cats_claw said:
Well, I just ordered the trilogy from an online store about 2 hours ago and just now read this thread. Will these books enhance the flavor of the land or spoil it with an overbearing metaplot? Now I am not sure if I should even read them....
Anyway.... on another note.... what "starting location" have all you Scarn Masters used and what plot hooks have gotten your players drooling to keep playing?
Well, in regards to the novels...well, they exist, so you may as well read them. I never said they were bad in and of themselves, just that I don't see them having much of a good effect upon the Scarred Lands as a role-playing setting. As I said with the Dragonlance novels, excellent books, but they helped to make the setting feel stagnant and done to me. I've found at times that novels and role-playing books don't always translate well from one to the other. I believe, to a degree, it's reasons like that which have made games like Dungeons and Dragons more popular than those such as Middle Earth Role-Playing. While reading about a plot hook being completed in a novel might be fun, once done, that plot hook is no longer quite so strongly compelling to use in your games.
But as avidly as I would recommend reading the Hickman and Weis novels, I would also say, don't let my little rant turn you off to the Forsaken trilogy. It's my hope that future novels like that don't come out, not that the ones which already exist aren't read. And, as a side note, I'm not against novels, either. Just ones with fairly intrusive events. But...I'm belaboring the point. My apologies.
Anyway! Starting location and plot hooks for my Scarred Lands game...? Heh. Well, I try to be unbiased, but, no one is ever completely so. So perhaps take my previous words with a grain of salt in light of this. The plot hook my current Scarred Lands game hinges on would be...the resurrection of That Which Abides. Sooo...there you have that. It's a meaty little plot hook, and the forsaken elves were the absolutely most compelling race out of the Scarred Lands, in my opinion. Ratmen? Asaatthi? All have their merits, but I dug the forsaken elves. For that matter, at least one of my players also got into the Scarred Lands because of the forsaken elves, and I believe the general consensus amongst my group is that they're all kinds of keen. The Autumn Blade, the Shards of the Forsaken, the race themselves...plotilicious. At least for anyone who doesn't intend on using the Forsaken trilogy in their campaign. Starting location would have been in Trella, the wee New Veniran village in the free Serpent Amphora adventure, which I used for simplicities sake when I first started off the campaign. However, I swiftly brought the campaign to Hedrad, which was where I initially planned on starting the game off, and may yet use as a starting point for another Scarred Lands game.
Furthermore, I figure should I ever run another Scarred Lands game after my current one, it will revolve around Enkili having tricked the gods into the Divine War, having never lost his powers by Mesos' hand, and the reason why Vangal showed Lethene mercy - so he could use her to his advantage later when he set his sights on killing all the gods. I figure I'll tie the two together in some way where the characters need to, in some way, convince the gods not to punish Enkili, lest the deities death or punishment in some way lead to Vangal bringing about the end times for Scarn. But that's something that's only as of recently started kicking about in my head, so it's not entirely fleshed out. I've pondered on writing out a full-scale, epic adventure for it, but, well...1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. I've got the 1% going for me right now...heh.
Unhallowed for me folks!
