Seeking adventure inspiration

[Greenfield]

As some of you may be aware, our game group runs on a "Round Robin" type DM rotation, and although I just finished a stint at the DM's seat with my Thermopylae recreation, I find myself in line to run again.

System is D&D 3.5, setting resembles the real world circa the year 500, with the addition of Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, etc., and a curse that has the world covered in ashen grey clouds that block the sun and are slowly driving the world to starvation. The gods are currently absent, so divination spells that call for divine guidance, knowledge or insight don't work. No Teleportation in the game world, and Raise Dead and its relatives don't exist. There is a nebulous enemy that's manipulating things to bring down civilization, setting empire against empire, city against city and (believe it or not) gods against gods. They're an Illumian cabal pulling strings from behind the scenes.

We're in Greece, just after a (successful) military campaign fending off the Persians.

Party consists of:

Half Elf Ranger 5/Druid 9 with Tiger as his Animal Companion
Half Dragon Fighter 12
Half Elf Barbarian 3/Wizard 9
Human Wizard 5/Cleric 5/Mystic Thurge 3
Asimar Rogue 2/Paladin of Freedom 10

The Asimar is currently missing, and may be replaced by a Human Rogue/Fighter/Dervish of unknown capacity.

There may be an NPC Sorceress/Rogue/Assassin, at my discretion.

Current circumstance:

We're in clean up mode after an attempted invasion. The Roman Governor of the province demonstrated an unexpected streak of competence, in that he managed to learn of the invasion in advance, yet kept it from the city at large. No one knows how he obtained this knowledge.

Someone (possibly the Persians) has been sabotaging local food production by Dispelling the Plant Growth spells from the farm fields.

There is an Assassin league called the Red Masque that's made several attempts on the party, and is apparently a cat's paw of the Illumians. One of them might be directly involved.

Food is being shipped to Rome from Egypt, which has managed to maintain farm production, though they are being harassed by savage tribes from the south.

The Aegean Sea (Mediterranean between Greece and the Middle East) is currently engulfed in unseasonal storms, a byproduct of the various sea gods being at war. The party owns/has access to a ship, currently trapped in port by this unseasonal weather.

One PC (an NPC in this session) has just severed a mystic link to a Necromantic site of power, possibly angering some of the darker forces who had designs on him.

The campaign theme has been Law v Chaos, so oddly Hell has been on the party's side, sort of.

Oh, and it's been about four game years since the last Olympics in Greece.

So that's more or less what I have to work with. Lots of hooks, lots of turmoil. What I lack is inspiration. I may or may not be running next weekend, depending on whether or not someone else comes up with something first.

 

[nijineko]

any chances for targeting the clouds for cleanup? convert their ship to a skybreaker flying ship, and dredge the sky perhaps? sounds like a tower of babel would be handy right about now. pump sunlight down beneath the clouds or something.

 

[Dandu]

Here's a solution to your problem.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=6669384]Greenfield[/MENTION] Sounds like the main issue is all about the food, baby

I'd look at what a couple of Druids could accomplish with plant growth as a common person of that time period and I might be tempted to ask the Druid about their religion, seeing as my own Olympians are out to lunch. Make it a movement that's gathering force, with priests feeling threatened and rival believers duking it out in the streets. Really put your ranger/Druid and cleric/wizard in a dilemma. If they catch the saboteur so the plant growth spells can continue, that could be construed as supporting the Druidic cult. Of course the priests want the fields to produce too...but not with druidic magic.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

A creative suggestion- Go to the bottom of the sea.

Grant them some form of water breathing, let them see if they can find an answer to the sea/storm problem on the ocean floor. Maybe the gods are there, maybe not. Maybe something else interesting is, like a massive chasm, a portal, an ancient machine, merfolk who have their own troubles, a powerful creature that could become an ally or grant a favor. Pass along a rumor of something at the ocean floor, and send them adventuring!

3D movement and combat, make use of all those critters in the MM's that are under water. Even if it turns out that they get to the bottom of the sea and nothing is there, it'll still be fun. Have them come out in a different country than when they went in, and at the very least they discovered a creative way to travel out of sight of the other nations.

 

[Greenfield]

Okay, this is a general reply:

1) Scrubbing the sky is not an option. Aside from the sheer enormity of the task, and the unavailability of a flying ship, the overcast is sort of an ongoing game feature, the McGuffin that drives the campaign. Yes, we want to solve it, but we need to locate the people and forces that caused it, otherwise we're just bailing a leaky boat.

2) We caught one Persian agent using Dispel Magic on the fields, in preparation for their invasion. As for the "Religion of the Druids", they're free to worship a lot of different deities in D&D 3.5, so there isn't a hard distinction between their religion and the rest of the world. They're likely to worship a nature-based deity such as Gaia or Diana, but might just as well worship Zeus (lightning, storms and weather in general), or even Hades (Death, as the natural end of all life.)

3) The reason for the storms is already known: Poseidon picked a fight with the Persian/Assyrian sea god as a convenient excuse to rile up the storms. The storms prevented the Persian army from invading by sea, keeping their ships trapped in port. Conflicts between the pantheons is part of the world package, and is the reason why the gods aren't answering any questions. As one deity explained it, "If you want to destroy an empire, you have to destroy their gods. Each depends on the other."

That being said...

Legend has it that Apollo had a son, and that that son once tried to take the Chariot of the Sun for a joy ride. The horses knew that their master wasn't at the reins and rebelled. The chariot crashed to earth, killing the son.

So if a group of plucky adventurers got wind of where this divine artifact had struck, they might be tempted to go after it. A flying chariot could be very useful, and might give them the means to ride above the cloud cover, or even do something about it.

Of course, rumors like that tend to spread quickly once they get started, so there will be others looking for the same thing. Militarily speaking, the land that can clear their sky wins. They have food when the others don't. A stable food supply is the foundation for a stable economy, and a stable economy is the foundation for a strong military.

Now, does the chariot exist at all? Did it survive the crash? Does it require divine horses to pull it across the sky? Did Apollo pull his kid from the wreckage and have it towed to the shop for repairs?

Does it matter? Getting there is half the fun, after all.

So there's an adventure hook. Doesn't mean I can't use more though, so keep the ideas coming, please.

 

[Greenfield]

Okay, I just did a little research: The tale, being Greek, names the sun god Helios, not Apollo (Apollo was the Roman name for the same god).

The son's name was Phaeton, and his mother was the queen of Ethiopia. The boy was given a Wish by his father, and he wished to drive the chariot of the sun. Helios was afraid and tried to talk him out of it, but the boy insisted, and even gods feared to break an oath sworn on the river Styx, so he let the boy go.

He advised him to fly neither too high nor too low. The boy, however, wanted to show off for a friend/rival, and fly low enough that his friend could see him. The result of the sun coming too close to the earth was that it burned and cracked the land, leaving a scar called Sahara. It burned the men of that land brown.

Different versions have different endings. In some Zeus struck the boy dead to halt the destruction, and the horses returned to their stables. In others he crashed to earth someplace in the great desert.

So there's your short course in Greek mythology. Maybe I'll do something with that.

 

[Dozen]

Okay, I just did a little research: The tale, being Greek, names the sun god Helios, not Apollo (Apollo was the Roman name for the same god).

Details. Helios and Apollo are both Greek names and originally refer to different, only loosely related beings. The Roman equalient of Helios would be Sol, while Apollo stayed under the same name even after the Imperials adopted him into their Pantheon.

 

[Greenfield]

Thanks for the tip.

I'm seeing a tale being told by a blind sailor, his eyes and face showing the signs of exposure to great heat.

He tells of his travels in the great waste south of the land of the River Gods (Egypt), where barbarian tribes rule. He and his party had heard of a place where a star fell, and went seeking Adamantine, the star metal.

Long story short, they found it, but when they uncovered the star they found it was still burning. The flames killed his companions and left him blind and scarred. How he found his way out of the wasteland is a tale in its own right, but the bottom line is that he can give people a good idea where to look. Of course, the way he's telling it it's a place to avoid, but we all know that that sort of thing is an open invitation to adventurer types.

Now it happens that my group has a Ranger/Druid in it, and the player is a bit soft spoken. He tends to get talked over, and sometimes his actions get skipped. I'm going to make a distinct effort to change that with this adventure. He, being the resident expert at tracking and wilderness lore, will be the star of the show. The tale will revolve around his character, since mere survival in the Sahara will depend on those skills.

Yes, Create Water is pretty much essential. So is Endure Elements. But it takes a bit more than that to make it out there. First, without any stars or direct sunlight, it's very hard to keep your directions straight when there are no landmarks. Second, all it takes is one sandstorm and their tent is shredded and blown away, leaving them with no shelter. (And no, nobody has any of the Tiny Hut/Secure Shelter spells. They left those to the Bard, who is my character and will be an NPC for this one. Meaning "not there".) And third, horses drink a lot of water and eat a lot of food, and are generally ill suited to the sand. In that environment a man will drink two gallons of water a day, easily. (One gallon a day was considered short rations aboard sailing ships, so double that isn't an unreasonable minimum.) Horses will need triple that. Six PCs with horses plus a Tiger works out to about 55 gallons per day, minimum. The Cleric can produce about 18 gallons per casting of Create Water, and since this isn't Pathfinder he has a limited number of those per day. This will tie up three or more of his orisons each day, and gods help them if something happens to him.

So Survival rolls are going to be paramount. Find water, find shelter, keep their directions straight, keep alive.

Next will come the wandering tribesman. Who aren't "men" as such, but more like Bugbears. I.e. wandering monsters. Speed bumps to a party of their level, but still a factor.

Add a giant scorpions and other insects, plus a few horrors from the Sandstorm book and we have a truly harsh landscape.

Next we add the enemy, the opposing force that either wants the chariot for themselves, or wants it destroyed.

And finally we have the challenge of the chariot itself: It's buried in a crater on the slopes of a glass mountain. (What happens when sand gets way too hot.) Even walking through the area can be hazardous. Like walking on ice crusted snow, only sharper. You break through and the crust can flay the flesh from the bones of your legs. Walking takes something like a Balance check. Crawling is safer. (I'll have to look in Frostburn to see if they have any rules I can adapt.) Running is a great way earn the nickname of "Stumpy". Horses that try to walk there will risk slipping and falling, and will likely cripple themselves when they break through.

And, of course, the chariot is hot enough that it flying low overhead blasted away all life in its path, creating the Sahara in the first place. It's also blindingly bright. Literally (remember that sailor?)

And finally, it's an Artifact, a creation of divine origin.

And while Hell is occasionally on the side of our heroes, the forces of the Abyss are definitely arrayed against them. Demons are resistant/immune to fire, right? And PCs generally aren't?

I think the fire is, like a Flame Strike, half divine, so fire resistance/immunity won't be enough.

Sound epic enough for our heroes?

I'll let you know...

 

[Dozen]

Bugbears in the desert! This is a whole new level. Can't decide of what, but I sure do like it!... Still not playing on the net, I assume?