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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MoogleEmpMog" data-source="post: 1816769" data-attributes="member: 22882">Political intrigue is when Mayor Arnsoff of the PCs home city of Geldburg hires them to investigate a plot between Malachai, Archbishop of Geldburg and Halbarad, Duke of Eastmark, to unseat King Reginald IX "The Just" of Lenoria.Political intrigue is when Duke Halbarad is actually the king's most faithful servant and Archbishop Malachai is a loyal man of the cloth, and Mayor Arnsoff secretly wants to undermine their power to fuel the revolutionary party he is a closet adherent of.Political intrigue in D&D is when King Reginald is actually a rakshasa, carefully manipulating the revolutionaries and the old nobility behind the scenes to weaken both groups and seize control of Lenoria.Political intrigue in D&D is when Archbishop Malachai is being guided by a being he believes is an avatar of Pelor, but is actually a disguised Glabrezu working to bring down the rakshasa king, giving the Tanari an edge in the Blood War.Political intrigue in D&D is when the PCs have to choose between enlightening one faction or another as to the real nature of their apparent ruler, or, alternately, to free the soul of the real King Reginald from its infernal prison so that with their help he can drive out demons and devils alike, bring down the plotters, reclaim his rightful throne, and give all of his rescuers duchies of their own.Of course, that's a very simple scenario. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> In a full-blown political intrigue game, all of these events would be taking place at the same time as the dwarven emperor of Kazak Arsuf, to whom all the minor kingdoms are nominally aligned, is holding a confernece in Lenoria with the lords of the elven and hobgoblin nomad kingdoms in an alliance against the human and orcish barbarians who threaten the alliance.  Every faction hates every other faction but reluctantly works together, at least on the surface.  And every faction has as complicated an internal struggle as Lenoria.  And then there's the "mad" wizard Thandrialtos, who prophecies an aberration invasion from the Far Realms and is busily forming an undead army to oppose it, with the unspoken approval of Kazak Arsuf but without the knowledge of the alliance.  Did we mention that his undead are taken from the ancestral burial grounds of the barbarians, hence their hostility to the dwarves?  Or that Kazak Arsuf supports him because it has secretly lost 40% of its underground civilization to ilithids and beholders allied with the Far Realms?  Or that even the demons and devils actually want to seal off the world to protect themselves from the portal opening beneath it?Now, in four words or less, tell me whose side the PCs are expected to be on.Answer in spoiler text below:[SPOILER]None of the above.[/SPOILER] That's political intrigue in a D&D game. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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