Help Me With My Metaplot

[mattcolville]

I need some help.

Here's the scoop: I just started a game at work. The metaplot of my setting is very heavy. I want to make the game feel as normal as possible within that framework, without compromising the heaviness of the metaplot.

The Night Elves have taken over the area. Humans are slaves. Towns are now run by their minions. The Drow have killed all the women, and any men younger than 15 or older than 50. They work the humans on projects for the ongoing war, and seem willing to spend them all unto death.

The PCs have freed the town they started in, and are wondering what to do with the civilians, who would certainly be killed by the Elves if they were found.

So, that's a problem. They'll come up with a good solution that won't be without risk, and they could certainly go on, fighting the Night Elves, acting as a resistance force.

But I'm afraid that will get...monotonous. I want to give them the same variety they'd get in a normal game, but with this metaplot layered over everything.

I guess what I'm looking for is bullet-point style adventure hooks that make sense in the context of this Company, journeying through the countryside, fighting the Night Elf rebellion. How do I present all the normal tropes of D&D adventuring, allow the PCs to experience them, but in the context of the rule of the Night Elves?

 

[Creamsteak]

Throwing in some non-war-with-elves events that would have accurred with or without the fighting might help. Perhaps a [insert standard creature here] starts attacking Elves and men in the region, and becomes a definite harassment threat to the PCs. Perhaps a Dragon and a Dungeon are involved, perhaps .

And adding 3rd parties to the warfront could help things, swaying the battle to the left and right. Oh, and big bad evil guy running the whole show...

But war, in itself, has a lot of different types of missions. Protect the people, acquisition supplies, attack a target of opportunity, espionage, blah, and blah blah.

 

[Derulbaskul]

Are the night elves the same as drow (I know you use both terms)? What are their goals? Is it just simple conquest or is their something else (which your mentioning of a larger scale metaplot tends to indicate there is)?

Why did the night elves kill all the women?

What about a fifth column of potential allies?

What about ancient sites containing lost artefacts that would be useful to the night elves in their war efforts? Perhaps the party can race the night elves through a dungeon-style adventure?

 

[alsih2o]

-the (mythological creature) is soon to awaken, it will attack the elves and not men if the party gets (old dusty item from tomb)

- wandering mosters become a special problem, because leaving behind critter bodies around here draws attention

- travelling deep into (hole in the ground x) may bring you to dwarves who can help. a wrong turn may find more drow..

 

[arwink]

I think one of the keys of running a guerilla war style campaign is breaking the monotony - while there are a lot of different kinds of missions available in a war situation, they do tend to blur into one another if the only thing the PC's fight are Night Elves. Regardless of what you do with classes, an elf remains an elf. Look at the mission goals and make sure that setting and mindset have an influence on how and what the PC's fight. If they're raiding slave pits, put in sections where the Night Elf necromancers have been experimenting. If they're trying to break supply lines, make sure that there are guard animals and other weirdness to fight beyond a steady supply of Night Elf warriors. The PC's might take to the battlefield, only to discover that the night elves are sending forth an army of mutated slave races to destroy their opponents rather than doing the job themselves...

Give the night elves allies, with different movitations to the elven leadership. Demons or devils work well, because it not only gives you a wide range of sub-species and templates to use, but because extra-dimensional travellers can probably provide the Night Elves with a range of strange creatures as gifts. Heck, it's probably the only excuse you'll ever get to use some of the weirder creatures from the MM and have it make sense . This also means that the PC's have something to engage with beyond the elves decision to enslave the other races. Two different goals means there are schisms in the command structure the PC's can learn about and exploit. It means that one side may attempt to betray the other at a later date in the campaign, completely changing all the assumptions the players have made about their enemy (especially if the Night Elves are on the loosing side of a coup).

It's discovered that night-elf agents may be among the human population, feeding the enemy information. Works best at lower levels if you want to use normal humans who have betrayed their race for personal gain, but night elf infiltrators with magic to mask their features could easily do the job at higher levels. Could make for an interesting RP based adventure, where the players ability to swing a sword is of little use.

 

[Clint]

- Some outcast night elves (elves with a conscience) try to help the party with information on supply lines, items, etc.
- A night elf female and a human male run off together to try a life of peace (due to love, religious conversion, etc). Both the humans and the night elves want to hunt them down, the PCs can do what they like.
- Have the night elves use one weapon/magic exclusively (-tons- of weak undead, poison cloud arrows, etc), the group needs to figure a way to counter that tactical advantage and even the fight.

Good luck!

-Clint

 

[mattcolville]

But war, in itself, has a lot of different types of missions. Protect the people, acquisition supplies, attack a target of opportunity, espionage, blah, and blah blah.

While I wasn't thinking of this stuff, this is good. How would you describe these war missions in one sentance?

 

[mattcolville]

Are the night elves the same as drow (I know you use both terms)? What are their goals? Is it just simple conquest or is their something else (which your mentioning of a larger scale metaplot tends to indicate there is)?

Why did the night elves kill all the women?

What about a fifth column of potential allies?

What about ancient sites containing lost artefacts that would be useful to the night elves in their war efforts? Perhaps the party can race the night elves through a dungeon-style adventure?

I love the idea of the PCs racing through a dungeon against the Night Elves who are, indeed, Drow.

There is a fifth column, another PC party. They will meet and plan at some point.

The Night Elves killed all the women because they don't want more humans.

 

[mattcolville]

These are all good suggestions/observations.

 

[Delemental]

There is a fifth column, another PC party. They will meet and plan at some point.

Hmm. Not to disparage the skills of either party, but this seems a paltry resistance to a force that was able to subjugate the entire human race. Perhaps one of the missions they could undertake would be to locate and gain the assistance of a more sizable ally, such as the dwarves? You could even work this into a plot outside the guerilla war - while exploring an old tomb, the party discovers legends of another race of beings, who left the world but promised to return 'when Night falls upon the land'. Then the party could go on quests to learn about this mysterious race, where they are located, and then travel there to convince them that it is time to return.

The Night Elves killed all the women because they don't want more humans.

What you do with this fact depends on what you really mean by it.

If you literally mean that every single human female has been killed, then this war is unwinnable. Even if the humans throw off the yoke of the Night Elves, they are doomed to extinction, while the Night Elves will continue to have offspring. The best you could hope for is to ensure the extinction of the Night Elves through similar means.

Unless... one of the problems the party has to deal with besides fighting the Night Elves is how to save the human race. Perhaps they need to find some artifact or epic spell that can bring back thousands of people from the dead simultaneously.

If, however, what you meant is that most of the human women have been killed, then part of what your PCs will have to do is locate and protect the reamining females. Perhaps they establish a secret city somewhere where the women live, hidden from the elves. Later in the campaign, as the humans begin to get the upper hand, you could add some political drama by having the women realize that they like living together, and don't want to go back to the men. Perhaps the women want positions of power in the human kingdoms, setting up confrontations with the male rulers who have just been returned to power in their own lands. The PCs, as recognized 'war heroes', are called in to arbitrate.