HELP! First Eberron Session Ideas!

[rootbeergnome]

Greetings everyone. I am about to start running an Eberron game and I have been trying to figure out how to start the game. The first session of any new campaign is always the critical session to me. I need to grab the player’s attention and get them excited about the game so that they will have the desire to keep coming back. I have a few ideas for over-arching plotlines already, as well as a few adventure ideas, but the beginning is the hard part for me. So tell me, how would you start an Eberron game? How did you start your Eberron game? I want something exciting, or mysterious and the ideas I am coming up with are not good enough just yet. Any help is greatly appreciated
-RB Gnome

 

[Desdichado]

The game I played in, which sadly ended too soon, started with the adventure in the back of the CS book. It's quite good, and open-ended enough that you could go just about anywhere with it that you like.

I've also just started a Pbp game set in a small town on the borders of the Eldeen Reaches, Breland and Droaam, with expectations that we'll spend a little time in the Reaches investigating some hurky Cthulhu-like entity hiding in the Gloaming, and then start whizzing around Khorvaire looking into some other nasty fantasy X-files like conspiracies and whatnot.

Anyway, I guess I could give you some more direct advice if I knew what your overarching plotlines where that you have in mind.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Start with background; why are the players together? Where did they come from? What is there history? This may be most of your first session unless the players have already been given information on Ebberron. The easiest thing is to group concept them, Mournland displacements looking for a new life meet in a tavern or on the road to Sharn.


Don't forget to let them do some work.

 

[derbacher]

If you're starting in Sharn, then the adventure in the ECS is very good, as Josh said. Starts with a dead body in the rain and a mystery to solve. Any other ideas would have to do with where on Korvaire you are starting. Give us a place, we'll give an idea.

 

[shilsen]

I'm running two Eberron games, both originating in Sharn, which started as follows:

1) "Roll for initiative!" We'd worked out while doing character backgrounds that the PCs (who started at 5th lvl) were a group of Brelish ex-military who'd taken to adventuring and come to Sharn. I started them off with the warforged kicking in the door of a warehouse as the group pursued a trio of miscreants. After the fight, we worked out why they were pursuing the trio & took it from there.

2) "Roll for initiative!" (Surprise!) The game started with the group, travelling on a ship to Sharn, being attacked by sahuagin. The group consisted of Cyran refugees and a paladin formerly from Karrnath, and the sahuagin attack gave them one among various plots to pursue as they tried to establish themselves in Sharn.

 

[Henry]

...I need to grab the player’s attention and get them excited about the game so that they will have the desire to keep coming back....So tell me, how would you start an Eberron game? How did you start your Eberron game? I want something exciting, or mysterious and the ideas I am coming up with are not good enough just yet.

My Eberron campaign last year opened up with the PCs on the field officers' staff of a Cyran Legion on the last day of the Last War, 994YK. The PC's (only first level) were on the officers' staff because they were the last ones left who were "command quality" (Not 1st or 2nd level Warriors). Their Sergeant, Dolom (from the "Forgotten Forge") tasked them with helping him muster the last of the forces. The players had to plan how their 400 warriors and catapults to best hold out against 600 Karrn Skeletons and Zombies making a marine beachhead assault on the coastline, in the early morning mist.

They sent their stealthy members behind enemy lines, gathered intel, even managed to infiltrate using Hide from Undead spells. They organized a pretty good defense, but ultimately were losing ground, before the first shockwave hit. A flashing white light, a gust of wind so powerful that hundreds of men and undead were thrown to the ground, and a dead-grey wall of mist that rolled from the inland to the coast.

Captain Dolom, sensing doom, surrendered to the Karrnathi in exchange for safe passage for his remaining soldiers out of Cyre. Thus, the PCs became prisoners of war for six months...

...The next adventure opens two years later, with them at 2nd level, and finding out that the boss of the mercenary company they worked for had cooked the books before he died, and they were down to their last Gold Pieces... when a mysterious client walks through the door...

 

[rootbeergnome]

MY PLAYERS STAY OUT! SPOILER AHEAD!













See, thats sort of the problem, I dont know where I am starting the game yet

Lets see, maybe this will help. Confirmed races and classes for players are:
Warforged Fighter/Artificer
Kalashtar Psion
Changeling ?

Also, I have been giving the players some general info on Eberron to get them aquainted with the world to an extent. I sent them a character questionnaire to get the thinking about their characters as well. Alright, as for overarching plotlines....whew, I could write a lot, here are some basics.

Plot 1:The Lord of Blades is seeking out components for a creation forge and is willing to go to war to ensure that his people have the right to reproduce like all the other races. He has agents all over Korvaire and the PCs may end up working for him if they arent careful. He is also working on a huge warforged vehicle (sort of like a mech-type vehicle, kind of along the lines of Escaflowne) Anyway, I am thinking that he will hire the PCs (through another person of course) to find/steal pieces and blueprints he needs to complete his projects, or to sabotage governments that are staunchly opposed to warforged reproduction.

Plot 2: Mind Flayers are using psionic artifacts (ancient petrified elder brains) to wipe the minds of kidnap victims and make them part of the hive-mind. The hive mind is growing and spreading throughout the nation/continent. The mind flayers use their agents (now gifted with psionic abilities, sort of like the "Low-Men from "Hearts in Atlantis" maybe) to gather information and power. They are searching for one of the hidden gates to Xoriat (or possibly just to one of the prisons of the Daelkyr). The gate is surrounded by a pyramid made of an alien metal that is unbreachable (possibly built by celestials?) They seek a sword (I need an origin for this) to cut open the pyramid and free their masters once more. The PCs will have to travel to the mournland, at the request of an aging Cyran noble, to retreave the noble's family heirlooms. The sword is among them (how did it get there? I need to figure that out too) Anyway, before they leave, the PCs discover that the noble is murdered and his home is ransacked. His face is frozen in a look of pure terror. Now the PC's will be hunted by the mind flayers and their hive-minded servants. They must get the sword, and find a way to destroy it (I need a method of destruction too)

Plot 3: The PCs will gain a mentor of some kind, the sooner the better. Throughout the course of the campaign this mentor will provide information and assistance. He will be the PCs primary supporter on their way to becoming heroes. Little do they know that their mentor is some type of immortal creature that seeks to devour souls and hopes to become a demi-god and remain immortal. He has devoured the souls of the world's greatest heroes throughout the ages to remain immortal and gain more power. Once the players have become the world's heroes, all the hopes of the peoples of the world will be focused on them, all that hope translates into a powerful force of energy that is tied to the souls of the heroes. The BBEG wants to devour that energy and become a god made flesh. So, throughout the campaign, I am thinking that the players could hear about the heroes of old and their exploits and all that, with emphasis of the greatness and great deeds. And then, when the players finally find out the true identity of their mentor, the only way to kill him is to find a way into the extra-dimensional space within the body of the BBEG where his souls are stored and systematically fight the souls of all the world's dead heroes, thus releasing them to Doluhr the land of the dead and taking away the power of the BBEG, making him vulnerable.

So I need the mentor, who he is, what he does, I cant figure that part out. I also would like to make him responsible for a lot of events in the world (possibly he caused the destruction of Cyre because the Last War was killing all the world's heroes? Or because he wanted to try to capture the souls of so many dead?) He could also be influencing the LOB to start another conflict to bring forth heroes.

I would also like to have a plot using the Quori, but cant figure that one out either. Any suggestions for plots and other things would be helpful as well. I just really really need a starting point.
Here are some first session starts that I have considered:
1.) PCs are guards of a caravan containing unknown goods (pieces of a dismantled creation forge being relocated by house Cannith). The session begins with battle cries and cries of alarm. The caravan is under attack by bandits, some warforged, who seek to take the wagons.

2.) As number 1, but takes place on a lightning rail car.

3.) As number 1, but PCs are guards on an airship. The warforged have killed the pilots and released the elemental bound to it. They steal the necessary parts or all of it and leap off the ship, using feather tokens as parachutes. The PCs are now in a ship that is going down fast and must find a way off the ship in a hurry or must find a way to crash land it. They also have to deal with an enraged elemental (which type is best?). Then they will have to walk out of some wilderness area maybe, which could be an adventure in and of itself (where should they crash?) If they can pull it off, House Cannith will likely hire them to investigate the dissapearance of the parts or to set up sting operations to catch would be thieves.

4.) The party is approached by the old fella from Cyre who wants to recover family heirlooms, but I would rather use this later in the campaign because the mournland is a nasty place

5.) Insert your ideas here

Hope this helps!

 

[BiggusGeekus]

When starting a campaign I try to get the player to decide how things start. That way they can decide what they're doing together and it's a lot less forced.

 

[Rel]

As for starting out, I did the "Roll Initiative!" thing and kicked things off with a good, ole-fashioned barroom brawl (the bar in question was in Lower Dura in Sharn). During the fight, things took a turn for the nasty when I had the Goblins in the bar start coup de gracing the unconscious Halflings. It turned out that the PC's had unwittingly blundered into a gang war between Daask and the Boromar Clan.

Afterwards, the PC's were questioned by the guard to determine their involvement and the guardsmen made sure to find out where the PC's could be found if they needed to be questioned further. Later they were summoned back and the Sergeant (good ole' Dolom again) who asked the PC's if they would conduct a repraisal raid on a Daask 'Dreamlily Den' to show them that they'd best not just bust into Lower Dura and start murdering Halflings. The PC's did this only to find out later that it wasn't actually Sergeant Dolom who sent them on the raid but in fact a Changeling hireling of the Boromar Clan.

The noteriety of this and subsequent adventures eventually brought the group to the attention of a significant NPC who would become their patron of sorts. He was a Kalashtar who posed as a greedy and extravagant human merchant while he pursued his secret agenda to subvert the Riedran rule of Sarlona. He eventually accompanied the PC's on a trip to Xen' Drik to try and recover artifacts there that were some sort of "doomsday device" used by the Giant Empire to defeat the invasion of the Daelkyr. He also thought that some version of this device might have been what caused the devastation of Cyre and the creation of the Mournlands.

During the trip to Xen' Drik the party suffered an untimely TPK but the mentor survived and I have had him disguise himself again as a foul-mouthed Half Orc who is pursuing the same agenda with the new party.

This last bit about the Kalashtar patron sounds similar to what you are looking for in terms of a Quori plot.

 

[CronoDekar]

What I did my first session was throw the characters right into a murder mystery right out on the rainy walkways of Sharn. Also, one of the ideas I've heard that I like is starting the game out during the Last War with appropriate events and foreshadowing relating to the plot, and then bringing them to the current time.