Nentir Vale: done anything interesting?

[Korgoth]

What are some interesting things you have done with the Nentir Vale setting? Any special curveballs, custom background modifications, etc. that you've thrown in?

 

[Ahrimon]

I had a tiefling trying to raise an ancient flying citadel, from the old tiefling empire, hidden under falcrest. All of the H series were tied into him gathering components and allies to attack falcrest and claim the citadel.

(XP reward if anyone recognizes where the basic plot comes from.)

 

[Shroomy]

I too have hidden an ancient Turathi artifact under Fallcrest, but mine was a large obelisk that is part of a massive, pentagram-shaped gate to Avernus that was built in the final days of the war with Arkhosia (Fallcrest would be the northernmost point of the pentagram). The last pretender to the throne of Bael Turath, an extremely powerful tiefling lich, is trying to restore Bael Turath and is having his minions attempt to re-activate the gate; to that end, they've slowly taken control of Fallcrest's government, temples, and thieve's guilds. The PCs inadvertedly found the obelisk under the Market Green, kicking off the campaign, causing the villains to accelerate their plans (the main BBEG for the heroic tier is a corrupted gold dragon named Auralius; she worked with a group of Turathi warlocks called the Architects of Victory to create draconian minions from an Arkoshian egg caches kept in magical stasis, and her sub-bosses are a kapak assassin named Ter'kik and a half-dragon aurak named Ker'iss). Soon, their going to stage a fake coup which will allow them to crush any opposition and seize complete control of the town.

I've made things very dark in the Nentir Vale. An orc horde, the largest since the Bloodspear War, has invaded the western vale, putting Winterhaven under siege and an army of mercenary hobgoblins called the Black Talon Legion is marshalling forces to the north (its all part of the master plan, though the PCs don't know it yet). I've also made extensive use of the Hammerfast supplement (a great resource BTW), as my players have had a two week sojourn there with Serim Selduzar (a tiefling NPC described in the DMG; in my campaign, he's secretly an agent of the Knights of Baathion and a servant of He Who Was).

 

[LostSoul]

What are some interesting things you have done with the Nentir Vale setting? Any special curveballs, custom background modifications, etc. that you've thrown in?

Yeah - my Nentir Vale is a science-fantasy setting. There's a nuclear reactor, a factory built to automate human sacrifice, solar power arrays, stuff like that. Then there are cannibals, an ancient rivalry between Sehanine and Melora, Eladrin who live on the moon (with people from an alternate Earth), refugees from out-of-time, snake cults and the ancient ruins of the yuan-ti, death cults, slavers, dragons up to no good...

There's a lot going on in my Nentir Vale.

 

[Korgoth]

Yeah - my Nentir Vale is a science-fantasy setting. There's a nuclear reactor, a factory built to automate human sacrifice, solar power arrays, stuff like that. Then there are cannibals, an ancient rivalry between Sehanine and Melora, Eladrin who live on the moon (with people from an alternate Earth), refugees from out-of-time, snake cults and the ancient ruins of the yuan-ti, death cults, slavers, dragons up to no good...

There's a lot going on in my Nentir Vale.

Cool. Where do I find out more about this?

 

[LostSoul]

I was creating some random tables to generate content for hexes that could be rolled up on the fly. I initially found two tables on Planet Agol (they're on a different blog now, I forget which one) and decided to make a number of them for myself.

As I was making the tables I finally finished The Dying Earth and I read through the posts on Planet Agol. That coloured the entries on my table, which get more sci-fantasy over time. I go from entries such as "A small bog. The water is poisonous; animal skeletons abound. Source of necrotic energy." to ones like "A reactor powered by a mini black hole."

Once the tables were done I made a hex-map version of the Nentir Vale - not a very good one, but it works. I rolled to see what was in each hex. The entries are open to interpretation; as I was fleshing them out, I had science-fantasy in my head and that coloured my interpretation.

The tables can be found in the Hex Crawl document in this post: http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-dis...-hack-fiction-first-playtest.html#post5208403

 

[Korgoth]

I was creating some random tables to generate content for hexes that could be rolled up on the fly. I initially found two tables on Planet Agol (they're on a different blog now, I forget which one) and decided to make a number of them for myself.

As I was making the tables I finally finished The Dying Earth and I read through the posts on Planet Agol. That coloured the entries on my table, which get more sci-fantasy over time. I go from entries such as "A small bog. The water is poisonous; animal skeletons abound. Source of necrotic energy." to ones like "A reactor powered by a mini black hole."

Once the tables were done I made a hex-map version of the Nentir Vale - not a very good one, but it works. I rolled to see what was in each hex. The entries are open to interpretation; as I was fleshing them out, I had science-fantasy in my head and that coloured my interpretation.

The tables can be found in the Hex Crawl document in this post: http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-dis...-hack-fiction-first-playtest.html#post5208403

Fantastic! Thanks.

 

[LostSoul]

Fantastic! Thanks.

No prob. Here's an example of something that has a kind of sci-fantasy tone but didn't turn out that way from the original rolls. (I wrote a program to roll do all the rolling for me so that I could create links between different hexes.)

[sblock=00.14 - Stoneriver]
00.14 RESOURCE - PLAINS - LEVEL 7
Settlement of 115 people based around a Ranch, Mostly evil
Links to Other Areas: 07.13 (DUNGEON - Sargon of Yeth's bio-lab)
Contents: Monster; Trap; Trick; Something Strange
(The above lines were generated by rolls)

Stoneriver.

The leader of this small community, Olaf the Grim, lords over this town like it's his own personal pleasure dome. He was an adventurer (human knife fighter) who explored the cloning labs of Sargon of Yeth in 07.13; he was able to bring out a number of "vat-men" from the tanks and use them to take over this town.

Olaf has since forgotten most of the layout of the lab.

Monster: The "vat-men" that Olaf brought from Sargon's cloning vats (treat as Evistro (and see Tricks, below), though they are not demons) hunger for blood and violence. Olaf controls them by a ritual that a companion of his found in the bio-lab; once Olaf was identified as someone who could command the creatures, he slew his companion. Olaf does not know the ritual but he keeps it around (imprinted on a paper-thin sheet of copper) just in case the vat-men get loose.

Olaf was a companion of Declamere (33.13) and Gonov Max (12.15).

Trap: Olaf's lair, a bawdy house called The Vixen's Bull, is where he does all his business. He also keeps his loot (450 gp, 57 sp, 30 cp + 1 1000 gp emerald and the vat-men command ritual) here. He hides his riches in a wall-safe behind a tapestry displaying a scene of men and women locked in cages, tormented by a chained devil. If the tapestry is touched, this triggers a trap: burst 5, +10 v Will, the character is pulled into the tapestry to be tormented by the kyton. If it is torn, everyone is freed, including the kyton. (The prisoners are too weak to fight, even characters recently pulled in; time runs differently there.)

Trick: The vat-men, when killed, release a cloud of poison. Characters who breathe in the poison gas suffer the following attack: Burst 1, +10 v Fort, the character gains an "Algol Mutation" as the gas infects his system. The gas remains there for 1d6 minutes. If the gas is collected, it can be weaponized to mutate characters; it can also be used to animate dead creatures for a short time, turning them into skulk zombies (one use per corpse). They rise free-willed, however.

Algol Mutation: If not treated via Remove Affliction within 1d6+1 days, the character begins to mutate. The character suffers from wracking pains (+10 v Fort, 4d8+5 damage, ongoing 20 poison (save)) once per hour for 1d6 hours. At the end of this time the mutation is complete: one stat, chosen randomly, is 1d2: 1- raised or 2 - lowered by 1d6 points. To determine the mutation, enter the PC's full name into Google and hit I'm Feeling Lucky.

Something Strange: One of the farmers, a man by the name of Miko, has a very large heifer that can talk.[/sblock]