A little background:
So I recently picked up the 5th edition PHB after about ten years away from the game and it's inspired me to run a new campaign. I reached out to my two long-running gaming groups from my past and it turned out that they were both interested in a new game! Great! But I only have time for one game, really. So which gaming group do I choose? Well, then I had an idea, why don't I run one mega adventure / story arc, but with the two groups both completing different parts of the story, only to come together to defeat the big bad evil guy at the end?
A year or so ago I picked up Red Hand of Doom and read through it - I just couldn't put it down. It is a very tolkien-esque romp with a very D&D feel. It's a near perfect module. I can't wait to run it. Plus, I really enjoyed the rich background of the Elsir Vale. It's a great fit for what I'm looking for. Expect everything below to include a bunch of spoilers.
Goals:
My goal here is to make the Elsir Vale feel like a living, breathing world. This will require a lot of work on my end, but I plan to heavily leverage materials out there to fill in the gaps. I plan to make the Elsir Vale one big sandbox made up of a bunch of pre-published sandboxes. I'll grab my favorite modules and make the tweaks so they'll all fit together well. I want the PCs to all feel ownership and accountability for the Vale, and want to protect it with all their might when the Red Hand cult invades. They really have to *care*. I plan to do this in two ways - (1) spend a lot of time with each PC and work on each PC's back story, and work in a number of places and NPCs throughout. For example, one of the PCs is from the noble family Haskinar from Brindol, and went to the Brindol Academy as a youth. He even apprenticed under Immerstal the Red before they had a disagreement. Another PC is a distant relative from Drellin himself, the namesake of Drellin's Ferry. He has second and third cousins in every town and village from Dennovar to Overlook. (2) Have the PCs adventure throughout the Vale and get to know its inhabitants, save villages from bandits, recover stolen relics, etc. etc. etc. so when they are watching the villages burn, they'll go back to Fedrin's house and see if he made it out alive. Anyway, you guys get the idea. That's the goal.
The Adventure Path:
So I spent a bunch of hours reading the boards, top 10 lists, and blogs to triangulate around what the "best modules of all time" are. There are probably 50 or so modules that come up frequently throughout these lists, and so I perused a bunch of them and narrowed a bunch down based on feel, scope of heroism (need more simple adventures for the beginning before scaling up into RHoD), level requirements, etc. A draft of my initial thoughts are below but I'd love feedback here:
Group One:
A Wizard's Amulet (Necromancer Games) - PCs leave Brindol heading towards Nimon Gap
Trouble at Grogs (Dungeon Magazine #4) - Dagger Rock converted to the village of Talar
Crucible of Freya (Necromancer Games) - Fairhill converted into Nimon Gap
Hollow's Last Hope (Pathfinder) - Falcon's Hollow converted into Elsircross; Hargil Trask runs the Lumber Consortium
[Need some small side-trek here - preferably in Brindol itself]
Crown of the Kobold King (Pathfinder)
[One other adventure TBD with hook to get PCs to head to Vraath Keep]
Red Hand of Doom (D&D 3E)
Group Two (likely a dwarf-centric party):
This adventure path is a work in progress, as I'm still thinking through this, but the adventures may be in some order:
Into the Wilds (Dungeon Crawl Classics) - Wildsgate replaces Red Rock
Sons of Gruumsh (D&D 3E) - this module seems like the plot fits extremely well with Siege of Bordrin's Watch
Siege of Bordrin's Watch (D&D 4E) - either move this into the Hammerfist Holds or leave in Overlook; make the witch a Wyrmlord?
Vault of Larin Karr (Necromancer Games) - dwarves ruled the Vale long before the humans of Rhestilor did, so they built the complexes below the Elsir Valley. Towns of Prosser, Dauth, and Marthton / Hillwatch will be converted to make this adventure fit. The vaults will include a dragon slaying weapon of some sort that will be helpful for the end of RHoD.
Red Hand of Doom (D&D 3E) - focused on mercenary gold, then a side adventure to recruit the Hammerfist Holds to the cause.
For the finale of RHoD I've got a number of ideas, such as some of the PCs battling at the Fane simultaneously as other PCs war at the Battle of Brindol. Alternatively, could make the battle of Brindol bigger and split the parties to deal with different challenges at the same time, then really, really buff up the battle at the Fane for 8 PCs and combine the groups for the last go.
Other modules that I've considered:
- Into the Haunted Forest
- Revenge of the Kobold King
- Whispering Cairn
- The Shattered Circle
- Lost City of Brakkus
- Mad God's Key
- Realm of the Fellnight Queen
- NeMoran's Vault
Next:
There is where you all come in, dear Enworlders. I'd love to get feedback, opinions, thoughts, etc. on all of the above, specifically:
1) Am I crazy? is this too ambitious?
2) Are there any other modules that are must includes? Any module ideas for the "recruit the dwarves" part of the story? Any sandbox style towns that have interesting PCs and would fit well into a generic valley setting?
3) What do you think of the adventure paths? Focusing on path 2, any ideas on the Sons of Gruummsh / Siege of Bordrin's Watch?
4) Are there any other encounters that would be interesting to include in RHoD? Perhaps even taken from Scales of War or the new 5E adventure path?
5) What are some interesting ways for the setting to feel more "living"? Are there tips for having the two groups of PCs to hear more about one another? Ways for one group's actions to impact the other group?
Thank you in advance for the help on this!
So I recently picked up the 5th edition PHB after about ten years away from the game and it's inspired me to run a new campaign. I reached out to my two long-running gaming groups from my past and it turned out that they were both interested in a new game! Great! But I only have time for one game, really. So which gaming group do I choose? Well, then I had an idea, why don't I run one mega adventure / story arc, but with the two groups both completing different parts of the story, only to come together to defeat the big bad evil guy at the end?
A year or so ago I picked up Red Hand of Doom and read through it - I just couldn't put it down. It is a very tolkien-esque romp with a very D&D feel. It's a near perfect module. I can't wait to run it. Plus, I really enjoyed the rich background of the Elsir Vale. It's a great fit for what I'm looking for. Expect everything below to include a bunch of spoilers.
Goals:
My goal here is to make the Elsir Vale feel like a living, breathing world. This will require a lot of work on my end, but I plan to heavily leverage materials out there to fill in the gaps. I plan to make the Elsir Vale one big sandbox made up of a bunch of pre-published sandboxes. I'll grab my favorite modules and make the tweaks so they'll all fit together well. I want the PCs to all feel ownership and accountability for the Vale, and want to protect it with all their might when the Red Hand cult invades. They really have to *care*. I plan to do this in two ways - (1) spend a lot of time with each PC and work on each PC's back story, and work in a number of places and NPCs throughout. For example, one of the PCs is from the noble family Haskinar from Brindol, and went to the Brindol Academy as a youth. He even apprenticed under Immerstal the Red before they had a disagreement. Another PC is a distant relative from Drellin himself, the namesake of Drellin's Ferry. He has second and third cousins in every town and village from Dennovar to Overlook. (2) Have the PCs adventure throughout the Vale and get to know its inhabitants, save villages from bandits, recover stolen relics, etc. etc. etc. so when they are watching the villages burn, they'll go back to Fedrin's house and see if he made it out alive. Anyway, you guys get the idea. That's the goal.
The Adventure Path:
So I spent a bunch of hours reading the boards, top 10 lists, and blogs to triangulate around what the "best modules of all time" are. There are probably 50 or so modules that come up frequently throughout these lists, and so I perused a bunch of them and narrowed a bunch down based on feel, scope of heroism (need more simple adventures for the beginning before scaling up into RHoD), level requirements, etc. A draft of my initial thoughts are below but I'd love feedback here:
Group One:
A Wizard's Amulet (Necromancer Games) - PCs leave Brindol heading towards Nimon Gap
Trouble at Grogs (Dungeon Magazine #4) - Dagger Rock converted to the village of Talar
Crucible of Freya (Necromancer Games) - Fairhill converted into Nimon Gap
Hollow's Last Hope (Pathfinder) - Falcon's Hollow converted into Elsircross; Hargil Trask runs the Lumber Consortium
[Need some small side-trek here - preferably in Brindol itself]
Crown of the Kobold King (Pathfinder)
[One other adventure TBD with hook to get PCs to head to Vraath Keep]
Red Hand of Doom (D&D 3E)
Group Two (likely a dwarf-centric party):
This adventure path is a work in progress, as I'm still thinking through this, but the adventures may be in some order:
Into the Wilds (Dungeon Crawl Classics) - Wildsgate replaces Red Rock
Sons of Gruumsh (D&D 3E) - this module seems like the plot fits extremely well with Siege of Bordrin's Watch
Siege of Bordrin's Watch (D&D 4E) - either move this into the Hammerfist Holds or leave in Overlook; make the witch a Wyrmlord?
Vault of Larin Karr (Necromancer Games) - dwarves ruled the Vale long before the humans of Rhestilor did, so they built the complexes below the Elsir Valley. Towns of Prosser, Dauth, and Marthton / Hillwatch will be converted to make this adventure fit. The vaults will include a dragon slaying weapon of some sort that will be helpful for the end of RHoD.
Red Hand of Doom (D&D 3E) - focused on mercenary gold, then a side adventure to recruit the Hammerfist Holds to the cause.
For the finale of RHoD I've got a number of ideas, such as some of the PCs battling at the Fane simultaneously as other PCs war at the Battle of Brindol. Alternatively, could make the battle of Brindol bigger and split the parties to deal with different challenges at the same time, then really, really buff up the battle at the Fane for 8 PCs and combine the groups for the last go.
Other modules that I've considered:
- Into the Haunted Forest
- Revenge of the Kobold King
- Whispering Cairn
- The Shattered Circle
- Lost City of Brakkus
- Mad God's Key
- Realm of the Fellnight Queen
- NeMoran's Vault
Next:
There is where you all come in, dear Enworlders. I'd love to get feedback, opinions, thoughts, etc. on all of the above, specifically:
1) Am I crazy? is this too ambitious?
2) Are there any other modules that are must includes? Any module ideas for the "recruit the dwarves" part of the story? Any sandbox style towns that have interesting PCs and would fit well into a generic valley setting?
3) What do you think of the adventure paths? Focusing on path 2, any ideas on the Sons of Gruummsh / Siege of Bordrin's Watch?
4) Are there any other encounters that would be interesting to include in RHoD? Perhaps even taken from Scales of War or the new 5E adventure path?
5) What are some interesting ways for the setting to feel more "living"? Are there tips for having the two groups of PCs to hear more about one another? Ways for one group's actions to impact the other group?
Thank you in advance for the help on this!