Starting a FR campaign (or Phlan, the spitoon of the Moonsea & other adventures)

[Arravis]

Cross-posting this here since the Plots & Places forum gets very little traffic. Just looking for opinions, advice and suggestions . Thanks guys!

**If you're in my campaign, do NOT look at this please**

I'd like some ideas, suggestions or comments on this set up for my new Forgotten Realms campaign I'm starting up. It will have 4 players (including myself), two of whom are co-DM's. I'm one of the co-DM's, likely the main DM, and I'm running the first game.

Here are the character's the players have so far:
1) A thirteen year old human boy (or half-elf of equivalent age) who is a contortionist and acrobat with a traveling troupe of performers. This character is a very happy go-lucky sort of kid, always optimistic.
2) A human female priestess of Eldath from Turmish (and a pacifist more or less). I don't have a lot of history/personality information on this character.
3) A male Avariel mercenary, who had his wings removed for betraying his aerie to a blue dragon (long story there). This character is nearly suicidal and filled with guilt, taking on extreme danger without second thought.
4) I don't have any information yet on the 4th character.

Some background on my version of the Forgotten Realms:
My previous FR campaign is winding down; it's been going on nearly since 3rd edition started. The characters are epic level now (24th, though they started at 1st lvl) and it's been an amazing campaign. I'd like this new campaign to be in the same "world" as the one our other characters are in. The only real difference between that one and the "official" one is that the Thayans and the Zhentarim formed an alliance in a massive plan to conquer much of the North quickly. The Thayans used newly created magics to make conscripts out of whatever peoples their joined army conquered, and soon a large army formed in the north. In the end, the Lord’s Alliance’s armies and adventurers striking at key points defeated the army. After the war the Zhents took refuge, their newfound allies having retreated back to Thay (though some ties between them are still kept).
sage length]
Anyway... since the previous campaign was based in the North, I thought the Moonsea would be a good spot for this new one (additionally, it'll be a nostalgic trip for me, since it's where the Pool of Radiance CRPG took place); specifically, Phlan.

My key issues are:
1) I need to give the kid a reason to adventure.
2) I need to get the characters together.

So I'm thinking that I need someway to get rid of the traveling troupe the kid is with (I don't want enslavement though, since I a huge part of a previous campaign was freeing slaves).

My idea is that perhaps right before the war in the North, a Zhent agent went to Phlan and offered to assist in cleaning-up the Old City; but only if they were allowed to build a small compound and have patrol parts of the slums.

The plans were to expand the compound once the war was over and conquer the rest of Phlan, but that never came to be. So the compound is still there, but quickly running out of money and they've had to make some changes. I could see them making a deal to oversee prisoners and use them as labor to clear the old city and to loot as much of the old treasures hidden therein.

So now enters the traveling troupe, who are there to go from estate to estate entertaining the wealthy (and of course making off with whatever they can while there). The troupe made the mistake of stealing from the Zhents and/or they found out something they weren't supposed to and were killed.

Anyway, the boy escapes and is found wandering the slums by the cleric of Eldath (whom is there to help the poor and needy). Zhent guards are sent out to get the boy, since they don't want word of what happened to get out or they think he knows their "secret". The priestess and the boy hide from the guards, and they seek out protection. Hopefully, they hire the mercenary and the other PC in the process.

Most of that game will be dealing with the Zhents and escaping the slums. Hopefully alerting the local leaders to the actions within and they will later be sent back to "deal" with the issue. Also, I could easily change the enemy from the Zhents into the Cult of the Dragon, or some other neferious group; if anyone has any suggestions.

How does that sound for a starting game? I want to make sure this ends up being a good game and I'm looking for any suggestions, opinions, critiques, and etc. thanks guys!!

-Arravis

 

[Kae'Yoss]

What a godawful idea!



No, just kidding. It actually sounds quite good.

Some ideas I'd like to throw in:

The situation's really not a good one for the poor: For some reason, they are punished hard whenever the guard finds them begging, several wealthy houses in the city hunt them away or even hurt or kill them when they try it at their mansons, and those nobles who do help those poor souls are the victims of nightly attacks, accidents with their ware shipments and such things (oddly enough, the watch doesn't seem to do to much against that, and none of these nobles received any help at the nightly attacks, where they often get beat up pretty ugly, and some haven't survived such nights).
Of course, the party cleric will want to find out why that is, and the boy will probably help her out of gratitude, and his abilities to get to places - and through places - where noone else would get or fit through will help him get valuable information.
At the end, they will encounter that a nasty Taskmistress of Loviathar undermined the guard. She and one or two follow Taskmasters have taken the leadership of the guard and positioned many who worship the Maiden of Pain and allied churches in the watch - and either bribes or blackmailes the rest into doing what they're told. Several of the jaded nobles and wealthy merchants of the city were drawn into that dark faith and helped the Taskmistress to get to that position. Those merchants who refused to cooperate met a messy end (those were the nobles who didn't survive the nightly assaults). They planned to put a Dreadmaster of bane (a later villain for the party) on the throne of the city, and must be stopped.


Information reaches the avariel merc that there are some who might counter the curse set on him and heal him - giving him back his wings and restoring the confidence (other folk usually uses the word "arrogance") he has shed since he lost his wings and become just a nother landbound inferior being. An aged wild elf he meets in the woods says he knows a spell and sees that he has atoned for his errors, but he has to gather some ingredients the old elf cannot get himself due to his old age.
What the mercenary doesn't know: our elven druid is in truth a fey'ri sorcerer (that race of demon/gold elf tieflings that have the succubus-like power to alter their appearance at will, indefinetely - into any humanoid form he choses).
The first couple of ingredients are easy to get, involving some searching in the wilderlness, or buying at the marked (maybe involving a little theft). But then the "druid" requires more: some things that might not be found in the area, and has to be acquired on the black marked or stolen, since the owners don't want to sell. Later, it becomes nastier: blood from an unsuspecting person, tears from one who was betrayed by his beloved (and this betrayel might not come without help by the player), at the end involving the live of a sentient being.
The fey'ri in disguise will hand out lists "as he remembers the ingredients" and start to brew some concoction with them (some are only stuff he needed anyway, maybe ingredients for lunch, others he uses for some foul ritual to corrupt other elves, preferrably moon elves) The ultimate sacrifice the sorcerer plans to get is the loss of goodness in the avariel, and maybe even his very soul, as a gift to a demon-lord, in order to gain great power.
Somewhere along those lines, the mercenary - or his comrades - will see through the plan or at least suspect something, and he will be torn between fighting evil and becoming his old self again

 

[ashockney]

Good ideas. Good starting point. Good character backgrounds (3/4).

Challenge the obvious!

Obvious: Primary villians will be the zhents.

Challenge: What if it were a band of zealot elves?

Obvious: The travelling faire passing through town to entertain.

Challenge: What if they're lost? What if EVERY PERSON in the faire comprises a different sub-group/faction of the realms EXCEPT the boy, and the adventure is figuring out who is which faction? Murder-mystery anyone?

Obvious: Phlan is ruined and destitute.

Challenge: What if it was a burgeoning town filled with some of the finest riches money can buy in the world, because of all the adventurerers brought into town over the last generation? Or because of the influence of a retired band of adventurers?

You take it from there! Good luck! Good gaming!