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Message: <blockquote data-quote="steeldragons" data-source="post: 5398091" data-attributes="member: 92511">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." <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> 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 <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />, 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. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />Well, hope some of it is good/usable.Have fun and happy prophesying. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />--Steel Dragons</blockquote>

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