painandgreed
First Post
Start by not telling them anything. begin the campaign with a mystery. As they dig for clues and try and get to the end of it, more questions that answers show up and eventually, when they're the most confused, the plot will be revealed and they'll be too far in to back out. Then pull and X-File and have somebody explain to them "what is really going on."
Start with a dead nobleman. He was killed and the family jewels are taken. The wife hires the party to find out who killed the husband, get revenge, and recover the family jewels. They track down some of the jewels which show up on the open market and the rogue who sold them. Theives don't like people chasing one of their own so enter conflict. Eventually, they catch up to the rogue and find out she given the jewels by the noble in payment for taking a package (the missing more valuable jewels, including some black pearls) to another contact for him, and that she never killed him. She gave it to a bard. The bards are serving the black dragon as the noble did, but the wife belongs to the Toolmasters and seeks to use the players as cat's paws to get the black pearls back. The player's probably do so before they figure out what is going on. The noble's wife pays well, obviously has connections, but has this strange desire to keep sending the party out to collect more black pearls. Perhaps sending them to do something grossly illegal like killing a noble and taking his jewels. If they do so, they'll be firmly in the Toolmasters camp as it is their political power that sheilds them from their crimes. Meanwhile they'll be competing with the servants of the black dragon, who will eventually inform the players of what they're actually doing. Perhaps passing their own collection of black pearls as an attempt to "use the twelve nodes for good as the elves intended". If they side with the Toolmasters, they've picked their side. If they choose the other side, they'll eventually find out they don't work for nice guys either. If they try and walk away, both sides will try and kill them because they know too much.
