help me with an FR mini-STAP [spoilers!]

[freyar]

Warning! This thread will contain spoilers for the Savage Tide, probably some other Dungeon adventures, and some of the WotC free adventure downloads. And whatever others suggest, so you've been told...

Ok, this idea seemed sufficiently weird that I thought I'd ask here for ideas and maybe start up a progress log over in Plots, Places, & Rogues, too, if there's interest.

My situation: I finally have a chance to get a full-size (read 4 players w/no DMPCs) D&D group of players who are mostly newbies. We expect to meet about twice a month, and I'd like the campaign to last about a year. The constraints: It needs to have puzzles/mysteries, pretty cut and dry morality, and probably a fair amount of non-combat encounters. Also, the setting I know the most about is FR, and I (a) don't have the money for another right away and (b) don't have time to homebrew. So it's FR.

My thoughts so far: Demons or part-demons seems like pretty clearly evil opponents , so I'll go with those. This leads me to the daemonfey (half-fiends from House Dlardrageth and fey'ri) and the Silver Marches (Alustriel's country around Silverymoon, if you're not familiar with it). This gives a good range for PC race options, and the PCs can start out in the Silver Marches' army. In casting about for a plot, I thought about something based roughly on Savage Tide because I'm not likely to run that anytime soon and the folks at Dungeon have put in a lot of great adventure design.

That brings me to my question: how to try to make this fit? Any suggestions are welcome, and my tentative ideas follow.

 

[freyar]

So, just to get started, I thought I'd map over some of the characters and organizations from STAP to my campaign.

• Lavinia=half-elf woman in Silverymoon who requests some aid from the PC's commander in getting into her disappeared parents' vault.
• Vanthus=her full sun elf brother who's fallen in with whatever elf group it is that wants to get rid of all non-elves (can't remember the name) and the fey'ri.
• BBEG/Demogorgon=Sarya Dardragleth, plotting a rise to godhood involving something like the savage tide (this part needs work). She'll be aided and abetted by an aspect of Grazz't (in the CR 10-12 range); this is Grazz't's renewed plan to get a foothold on Toril.
• Abyss= (roughly) High Forest esp. around Hellgate Keep.
• Crimson Fleet=fey'ri and/or that other elf organization. Allies will include a tribe or two of tanarruka (sp?) who probably end up being the first victims of the savage tide.
• Isle of Dread=partly the Evermoors and partly some of the ruins in the High Forest. Not sure.

As far as adventures go, I'd probably start with getting into Lavinia's vault (from There is No Honor), followed with the WotC freebie The Burning Plague (modified to make the orc cleric a demon cultist, replacing the undead w/demons and maybe the orc w/a tanarruk). That will lead to an investigation of the orc/tanarruk demon cult. I'm undecided from there, except that I think maybe I'd like to fit in the Dungeon adventure The Muster of Morach Tor somewhere at the appropriate level. This may involve a "colony" established by Lavinia's family in the Evermoors or something like that.

 

[freyar]

*bump*

Come on EN World, don't fail me now!

 

[Quartz]

Why are you translating it so much? Can't you simply use some port city like Waterdeep and put the Isle of Dread somewhere southish, like Chult?