Eberron Session Idea - Would Like Input Please

[GravyFingerz]

Okay, so the first time I will be running Eberron is coming up, and I have the framework of an adventure idea, and I wanted to run it by you guys, since you are all pretty creative, and there is bound to be people more knowledgable in Eberron than I am currently.

Anyway, as it ends up, most of the PCs are associated with the Church of the Silver Flame in some way or whatnot, so the theme of the campaign is Silver Flame. Anyway, for the first session, I'd thought I'd have lycanthropes involved. So I had an idea.

A friar of the Silver Flame has been traveling through the Eldeen Reaches doing some soul searching and sermoning and preaching and what not. Well, he encounters a small village, and subsequently is missing. After some time, a cardinal who knew him becomes a bit worried and decides to send someone after the missing friar to learn of his whereabouts. Well, he goes missing too.

So in comes the PCs, who must find the missing friar and his tracker.

What the PCs dont know, is the friar found a community of lycanthropes who still harbor a HUGE grudge against the Church, so they did away with him. And when the tracker came along, he was done away with as well. Some of the lycanthropes are good people, but a small minority are evil and full of anger. Of course, you cant tell a lycanthrope by his cover

I guess I am looking for more ideas, since I seem to be stuck here. Critiques, ideas, suggestions, and whatnot. Or someone to point out something I missed; I don't like going against established canon.

 

[Axegrrl]

What the PCs dont know, is the friar found a community of lycanthropes who still harbor a HUGE grudge against the Church, so they did away with him. And when the tracker came along, he was done away with as well.

Let's throw a twist into that....

The lycanthropes did not kill the friar and tracker. Instead, they turned them.

So now, the newest members of your community of lycanthropes could be a pair of tortured souls... or, perhaps the friar has had a change of heard and has gone over to the Dark Six...

Or, if you want to get complicated:
There is a small minority -- a secret group who keep their views quiet, perhaps -- of good-aligned 'thropes who'd actually like to patch things up with the CotSF, but realize it's unlikely. When the friar and tracker were captured, the community at large decided it would be more poetic justice (from their point of view) to turn them. They decide to turn it into a party/contest: whomever wins the contest gets to turn the prisoners. One of the minority/secret group manages to win. Once the pair is turned, the minority lets the new weres in on their ideas and plans.

And then the PCs show up... do the new pair reveal their new state of being? Does the friar simply want to be killed because he's now an "abomination"? Or, back to plan A, does the friar pretend all is well now and try to infiltrate the party and get back to where-ever and foil the plans of the Church?

This should be enough to get your mind going in a few different directions.

 

[GravyFingerz]

Let's throw a twist into that....

Ooooh! Ooooh!!!! That is an excellent twist, and I will have to steal it! That makes for some awesome plot hooks for future adventures, such as finding the method to revert them to their natural forms. Excellent suggestion!!! Thanks!

 

[yennico]

I assume this idea as an adventure for low level pcs.
I do not know the Eberron setting, but...

After some time, a cardinal who knew him becomes a bit worried and decides to send someone after the missing friar to learn of his whereabouts.

A cardinal sounds like a high level cleric. A high level cleric has access to divinations (commune, scry).

Change your idea a little bit.
1. The Pcs get the job to find the cleric form a relative of the cleric and not from the church. Normally the cleric writes a letter every week to his relatives now they received no letter for two weeks.
2. The cleric was a low level cleric in a small village far away. The relative informed a low ranking member of church that the cleric is missing. He sent persons to find the cleric but they do not returned. Now the players get the job to find the cleric form a low level cleric of this church.

 

[cmanos]

For those not familiar with Eberron, the Church of the Silver Flame had a nice little genocidal campaign against lycanthropes a couple years back. Didn't matter if they were good or not, they had to be killed. Also, most of your clergy are commoners and experts, not clerics.

I would definitely have it be a small town friar who came up missing and have a relative in the town ask the PC's for help.

I like the idea of them being changed, I like the idea of the 'Fifth Column' of 'thropes who want to reconcile with the church, I like the idea of the friar having the moral dilemma of being turned into something his church hates. Has potential for him to become a villain in the future.

If you are going to use 'thropes, amke ABSOLUTELY sure that either the characters have some insight and have some silver somewhere, or that they can talk their way out of combat. Low level PC's will get slaughtered by were creatures.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I assume this idea as an adventure for low level pcs.
I do not know the Eberron setting, but...

A cardinal sounds like a high level cleric. A high level cleric has access to divinations (commune, scry).

In Eberron, it is likely that he cannot even cast spells. Most of the church hierarchy is made up of "priests" who preach and are faithful but don't receive spells. Generally, Clerics are very special or important people within the church and most of them are probably out using their powers to help people.

High level clerics are nearly unheard of.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

For reference, the leader of the Church of the Silver Flame is, on her own, a young girl (~8? 12? years old) and a 3rd-level cleric.

While within the confines of "the Vatican," she has the powers of an 18th-level cleric. She remains, however, young and relatively naive.

 

[GravyFingerz]

Thanks everone, for the comments and posts. I have another Eberron related question:

Do you think giving the Church of the Silver Flame access to the War domain would be too unbalancing? I want to, but I feel iffy about it for some reason. To me it makes sense, since they have a templar faction within the church who appear to be very martial.

Thoughts?

 

[shilsen]

Thanks everone, for the comments and posts. I have another Eberron related question:

Do you think giving the Church of the Silver Flame access to the War domain would be too unbalancing? I want to, but I feel iffy about it for some reason. To me it makes sense, since they have a templar faction within the church who appear to be very martial.

Thoughts?

It would essentially give clerics who take the domain two feats - Martial Weapon Proficiency and Weapon Focus in the longbow (the longbow is their favored weapon). And archer clerics can be very effective, so it would be a powerful - if not unbalancingly so, IMNSHO - option.