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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Enkhidu" data-source="post: 1782490" data-attributes="member: 351">OKRight before the Rat's Nest crashed I had posted basically what follow's over there in the hopes that some Bastardly help would arise, but with time closing in and that treasure trove of DMing goodness gone on hiatus, I decided to bring it here for some more general critique. Hopefully y'all can bear with me while I set the stage:By the way, if you are one of my players, or even one of the stooges that my players can press into service to get a gander at this stuff, now's the time to vamoose.1) The Situation: Our group's regualr DM has gone on baby hiatus until spring at earliest, and the general consensus of the group was that I should probably take over DMing duties (as I have more experience behind the screen than everyone else). So, on fairly short notice I cobbled together a bunch of ideas I had for a campaign world and started running with it. However, after deciding on the basics (like geography, political entities, money system, religion, races allowed - things that you absolutely know are going to come up) I ran out of steam. After some hemming and hawing, I decided to try recycling some very old material (including some of the 1E classics that thankfully aren't familiar to most of the group) and starting everyone off at 7th level (because of the abbreviated time I knew we would have and to give both players and DM some breathing room - I didn't want to "accidentally" slaughter the PCs right off the bat and 7th level seems to be the most "survivable" of all the levels). 2) The Adventure: To kick things off, I started the PCs (a druid, a ranger/DWS, a cleric/paladin, and a cleric/monk) out on the frontier of an empire that's pushing its boundaries, and promptly smacked them in the face with the news that over the past two weeks several of the outermost farmsteads have been pillaged and burned, with no survivors left behind (for good measure, I made sure that the druid had a contact in area that didn't show up for their monthly get together to give them more impetus). Like good little PC's they set out to find out the why's and wherefor's, and they followed a trail that led deeper into the wilderness even farther away from civilization. Here is where I dropped in the first of my oldies - a mod from Dragon #73 called Forest of Doom. I changed a bunch about the mod (replaced the bugbears and quaggoths with  goblins across the board, took out the drow completely and replaced them with githyanki led by a foursome of very twisted elves, added a bunch of lesser-flesh-golem-like creatures, etc), but mostly simply so I could A) set hooks for things I knew I wanted to incorporate later and B) make it fit within the my home-brew more tightly. At this point, they've progressed almost to the end and I'm short for time to answer some of the bigger questions. That brings me to...3)The Problem: At this point, I know that I want to lay the following hooks: A) the Elves are indicative of how elves are in this campaign (ageless "perfect" beings that believe themselves to be as far above other races as other races are above animals; needless to say they aren't elegible to be PCs) and this particular house of elves is actively pursuing "culling the herd" in this part of the world (unless of course someone finds out and stops them).B) This House of elves has allied itself with a cult dedicated to a being akin to the Elder Elemental God and bent on forcing its way into this reality to consume it.C) The Goblins used by these elves were being supplied by one of the generals of the Empire (who has his own agendas).D) The Gith are a merc force contracted by the Elves. These Gith hail from a group that currently has in their possession the Fedifensor (yet another old Mod from Dragon that I hope to use). Here's the big problem: I'm having a hell of a time comin up with hooks that will be effective without being blatant or cheesy. So, that being said, have you guys got any ideas?</blockquote>

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