Obergnom
First Post
EDIT: I did not want to open a new threat. Most important information can be found in the second post.
Hi,
after a huge success last time I did this (See this threat Troglodyte Encounter ), I think one of the best things to do is asking fellow D&D players for opinions and tipps designing encounters and story for the further advancement of my campaign. Her we go:
The Characters:
Balrog - A Goliath Fighter6/Barbarian1 (Very versatile, switches between Great Sword&Board (AC25, more if buffed), huge Great Axe raging (a lot of damage, AC19) and Javelins within moments, making use of his quick draw feat and a very flexible feat choice)
Savantyr - An Aasimar Sorcerer6/Holy Scourge2 (Is able to mostly ignore energy resistance, does a lot of damage, and has a few good tricks, he can do, sorcerer like... quite often.)
Fealar - Your average Wood Elf Ranger8 Bow Dude. Nothing special.
Eadric - Riverfolk Druid8 (PHB2 Shifter) - Till now, he did a lot of healing and summoning unicorns to heal even more, somethimes using his mobility in predator form to be at the right spot or take some blows to rescue an ally. That will change, I guess, as he is now able to use the ferocious slayer form.
Soon to enter the group: A Gold Dwarf Copper Dragon Shaman. She will meet the group at earth end.
The Story so far:
The characters were drawn into the story to end a threat to Cormyr. They were send to kill a Hill Giant leader, who was uniting the giant tribes into a mighty army, that could overrun the kingdom. They were able to slay him, but discovered he was actually possessed by a Vrock demon.
At the same time, the kingdom is threatend by civil war, as many nobles refuse to follow the infant king any longer and try to use the giant invasion for their own goals. The invasion started, allthough the players were able to kill the leader of the Hill Giants. There must be someone else behind all this.
A mighty divination (Locate Creature) told them, the Vrock teleported to Mirth Galnorn. (The Name is in Drow, meaning refuge of revenge.) As they severly offended Baron Teuselle, a local noble and bastard descendent of the old King of Cormyr who was about to take over the town of Tilverton(The groups homebase) and all of eastern Cormyr, the small group of loyal followers of the crown (The local captain of the purple dragons, some old adventurers/now inn keeper, an elven Magic Item Shop owner, the local high priests of Gond and Sharress and the local sage) decided, it would be the best course of action, to send the Party of Adventurers into the underdark trying to find the Demon and maybe the true head behind the giant invasion, while they try to work on the political floor, weakening the baron in anyway they can.
The party started their descent into the underdark (Following a map they got from a lokal priest of gond), so far they passed the Grotto of the Troglodytes, making more enemies, by letting their Mind Flayer "Leader" escape.
What I have planed:
As You might have guessed, the campaign ist quite similar to the old GDQ series. In the long run, I want to get my players into Expedition to the Demonweb Pits.
Currently, this is what I have planed: The next story relevant encounter will be a Mykonite Grove. The Grove is marked as good resting place upon their underdark map, and they are looking forward to reaching it, as the endless gray of the underdark is getting to them.
I plan to have the mykonites wiped out, the grove nearly destroyed and empty. (Besides a Gas Spore encounter. They are not tough enough to fight a true Beholder, but a Gas Spore will shock them quite a bit, although it is mostly harmless.) As they are currently carrying the body of their dead sorcerer with them, I do not want to stretch this to much, but... there is a nice magic location in Drow of the Underdark (Garden of Resplendent Hues) that till give a druid or ranger DR and some plant like immunities for 30 day. Only one of them though. It does so, by choosing one of them as its champion. The champion will get visions, telling him of his mission...
Three more locations follow... these are more or less on the same depth of the underdark.
Earth End: A place run by earth creatures. It hase a portal to sigil, an creatures from all over Fearun come here to leave the Realms and go to sigil, maybe finding a way to enter the elemental plane of earth. This is the parties current destination.
Bhal-Hamatung: A Kou-Toa Shrine/City. It is marked on their map.
Mirth-Galnorn: A Drow Outpost. They do not yet know where exaclty it is, but they guess it muss be where their map says: All scouts disappeard!
My plan, so far was this: They go to Earths End, pick up the Dragon Shaman and raise the Sorcerer at the Temple of Grumbar, Boss of Earth. Then, they try to find Mirth Galnorn. When they found it, by getting information from the residents of Earth End, they go there, get into the Drow Outpost, find out what its all about: It is an Outpost of an exiled Drow House. Their High Priestess found out, that Lolth will start an invasion of the material plan. She deviced a plan to have huge amounts of fearun under her controll, thus raising herself in favor of the Spider Queen, reclaiming, maybe even exceeding her houses old standing in drow society. The Vrock was just one servent she used to controll the giants. She took controll over the other giant leaders, too. In a more subtle way. It was the Vrocks war like nature that spoiled parts of her plan. It just was not able to hide long enough. Still, she was successful enough, with the Frost and Fire Giants seemingly taking control over fearun. Helped by here more subtle agents on the surface...
They will find out, too, that the priestess was about to go to a place called "The Styxs Oars Man" in Sigil to get more information about the invasion.
The players will need to go to Sigil to find out more about the invasion and maybe end it (this is where EttDWP starts.) But to pass the portal, they need something to activate it. Something special. There is only one race sinister and despaired enough to actually with it. The Kuo-Toa. You need "True Hope" to activate the portal. A rare substance, often a gift from the Gods of Good, but there might be ways to get it from hope full creatures. (Which the Kuo-Toa are not...)
The Players will learn, the Kuo-Toa would sell it... but at enormous summs (I though about 20000gp). They have to choose, pay so much to these vile creatures, or try to steal from them. (They would discover, that the Kuo-Toa of Bhal-Hamatung are actually the Thralls of an Aboleth, the master mind behind the hope buissness...
Why I need help...
First of all, there are some holes in my plans... I have no idea were the Champion of the Garden of Resplendent Hues sould be sent. Who killed all the Mykonites? It should not derail from the story to much, best thing would be, if it would somehow lead to the Kuo-Toa.
How to introduce the Dragon Shaman in a way, that she has a reason to stay with the group for a longer time?
Next thing is, I would love to change the scenario a bit: Once the Drow started with their invasion on the surface, because they learned of a chance to reclaim their old standing, they build up hope. The Kuo-Toa began to wage war against them, trying to capture Drow and stealing their hope.
Third thing, and the most important one: How to realise the scenario? I could easily built Mith Galnorn (I want to use the Maps of Mystery from rescent Dungeon Mags 145&146, together they show a grotto with a small lake and some waterfalls leading to a drow outpost). I planed to use manyly Bugbears as rank and file soldiers, with a few elite drow soldiers and NPCs. Mass Battles against drow do not seem to be such a good idea.
For Bhal-Hamatung, I will use the map from the Shackled City AP (Thats where the name is from). It is nothing special, though. A lake, some temple structures, defenses, an inner sanctum. Stuff like that.
I never played a 3 party scenario. Any good ideas how to do that? And off course, any good ideas for specific encounters?
Hi,
after a huge success last time I did this (See this threat Troglodyte Encounter ), I think one of the best things to do is asking fellow D&D players for opinions and tipps designing encounters and story for the further advancement of my campaign. Her we go:
The Characters:
Balrog - A Goliath Fighter6/Barbarian1 (Very versatile, switches between Great Sword&Board (AC25, more if buffed), huge Great Axe raging (a lot of damage, AC19) and Javelins within moments, making use of his quick draw feat and a very flexible feat choice)
Savantyr - An Aasimar Sorcerer6/Holy Scourge2 (Is able to mostly ignore energy resistance, does a lot of damage, and has a few good tricks, he can do, sorcerer like... quite often.)
Fealar - Your average Wood Elf Ranger8 Bow Dude. Nothing special.
Eadric - Riverfolk Druid8 (PHB2 Shifter) - Till now, he did a lot of healing and summoning unicorns to heal even more, somethimes using his mobility in predator form to be at the right spot or take some blows to rescue an ally. That will change, I guess, as he is now able to use the ferocious slayer form.
Soon to enter the group: A Gold Dwarf Copper Dragon Shaman. She will meet the group at earth end.
The Story so far:
The characters were drawn into the story to end a threat to Cormyr. They were send to kill a Hill Giant leader, who was uniting the giant tribes into a mighty army, that could overrun the kingdom. They were able to slay him, but discovered he was actually possessed by a Vrock demon.
At the same time, the kingdom is threatend by civil war, as many nobles refuse to follow the infant king any longer and try to use the giant invasion for their own goals. The invasion started, allthough the players were able to kill the leader of the Hill Giants. There must be someone else behind all this.
A mighty divination (Locate Creature) told them, the Vrock teleported to Mirth Galnorn. (The Name is in Drow, meaning refuge of revenge.) As they severly offended Baron Teuselle, a local noble and bastard descendent of the old King of Cormyr who was about to take over the town of Tilverton(The groups homebase) and all of eastern Cormyr, the small group of loyal followers of the crown (The local captain of the purple dragons, some old adventurers/now inn keeper, an elven Magic Item Shop owner, the local high priests of Gond and Sharress and the local sage) decided, it would be the best course of action, to send the Party of Adventurers into the underdark trying to find the Demon and maybe the true head behind the giant invasion, while they try to work on the political floor, weakening the baron in anyway they can.
The party started their descent into the underdark (Following a map they got from a lokal priest of gond), so far they passed the Grotto of the Troglodytes, making more enemies, by letting their Mind Flayer "Leader" escape.
What I have planed:
As You might have guessed, the campaign ist quite similar to the old GDQ series. In the long run, I want to get my players into Expedition to the Demonweb Pits.
Currently, this is what I have planed: The next story relevant encounter will be a Mykonite Grove. The Grove is marked as good resting place upon their underdark map, and they are looking forward to reaching it, as the endless gray of the underdark is getting to them.
I plan to have the mykonites wiped out, the grove nearly destroyed and empty. (Besides a Gas Spore encounter. They are not tough enough to fight a true Beholder, but a Gas Spore will shock them quite a bit, although it is mostly harmless.) As they are currently carrying the body of their dead sorcerer with them, I do not want to stretch this to much, but... there is a nice magic location in Drow of the Underdark (Garden of Resplendent Hues) that till give a druid or ranger DR and some plant like immunities for 30 day. Only one of them though. It does so, by choosing one of them as its champion. The champion will get visions, telling him of his mission...
Three more locations follow... these are more or less on the same depth of the underdark.
Earth End: A place run by earth creatures. It hase a portal to sigil, an creatures from all over Fearun come here to leave the Realms and go to sigil, maybe finding a way to enter the elemental plane of earth. This is the parties current destination.
Bhal-Hamatung: A Kou-Toa Shrine/City. It is marked on their map.
Mirth-Galnorn: A Drow Outpost. They do not yet know where exaclty it is, but they guess it muss be where their map says: All scouts disappeard!
My plan, so far was this: They go to Earths End, pick up the Dragon Shaman and raise the Sorcerer at the Temple of Grumbar, Boss of Earth. Then, they try to find Mirth Galnorn. When they found it, by getting information from the residents of Earth End, they go there, get into the Drow Outpost, find out what its all about: It is an Outpost of an exiled Drow House. Their High Priestess found out, that Lolth will start an invasion of the material plan. She deviced a plan to have huge amounts of fearun under her controll, thus raising herself in favor of the Spider Queen, reclaiming, maybe even exceeding her houses old standing in drow society. The Vrock was just one servent she used to controll the giants. She took controll over the other giant leaders, too. In a more subtle way. It was the Vrocks war like nature that spoiled parts of her plan. It just was not able to hide long enough. Still, she was successful enough, with the Frost and Fire Giants seemingly taking control over fearun. Helped by here more subtle agents on the surface...
They will find out, too, that the priestess was about to go to a place called "The Styxs Oars Man" in Sigil to get more information about the invasion.
The players will need to go to Sigil to find out more about the invasion and maybe end it (this is where EttDWP starts.) But to pass the portal, they need something to activate it. Something special. There is only one race sinister and despaired enough to actually with it. The Kuo-Toa. You need "True Hope" to activate the portal. A rare substance, often a gift from the Gods of Good, but there might be ways to get it from hope full creatures. (Which the Kuo-Toa are not...)
The Players will learn, the Kuo-Toa would sell it... but at enormous summs (I though about 20000gp). They have to choose, pay so much to these vile creatures, or try to steal from them. (They would discover, that the Kuo-Toa of Bhal-Hamatung are actually the Thralls of an Aboleth, the master mind behind the hope buissness...
Why I need help...
First of all, there are some holes in my plans... I have no idea were the Champion of the Garden of Resplendent Hues sould be sent. Who killed all the Mykonites? It should not derail from the story to much, best thing would be, if it would somehow lead to the Kuo-Toa.
How to introduce the Dragon Shaman in a way, that she has a reason to stay with the group for a longer time?
Next thing is, I would love to change the scenario a bit: Once the Drow started with their invasion on the surface, because they learned of a chance to reclaim their old standing, they build up hope. The Kuo-Toa began to wage war against them, trying to capture Drow and stealing their hope.
Third thing, and the most important one: How to realise the scenario? I could easily built Mith Galnorn (I want to use the Maps of Mystery from rescent Dungeon Mags 145&146, together they show a grotto with a small lake and some waterfalls leading to a drow outpost). I planed to use manyly Bugbears as rank and file soldiers, with a few elite drow soldiers and NPCs. Mass Battles against drow do not seem to be such a good idea.
For Bhal-Hamatung, I will use the map from the Shackled City AP (Thats where the name is from). It is nothing special, though. A lake, some temple structures, defenses, an inner sanctum. Stuff like that.
I never played a 3 party scenario. Any good ideas how to do that? And off course, any good ideas for specific encounters?
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