalent and powerful. I don't think I want it to be “that” powerful. Exemple : there was Disintegrate in the random Legacy tables for the Red Steel campaign! I havn't really liked Dragon Magazine's 3E conversion in issue 315 either, although it's closer to what I think I want in power, at least. I am also thinking of making The Curse being closer to Eberron's Dargonmarks in application and effect, with a Red Steel twist.
If only I could get my hand on the original Princess Ark articles for the original point of reference (at least fluff wise). They were my main inspiration for the Curse part of the rebirth of Dorgar and 2E's and 3E's rehash of the Red Curse feels empty fulff-wise compared to the articles. Anybody know where to get those articles still? Those Dragon Magazines are pretty old by now. Any idea on how to bring the Curse into 4E with a balanced effect? Powers? Feats?
