fourthmensch
First Post
The Rage
My FR campaign has been going on for a good year and a half, now, and the PCs (the Hand of Valor) are up to 15th level.
The basic plot arc is one that I tried to seed way back during the first adventure: Gorgoldand's Gauntlet from Dungeon. Recasting Gorgoldand as a silver dragon named Argentus (which I thought was a rather clever name
), ane one (unlike Gorgoldand) who is still around to act as a mysterious patron, I set up the entire campaign as a sort of soldiers-of-destiny fulfillment of prophecy type deal. In a nutshell, the PCs are the ones fortold who may stop the Rage from destroying all of Faerun.
Many of the adventures we have run were from WotC's adventure path, although there has been a substantial amount of time in-between adventures for me to fill in with my own fun plots. Currently, one PC is trying to engineer the Return of the elves to Cormanthor, struggling to unite elven and human leaders while facing strong opposition from the Eldreth Veluuthra. Another continually evades his old captor, a half-dracolich Dragon Cultist named Disarion, who continually refers to him as "the Scion" (scion of Ashardalon, he'll soon find out, and in the meantime I get to have these awesome roleplaying encounters with this guy where I can completely channel Darth Vader at Bespin: come with me, to the DARK SIDE!! Mwahaha!). At the same time they face the growing threat of the Zhent Alliance (seen in Richard Lee Byers' The Rage), which dominates the Moonsea after Hillsfar was decimated by a large flight of sea dragons, and everyone is concerned about Scyllua Darkhope claiming the lordship of Scardale. The drow's activities continue to be a mystery to them (although it is basically Jael're raids to divert attention away from their successful co-option of Myth Drannor's mythal, as well as a slowly growing Weave corruption in Mistledale thanks to Irae T'Sarran (City of the Spider Queen). They have tangled with the shades on a number of occasions, and still have no idea what their aims or goals are. And everywhere in the region, skilled smiths continue to be murdered, and no one seems to know why (Imperagon, of course, from the Lord of the Iron Fortress, but its been happening for months now, and they're really starting to freak out
).
If this synopsis rambles too much, my apologies. Really, its just a new style of playing for me and my group, one which we are all enjoying. It is very freeform, without a predefined "plot" so much as "plot elements" that can occur in any order, according to the PCs actions, desires, and priorities. But I have been very happy with the growing sense of tension as they run into dragons going mad, whole cities being razed--even their former patron seeming a bit off his rocker, and always the sense that they are running out of time, and if they don't succeed then the Rage will consume everything.![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
My FR campaign has been going on for a good year and a half, now, and the PCs (the Hand of Valor) are up to 15th level.
The basic plot arc is one that I tried to seed way back during the first adventure: Gorgoldand's Gauntlet from Dungeon. Recasting Gorgoldand as a silver dragon named Argentus (which I thought was a rather clever name
), ane one (unlike Gorgoldand) who is still around to act as a mysterious patron, I set up the entire campaign as a sort of soldiers-of-destiny fulfillment of prophecy type deal. In a nutshell, the PCs are the ones fortold who may stop the Rage from destroying all of Faerun. Many of the adventures we have run were from WotC's adventure path, although there has been a substantial amount of time in-between adventures for me to fill in with my own fun plots. Currently, one PC is trying to engineer the Return of the elves to Cormanthor, struggling to unite elven and human leaders while facing strong opposition from the Eldreth Veluuthra. Another continually evades his old captor, a half-dracolich Dragon Cultist named Disarion, who continually refers to him as "the Scion" (scion of Ashardalon, he'll soon find out, and in the meantime I get to have these awesome roleplaying encounters with this guy where I can completely channel Darth Vader at Bespin: come with me, to the DARK SIDE!! Mwahaha!). At the same time they face the growing threat of the Zhent Alliance (seen in Richard Lee Byers' The Rage), which dominates the Moonsea after Hillsfar was decimated by a large flight of sea dragons, and everyone is concerned about Scyllua Darkhope claiming the lordship of Scardale. The drow's activities continue to be a mystery to them (although it is basically Jael're raids to divert attention away from their successful co-option of Myth Drannor's mythal, as well as a slowly growing Weave corruption in Mistledale thanks to Irae T'Sarran (City of the Spider Queen). They have tangled with the shades on a number of occasions, and still have no idea what their aims or goals are. And everywhere in the region, skilled smiths continue to be murdered, and no one seems to know why (Imperagon, of course, from the Lord of the Iron Fortress, but its been happening for months now, and they're really starting to freak out
If this synopsis rambles too much, my apologies. Really, its just a new style of playing for me and my group, one which we are all enjoying. It is very freeform, without a predefined "plot" so much as "plot elements" that can occur in any order, according to the PCs actions, desires, and priorities. But I have been very happy with the growing sense of tension as they run into dragons going mad, whole cities being razed--even their former patron seeming a bit off his rocker, and always the sense that they are running out of time, and if they don't succeed then the Rage will consume everything.
