House of Exile::. Recap from my All-Drow campaign

[UniversalMonster]

Since DDXP some friends and I have been working on this "all Drow" campaign, set in the Forgotten Realms. Actually, we set it up in the Living Forgotten Realms- we are using MyRealms adventure templates to build the individual adventures, and share some DMing responsibilities.. and then the structure that we use to bond the players together is LFR Adventuring Companies (which can be used to create player-driven organizations.. in this case- a drow house). Plus, the MyRealms templates have a very easy to understand treasure and XP budget, and they are just easy to work with.

We put together a plan for it, which includes certain IC standards for admission into the Adventuring Company (you have to play a drow or one of the slaves of the drow, more on that later).. and "colored in" some of the background of the Underdark region we are using (Great Bhaerynden from the 4e Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide).

The original plan is to center the campaign around an exiled drow house, but because one of my key collaborators is unavailable for a couple of weeks, I went ahead and kicked off a "prequel" adventure that happens when the house is still a ranked house of the drow city of T'lindhet.

So the characters for this spur of the moment first adventure were:

Dravanna, female drow warlord (and slave-wrangler)
Her backstory is that she manages many of the non-drow guards of the house. Played by Amanda. She has only one eye, and some horrible scarring. Specifically, female drow have a higher social ranking than male drow, we are playing that up.

Bjorkus, minotaur fighter ("magically bound into servitude")- a sort of musclebound gladiator that acts as Dravanna's 'pet' and bodyguard. Played by James (James and Amanda are married in RL).

Tebrynn, male drow assassin. Tebrynn is a younger male character who has become something of a favorite amongst the high-ranking priestesses. Played by Mark.

Lady Cyntelle, female drow cleric. Female drow priestesses have the highest rank in drow society, and Lady Cyntelle is meant to be a "middle aged" and sweet motherly type on the outside who is actually cruel and dangerous. Played by Joe.

One of the main themes we wanted to use in this campaign was "the sensuous nature of the drow". Both romance and rivalry were meant to be somewhat highlighted from within drow society. So I wanted to create a way (for plot purposes anyhow) to set up a sort of web (pun intended) of relationships that would affect things.

For Dravanna, there's the obvious relationship with her "pet minotaur", but when I offered to set her up with either a romance or a rival, she said "could it be both? the same person.."

So we used an NPC from a rival drow house (The Dark Weavers of Veltran) as her romantic/rival- a male drow dilletante known as Aethl'yss. We decided they had been in and out of a (forbidden) relationship in the past and doublecrossed each other on previous occasions.

For Bjorkus, we skipped him, because he's a minotaur. (ha!) But eventually I may have something for him set up. Anyhow, he and Dravanna sort of come as a unit.

For Tebrynn we had already established a connection between him and another female drow PC that was not going to be present. But I couldn't let that stand, so even if Tebrynn were interested in a certain Lady Ardulae, one of my wickedest NPcs (Mistress Iliamyrna) was interested in him. So I told him she was always calling him into her chambers to re-arrange furniture and inviting him to various drow social functions and such. It's hard to refuse one of the high ranking members of society.

For Lady Cyntelle, we had talked a little bit about a connection, but couldn't settle on anything better than a rivalry with Mistress Iliamyrna herself as well. Joe (the player) had a pretty good plan for keeping the rivalry undercover- she wanted to be outwardly friendly (Iliamyrna is her superior, after all), and then secretly working against her.


Once we got all of this out of the way, we began...

(to be continued...! Comments and criticism welcome)

 

[UniversalMonster]

First thing, I wanted to set out some local rumors- the setting was House Rilyntel's demesne in the Drow City of T'lindhet. There was an ongoing situation in T'lindhet where plaguechanged creatures (fell taints and undead in this case) were constantly attacking the city and breaching some of the gateways. A fiend had recently arrived in the city and promised to cleanse the plague-cave in exchange for a great sacrifice.. (to which most drow houses were on board with). The matron of Rilyntel was rumored not to be interested in the sacrifice- the majority of Rilyntel's workforce were involved with silkweaving operations.

Nevertheless Dravanna took note in character as part of her backstory was managing the enslaved guards and gladiators.

Bjorkus made a streetwise check so he heard the same rumor through the servant network.
Tebrynn made his streetwise check as well.

And Lady Cyntelle had heard it as a subject of much gossip (including gossip about the fiend, who had become something of a local celebrty in T'lindhet).

To start the actual game: I use a technique called "Scene-ing" - where we let each individual PC say what they are up to on the adventure. It isn't meant to take a long time, but it let's the PCs establish a little bit about their character and get some individual attention without going into too much detail or taking too much time.

So I went around the table counterclockwise.

First was Bjorkus (and Dravanna, who was sitting next to him). Bjorkus decided he was practicing in the arena against a group of other slaves- He's a massively powerful minotaur so made up a little scene together of him doing that while Dravanna watched from the amphitheatre seating and took notes on which slaves to possibly "let go of" if the matron changed her position on the Great Sacrifice. So we did a little roleplaying scene there.

Tebrynn and Lady Cyntelle- we also put in the same scene- a group of drow priestesses (Lady Cyntelle being lower ranking) , Mistress Ilianmyrna, Lady Ardulae (Tebrynn's "love interest"), and an elderly drow crone known as Felynxtra (the pale sage- an NPC) were meeting in Mistress Ilianmyrna's chambers for a sort of tea party to discuss the rumors of the Matron's refusal to take part in the sacrifice. Tebrynn was drawn in because Ilianmyrna always tries to keep him nearby (she has plans to groom him as her personal assassin perhaps..) so they had him there serving wine and so on.

During this scene, Ilianmyrna expressed her dismay at the possibility of House Veltran (a rival house) using the Matron's refusal as an excuse to have the house purged or lowered in ranking amongst the 16 houses of T'lindhet. She had composed a letter she wanted delivered to "a sympathetic ear" in Veltran.. the drow Aethl'yss (that was Dravana's interest!) so this little roleplaying scene went on, and she asked Lady Cyntelle and Tebrynn to deliver the encrypted letter for her.

Once out of the room, Cyntelle secretly broke the seal and noted the code used.. she used her insight to figure out how to decrypt it, (it was an offer of treachery) and quickly set out a plan to forge a new letter that sent a similar message but suggested that should Veltran attempt a purge, it use a well-trapped and guarded passage into Rilyntel rather than the passage suggested by the treacherous Ilianmyrna. The problem at that point was making it beleivable.

She drew Tebrynn into her plan and asked him to forge the new message, and also to steal Ilianmyrna's seal to make it more authentic.

(This was sort of an extended improvised skill challenge- the players came up with their plan, and I basically implemented it).

So Tebrynn was sent to infiltrate Mistress Ilianmyrna's boudoir and steal the seal, while Cyntelle went to go get Dravanna and Bjorkus (since Dravanna was Aethl'yss rival and Bjorkus was a good bodyguard).

Tebrynn had to roll two skill checks. The first was stealth (the little wine party in Ilianmyrna's chambers was still ongoing) so he had to slip into her chamber from an outside window. The second check was a thievery check to retrieve the seal without leaving any clues. THIS check he failed. So, while it was trivial to escape with the seal, he left a distinctive set of footprints outside the window.

The skill challenge was not failed though- it was ongoing. If the challenge failed, one of the consequences would be Tebrynn's identity as the thief would be known. He escaped and ran back to the amphitheater where Cyntelle, Bjorkus, and Dravanna were.

So once the entire party was united, Tebrynn wrote out the new message under Lady Cyntelle's direction. This was a thievery (forgery) check, but I told him not to roll it. I put a circled success and a circled failure in each of the columns.

"You get to roll it when the letter is actually read".

They used the seal and the code book, which effectively "signed" the missive as Ilianmyrna.. and went into the city to locate House Veltran and Aethl'yss of Veltran. Lady Cyntelle pocketed the real message for eventual delivery to the Matron at the appropriate moment.

So they make their way through the city and arrive at the gates of Veltran. When the Veltra drow recognize their rival house they set off the automatic gate intruders (a low level encounter with clay scouts and energy motes- reskinned in this case as gothic stone cherubim and bats that decorated the outer walls of the Veltran drow compound).

So we had a little combat (this was the first..) with the group against these constructs but after defeating the cherubim, Lady Cyntelle called for the drow of Veltran to shut down the rest of the defenses.. (they were watching from just inside the gate and commenting/taunting during the battle) and I allowed a skill check after the "expensive" stone cherubim were reduced to rubble. A rival drow priestess from Veltran was summoned and she and Cyntelle ahd a bit of an argument over where Aethl'yss was.. but eventually she told the group that they had to go back into the city where Aethl'yss was celebrating his birthday at the Howling cabaret.

(to be continued, feel free to comment...)

 

[UniversalMonster]

We established that the Howling Cabaret was a nightspot frequented by "younger" drow- a lounge of decadence, immorality and debauchery. So both Tebrynn and Dravanna were of an age to have visited there.. Lady Cyntelle would have been a bit older- unless Joe sort of set her up more cougary. But again, this is a first adventure, so we let that go for now.

Tebrynn tried to lead the group to the Howling Cabaret but failed his streetwise check (that was two failures on the skill challenge by this time.. it was still ongoing). Instead he took the players into one of the bad parts of T'lindhet-an industrial sort of area with tanneries and houseless drow lived.

So that was two failures...(not counting the unrolled forgery check..)

Dravanna took over - she had been invited to the Howling Cabaret by Aethl'yss several times but was always too busy.. but she took over and led the group directly to the place.

The group went inside and I described some of the sensuous music and debauchery- female drow dragging their hapless male counterparts into silk-veiled alcoves, a Klaus Nomi-style chanteuse.. etc. And everyone giving Lady Cyntelle a wide berth.

They finally located Aethl'yss.. but not before Dravanna spotted him with his arm around a much younger drow hussy. Aethl'yss awkwardly tried to introduce his new friend, glares were exchanged, and the group delivered their letter finally. There was a fun little roleplaying scene here.

There was a planned subplot here where Aethl'yss wanted to invite the players on a little hunting expedition into the Grave-Deeps of T'lindhet (where I had an undead encounter planned), but the group was much more interested in returning to Rilyntel and possibly giving the real letter to the Matron.

So they made their way back to House Rilyntel's demesne, and we reached the point where the group had seven success and 2 failures.. and the unread forged letter would be the deciding factor in the skill challenge. I stopped asking for skill checks that affected the Skill challenge at that point.

On the way back, they passed by a breach in the outer wall.. and suddenly plaguechanged fell taints began to cross through in an ambush. A pair of thought eaters, a lasher, and a pulsar - all affected by the distinctive bright blue energy of the plagueland. Tebrynn also spotted some distinctive pottery shards and clues that the breach in the wall had been recent.

So we had our final encounter- which ended with half of the group bloodied, and everyone having a pretty good idea of their powers. Lady Cyntelle turned out to be a serviceable tank with just her dagger.. and the the minotaur hilariously whiffed a lot of rolls. The assassin Tebrynn did some amazing moves.. and Dravanna and Bjorkus worked well as a team. Dravanna's inspiring words to her pet were "Tell me again why I even let you live?" (haha, spend a healing surge +1d6)

Both Dravanna and Bjorkus are using new rules from martial Power 2 (the replacement warlord feature and the brawl-fighter build)

So this was a cool combat.

During the battle Bjorkus was immobilized, dazed and slowed at different poiints, but he he caught a glimpse of a figure escaping through an adjoining tunnel.. and after the battle the group gathered evidence:

The pottery shards were infernal, and contained an alchemical substance that had plague-taint on it. Hoofprints in the mud on the far side of the tunnel seemed to indicate a medium-sized devil of some kind.

The clues were starting to fit together: the plague attacks were being faked. A devil was involved. The geat sacrifice could be a hoax.

The player character group returned to Rilyntel with the intention of delivering this news, and we wrapped up for the night with another short roleplaying scene back in the Rilyntel compound (Lady Cyntelle took Iliamyrna's note to the House Matron).


So that was our first adventure.

(Comments and criticism welcome)

 

[Joshua Randall]

Enjoying this so far, but it really should go in Story Hour, methinks.

I play LFR and have a female drow rogue PC, so she'd fit into this campaign pretty well. (Her comment about AGLA 1-5, wherein you help a goblin reclaim his lair: "Why are we helping this slave-race instead of, y'know, enslaving him?")

Dravanna's inspiring words to her pet were "Tell me again why I even let you live?" (haha, spend a healing surge +1d6)

That's classic! I'm totally stealing that.

How do you find the combats going when everyone can drop Darkfire or Cloud of Darkness in every encounter? (Multiple Clouds of Darkness can actually be a detriment, because it blocks LOS etc. for everyone except its "caster".)

 

[UniversalMonster]

How do you find the combats going when everyone can drop Darkfire or Cloud of Darkness in every encounter? (Multiple Clouds of Darkness can actually be a detriment, because it blocks LOS etc. for everyone except its "caster".)

We haven't had too much of a problem- (This was a first adventure and there were only two combat encounters).

In both combat encounters, the drow actually relied much more on Darkfire- nobody used cloud of darkness.

Tonight there is a scheduled one-off for the first "real" adventure- or perhaps it will end up being another prequel "life in the City of T'lindhet" kind of adventure.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Hi Peter,

This sounds great, but it really needs to go into the Story Hour forum. Normally I'd move it over there, but those powers are not working at the moment (too much kryptonite about perhaps?).

I'm going to close this thread, but if you restart it in the Story Hour forum and copy this stuff over manually, I'll put a link in this thread so people can see where it actually continues.

Regards,

 

[Plane Sailing]

Hey, what with the minor board upgrade I can now move posts under certain conditions!

I've moved the original thread here and unlocked it.

Cheers