Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="ajanders" data-source="post: 6300583" data-attributes="member: 3271">Dwarves and Gnomes and Demons...oh dearI had better preface this by saying my suggestions rely on the D&D 4E backstory.If your campaign has some different cosmology or different history,these ideas may not apply.First, gnomes are supposed to have been enslaved inhabitants of the Feywild (slaves of the Formorians:: evil fairy giants with lots of magical powers and a pretty brutal attitude towards their slaves). As you say, it is perfectly possible they might have made a deal with a devil to get free.And we don't suggest the devils idly. Again, in traditional 4E, demons are supposed to be mostly destructive creatures related to the elements: they don't tempt or trick, they just kill you and eat your stuff. So your gnomes might very well be linked to fiends, but they'd be devils, not demons.Evil diabolist gnomes actually sound kinda fun <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=":)" /> Lots of combat with gnomes of evil, plus some demons, plus some dwarven defensive constructs repurposed by the gnomes to defend them. A good, straightforward tactical dungeonBut there's another route you could take, and it's a little more subtle.In traditional 4E D&D, the gnomes are, as we said, slaves of the Formians: big fairy giants with some pretty freaky magical powers: some of them have magic shrunken heads they hit you with, some of them steal your eyes, some of them keep the souls of the dead around them to dance and sing for their amusement...generally nasty folks.The Formorians have sent their gnome warriors out to invade and capture the dwarf freehold...maybe the dwarves have a fay artifact the formorians want, maybe the formori want that good dwarven beer, maybe they want some enslaved weaponsmiths.The gnome warriors don't want to take over a dwarven freehold -- but the formori have their spouses(?) children(?) non combat cultural or religious figure (?) hostage. The gnomes fight or the hostages get it in the neck.If the PC's can rescue the hostages, the gnomes will let the dwarves have their clanhold.In this scenario, once the PC's figure out the gnomes are unwilling servants, your PC's can stop fighting them. No more "Gnome Invaders". Instead, they can move straight against the gnomes dark masters. And there's no "exploration" needed. If you can get the gnomes on your side, they'll be happy to provide maps, guides, and intelligence reports.Mind you, the intelligence and maps aren't perfect, and the guides aren't going to be any help in a fight, but there's no wandering around looking for the bad guys.Now, as for locations and things in a dwarven clan of brewers?1.Living and working quarters...personal homes. Many small, but if the hold is old and prosperous, there might be the dwarf equivalent of a knightly keep.2. As you say, the brewery.3.The dwarves have to be making their beer out of something. There's either a major bit of infrastructure bringing in a lot of grain to the brewery or a big underground mushroom garden with the special mushrooms for dwarf mushroom beer.4. The beer has to be stored in something. There's a cooper's shop to make barrels, or a pottery shop to make giant clay beer pots...like a Grecian Amphora. The beer might also be stored or shipped in stone jugs (unlikely) or metal kegs (also unlikely, but cool enough you could suspend disbelief).5. Something to produce the raw materials for the facility in step 4: a mine for beer kegs, a quarry or pit  for clay or stone, or a way to get wood for barrel staves if it's going out in barrels, and a lumber mill.6.How about a dwarven mausoleum, where all the ancestors are buried?7.We've got dwarves and good beer: how about a sports arena. For dwarf football?</blockquote>

Verification