Forge the world with me

[steeldragons]

And...well...shoot...Now that you have me thinking of all of this stuff, I'm just gonna throw out a few groupings and hierarchical stuff for the Imperial military too.

Feel free to use it or not as you see fit. This is, by no means an exhaustive list and there could be any number of units/types of troops besides these.

The Platinum General- The supreme Commander of the Empire's military forces, second only to the Emperor.

The Council of Twelve a.k.a. the Twelve Dragons Council- These are the generals of the Empire military. The council consists of 5 generals, 1 for each of the vassal kingdoms, and the remaining 7 generals are all Imperialists, each controlling a section of the military. The majority of the 12 lesser generals are in the pocket of the Platinum General, though as a whole the Council's allegiance is to the Imperial throne first.
The Gold Dragon- General for the Wind Kingdom forces.
The Silver Dragon- General for the Rose Republic forces
The Bronze Dragon- General for the Griffonland forces
The Copper Dragon- General for the Spearland forces
The Brass Dragon- General for the Double Sun forces
The Iron Dragon- Imperial General for swordsmen units.
The Jade Dragon- Imperial General for archers.
The Shadow Dragon- Imperial General for recon/covert ops.
The Pearl Dragon- Imperial General for naval units.
The Thunder Dragon- Imperial General for cavalry units.
The Ruby Dragon- Imperial General of Arcane/caster units.
The Earth Dragon- Imperial General of support units (including healers).

Some units/companies within the Imperial military, based off of/along the lines of your PCs past. I'd totally go with this and have various elite companies named for majestic, ferocious or skilled animals. So you'd have, below the Dragons...
Soldiers of the Lion...of the Bear...of the Boar (infantry/front line companies)
Soldiers of the Eagle...of the Falcon...of the Hawk...of the Raven (archer companies)
Soldiers of the Panther...of the Wolf...of the Fox (recon/scouting units)
and etc... etc...ad infinitum.

That's all I got...for now. Time for more coffee. lol.

Have fun and happy militarization.
--Steel Dragons

 

[thejc]

everything looks great except for the pearl dragon. The empire doesn't actually control any oceans or seas, nor any lands near them...yet Plenty of rivers and lakes....hmmmm

NG Thor kind of guy. His followers are merciful yet fierce in battle. I dont like this stuff
Car hire Spain

thank you for your meager but priceless contribution.

 

[thejc]

So I just had one player throw me a brilliant curveball. I told you of the veiling the event that sealed off the "Pale Lands" from the rest of the world erecting the mystic barrier. I had the players write up a short synopsis of their guys for the story hour. Find that here http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/297656-darkness-us-all.html#post5398031

Well in one he made an event known as the withdrawl. Where all the pure blood elves disappeared leaving only half elves and some random ones. At first I thought it would be kind of like what they did with FR, but then I thought what if they somehow gave themselves in order for the veiling to work? Thoughts ideas?

 

[steeldragons]

RE: The Pearl Dragon, if there's no navy you could just take him out. Of course the "Council of Eleven" doesn't roll of the tongue quite the same. haha. Soooo, well, there are lots of rivers and lakes, any large lakes? Like the U.S. "Great Lakes"? They're certainly large enough to have some ships on and patrol. Or you could have military units that use river boats to patrol the waterways...

OR, simply change the Pearl Dragon's area. Make them general of spearmen/infantry for example. OR, take clerics/medics/"healers" out of the purview of the Earth Dragon and make the Pearl Dragon in charge of "divine" powered troops...

Or (I didn't realize until reading your character descriptions that your world was including guns.) make the Pearl Dragon in charge of artillery/riflemen...in which case, however, I might change him to the "Onyx Dragon" or something "darker" sounding than pearl.

RE: the Withdrawal. I think your idea of having the elves have to give themselves for the creation of the mystic barrier is inspired. To contain (how big and how long has this barrier been there, by the way?) the negative energy/deep darkness of the vampires, the elves had to utilize the supremely positive energy/inner light of themselves.

This would also be useful in explaining the whole "you can go in but not get out" thing...The spirits of the elves are actually IN the barrier. They, quite literally, push the creatures of darkness back to keep them in...and pay little to no attention to those entering from the outside lands.

It could be that there are stories of people seeing faces or ghostly figures floating about in the mystic barrier. But noone can actually verify that or communicate with them. FROM INSIDE the Pale lands, however, you could have some fun NPC interactions with the elvin spirits actually being present ...you know, appearing within the barrier (unable to leave it, of course), that the characters could actually learn/get info from.

For a "big picture"/hook kind of thing, you could make a prophecy/destiny thing (which has been all but lost/long forgotten in the Imperial lands) which would explain why the bulk of the elvin people agreed to give up themselves to create the barrier in the first place.

It could say that if/when the King (or Queen) of the vampires, i.e. the very first, original grandaddy of all vampires, is slain his progeny (i.e. all vampires spawned from him which would be ALL of the vampires in the Pale Lands) will be destroyed with him and the Pale Lands shall finally be able to sprout and grow into a pastoral paradise. With this transformation of the land, the barrier will no longer be necessary and the spirits of the elves will give up their long vigil, take on their physical bodies again and return to the world to settle/inhabit the former Pale Lands.

Naturally, your party (or at least certain members of it) are the ones destined/mentioned in the prophecy to bring about the downfall of the uber-vamp and cause this to pass...

THIS could be the ultimate secret/knowledge/answer to "The Withdrawal" to be found in your PC's stronghold of Wyrmcrest! So the party spending time adventuring there to find/piece together the prophecy could easily be a few fun sessions.

(Just as an aside...There are always "exceptions." There would/could be a small handful or even just a single vamp that escapes into the greater world when the barrier dissipates, keeping vampirism alive/available as an option in the gaming world...if you want it to be.)

So, in game, the party is responsible not only for the destruction of the most powerful evil in the known world, but the fate of an entire realm (the Pale Lands) and the freedom/return of the entire elvin race.

Sounds like a pretty cool thing for a party to get itself wrapped up in...and (if successful) secure a name for themselves as mega-heroes throughout the world...being practically divine-savior figures among the freed elvin people.

Once this is done (a campaign I would expect to take at least a year or two , you could continue (if you and your players so desired) with the large scale problems (and probably war) that would be caused by the Empire desiring to possess the beautiful new lands for itself, while the elves claim it is their ancestral home...

...jeez. I can go on, huh? lol. Sounds like a campaign/story arc I'd want to run myself.

Well, hope some of it is good/usable.
Have fun and happy prophesying.
--Steel Dragons

 

[steeldragons]

Ya don't like it? lol.

j/k If you don't mind, I'm going to incorporate the elf-barrier into my story hour. http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/294419-steel-dragons-tales-orea.html

Not that there's any shortage of elves in my world but I think it is truly a fantastic idea.

--SD

 

[thejc]

Ya don't like it? lol.

j/k If you don't mind, I'm going to incorporate the elf-barrier into my story hour. http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/294419-steel-dragons-tales-orea.html

Not that there's any shortage of elves in my world but I think it is truly a fantastic idea.

--SD

No I freaking love it! It's done I've written it in the history books of my world!

So Im going this route! This is how these pc's shall end the campaign. Versus the vampire king! That and somehow I want to introduce a reformation in the church of Bahamut where people actually get back to worshiping the deity and get away from letter of the law tyrannical political stuff they endured.

 

[thejc]

Now I need some sweet ideas for Wyrmcrest. It's a large Gygaxian keep each room is a puzzle and once solved either gives up some item that can help, or another clue to help with another room(though not necessarily intregal to the puzzles completion)

 

[steeldragons]

Haha. Sweet! I'm glad you like/are using it. I'm honored you're so excited about my ideas (...now we just have to get you your own company so I can get that job you mentioned. lol!

Um...puzzles aren't really my thing, I'm afraid...but we seem to bounce things off each other pretty well...Besides, the bevy of brainstorming that is/can be ENworld.

So...what do you have set up so far?

Wyrmcrest is the stronghold left to one of your PCs, right? So...it's not like there's monsters floating around. Is there some creepy groundskeeper or sweet lil' old lady housekeeper that knows about all the secret passages and stuff?

You could put puzzles in tile mosaics on the floor...that, you know, until they start accumulating clues just looks like a nice design in some parlor or the foyer. Have a riddle that they have to answer told be an enchanted/possessed empty suit of armor...? Maybe they have to answer the riddle to open a secret passage that leads them to more pieces of the prophecy?

Um....hm...could set it up like a game of Clue. Have all different pieces of the puzzle found in all different rooms of the castle...and then when they're all brought into the same room...or placed in that mosaic on the floor...it..."triggers" some kinda spirit/oracle something that relays the secret of "the Withdrawal" and the prophecy about the vampire king, etc etc...What those various things/pieces would be...I dunno. haha.

But each one should be behind some kind of challenge, puzzle, riddle, thing.

There was a cool thread not too long ago in General Discussion about riddles, actually...some good ones in there.

I dunno...lemme ponder this s'more. haha.

And HEY, Enworlders! Jump on in here, huh? It's not just about thejc and myself.

 

[thejc]

Im not actually running an adventure path(published or in my brain). I had a thought that I would really work hard with the players and the back story of each one. That I would determine where they actually went. Each one has certain goals and what not. Like our first "season" culminated in battling one characters(Thorn..a fighter with an assassins skill set, that used possession of an outer being to describe his barbarians rage) nemesis an inquisitor from the imperial church. I used Wotc free pdf adventures for various other things filler and combat npc's ect.

I had not really thought that wyrmcrest would be such a huge part of the campaign arc. At first I thought it a cool way to introduce a base of operations. But after letting him set it up it can be so much more. I think I will go very National Treasure on it. I do not want it to all be in house, such as I want the pc's to find the riddle in the room then have to like go to a dwarven cemetary to find a headstone and get the answer and such. Not all the time and yes there will be monsters/guardians and such. So I can use this as a launching pad. I can't go overboard because I don't want the other pc's story to take a back seat. But yeah

 

[steeldragons]

I had not really thought that wyrmcrest would be such a huge part of the campaign arc. At first I thought it a cool way to introduce a base of operations. But after letting him set it up it can be so much more. I think I will go very National Treasure on it. I do not want it to all be in house, such as I want the pc's to find the riddle in the room then have to like go to a dwarven cemetary to find a headstone and get the answer and such. Not all the time and yes there will be monsters/guardians and such. So I can use this as a launching pad. I can't go overboard because I don't want the other pc's story to take a back seat. But yeah

Yes. This is much better than what I was thinking. I like the running all over creation to connect A to B to C a la National Treasure (or the Da Vinci Code