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Message: <blockquote data-quote="joethelawyer" data-source="post: 4596610" data-attributes="member: 55764">[FONT=&quot]I'm thinking of doing something a bit different, and was hoping for some ideas.  [/FONT]      [FONT=&quot]Here's the deal--our regular group is taking a break from gaming for the holidays.  It leaves my brother and I with a desire to play, but no group. What we decided was that I was going to DM a higher level series of adventures.  Here's where it gets interesting.  The setting is Greyhawk, Nyrond area.  Six years after the Greyhawk Wars.  His character is a high teens level Samurai, whose family honor has been recently lost. He is a Honorless Ronin type, essentially going through an existential crisis.  [/FONT] [FONT=&quot][/FONT] [FONT=&quot]He left his homeland because he didn't fit in, but he still held onto the belief in the family honor, among other things like arrogance and ego.  Just recently, a series of events in Japan which he had nothing to do with, resulted in his family being disgraced, and him losing his honor. He should have committed suicide, but something nags at him that his belief system is wrong, and that he shouldn't.  He is completely conflicted, and is hitting the Sake a bit too much.[/FONT]      [FONT=&quot]By way of character background, many years ago his father took part in the original Temple of Elemental Evil adventures.  The father died there, and family Katana was brought back to "Japan" when the son was a boy by a fellow adventurer of his father's, Melf Brightblade.  Unbeknownst to the son, his father left Japan because of a similar existential crisis.  Basically, he didn't feel like he belonged in a country where it was a Samurai's right and duty to kill any peasant who doesn't bow low enough to him.  Twenty or so years later, the son does the same thing.  The son takes part in the destruction of the second temple (i.e. he did Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil).  After, Melf gives the son the father's journals, describing the father's similar struggles between his morality, and his culture and beliefs.  The journals came just at the time he was about to commit ritual suicide.[/FONT]      [FONT=&quot]The journal sparked the current adventures of the son.  They are those of a wandring man in search of himself.  The adventures I have in mind are going to be a bit odd.  I see them as a combination of the original Kung Fu TV show with Kane, and some of the old school books and stories that inspired AD&D in the first place. Elric, with a touch of Fafhrd thrown in.  For the most part they will be solo adventures, with him playing the rogue Samurai, and me as DM.  It won't be as much combat focused, as it will be character focused.  Lessons learned, through readings of the journal, and his own experiences while wandering.  The lessons will be more Zen Buddhist in nature.[/FONT]      [FONT=&quot]CR of encounters and monsters are irrelevant.  Our group doesn't base XP and leveling on that anyway.  I am looking for a series of adventures and encounters where he "finds himself", changes his beliefs and comes to peace with himself.  Weird is ok.  Minor is ok.  Monsters don't have to conform to any monster manual standards.  He will be solo, but I might throw in an NPC companion here and there, ala Elric.   [/FONT]      [FONT=&quot]Along the way, he will do things through his questing which will change the situation in Nyrond and the Great Kingdom, but he will not know it at the time.  Basically he will do small things which will have a ripple effect, which he will hear about and understand the impact of later.[/FONT]      [FONT=&quot]The culmination of all of this is that after a few levels, he will come to peace with himself. He will also meet with his father, who unbeknownst to all except Melf, is alive, having been Resurrected after the original Temple adventure.  His father went on a similar "walkabout" as the son, ended up finding a monastery, and becoming a monk.  He had been tracking his son's progress, and seeing a similar soul, had Melf give him his journals.[/FONT]      [FONT=&quot]Any ideas?[/FONT]</blockquote>

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