My Campaign: Avalon, Magical Metropolis

[cmbarona]

I'm beginning my very first D&D campaign, and I'd love to post what's happening and hear some feedback/suggestions as I plan and play. There's plenty of gaps to be filled and adventure to be planned, but I'm quite excited about the whole ordeal. I'll make a general post here, where I'll describe the setting and general plot, and I'll edit as things change. I will then make future posts for each actual game session.

SETTING

We will be playing in a highly magical world, where magic fills the role of most of our technological inventions today (e.g., cell phones, subway, computers, etc.). We'll be playing in the sprawling metropolis of Avalon, the Human-run capital city of the originally Eladrin nation, which I have yet to name. Avalon is divided into eight residential districts, each of which is mainly inhabited by a different race. Each race also has a particular specialty in the city and world at large, though many exceptions (and quite interesting ones) exist.

• Dragonborn run the police and military, and the majority of the executive branch of government. In addition to keeping peace in the city, they also ensure protection of caravans and travelers to, from, and even within Avalon.
• Dwarves run CubeCorp, a company specializing in making varieties of gelatinous cubes, whose headquarters are in Avalon. They compete with ElemenTech (see below) for household power sources, and specialize in sewage processing and pharmaceuticals.
• Eladrin run ElemenTech, a company specializing in finding utilitarian uses for elementals. Their headquarters have been in Avalon longer than CubeCorp's, so some of them consider the Dwarves' work to be an intrusion. In addition to providing their own household services, they specialize in transportation and communications magic.
• Elves run the Hunter's Guild. The countryside surrounding Avalon is absolutely teeming with wildlife, and there has been little need to herd animals over the years because of the Elves' effectiveness. They will also investigate and eliminate monstrous beasts whenever they pop up.
• Half-Elves have long found a home ordering the religious life of Avalon, and continue to do so quite successfully. A note on religion in this world: Everyone worships a single God, who has no particular name, but no one can seem to agree on what God is like from a theological perspective. Instead, over the years there have been saints whose lives people consider in order with the ways of God. There are hundreds of such saints, and for our purposes, they have the same names and characteristics of the deities in D&D materials. So, for example, there is a Church of Saint Ioun, who focuses on the prophetic and academic aspects of God.
• Halflings are a much more peaceful lot, and they run the agricultural industry. Their wizards are also in charge of weather control for Avalon. Finally, Halflings are well-known for their hospitality, and run many taverns, inns, nightclubs, sporting events, and brothels.
• Humans excel at establishing and running governments, and the rest of the races are quite happy to hand that responsibility over to them. Humans tend to be very respectful of other races, and are seen as good judges for their fair and balanced points of view. They run the legislative and judicial branches of Avalon's government.
• Tieflings run two very different fields: On one hand, they excel at accounting and bookkeeping, and run the Avalon Revenue Service. On the other hand, the ghettos of their district are home to a very notorious crime syndicate, which I also have yet to name. Tieflings are generally loathe to let the two hands conflict, and even the Syndicate pays what they consider "taxes" to Avalon, which surprisingly keeps a lot of money in the coffers of very legitimate governmental branches.

GENERAL PLOT (My POV)

Avalon takes place in an incredibly high-magic world. However, this magic is slowly but surely fading. No one knows why, and most people are blissfully unaware of this effect. As time goes on, though, people will see what is happening, and they will panic. Cubes will get sick, elementals will frenzy, weather will go haywire, animals will mutate, etc. I MAY have them play in a low-magic setting by the time Epic rolls around, but I'm leaning against it at the moment.

A small few already see the impending loss of magic and, in trying to decipher the reason for it all, have come to very differing conclusions.

Group 1: Megiddo
Followers of "saints" that most churches have deemed heretical, Megiddo is a death cult that believes the end of the world is fast approaching. Their activities are still invested in exploring what to do with this information, but they are quite convinced that the abundant use of magic will speed the impending apocalypse. I'm thinking they are an excellent source of some undead intrigue.

Group 2: Dispel!
A group that formed as a radical offshoot of PETE (People for the Ethical Treatment of Elementals), Dispel! also sees dark times ahead. However, their conclusion is that the overuse of magic is somehow polluting the manafield. They seek to sabotage activities of CubeCorp and ElemenTech and in general decrease magic use.

The two groups know about each other, and despise each other, but they are also incredibly secretive. Both sides would rather die than be taken alive, and bite down on poisonous false molars when they see they are about to be taken in combat. Because of the lack of outside distinguishing characteristics, their activities are often confused. Megiddo has been discovered by the players, but Dispel! has not.

THE CAST OF (PLAYER) CHARACTERS

• Imrahil Dirkensen: Elven Ranger. Imrahil was recently accepted as an apprentice of the Hunter's Guild. He has an interesting family: a grandfather (Clouthen) who is a retired Hunter, a mother (Betty) and father (Clloyd) who run a dagger-producing business, and 4 siblings: an older sister (Tandy), an opera singer; a younger brother (Varkel), an entrepeneur; another brother (Mowset) who's pretty much a rake; and another sister (Rose), who is still in school.
• Erevan Nailo: Eladrin Paladin of St. Avandra. Erevan's father (Quarrion) and mother (Shanairra) are technicians at ElemenTech.
• Shaddock Thornbeard: Dwarven Cleric of St. Corellon. Shaddock was orphaned and left at the church as a baby. He has always felt closer to the Half-Elves than the Dwarves because of it.
• Rell: Halfling Rogue. Rell is an agent of an underground organization, "Divine Intervention," which pretty much does dirty work for the government in the name of the greater good. They are quite interested in tracking Megiddo's activities, and are currently unaware of Dispel!

 

[cmbarona]

Session 1, 1/17

The players meet

(Shaddock was absent from this game, so I didn't write him in until later)

Each of the three players began their first day on the job.

• Erevan completed his ordination ceremony in the great mead hall of St. Avandra's Church. Hea was given his first appointment by his bishop: to protect and minister to the trade route between Avalon and the nearby town of Evora. He is expected to find and negotiate his own appointments after this.
• Rell awoke the next day to find a mysterious note stuck to his refrigerator: his first assignment as an agent. It told him to meet a Tiefling at the Gambler's Den in the Halfling district. Rell and the Tiefling spoke in hushed tones while they played slot machines next to each other. The Tiefling spoke of an attack on a caravan bound for the nearby town of Evora. Rell was to thwart the attack and report as much as possible about the attackers.
• Meanwhile, Imrahil began his first day as an official Hunter. After standing in an incredibly long line, he was assigned to hunt a dire wolf that had been attacking the trade route to the nearby town of Evora.

As you can imagine, they all met at the caravan. There they also met a Halfling merchant, Merric, and his Dragonborn bodyguard, Arkhan. The caravan left for Evora, planning a round trip over the next couple of days.

EVORA

Upon arriving, the group was approached by a rather panicked blacksmith. His forge was sick, and had vomited up a crimson slime. Anxious to get back to work before the slime could destroy or delay any more of his work, he hired the group to take out the slime and feed some medicine to his forge. They were successful, though Rell was quite shocked to be covered in a completely new slime upon feeding the medicine to the forge.

The rest of their time in Evora passed uneventfully.

THE TRIP BACK

On the last leg of the journey, the caravan was ambushed by agents of Megiddo. The group was quite surprised to see foes who not only committed suicide upon defeat, but whose bodies decomposed very rapidly after their deaths. Arkhan was wounded in the battle.

Later that day, wolves smelled the blood from the earlier conflict. One of them was the dire wolf that Imrahil had been sent to hunt. After their victory, the impressed Merric invited them to celebrate that night at the sports bar of his brother Reed: Shorty's.

In the middle of the gladatorial match, something went horribly awry. The candle elementals on everyone's tables began beating on the glass containing them. The television flickered out. A strange, rumbling and scraping sound came from the freezer behind the bar. In an unprecedented move, the normally peaceful elementals panicked and attacked the patrons. The players stopped them, but not before they killed two patrons and injured Reed.

END OF SESSION 1

 

[Jack7]

Bar, I like it. A lot.

It reminds me in a general way of the Artemis Fowl books, which I like a lot.

It's very creative and personally I like settings that relate either directly or metaphorically to real life and to real world affairs.

If you keep posting this then I'll follow it.

And, if I can give em out, then have some XP.

 

[cmbarona]

Session 2, 1/24/2009

(Classes started at my grad school, so I didn't have as much time to prepare for this session; also, Imrahil was out for this one, so he was only proxied for the fight)

THE INVESTIGATION

The group knew something was wrong. Reports of similar occurances happening all over Avalon came pouring in. For one night, in over a dozen places throughout the city, chaos erupted.

Many theories came pouring in: Some said it was an anarchist terrorist group. Some even thought CubeCorp could have been responsible. Most blamed ElemenTech. Their stocks plummeted, and a sea of protesters crowded outside of their headquarters. PETE had a high presence.

Meanwhile, organizations all over Avalon pointed fingers at each other. A recently appointed cleric of St. Corellon, Shaddock, was assigned to investigate the occurence. His church believed that the followers of Heretic Lolth were somehow involved. Shaddock visited St. Corellon's Hospital to see one of the survivors of the elemental attacks, a Halfling named Reed. There he met Merric and his bodyguard, Arkhan. Arkhan pointed him to the group he had been adventuring with. He went to the Church of St. Avandra to find Paladin Nailo.

Rell was visited by the mysterious Tiefling agent again. He, too, had turned up information that pointed to radical followers of Lolth. Rell was to attend a rave that night at a Tiefling nightclub, Denial, and sift out the radical Lolth followers from the immature youth who half-heartedly joined the cult as a form of rebellion. If he could find them, he was ordered to wipe them out and investigate later.

Rell and Shaddock met in the waiting room of Bishop Theren of Saint Avandra. Inside, Erevan was speaking about his journey and subsequent confrontation with the elementals. He changed his appointment to investigate this tragic occurance. Once he was done with his meeting, he met Shaddock and Rell, and discussed going to the rave at Denial. They would disguise themselves and find out if there were, indeed, any serious Lolth worshippers.

THE RAVE

Indeed, they found one. A group of people, most of them youth, were sitting at a booth in the nightclub. Several had altered their appearance to seem more Drow-like. Many of them were under the influence of narcotics in the form of tiny, glowing gelatinous cubes that would disperse their drugs either by being swallowed or by engulfing a person's fingertip (this world's equivalent of an injection).

They found a Tiefling who was far more fanatic about the teachings of Lolth than his colleagues. The players, feigning interest, were invited to a sacrifice the next night. After the rave, each reported back to their respective agencies. Shaddock was advised by his bishop that followers of Lolth were like weeds: best to uproot them as soon as they are discovered, before they can spread.

THE SACRIFICE

The players entered an abandoned warehouse in the Tiefling district that had been converted into a temple dedicated to Heretic Lolth. The Tiefling at the rave was not there, but they convinced the cultists that they were invited by him. As the ritual went on, it became apparent that a cat was going to be sacrificed. The players intervened and fought the cultists. They even captured one by forcing a leather handle into his mouth. The cat survived.

Later, Rell's mysterious Tiefling friend spoke to him. All they were able to get out of the captured cultist was the name of his organization:

Megiddo
​

END OF SESSION 2

 

[cmbarona]

Session 3: 2/7/2009

(Shaddock was not available, but his character was proxied.)

THE INVITATION

Senator Silvanus Horatius hears of the group of men who have been involved in more than one encounter with agents of Megiddo. He is interested in meeting them, and sends an invitation in the form of a contract through the Hunter's Guild asking for Imrahil to take care of some bats (Shadowhunter bats) that had been roosting in the roof of his office building. The top floor is still under construction, so the bats are roosting under the recently-completed roof, and preventing the construction crews from closing off the structure and completing their work.

Senator Horatius shares his real reason for bringing them there. Unlike many of his fellow senators, who are playing the political game of corporate intrigue, Silvanus believes that Megiddo is responsible for the elemental attacks. It soon becomes apparent to the party that he has ties to Divine Intervention, though their name is not revealed by Rell or Silvanus.

THE ATTEMPT

After defeating the bats, Silvanus is quite excited to get down to the real business of the day. He frequently paces around and, at one point, peers out of a window. Hearing a commotion below and a strong sound of beating wings, he comments, curiously, that he thought the group had taken care of all of the bats. The window shatters as a skeleton is launched through it, followed by two rotwing zombies, one of them holding another skeleton.

THE CHASE

After the thwarted assassination attempt, Silvanus and the party hear a commotion below. They see a scrawny human holding up a glowing symbol dedicated to the Heretic Vecna. He sees the party looking down at him and pushes through the crowd to run away. A skill challenge ensues, where they must chase him through the metro. As they close the gap, an unfortunate beggar tries to ask the man for money and, at the urge of Shaddock, also tries to stop him. The mysterious man draws a spear and kills the beggar, shouting a few words in abyssal. The beggar becomes a zombie before their eyes.

THE TEAM ASSEMBLES

After slaying the would-be assassin, the party comes together in Senator Horatius's office to discuss future plans. The Senator has already secured funding for the group, and the group discusses the strange events of the day. It seems that the cult, Megiddo, is not restricted to followers of Lolth. Could the cults be banding together? Should the mainstream churches unify under the new threat? And most importantly, what will the new task force call themselves?

END OF SESSION 3

 

[cmbarona]

Thanks for the positive feedback, both from Jack7 for posting and others who have messaged me. I will have an extended break from the campaign as we're rotating DMs for a while. It will be several weeks before my turn is up again.

So in the meantime, I was hoping to get a couple of suggestions for some gaps in my class-culture correlations. In particular, I've noticed that I, ironically, have almost no place for arcane classes! Wizards and Artificers make perfect sense, of course. But I'm wondering where Warlocks and, in particular, Swordmages, might fit into the scheme of things. I ask because Paladin Erevan Nailo is thinking about taking my offer of a one-time character mulligan and becoming Swordmage Erevan Nailo. Whether or not we go through with this is a bit beside the point, though: I can't stand to have such a gaping hole in a magic-heavy campaign. I'm not too familiar with Swordmages or Forgotten Realms, and I'm wondering where they might find steady jobs on a regular basis in Avalon. My campaign won't be too heavy on adventuring for adventuring's sake. Any thoughts/suggestions?

 

[cmbarona]

A couple of updates:

I've finally got a chance to look at DMing again (grad school + getting married is a fine way to make yourself too busy to DM )

First, in the above problem, I've decided that Swordmages are essentially a form of bodyguard. Some are mercenaries, some are part of government organiztions (like the Secret Service), etc., but it is considered one of the many legitimate combat forms that bodyguards practice in Avalon.

Second, I've finally decided the overarching scheme and cause of magic loss using a bit of D&D deity tweaking.

Now, I mentioned above that there is only one God and a bunch of saints. And similarly, there are those that follow the teachings of certain people deemed heretical by the major churches. The general assumption is that all of these people died a long, long time ago.

What if this were not the case? What if each heretic, unlike the saints, found some way to stay alive, and no one but the heretics themselves are aware of this? So, here's the gist of it all:

Long ago, there was an Eladrin Wizard named Tharizdun. He was one of the first people to experiment in extraplanar magic. He summoned the first elemental, created the first bag of holding, etc. One day he tried to create his own plane of existence, apart from all other beings, including God. Much to his dismay, he succeeded.

His associate, a human Wizard named Torog, studied powerful binding magic. Thier relationship was purely academic, as Torog's methods and ethics were often of a questionable nature. Tharizdun needed his help to make the interplanar portals stay in place. When he created this new plane of existence, Torog seized an opportunity to come into great power. He betrayed Tharizdun and bound him to this new void of a plane, this Abyss (I may come up with a better name later). Thus, the plane's existence would be sustained by Tharizdun's presence. Tharizdun also learned that time does not pass there in the same way that it passes in their plane. In being trapped, he was also trapped into immortality. Over time, he would go horribly insane, obsessed with his own release and revenge.

Meanwhile, Torog found two companions, the Drow Lolth and the Human Vecna. Together they hatched a scheme. In this new pocket of existence, they could create their own world and take this one there to rule the Abyss as gods. Lolth would weave the fabric of the new world, and Vecna would find a way to channel magic from this plane to the new one to fuel Lolth's creation. Each found their own means to immortality as well as starting their own cults to do their bidding from afar.

Thousands of years passed. Finally, the hidden flow of magic is beginning to take its toll and the world approches a tipping point. Other heretics that have lain dormant have gotten wind of the plot and wish to rule alongside the others.

But one, Asmodeus, sets his sights higher. He schemes from the background, currently disguised as Senator Silvanus Horatius. He seduced Lolth with promises of power, eventually learning of the plot and devising a means of taking advantage of it. When the plan of the other heretics comes to fruition, when the creation of the new world reaches the point of no return, he will rise up to topple the other heretics and rule as king.