Help Me With My Metaplot

[Pielorinho]

Given the setup, I kinda think it'd be fun to have a fifth column made up primarily of women who escaped the slaughter, and who are completely badass about it all. If you go with something like this, delay letting the PCs in on the gender of the fifth column until the last possible moment: these women will be very adept at hiding their sex and very wary about whom they let in on the secret. Until that point, they might be completely cloaked and masked whenever they're around the PCs.

Remember that different drow may work at cross-purposes to one another. Come up with some selfish motivations of different bad guys in your adventure, and clever PCs might find a way to drive a wedge between their enemies.

Is the ongoing war just vs. humans, or are the night elves engaged in another conflict? Consider opening a third front on the war at some point: either a demon invasion brought about by a foolish night-elf (or, better yet, human) wizard, or a rival drow clan, or an illithid move, or something like that.

Consider making the war ultimately winnable: maybe there's another human nation across the ocean that can be persuaded to join the war, and if they come over, they stand a good chance of crushing the drow. The PCs could travel there and have some diplomatic adventures; on the way, you'd have a chance for some nautical hijinks. Think resistance forces in Europe during WWII.

Emphasize cruelty: the PCs may find themselves hunted, and the drow might announce to the town in which the PCs hide that they'll burn one human alive every five minutes until the PCs surrender.

Daniel

 

[Creamsteak]

Everytime I read Night Elf, I start thinking of Warcraft III, which actually has a lot of good ideas in relationship to any war campaign.

A couple of the more enjoyable maps I can recall include:

Recovering Frostmourne (artifactish weapon) for use against the enemy, only to find that in fact it is a tool of manipulation from the enemy...

Trying to force Trolls, Ogres, Minotaur, and Orcs (especially the orcs) against your enemies (which really makes since if your using the core pantheon of Corellon and Gruumsh).

Fleeing across the oceans to reach another continent while fleeing from your overwhelming enemies (might be a good way to seperate the PCs from the monotony completely for a few sessions till some really vicious evil guy that has something against the PCs for their actions comes after them with his hunter-killer group).

Just being hunted by a crazed jailor/judge sounds fun...

As far as supplies go, protect the wagon adventures are easy to run. Raid the wagon adventures are much more fun though. Destroying targets of opportunity that contain extra weapons, which can arm the people, is always important, and perhaps stealing massive amounts of gold to pay a 3rd party (someone not hostile with the elves, but not necessarily friendly) for aid...

3rd Parties don't have to be land races either, they could always be something sinister from deep under the oceans... (race of serpent people)

Repairing magical facilities that allow you to scry the elves could be interesting at mid levels.

And one of my favorite missions from WCIII, ancient ruins previously plundered contain an artifact capable of defeating the enemy, but getting to it may cost far too much...

 

[mattcolville]

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 two parties should be able to eliminate the major players in the setting, the main bad guys, but it will take an army to win the war. This is a good point, and something I should make sure becomes clear to the players at some point.

Other allies can be got, but not without some effort.

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.

I didn't want to go into too much detail because I was looking for relatively simple answers; adventure hooks mostly. The Night Elves have conquered an area roughly the size of Germany in an area roughly the size of Europe. The PCs are in Germany. Though they may travel to France for aid, they're going to end up back in Germany since that's where the bad guys are.

 

[Liolel]

Another idea is that someone uncovers a portal to a forgotten demiplane. In the hands of the resitance its a safe haven, where they can hide and the night elves can't find them. But if the nightelves find it they can build a fortress their and strike down the resitance from a unattackable place. Plus theres a few unusual monsters on the demiplane to work out.

 

[Moleculo]

I don't know if this was suggested already or what, but the pcs could adventure for a time outside of the rule of the Darkelves (unless they rule everywhere on the planet) and return as powerful liberators. I think that the PCs might solve the problem on their own, since they will soon realize at this point they can't just go around liberating everyone at once; if freeing the slaves at this point only gets them rounded up and killed later, then they might want to wait until they are more powerful to start the emancipation.