D&D 5E Drow Campaign (mature themes) CotSQ 2.0

[Zardnaar]

New campaign time due to various reasons and incorporating Tasha's.

Players picked Drow campaign (other options were Greek, Viking, Eberron, Rime of the Frost Maiden FR, or Midgard).

Using this source material.

I said they could play evil but there's a goal and to build a cohesive group. PvP rules etc have not been relaxed.

The goal is reclaiming Maerimydra from an undead fire giant (Kurgoth Hellspawn). Lolth wants the city back along with the other Drow Deities me

Szith Morcane has to many people (double 3E numbers) and the Fire Giants have Drow slaves in Maerimydra.

The players have chosen to follow Elistraee so the rough idea is build on that and of successful open up friendly relations with the Dalelands.

Any rough ideas. Help with brainstorming.

 

[beast013]

Drow campaign/characters work very well. A group of us ran Drow characters/adventuring party for years at the Dreamation and DexCon conventions under the Living forgotten Realms 4e. People would say how well it worked and how we handled the player interactions with non-Drow characters. Players make the characters. If you have good/great players, they will make it work.

 

[Zardnaar]

Drow campaign/characters work very well. A group of us ran Drow characters/adventuring party for years at the Dreamation and DexCon conventions under the Living forgotten Realms 4e. People would say how well it worked and how we handled the player interactions with non-Drow characters. Players make the characters. If you have good/great players, they will make it work.

Not to worried about that side of things.

Ones a kobold they just had to pick appropriate races for the game. Drow get racial feat for free, other races get a weaker feat or of my choice as a bonus.

 

[Weiley31]

I love City of The Spider-Queen.

 

[Zardnaar]

I love City of The Spider-Queen.

I'm using the maps and recycling various bit.

Only level 7 though.

 

[Eltab]

Who'd'a thunk a team of Drow might launch an anti-slaver campaign (if only because we grab you, you don't get to grab us!)?

The end goal might be to bring down the undead giant's empire by using the Drow slaves for information on his location / defenses / &c. Beginning with stealthy trips seeking reliable informants and potential future revolutionaries.

 

[Zardnaar]

Who'd'a thunk a team of Drow might launch an anti-slaver campaign (if only because we grab you, you don't get to grab us!)?

The end goal might be to bring down the undead giant's empire by using the Drow slaves for information on his location / defenses / &c. Beginning with stealthy trips seeking reliable informants and potential future revolutionaries.

That's kinda the point. I didn't know what way they would go but I guess all the Drow would want to liberate the Drow. Just for. Numbers and servants if nothing else.

 

[Zardnaar]

Who'd'a thunk a team of Drow might launch an anti-slaver campaign (if only because we grab you, you don't get to grab us!)?

The end goal might be to bring down the undead giant's empire by using the Drow slaves for information on his location / defenses / &c. Beginning with stealthy trips seeking reliable informants and potential future revolutionaries.

I haven't thought to much about it beyond they're there and I'll update an anti giant group from the original.

Looks like 3 Drow, kobold, Githyanki.

 

[aco175]

Looks like you have a ton of material to use. May need to think about what motivation PCs need if they are evil. Freeing slaves may not mean much, even if some a family members unless they have something I need. You could have a NPC underground leader or family member that needs to be rescued since they have information that is personally useful to the PCs. Perhaps there is a location in the captive city that holds a trove of magic or some sort of other info that is needed.

 

[pukunui]

@Zardnaar: Some of the AL Season 3 mods are about Szith Morcane and Maerimydra. You might find some more useful content there.

DDEX3-03 - The Occupation of Szith Morcane (levels 5–10)

DDEX3-15 - Szith Morcane Unbound (levels 5–10)

DDEX3-16 - Assault on Maerimydra (levels 11–16)

 

[Alzrius]

Your source material is quite expansive, but don't forget to also check out Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue (affiliate link). Don't let the trade dress fool you: it's an edition-neutral supplement.

 

[Zardnaar]

@Zardnaar: Some of the AL Season 3 mods are about Szith Morcane and Maerimydra. You might find some more useful content there.

DDEX3-03 - The Occupation of Szith Morcane (levels 5–10)

DDEX3-15 - Szith Morcane Unbound (levels 5–10)

DDEX3-16 - Assault on Maerimydra (levels 11–16)

I read about these on the wiki write up about Maerimydra.

 

[Zardnaar]

Looks like you have a ton of material to use. May need to think about what motivation PCs need if they are evil. Freeing slaves may not mean much, even if some a family members unless they have something I need. You could have a NPC underground leader or family member that needs to be rescued since they have information that is personally useful to the PCs. Perhaps there is a location in the captive city that holds a trove of magic or some sort of other info that is needed.

Freed slaves are potential house members even for evil Drow.

Two clerics of Elistraee though so shouldn't be a problem.

Also using 3.5's Underdark book.

 

[Scott Christian]

First, what great art! Good source material. Second, I would reiterate @aco175 - PC motivation is going to be important. Are they all from the same house? If not, then why are they a cohesive group. If so, maybe one of them is from a family that usurped another, and the pain still lingers. How would they interact?

As far as PVP is concerned, I would relax the rules if you have good players. Our 4e drow campaign was excellent, with one player killing everyone else in the end, an ultimate double-cross. But, it doesn't work if you are just going to have players constantly attacking each other.

 

[Zardnaar]

First, what great art! Good source material. Second, I would reiterate @aco175 - PC motivation is going to be important. Are they all from the same house? If not, then why are they a cohesive group. If so, maybe one of them is from a family that usurped another, and the pain still lingers. How would they interact?

As far as PVP is concerned, I would relax the rules if you have good players. Our 4e drow campaign was excellent, with one player killing everyone else in the end, an ultimate double-cross. But, it doesn't work if you are just going to have players constantly attacking each other.

Still working on that.

Mostly a power vacumn no major houses. There's only a couple of hundred Drow in Szith Morcane.

If they recapture the city, free everyone, look for refugees etc i think they will use it as an outpost for any Drow so inclined to return to the surface.

How they run the city is up to then but it will be more or a village.

 

[RangerWickett]

Man, I remember the first 'high concept' D&D game I played back in the 90s, where our PCs were all Mission Impossible style agents from the surface infiltrating Menzoberranzan, slowly establishing a rep for ourselves and helping a House get into the top 8 circle of high houses. The whole point of our mission was to keep the drow so busy squabbling with each other that they couldn't afford to send forces to the surface.

In hindsight, it was very much in keeping with the early-2000s US policy of keeping regional conflicts regional by helping weak groups be belligerents against the strong people in their region, so that no one gets strong enough to start a new world war.

We only had two sessions, though, because we were teenagers and sucked at being discreet spies.

---

Then two years ago in a Pathfinder campaign, the party helped a drow friend liberate her home city. There was a necromancer queen who was able to keep order among the rival demon lord cults in the city because everyone was unified against the threat of an empire of ghouls across the Sightless Sea. But also there was a sort of nightmare dragon that had extruded tendrils of psychic fungus throughout the city to feed upon everyone's suffering. And in PF canon one demonlord - Nocticula, a succubus patron of sadism and assassins - had fallen out with her fellow demon lords and was in the process of shifting from Chaotic Evil to Chaotic Neutral, and shifting her portfolio from murder to art and exiles.

The party - FOUR PALADINS, 15th level mean m-----f------ servants of their gods - ended up finding all the Chaotic Neutral elements in the city. They even found a few Chaotic Good priests of Nocticula. Together they disrupted the Necromancer Queen's various systems of control and gave her a metaphorical bloody nose to show the populace that they could resist her tyranny. She retaliated viciously, killing bystanders and friends of the party. Things got very brutal, to the point that one paladin broke his vows by shifting to true Neutral himself when he went on a vengeful killing spree against minions who were basically slaves of the Necromancer Queen and weren't really to blame. The city broke out into open rebellion.

That's when the nightmare dragon (whom the party had gotten hints of the whole time) made its move, trying to mind control the whole city. The party fought off the madness, tracked the psychic energy to the dragon's lair, and engaged the beast.

In a truly breathtaking bit of serendipity, the ex-paladin was getting mind-controlled by the dragon when his friend cast good hope to try to help him break free of the possession. They'd learned previously that the nightmare dragon's servants were harmed by effects that created positive emotions, and since the dragon's mind was linked with the ex-paladin, that good hope slew the psychic monster.

And since the dragon was mind-controlling the whole city too, the good hope cascaded through the minds of tens of thousands of drow, giving them a moment of shared optimism and epiphany. And that's how my version of Pathfinder got a city of Neutral drow - hardly heroes, but not so filled with fear and loathing that they turn to demon lords for help.

 

[pukunui]

I read about these on the wiki write up about Maerimydra.

OK ... and?

 

[Zardnaar]

OK ... and?

I knew they existed, my story's going in different direction. Idk where to find them.

 

[pukunui]

I knew they existed, my story's going in different direction. Idk where to find them.

You can get them all on the DMs Guild. I thought they might be useful because they'll have maps and statblocks and things that are already for 5e. Might save you some time converting stuff. Might even give you some extra ideas for your campaign or set pieces you can use.

 

[Zardnaar]

You can get them all on the DMs Guild. I thought they might be useful because they'll have maps and statblocks and things that are already for 5e. Might save you some time converting stuff. Might even give you some extra ideas for your campaign or set pieces you can use.

Cool I'll look into getting them if they're not to expensive. 5E stats for some of the critters would be very useful.

Normally steal names locations, maps, plotlines etc from older adventures.