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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 5793548" data-attributes="member: 5948">I think you need to travel.  Part of the character of the Realms is its geographical diversity - locking the AP down to one area loses that.I think the heartlands - Waterdeep, Cormyr and the Dales - need to be heavily involved.  Personally I find these regions deeply uninspiring and prefer more interesting areas like the Old Empires (when they existed), Rashemen, Anauroch, the Shaar, Dambrath etc, but the heartlands regions are so integral to the history of the Realms they'd be hard to leave out.  Same with the Harpers - I generally despise both the concept and the execution, but they're very Realmsian and probably should make an appearance.I think you need to involved more than one of the classic Realms villain groups.  Again, there's too much iconic material to neglect.  Perhaps some sort of overarching plot where multiple evil organisations (Cult of the Dragon, Zhentarim, etc etc, even maybe the Drow) vie for a single item/person/piece of knowledge/whatever.The plot - jeez, it'd depend what era you took as your starting point.  In general though, I reckon the key would probably be history.  The Realms has so damn much of it, might as well use it.  Perhaps the plot could revolve around some wizard or item with chronomantic powers, which a) would let you spend time in BOTH the spellplague era and the 'classic' Realms, and b) also possibly influence whether the Spellplague happened at all.  Or perhaps the PCs start in a small village (the Dales, presumably...), and one of the locals is a slightly creepy youngster who is prone to catching and eating small bits of wildlife.  Turns out the kid can gain a certain amount of the knowledge of any creature he eats.  Perhaps he's the result of a Zhent breeding program?  Perhaps his sick mother asks the PCs to look after him (maybe extracts a binding promise or oath, perhaps she's actually a Zhent or a devil/angel/genie in disguise or something).  Anyway, the kid runs off after being caught graverobbing, and the PCs have to go after him because they find out some nefarious organisation is after the kid to use him to interrogate even their most resistant enemies, find out forgotten secrets by eating bits of people who knew them, etc etc.  And the kid gets a bit addicted to the process - keeps looking for more and more unique and powerful creatures and individuals to 'sample'.  And at some point he gets killed, and naturally comes back as a powerful unique ghoul who now gets some of the power of those he eats.  Maybe he snacks on a bit of a manshoon-clone?  Or heads to Unther to try find a piece of Gilgeam, or some other dead god?  Everyone in the Realms wants to kill him or use him, but the PCs are either pledged to protect him or else they are the only ones who know/suspect he can be 'cured' and want to help him.  He can lead the PCs a merry dance all over the realms, offending all the local power groups, causing trouble wherever he goes, and eventually either provoke or become a major threat himself.Just brainstorming...</blockquote>

Verification