| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
Marcus_Wands
Acolyte
USA
10 Posts |
 Posted - 14 Sep 2014 : 03:58:49
|
So, I'm planning out a long-term Forgotten Realms campaign. I'll be using 2nd Edition AD&D and setting it ten years after the Time of Troubles. I've got a small group of PCs (3) and plan on beginning them at 3rd level. I plan on opening the campaign in the Year of the Banner (1368 DR) and for my first adventure I'll be running Beneath the Twisted Tower - the adventure from the FR Boxed Set.
I have an over-arcing storyline, but I'm having trouble filling in some of the details. Basically in the aftermath of Beneath the Twisted Tower the characters are tasked by Elminster, via his aid Lhaeo, with guarding a caravan of important supplies leaving from Shadowdale and heading for the Waterdeep. Lhaeo gives the PCs a token which they are to provide to their contact in Waterdeep to recieve payment upon their arrival in the City of Splendors.
A few days outside of Shadowdale, the caravan is ambushed in the night and the PCs are forced to flee into the Desertsmouth Mountains where they eventually find a cave. They discover their attackers to be drow who are presumably tied to the events of the first adventure. The drow use their magic and the advantage of night to cave-in the party in a small cavern where they're taking refuge.
The characters explore the cave and discover a passage that leads deep underground, but in a western direction. Basically, this is where things start getting vague. The characters adventure underground for quite an extensive period and probably spend some time in the Underdark.
They eventually come out of the Underdark just west of Llorkh and continue their journey west. Upon reaching Waterdeep, they meet with their contact and show him the token given to them. The contact seems startled by this and puts the characters up for the night in a nice inn in the city, under protection from the City Watch.
The characters are then met by a city official who claims to represent the Lords of Waterdeep. He tells them that they carry a very powerful magical token with a strong dweamor of protection - but the exact nature of the magic isn't known. The token is somehow bound to the party.
The noble bids the party travel to Candlekeep in hopes of finding clues to the truth of this Token.
...and that's where I'm lost.
I've got some vague ideas.
In the end the noble and the character's contact are agents of Kelben Blackstaff.
The Token was the important thing that Elminster wanted carried in secret from Shadowdale to Waterdeep, with the caravan acting as a smoke screen. Why? Was he trying to get it to Blackstaff? Was Blackstaff expecting it? What does it have to do with the Drow? Why are they so interested in it?
So yeah, again, I've got a good start and some vague ideas... but things get nebulous for me pretty quickly.
So, any ideas or insight would be greatly appreciated and I'd love to hear what everyone else things. Thanks in advance!
|
|
|
Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36779 Posts |
Posted - 14 Sep 2014 : 04:44:27
|
Two things:
1) If the party is going to be forced into the Underdark, go easy on them. The Underdark can be overwhelming for people who have properly prepared -- a group that gets trapped there is up a creek before they've even started.
Also, why do the drow trap them, instead of killing them? Given the objective of trapping them underground, here's how I would stage it: The drow attack the party; a failed surprise attack would work well. During the fighting one of the drow uses magic and inadvertently causes the cave-in.
2) Be prepared to answer why this token couldn't be magically moved to its destination. One potential answer is that it is being used to draw someone out; the PCs themselves could be just a distraction. The item in question might have no function at all, beyond being a lure...
Something else I would do: once they get to Waterdeep, before they even encounter the city official, have them encounter someone shady who also claims knowledge of the token, and have this person give an entirely different spin on things... You might even have it get stolen, briefly (assuming it can be separated from the party), or you could have them catch someone trying to steal it. Either way, play it so that the PCs aren't entirely sure, once they get the official story, that the official story is true. |
Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com -- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct
I am the Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen!  |
 |
|
|
Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36779 Posts |
Posted - 14 Sep 2014 : 04:46:11
|
| Oh, and I think I'd have them bumble around the Underdark for a few days before encountering a dwarven caravan, using the Underdark. That give them some Underdark experience, lets them get plenty scared, and then gives them a viable means of survival on an unexpected long journey thru hostile territory. |
Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com -- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct
I am the Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen! |
|
|
|
Marcus_Wands
Acolyte
USA
10 Posts |
Posted - 14 Sep 2014 : 05:06:13
|
| Oh! Dwarven miners, great idea! Intro to the underdark without a super-high lethality. |
|
|
|
xaeyruudh
Master of Realmslore
USA
1853 Posts |
Posted - 14 Sep 2014 : 05:08:58
|
Elminster has bullseyes painted on him, in every known color and then some. Every magic-using individual and organization wants his magic. Everyone who wants to do things he doesn't like wants him removed from the picture. So no explanation is really necessary for why drow, or anyone else, would attack him or agents he sends somewhere on his behalf.
The question in my mind, if I were one of your players, would be why doesn't he teleport to Waterdeep and deliver it himself. Find a reasonable answer to that question, and it should give you some ideas about what the token is and why he chose the PCs.
If I were to switch gears to DM mode and take a stab at it, I would guess that the token is meaningless, or close to it. It might even just be a rock with a Nystul's magic aura cast on it... regardless of what level you make Elminster, it's going to be higher than the PCs' level, so the item will seem to radiate strong magic if they use detect magic, and the Nystul's will be impossible for them to dispel due to the difference in caster level. The fact that Elminster himself cast the Nystul's makes the token a beacon for certain enemies... likely including Zhentarim, Red Wizards, maybe Twisted Rune... and in your adventure, the drow. I suggest making up a high level wizard; the equivalent of a Manshoon, who is drow and lives in a drow city of medium distance from Shadowdale. That will be the source of the drow group that attacks the PCs.
Elminster isn't trying to get the token to Khelben, or anyone else in Waterdeep. It's a game of fetch. He throws the ball, and the PCs chase it... or in this case he gives them an adventure, and they go on it, and at some point they come back to him because they've realized he tricked them or they've run out of leads to follow. Or they don't return, but that would mean he's wrong about them.
When Elminster gives PCs a task, the task is not his goal. When something is important (like Shandril's spellfire) he gets directly involved. If he's not showing up to help blast the bad guys and directly preserving the PCs lives, then it's a game.
If you're open to changing the identity of the PCs' contact in Waterdeep, I suggest that it be somebody else who wants to wants to know what Elminster is up to. Because the real bad guys --Manshoon, Szass, Larloch, and so forth; the puppetmasters-- they know how Elminster operates. They know that if Elminster thinks something is important, he watches over it. But they also suspect that he knows that they know that. So it's possible that any random adventurer might actually be important, even in the absence of evidence.
Ignoring that psychological mumbo-jumbo, the drow and whoever else is behind the contact meeting them in Waterdeep would like to obtain that token, if it's safe to do so. The fact that Elminster has handled it personally makes it potentially valuable as a way to scry him, or possibly even launch an unexpected attack against him. Unless of course he's expecting that and has set traps... and we're back in mumbo-jumbo.
The Unseen isn't big enough to care about Elminster, until he's physically walking the streets of Waterdeep or poking around in the sewers. But it's possible that the dragons in Waterdeep (not just the evil ones) know Elminster's name and might be curious about what his "hired goons" are doing on the Sword Coast. And of course it could be anyone else. Agents of the Shadow Thieves, or any of the noble families, or just someone who has a grudge against Elminster... so practically everyone in the Realms.
Of course, as soon as someone impersonates Khelben, or any of the other Lords, the Lords become aware of it and investigate. The PCs will be approached by a bad guy pretending to be Khelben or acting in his name, and then they'll be approached by (or sent to, or attacked by) several others claiming to be acting in the Lords' best interest. One of those other individuals will actually be an undercover City Guard or adventurer who owes Khelben a favor... and that true agent will be very keen on finding out what the PCs are up to, and he/she might very well accidentally "push their buttons" and provoke an attack from the PCs, who are undoubtedly sick of being followed, scried, and attacked by everything within a 50 mile radius on their crazy march across Faerun.
If the PCs attack an agent of the Lords, the Watch and Guard swarm and clap them in irons, and they get tossed into Undermountain with the usual "if you can find your way out, you're free to leave" spiel. That's another chapter of the adventure that just writes itself.
My take on it is that everything is a smoke screen. It's all mumbo-jumbo. Underneath it all, there's just one truth in the whole adventure. Elminster is testing the PCs, with a future more-important task in mind.
|
|
|
|
xaeyruudh
Master of Realmslore
USA
1853 Posts |
Posted - 14 Sep 2014 : 05:15:50
|
Alternatively, it's the contact with Elminster that's faked. In that case he's off chasing bad guys somewhere else, and the PCs are pulled into this game of fetch by a Zhentarim wizard pretending to be Elminster, and it's Manshoon who is testing the PCs for a future task of greater importance.
In this case, Elminster might well be aware of the deception (he has spells to hear whenever his name is mentioned, and undoubtedly such a spell would be in effect in Shadowdale, where Zhentarim agents regularly try to impersonate him in order to trap Harper agents) and he might decide not to do anything directly about it but rather keep an eye on them from a distance and/or have some friends (not necessarily humanoid, so they could follow without being seen) watch for them along their route.
In this case maybe it is an agent of Khelben who meets them in Waterdeep and wants to know what they're up to. He would be reluctant to take the token, sensing an unfamiliar magical signature on it. That could explain why "it's magically bound to you guys" -- either they don't want it, or they don't trust it.
There are, after all, tons of magical traps that can be laid on an item, to be triggered only when a certain person touches the item. So it can be safe for the PCs to carry, but deadly to Khelben.
Just more ideas. |
|
|
|
Marcus_Wands
Acolyte
USA
10 Posts |
Posted - 14 Sep 2014 : 05:16:41
|
| Xaeyruudh, you're a genius. I love it. |
|
|
|
xaeyruudh
Master of Realmslore
USA
1853 Posts |
Posted - 14 Sep 2014 : 05:17:15
|
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Something else I would do: once they get to Waterdeep, before they even encounter the city official, have them encounter someone shady who also claims knowledge of the token, and have this person give an entirely different spin on things... You might even have it get stolen, briefly (assuming it can be separated from the party), or you could have them catch someone trying to steal it. Either way, play it so that the PCs aren't entirely sure, once they get the official story, that the official story is true.
This. +1.  |
|
|
|
Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36779 Posts |
Posted - 14 Sep 2014 : 14:49:14
|
| Another fun idea: the PCs don't know Elminster is involved, and only find out later... Perhaps the PCs are approached by some random dude, who gives them the token and claims to be a merchant shipping some stuff on that caravan. It's only much later, when they are in Waterdeep and my previously-mentioned shady contact approaches them, that they find out that their merchant contact was a magically-disguised Elminster. |
Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com -- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct
I am the Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen! |
|
|
|
Fendrikor
Learned Scribe
Australia
189 Posts |
Posted - 15 Sep 2014 : 05:59:25
|
If you are looking for a drow Archmage a medium distance from shadowdale (aprox 10 miles beneath the southern border of Mistledale to be exact), in the year of the Banner - use Duneth Wharriel, the Archmage of Maerimydra.
though he is later killed in the year of wild magic, its your realms - so do what you want with it.
as for the trip through the under dark, from the deserts mouth mountains - keep in mind that most of the mountain range was once home to the fallen realm of Tethyamar. Dwarven anything in there outside adventurers is going to be less viable.. perhaps Svirfnebin prospectors looking for gems? willing to trade gems for goods. depending on the interaction, they could use the gnomes knowledge of the tunnels to the route to Llhork. forshadowing whatever you wish there-in to add some goal structure to their time 'downstairs'. |
'Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup' |
|
|
|
xaeyruudh
Master of Realmslore
USA
1853 Posts |
Posted - 15 Sep 2014 : 06:06:42
|
| Orcs, goblins, and barghest/worghest in Tethyamar around 1357/1367, iirc. But a dwarven adventuring party or even small regiment makes sense and would be cool. The PCs could get hooked into a mini-campaign to help the dwarves clear out a foothold or advance to the next one. |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
New Realms Campaign Advice
