[Help] Eberron Adventures past Grasp of....

[NeuroZombie]

Let me preface this post by saying that I am a DM of nearly 20 years and currently have just about enough time to read one module (maybe all of it...LOL) before play begins and I am just looking for a few ideas to keep my campaign going past the Grasp of the Emerald Claw module.

I am currently preparing the Eberron series of adventures, but looking towards the end of the modules series as I do so. My group has played the Forgotten Forge out of the core book, and we are getting ready to start Shadows of the Last War. I intend to run through the series and then move on from there.

The group in pretty unconventional: A human spellthief, changeling swashbuckler, warforged fighter, human monk, elven druid (when the player is available) and a possible shifter ranger who hasn't actually played yet. No clerics or wizards.... I also play a frey (from oathbound) bard as an npc who, as a bard, can fill in world details for the players as needed.

As of the end of the Forgotten Forge, the players have officially formed an adventuring organization called the Stormforge Agency, which is named after the warforged, Storm (so named by the other players since they met the warforged during a rain storm in the Forgotten Forge module.) They legalized the agency through House Sivis and put their $$ in the bank under the organizations name. Only five of the characters are considered the founders of the Agency and thus have legal access to the agencies holdings, which ammount to about 3000 gold at the moment.

Anyway, thats the set-up and I was wondering what any of you have done for adventures past the Grasp of the Emerald Claw. Of course, I am going to be bringing the Stromforge Agency to prominence at that point as the focus of the campaign as they should have appropriate resources to do so by then.

- Have any of you played in a campaign (or ran one) that consisted of a legal adventuring entity before? If so, how did it go and what did you do?

- I want to involve some of the Eberron organizations into the ongoing campaign as well, any suggestions that you think would work with the campaign concept?

- Has anyone written and/or played in a campaign that went into Xen'Drik yet?

 

[Klaus]

One idea for adventuring after GotEC:


[sblock] Races of Eberron mentions that some followers of the Lord of Blades are building a huuuuuge warforged body in the Mournlands. They call themselves the Godforged, and are supposedly building the body for the first warforged god. So we know that:
- The Lord of Blades wants the pattern badly (since day 1);
- The pattern in actually an ancient proto-warforged entity named Xulo;
- The Lord of Blades is building a warforged of titanic proportions.

Add them together and you have the Lord of Blades building a body for Xulo to become the god of the warforged, with the LoB as its messiah. All right in the middle of the Five Nations, in completely inhospitable environment.

I guess this all hinged on what the PCs will do with the pattern after GotEC. [/sblock]

 

[NeuroZombie]

That sounds like a great idea! I have not picked up Races of Eberron yet ($$ issues) but that is on my very short list. Thanks!

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Eberron Modules...

I ran a group through that entire series of modules. Unfortunately it was on a short trip to the Georgia area so I was not able to turn the series into a campaign.

If I had, there are many potentials springing out of the story lines themselves. Every module has at least three organizations and at least one interesting locale that can be fleshed out and used for future hooks.

The other swords from Whisper of the Vampire Blade
The ancient ruin in the same.
The Black Lanterns.
Any of the three factions in House Cannith
The deal struck during the trip south in the Grasp of the Emerald Claw
{BTW, I would suggest Keith Baker's alternate encounter for that.. check his site}
Grab The Towers of Sharn and look into the underworld organizations that will be interested in 'investing' in an upcoming adventure party.

As a freelance organization, lots of interesting things can happen. At low levels, they should be used as pawns in the scemes of more powerful organizations, usually without thier knowledge. At higher levels, they might even endanger themselves by being *too* good, or possibly even be hired on a mission to get them out of circulation for a bit.

But.. that depends alot on your group. Do they want to get into schemes and powerplays, or do they just want it to be easy for you to provide dungeon delving adventures?
Or something in between. Without knowing your group its hard to offer up good advice.

My preference would be to embroil them into a massive, behind the scenes, War between houses. With the Houses using intermediaries, such as Thieves Guilds and Adventurer's, to be the front lines.. and maintain plausible deniability. Most of which would be invisible to the players until/if they started snooping around. {but you may have inferred that tendency from my screen name }

My current campaign is staying out of Xendrik for now, focusing on the Breland/Droam border and a massive story arc background of a push by the bad guys to shatter the seals and bring Xoriat back into phase. I have 2 Druids, 2 Rangers, 1 Monk, 1 Mage, and a Rogue..
One of the Druids is a Half-Orc Guardian. So far I am using published modules, altho the end state will be a rescripted version of the Deserts of Desolation.. I hope I have 3 more levels before I have to have that fixed!
They are only just gaining 2nd level, so no major players have been exposed yet. But an Illithid Elder Mind, 2 Cults of the Dragon Below, and the Church of the Silver Flame are relatively prominent from the start. I will be dragging a couple Houses and the trio of Karnnath, Valenar, and Talenta into the mess as it goes... as well as a Dragon or two at the end.

Anyway. I hope this helps some.

 

[jaults]

The deal struck during the trip south in the Grasp of the Emerald Claw
{BTW, I would suggest Keith Baker's alternate encounter for that.. check his site}

Do you perchance have a pointer to this? I've searched his site (http://bossythecow.com) and cannot find anything about alternate encounters in GotEC...

Thanks,
Jason

 

[Rauol_Duke]

Anyway, thats the set-up and I was wondering what any of you have done for adventures past the Grasp of the Emerald Claw. ...snip...
- Has anyone written and/or played in a campaign that went into Xen'Drik yet?

If you're looking for more published Eberron stuff, try the Shards of Eberron three part series in the pages of Dungeon (Issues 123-125, I believe). They seem pretty generic for my tastes, but they are for a 7th level party and the second one takes place in Xen'Drik.

 

[VorpalBunny]

I'm currently wrapping up Grasp of the Emerald Claw and will be starting the Shards series from Dungeon after GotEC.

The cool thing is, while Shards of Eberron is written for 6th-level characters (like Grasp of the Emerald Claw) it gives hints on scaling the adventure so it can easily be run post-GotEC if necessary.

I definitely recommend it.

 

[jaults]

The deal struck during the trip south in the Grasp of the Emerald Claw
{BTW, I would suggest Keith Baker's alternate encounter for that.. check his site}

Do you perchance have a pointer to this? I've searched his site (http://bossythecow.com) and cannot find anything about alternate encounters in GotEC...

Thanks,
Jason

Ah ha! Perhaps this is what you meant? On Bruce Cordell's site, he has this set of alternate encounters for GotEC:
http://homepage.mac.com/macbrucecordell/B1283663648/C608165187/E1610916623/index.html

Jason

 

[Klaus]

Which makes more sense, since Bruce Cordell wrote GotEC, not Keith Baker.