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Time passed. The heroes had undergone considerable injuries defeating the Voice in the Darkness, and so they needed to rest and recuperate. As the seasons changed, the farmers returned to their farms, traders returned to the area, and crops began to be harvested. Lord Drysdale's plans for resettling the area seemed to be working.
This didn't mean that everyone was simply waiting. Oneus Earthmane remained impatient for his friends to accompany him in a hunt for his ancestor's lost library. Lord Drysdale charged Cass with leading an expedition into the Chaos Scar, to defend a ruined temple of Erathis that had recently been discovered while it was restored to its former glory. Meanwhile, Lorgar ran into some debts - significant ones. However, he was approached by a strange dwarf, who agreed to pay the debt in exchange for Lorgar and his companions hearing a business proposition. The dwarf's master turned out to be the halfling mob boss Jangi Blackstream, who requested that Lorgar take on a job for him, finding a group of Dwarven traders who vanished near the Crossroads, an illicit trading settlement in the middle of the Chaos Scar.
The group discussed which of these three jobs they most wanted to take, and decided to help Cass purify the Temple of Erathis. (No one wanted to have anything to do with the halfling mafia!) So a team was established - Cass, Marja, Lorgar, Elspeth, Doraan, Dogwood, Erevan and Morgran (the dwarf associate of Jangi's). They headed out to the temple and arrived there that evening, as the shadows were lengthening. There was supposed to be a group of explorers there already, but the temple seemed strangely deserted, and the adventurers hesitated before entering. The imposing temple had been desecrated long ago: the symbols of Erathis had been defaced, and the foul iconography of Orcus, Demon God of the Undead, befouled every wall. And there was still no sign of the explorers - though Erevan could sense something through the trapdoor that led into the basement. Something powerful.
At this point, Elspeth sensed something outside, and went to look. Under the pale light of the moon, she could see the walking dead, arising on every side! Countless thousands of shambling corpses had surrounded the temple, and were moving towards it ponderously with deadly intent. She returned inside and warned the others, some of whom attempted to shore up some defences - others of whom attempted to hide. As a result, the building was not well barricaded. Zombies came crashing through doors and windows, pouring into the room. A desperate battle ensued, and the heroes were driven from their defensive position, to flee to the unknown perils of the basement. Lorgar was cut off and almost slain, and only Dogwood's pixie dust allowed him to escape.
In the basement, the adventurers discovered the corpses of the explorers that they had been meant to find, and the dessicated corpse of a Priest of Orcus, wearing a glowing purple amulet. Terrified, they destroyed all four bodies - the priest of Orcus came alive, but his only reaction was to protest how rude the adventurers were being as they cleft his head from his shoulders and destroyed his body, before Doraan took the amulet. The head continued to chatter, but it was ignored. The amulet let off an evil purple radiance that shone through the body of Doraan, illuminating his skeleton, but the tiefling seemed to suffer no ill effect.
The zombies appeared! Down the stairs into the basement, and tearing up the ceiling of the basement, they made a number of entrances and began to pour against the beleaguered defenders. Cass and Amnon (who had teleported in suddenly) led the defence, and slew great numbers of the zombies, but could not slay them all by any means, and gradually lost ground to the living dead. Dogwood and Elspeth tried to communicate with the head - it revealed that the amulet was a piece of the meteorite that had been perverted by Orcus to the demon god's foul ends. After a hundred years of undeath, however, the priest was no longer feeling like following Orcus had been a wise career move, and he was happy to suggest a method by which the Necroshard might be destroyed - as it had been torn from the power of the Far Realm to serve Orcus instead, perhaps if it were changed again to link to the power of other gods, it might lose its power.
Doraan took the amulet to the altar and the party channelled the powers of five different gods through the Necroshard. However, something went wrong. There was too much divine energy, and Orcus himself counterattacked through the Necroshard. A terrible explosion gutted the building, and the zombies were slain - but when Lord Drysdale sent his next expedition to find out what had happened, there was no sign of any bodies...
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The exhausted adventurers returned to Restwall Keep to discover a tent city of refugees had sprung up around the outside of the Keep! Lord Drysdale had been sponsoring settlers to move into the area around Restwell Keep, as part of his attempts to bring civilization to the Chaos Scar. The group had already heard that elven bandits had been attacking these farmers, and that a bounty had been offered; they had not heard how bad the situation had become. The adventurers talked to the fat cleric Benwick, who was offering his services to the refugees, to learn more about what had been happening. Several farms had now been massacred, their inhabitants either butchered or taken by the raiders. Curiously, the elves did not seem to be trying to drive the settlers out, or to take anything of value - slaughter seemed their only goal. Lord Drysdale did not have the manpower to fight them directly, so he instead had increased the bounty upon the elves, hoping that adventurers would deal with the problem for him.
The group had other concerns though. Lorgar went drinking in the tavern and got in a fight with a tiefling warlord called Doraan Underhelm, who was celebrating his own success against a cult of Torog and a brotherhood of halfling bandits who had been preying on merchant caravans. Lorgar expected a fair fight, strength against strength; instead, Doraan sucker-punched him and then pummelled the stunned barbarian into unconsciousness. The dazed barbarian swore an oath of enmity between them when he recovered consciousness.
Meanwhile, Marja and Elspeth discovered the implications of their discoveries, and liaised with Cass, who had been with Lord Drysdale in the Keep for the past week. All three were troubled by the encounter with 'Chitteruk' and so Cass arranged an audience with Lord Drysdale, who agreed to sponsor the group if they acted on his behalf against evils such as 'Chitteruk' - whatever the word might mean. Elspeth performed an augury to learn more and received a cryptic reply, which no one was able to interpret.
The group wanted to investigate Chitteruk, but found themselves with no leads. However, the next day, the situation changed: waking up, they found that a palace had crossed over from the Feywild and was now sitting on the horizon. It was the Eladrin palace of Sulastranan, though it was not supposed to change worlds for another sixteen years. Lord Drysdale chose Cass to act as an envoy to the eladrin, and Cass called upon the rest of the group to accompany him. He soon decided that this was a mistake, as most of the group distrusted either Lord Drysdale or the fey, and had little to no diplomatic skill. When the group reached Sulastranan, they found that its crystal walls had become tainted with a foul blackness. Cass left the others in an antechamber to conduct negotiations with a fey diplomat, and together they realised that the corruption on the prime material plane had begun to reach into the Feywild as well, tainting the magics that kept Sulastranan standing, and causing worldfall to occur prematurely. The fey lordling also told Cass that the elven 'bandits' were in fact elves who lived in the wilderness of the Feywild, in a part that had been the first to be corrupted, and that they had been the first to inadvertantly cross over.
Feeling that the elven mission was more urgent than ever, Cass assembled his allies. The priest Benwick supplied them with healing potions and directions, and Cass, Jarek, Elspeth, Marja and Erevan set out to investigate the last farmstead attacked. (Lorgar was too hung over and could not be stirred!)
The group made its way towards the farmsteads which had been attacked. Jarek's eagle Melatheth flew ahead, and soon returned - Jarek understood the eagle well enough to realise that Melatheth had discovered something, and following him, the party soon discovered another farmstead which had been attacked very recently. The farmers and livestock had been slaughtered, and the crops destroyed. The adventurers found some tracks leading away, and followed them across the King's Wall.
Soon, the group found themselves in an ambush set up by the elves that they were tracking! A group of maddened hounds rushed at the group, while archers shot iron arrows at them. Those the arrows struck found that the tainted iron spread a foul poison into their bodies, sapping their strength. Marja's nameless wolf, which had hitherto proven ineffectual in every battle, stunned everyone as it tore through enemies in swift succession. It was soon dubbed with the name, "Word." Meanwhile, Cass managed to make friends with one of the elven hounds, and Jarek was slain by elvish arrows, bleeding to death before the others could reach him to staunch his wounds.
The group captured one of the elves and interrogated him. They soon realised that some strange enchantment was influencing the elf's behaviour, and so they dispelled it. The elf, who was called Meldaniel, agreed to take the remaining adventurers to 'the Voice in the Darkness'. The fey woods proved difficult to navigate, with strange sights and sounds, the undergrowth moving whenever eyes were turned, and a strange voice whispering in their ears. However, they were able to find their way through without too much hardship.
Cass and his companions reached the clearing with the Voice in the Darkness, an immense primal tree that was the focus of the elves' spiritual existence. The tree had been greatly corrupted due to the Far Realm's influence in the Chaos Scar, with black bark dripping a tar-like sap, gnarled roots and twisted branches, and red striations in its withered leaves. It was this corruption that had in turn corrupted the elves. Now, their champion and their spiritual leader, an eladrin druidess, were offering a sacrifice to the tree: the unconscious form of Pung! The cult leader had in fact survived his encounter with the players, only to be taken by the elves. The bark of the tree pierced his flesh, and the tree took on a pinkish hue as it drew the blood from his body and consumed his dessicated corpse.
The biggest surprise of all, however, was the identity of the druidess. It was Elspeth's estranged sister Brighid! Due to the magical accident at their birth, Brighid had forsaken arcane magic and instead taken up the primal powers of a druidess - which only caused her to be the first to fall prey to the great tree's corruption. The group tried to sneak closer, but Cass was too loud, and the many elves around the tree turned to focus on them. Terribly outnumbered, Elspeth, Cass, Erevan and Marja prepared to sell their lives dearly.
Little did they know that two other groups of adventurers had reached the clearing at the same time! Doraan Underhelm, Lorgar's tiefling nemesis, had lead another group of heroes to fight the elven bandits and claim Lord Drysdale's bounty. Meanwhile, Lorgar had regained consciousness and made friends with the pixie Dogwood Sparrowhawk, an Avenger of the Raven Queen. Dogwood knew that the elves had subverted their fate as a result of their corruption, and was on a mission to deal with it. He recruited Lorgar (who was keen to catch up to his companions) and sprinkled the barbarian with pixie dust, so the two of them could fly over the forest, straight to the corrupted tree.
An immense battle took place between the eleven adventurers on one side, and the tree (which animated several of its roots and boughs to attack, as well as subverting the wills of some of the combatants with its whisperings), the elven archers, their champion, and Brighid on the other. Lorgar struck down a string of foes, and grievously injured Brighid, whom Elspeth then intimidated into surrendering. Marja was entangled by roots and was rescued by Word. Cass charged into battle and engaged most of the foe, bolstered by blessings from Marja, a halfling priestess of Avandra, and the exhortions of Doraan Underhelm, which allowed him to tie up nearly a quarter of the combatants single-handedly. The battle was terrible indeed, and most of the adventurers were gravely wounded during the fighting. Eventually, Oneus Earthmane (the goliath geomancer, who had accompanied Doraan) and Amnon the pyromancer combined their powers to great a fiery meteor, which was able to punch through the bark of the corrupted tree into its withered insides, burning it terribly. Lorgar then struck the meteor with his hammer, which forced the fiery sphere out the other side of the tree, rending it in two.
The surviving elves were disoriented, now that the source of their corruption had abated. Led by Brighid, they swore to conduct a guerilla war against the corruption in the Chaos Scar, to seek revenge for what had been done to them. With the banditry defeated, the refugees around Restwall Keep returned to their farms, and so the settlements were now secure from evil. The heroes had struck a mighty blow for order that day!
GM's Notes
This adventure was run over three sessions. The first session was a fairly unique thing for D&D: a session of purely roleplaying. I very much want to emphasize to the players that there are two parts to the game - the bit where they go out and explore and beat up things and take their stuff, but also the bit where they act in character and talk to each other and to NPCs and, well, roleplay. A lot of the players found this session very interesting, so I call that a success!
The refugee tent city was intended to show how the status quo can change as a result of the players' actions. The players had ignored this quest line, therefore I decided it was time for things to evolve. Likewise, Doraan Underhelm reported having knocked off a few other quests that the players had ignored. The world is changing and evolving around the players, not just standing still, and not just as a result of their own actions. I think this is important for any game.
The Eladrin city was a result of players giving me backstories. Noticing a lot of the players had links to the Feywild, I dropped this in to challenge them. In particular, Elspeth can now be challenged through her relationship with her sister, Marja is challenged in ways that I can't get into just now, and Cass... hasn't actually given me a backstory, but when he does, it will be relevant for him in some way! I deliberately chose to focus on these characters to spread the focus, as usually the game turns into The Adventures of Lorgar whenever a fight starts.
The most interesting part of the adventure was the final battle. We suddenly had an influx of new players who wanted to try the game. Rather than split into two groups (which I'll be ready to do for next time!), we had one huge battle instead. This meant that it could be some time in between turns (unfortunate!) I added a few house rules to balance things - firstly, initiative went clockwise rather than by rolling, because otherwise it would have been very confusing; secondly, I gave three players who were evenly spaced around the circle a marker. I also split the map into four quarters, centred on the tree. Whenever we reached me or one of the three players ended their turn, one quadrant of enemies went. This kept the fight dynamic and stopped problems like all six elven archers concentrating fire in one massive fatal barrage. Enemies could and did swap quadrants as the battle progressed, but I felt it did a very good job at keeping everything going. 4th ed's modular encounter design meant it was also very easy to drop a bunch of new monsters into the fight to match the increase in player numbers, and we were ready to go.
We did have problems, particularly with analysis paralysis with the newer players, but we tried to keep combat flowing quickly, houseruling rather than researching whenever we had a rules question, and so all the new players enjoyed themselves, and I think we'll see them again next week. (I'll still have enough notes to be able to deputise someone as assistant GM and then split the tables, though!)
Thu Jan 26, 2012 10:23 am
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This is a work in progress post, as I don't have information from all the players yet! Also, not all the information given is public knowledge, and so it may also be changed as the players learn more about one another.
Marja - Wilden Druid (Sentinel)
Marja is originally from the Feywild, although she does not speak much about her life there, and changes the topic whenever it is brought up. She is fervent in her defence of nature, and has come to the Chaos Scar in order to fight against the forces that are perverting the natural order there.
Tie-in Character - Galenwei (Unknown - for now!)
Lorgar - Human Barbarian
Lorgar is the heir to the chief of the Tigerclaw tribe, which dwells in the frozen north of the Nentir Veil. His tribe follows the totem of the saber-toothed snow tiger. He bears an uncanny resemblance to Hulk Hogan. Following his rite of manhood, Lorgar was selected as the Quester of his tribe. His goal is to find the warhammer Skullzacrackin, a relic of the Tigerclaw which was lost thousands of years earlier. Lorgar has come to the Chaos Scar because he thinks it is there.
Tie-in Character - Weetabix of the Black Wolfren Tribe. This tribe follows the darker primal spirits, and also seeks the hammer.
Elspeth - Eladrin Wizard (Witch)
One of twin sisters, Elspeth's birth was marked by a magical disaster that gave her strange and prodigious talents from a young age, but caused her family to distrust magic. Elspeth abandoned her family to seek more arcane knowledge, being obsessed with becoming all-powerful. She is willing to use any source to gain this power, and has even bound a demon as her familiar, which she called 'Spot'.
Tie-in Character - Brighid, her twin sister. The magic that marked Elspeth at birth alienated Brighid, who swore never to use it. The two sisters have not seen each other since Elspeth left home many years ago.
Jarek - Elf Ranger
Jarek grew up in the Nentir Vale as largely an orphan. His mother died at a young age, and his father was always travelling. When his father came home, he would teach Jarek some of his craft, but would never stay for long. The last time Jarek saw him, his father urged him to come find him in the Chaos Scar, where he was seeking adventure. Jarek has since discovered that his father has perished in the Chaos Scar and avenged his death.He was slain himself fighting corrupted elves.
Tie-in Character - None at this point.
Casswalladr Emrys o'Caiside - Eladrin Paladin
Born of a noble house of the Feywild, Cass was the third child and so by ancient custom was to be sent to join the church. As a paladin of the god of order, Cass has come to the Chaos Scar to aid Lord Drysdale in establishing civilization in the area.
Tie-in Character - None at this point.
Amnon the Arcane - Tiefling Wizard (Pyromancer)
Little is known of the past of this tiefling wizard. He has a natural affinity to fire magic due to the pact his ancestors made, but he refuses to sell his soul for power as they did. He seeks to master the arcane on his own terms, and came to the Chaos Scar to gain more power from what is hidden in the ruins there.
Tie-in Character - None at this point.
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BOUNTY
For ending the attack of the elven bandits who have been attacking farmsteads around Restwell Keep: 200 gold.
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Players: Marja, Lorgar, Elspeth, Jarek, Torak (NPC). (We also had two other players who trialled D&D for the first of the two sessions - they played as Zestren and Amnon.)
Following their return to Restwell Keep, Cass was summoned to meet with Lord Drysdale himself. Meanwhile, Marja and Lorgar visited the Stumbling Giant bar, which was again full of all manner of adventurers. One of these was a drunk human trapper with an incredible story: he had been hunting in the Chaos Scar, and had been attacked by a strange drake. Upon slaying it, the drake had grown blisters, which burst to reveal residuum - the crystalline form of raw magic. Sensing a profit, the adventurers at the bar decided to form an expedition. Jarek, Torak and Lorgar were interested in profit, while Marja wished to investigate the source of the mutation and Elspeth sought the residuum to fuel her own powers.
With it decided that the expedition would depart upon the next day, each of the adventurers was left to their own devices until then. Marja and Elspeth spoke to the priestess Chendera, leader of the local cult of Avandra, and received her blessing. Other party members looked for information about the area of the Chaos Scar where the trapper had found the drake. They discovered that it was near the Pillar of Eyes, a strange stone monument decorated with engraved eyes, although they did not learn any more than this.
The next day, the group set off into the Chaos Scar. They crossed the King's Wall near the Old Gate, and continued along the ancient road that led to the Crossroads. Marja and Lorgar were relieved by the lack of mud this time around! After an hour, the group left the road to travel north towards the Pillar of Eyes. Before they reached it, Jarek heard the sound of a screaming drake. It turned out to be a riding drake caught in a pit, dragging a caravan. Around the caravan were a number of robed followers trying to extricate it, while their leader stood on the roof and screamed religious propaganda at them. The leader, who gave his name as Pung, seemed quite insane and directed his followers to attack the adventurers, who dealt with them in short order. They slew Pung, and were horrified when a strange incorporeal being rose from his body to begin psychically assaulting Zestren, but this too was slain easily, as were the giant magic-warped ants that boiled from the hive. However, the drake and the caravan were dragged into the hive, and the group decided not to follow.
From here, the adventurers continued to the Pillar of Eyes. This twelve foot monolith was completely covered with carvings of eyes, in a range of different styles from over the last five hundred years. There were also decorated strings of small black and rotting orbs hanging from it, which appeared more recent - actual eyeballs which had been presented to the pillar. The group was repulsed by it, and at the same time felt a strange compulsion to carve eyes on it themselves, but they all resisted the urge.
Searching from the Pillar, the group soon found a tunnel leading into an underground cave, with a number of drakes in it, each one bearing signs of the same mutations as the one described by the trapper. In one of the walls, a strange purple crystal shard pulsed irregularly, and the growths on the drakes echoed it with the same light. The group was in for a tough battle - or would have been, had Lorgar not slain the Rage Drake leading the group with a pair of mighty strikes before it could even react. In fact, in the ensuing battle the mighty champion of the Frost Tiger tribe personally accounted for half of the drakes present, and his actions swung the course of the battle.
Following the fight, Elspeth and Marja investigated the strange crystal. Using her arcane power, Elspeth sensed that the crystal was vibrating - in fact, it had a heartbeat. Moments later, the pulse from the crystal changed to match her own heartbeat, and images flashing through her mind offered to fulfill the power fantasies she had always cherished. However, Elspeth felt disturbed by how unnatural the crystal was, and refused - and had her mind violently assaulted by the crystal, stunning her. As she fell, she felt the crystal reach out for something else... Marja, meanwhile, deduced that the crystal was a shard of the comet that had stuck hundreds of years earlier, and that despite its separation from the main comet, it was still in some incomprehensible way still a living part of the original comet. The group decided to try and shatter the crystal, but were unable to do so.
At this point, part of the wall of the cavern collapsed and the giant ants from before surged through! Jarek prepared an escape route, while Lorgar, Torak and Elspeth tried to hold back the ant swarm by collapsing part of the cavern on them. They were not successful, alas, and were forced to retreat before their inexorable progress. Meanwhile, Marja realised that the ants had been mutated by the strange magics of the Chaos Scar, and called to this cavern by the chaos shard in the wall. She attempted to commune with the shard as Elspeth had done, and discovered that the shard was not communicating with the ants, but through them to another. She was able to pick up only a single word from the communication, however.
CHITTERUK
The group made a desperate escape from the ant hive, but were unable to rescue Torak. At the final moment, they were forced to abandon the dwarf to a terrible fate at the hands of the hive...
As the heroes escaped from the giant ant hive, they were joined by Amnon, the tiefling pyromancer. Amnon had remained behind with Oneus after discovering the underground laboratory, but now he had discovered the location of old Voren Earthmane's tower, and wanted to take the group to go investigate it. However, Jarek heard a strange noise - the sounds of a riding lizard. He led the group towards it and soon found a saddled lizard, covered in bloody wounds. He recognised it as the lizard of his father, and the group backtracked to find an ancient ruin with the corpses of an adventuring party scattered around it, as well as a goblin warband standing over them. Each of the savage goblins was decorated with symbols of eyes, reminding the group of the Pillar of Eyes that lay nearby.
The group attacked, seeking revenge for Jarek's father! Amnon incinerated several goblins, while Marja and her wolf were blasted through a stone wall by the goblins' shaman. Elspeth used her magic to transform the goblin leader into a frog, and Lorgar trampled his way through the goblin shaman before going after the frog. Jarek and Elspeth found themselves threatened by more goblin minions, and Elspeth heard a familiar voice in her mind urging her to battle - the dead dwarf, Torak! Elspeth struck at one of the goblins' foremost warriors with her staff, which became suffused with a radiant aura as it slew him - a sort of magic beyond her understanding.
Meanwhile, Marja drew her scimitar and struck down several goblins before she and Lorgar closed upon the goblin leader. The massive goblin fell swiftly before the two of them, ending the battle. After the battle, Amnon noticed that the goblins' leader was decorated with a headpiece of eyeballs, and that some of these eyeballs were in fact a part of the goblin, extending out like a slug's eyestalks! Amnon identified this as the influence of the Far Realm, and the group hypothesized about the connection between the goblins and the Pillar of Eyes. Meanwhile, Elspeth meditated on the presence of Torak and determined that she was being haunted by the dead dwarf's ghost - her greater psychic awareness and her emotional state when the dwarf had died had made the spirit attach itself to her.
There were many questions and few answers. After a short rest, the group returned to Restwall Keep, to decide where to go next.
GM's Notes
This session started in an odd manner because we had four new D&D players show up, which threw off my plans - this effectively became another introduction session. So, back to the inn, back to basic roleplaying, etc. This time, rather than give the players twenty sheets of possible characters to choose from, I emptied out my box of miniatures and asked each of them to find a mini to represent them. When they did, I then explained roughly what that character would play like, and that worked out pretty well (though for some of them I had to give them a 'close enough' character sheet for the first session, and then the proper sheet for the next time).
Also, I'd been planning to have Lord Drysdale, through Cass, give the party their quest for the night. Cass is played by a staff member, though, and she had too much work to be able to play. So, instead I gave the players a very short description of a few possible adventures, they decided that giant mutant ants sounded fun, and I gave them only that plot hook. Hopefully Cass is back for the next adventure!
The Pillar of Eyes was fun - the players noticed it on the map and asked what it was, and so I invented all the details about it from scratch. It also foreshadows the sort of weirdness that they'll find later on in the Scar, especially if I run Eyes in the Forest. The encounter with Pung was also foreshadowing - it sets up the presence of the giant ants for this adventure, as well as the fell taints from The Tainted Spiral. Pung himself was also great fun to run: I played him as a mock televangelist, and the players really got into this. In fact, the players started adding their own voice acting, which was fantastic - after I'd done televangelist Pung and then Torak the dwarf NPC with a faux-Scottish accent which quickly turned into faux-Pirate, Marja the Wilden started using the Queen's English, Lorgar got a Salisbury accent, and Jarek the elf became Jamaican. It was fantastic.
The other great sound effect was the heartbeat for the crystal. After the fight ended, I reached behind me where no one could see and felt out where the wall was. That way, when Elspeth started investigating the crystal, I was able to start beating out a heartbeat without them noticing, which was quite effective, and then they were able to identify it as a heartbeat without me having to tell them.
I changed the end of the adventure for two reasons. The first one was time - after the players had checked out the Pillar of Eyes, fought the drakes, and then interacted with the chaos shard, we only had a bit of time before the store closed. Rather than have the players launch into another round of battles which we wouldn't be able to finish, I changed it into a sort of impromptu skill challenge, which worked fairly well. I also believe in keeping these adventures short and snappy, and so I felt that we simply didn't need two different waves of giant ants in the fight. One encounter would be enough. I put in more foreshadowing with CHITTERUK to set up another future adventure. I think the trick of this sort of sandbox campaign is to throw out as many foreshadowing things as possible, and then the world feels more organic when the players decide to follow up on them, or when you introduce the things they were connected to later on. And of course, if the players never meet the payoff to the Pillar of Eyes or Pung or Chitteruk, it doesn't damage the game at all. A little mystery never hurt anyone.
The final segment (which I've just edited in) was part of the payoff to the Pillar of Eyes. One of the advantages of having printed off the adventures beforehand was being able to go through and draw connections between things, which helps to make the setting feel more interrelated. The eye-goblin cult and the Pillar of Eyes would clearly have some connection, I decided! I reintroduced Torak's ghost for a number of reasons. Firstly, with his death, the party had no defender, so Elspeth was able to manifest defender-like powers from Torak's ghost. Secondly, Elspeth's companion-character sheet was fairly lacking in interest, so a power up was no bad thing. Finally, it helped to involve Elspeth's player more. Similarly, I attached the hook for the goblins to Jarek's player, to interest the newer players more.
The biggest reason why Torak's ghost was important, however, was a narrative one. Actions should have consequences, positive as well as negative. Too often in D&D there are two outcomes - victory or death. If you win, then a Bad Thing goes away and the status quo is restored. If you lose, the game ends. Boring! As this game continues, the PCs' victories might wind up changing the setting through the consequences of what they achieve - which will make them feel much more important than just finding treasure and preserving the status-quo. Similarly, non-fatal failures are essential, and must also have consequences. The players felt bad about Torak's death, even though it was really just the result of a string of bad dice rolls rather than any failing on their part - his ghost returning hammers home how they've failed, and gives more roleplaying potential in the future - Torak had a family, and had his own motivations, and may also be feeling bitter about the party leaving him to be devoured by giant ants. There are a lot of interesting consequences that can come out of failing once we abandon the 'PCs dies, game ends' standard.
The goblins were fun to roleplay as, and they set up a nice little mystery for the players to investigate. Continuing with the funny voices that have been going on, all the goblins used higher-pitched Yoda voices, which kept everyone amused. The juxtaposition of silly humour and disgusting Far Realm body-horror was rather nice, too.
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BOUNTY
For the heads of the halfling bandits known as the BROTHERS GREY. 25 gold per head.
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Heroes: Cass (Eladrin paladin), Marja (Wilden Druid), Lorgar (Human Barbarian), Amnon (Tiefling Wizard) and Oneus (Goliath Sorcerer)
Many adventurers are drawn to Restwell Keep for a range of reasons, and so, late one gusty autumn, several new travelers entered the Keep. After paying a gate tax to the representatives of Lord Drysdale, the new arrivals entered the Stumbling Giant tavern, the heart of the bailey. There were a number of strange individuals in the Stumbling Giant that day: a worried-looking halfling, a treeish woman with a wolf curled up at her legs, a human hunter, a finely clad eladrin warrior bearing the holy symbol of Erathis around his neck, a cheerful elf mercenary drinking with an immense goliath, a slim tiefling, and a muscular human wearing the pelt of a sabre-snow tiger. Marja chose to observe the room, as she was extremely unaccustomed to civilisation. Cass talked with Mother Aran at the bar, while Lorgar and Amnon approached the goliath and elf. The pair introduced themselves as Oneus Earthmane and Varis, and Lorgar soon became friends with Oneus after he discovered that the goliath could hold his alcohol as well as he could!
The next day, after Oneus and Lorgar sobered up, Oneus revealed the reason that he had come to Restwell Keep. Before the Chaos Scar had been created, his ancestor Voren Earthmane had been a powerful geomantic sorcerer, who had had a tower and research laboratory in the valley. Both had been abandoned and lost when the comet struck, but Oneus felt that he had discovered a reference in Voren's survivng writings that hinted at the location of his ancestor's magical laboratory. Oneus wanted to assemble a group of adventurers to search the ruins, and particularly to see if they could discover Voren's famous Staff of Earthen Might. This relic had powered Voren's geomantic magics through its connection to the Elemental Chaos. Lorgar was happy to join his new friend, and the two soon recruited Cass and Marja (who were happy to help any cause that would quell the evil in the Chaos Scar) and Amnon, who thought that he might find something in the ruins that would aid his own magic.
The group departed the next day, crossing over the ruins of the King's Wall. They were surprised by the natural beauty of the 'corrupted' Chaos Scar, but were less pleased when a rainstorm blew up, turning the ground to mud underfoot. However, despite the mud, the group persevered, and soon found the ruined foundations of Voren's laboratory. The mud grew thicker underfoot as they waded in - and heard disconcerting ribbiting from all about them. Bullywugs - foul frog-men emerged from the ruins. Amnon recklessly strayed ahead from the group to unleash his pyromancy upon the frog-men and was almost slain by the savage bullywugs. Cass waded into the mud after him, and found himself in trouble as the bullywugs dragged him down into the mud. Meanwhile, another group of bullywugs threatened Marja, Oneus and Lorgar. However, they did not know of the furious might of Lorgar, whose mighty maul struck the frogmen down on every side. The bullywugs invoked their Lord Ribbert to avenge them as they were struck down.
Squelching through the unnaturally thick mud, the group found a trapdoor that led down into Voren's laboratory. The ancient basement was largely ruined, and a thick layer of mud coated every surface. Marja used her druidic knowledge to realise that this was no natural mud: rather, it was from the Elemental Chaos. The group pressed on, and were caught in an ambush by the rest of the bullywug tribe, led by Lord Ribbert himself and his giant frogs. The frogs swallowed Lorgar and Cass, who had to be pulled out of their ravenous maws while Oneus summoned the earth to consume another giant frog, and Amnon's fire incinerated more frog-men. Meanwhile, Lord Ribbert used ventriloquism to unleash explosive burps all around them. Finally, however, the bullywug chief's minions were defeated, and Lord Ribbert himself slain.
Finally, the group discovered the Staff of Earthen Might itself, which was spewing forth elemental mud and slowly drowning the laboratory. Amnon realised that the staff has been damaged when the comet struck, which had caused its connection to the Elemental Chaos to malfunction. He closed the rift that had formed and repaired the staff with the help of Marja, while Cass and Lorgar held off elemental mud monsters that had passed through the rift. One final mud monster emerged, larger than the others, but Oneus used his geomantic magics to cripple it, and it was easily slain.
Following their victory, Amnon and Oneus decided to remain in Voren's laboratory to see if anything could be salvaged, while the other three heroes, now the richer for some of the loot that they had salvaged from the ruins, returned to Restwell Keep.
GM's Notes
This adventure was run over two sessions of about three hours each. I decided to start off with the generic bar scene because it allowed our players a chance to figure out what their characters are like (especially for Amnon's player - it was his first pen & paper rpg!), and it also introduced a number of NPCs for them. I had the players randomly select a number of characters from my pile of supporting characters. These characters were originally intended to be supplementary party members, as we didn't have a lot of people show up, but when another person wandered over and looked interested, I was able to give him Oneus' sheet to use. I also noticed that Amnon's player seemed overwhelmed in the first encounter by the sheer number of powers that his wizard could use, and so I created a companion character sheet for him which only had the key powers on it - no less powerful, but a vastly less confusing looking list of options!
The players hooked on Oneus as their NPC very quickly, and so wound up only being offered the one quest. It did show me a potential problem: does it count as being sandbox if the PCs only get one option? This blog is one answer to that, giving the players a few more plot hooks that they can choose to follow up on. The other plot hooks that the players didn't get were for Den of the Slavetakers and Death in the Pincers.
One thing I did was I deliberately played up the descriptions of weather and especially the mud. By describing how filthy the characters got, how gross it was to squelch through mud, fall over into mud, get mud in their hair, so on, I think the players really got the atmosphere. Too much description would have left them cold, but one thing emphasized worked very well.
The other key technique I used was hamming everything up as much as possible! I used ribbiting voices for the bullywugs and mimed their hopping charges, I added as many sound effects as possible, I created Lord Ribbert based on player jokes. I also deliberately pointed out some of the sillier things, like the bullywug lord's fiery croak being a ranged area effect ability - I described it as exploding ventriloquism, which amused the players immensely. Suspension of disbelief got damaged, but I think the players had more fun, and for new players I think that's much, much more important.
As for the encounters themselves, I cut the second encounter out for space and also because plot-wise it doesn't add anything. If I were to re-run the third encounter with the Giant Frogs I would remove at least one of the frogs and put in Bullywugs instead. Two of the PCs were instantly swallowed by the frogs, which limited their involvement and enjoyment in the encounter. It also slowed down the battle immensely, which none of the players enjoyed. The final encounter's skill challenge is also very poor as written because there is actually no consequence for failure. I modified it so that if no PC made a check in a single round, then they would accrue a failure (forcing them to deal with it, rather than letting them play with the mud men first) and that whenever three failures had accrued, a new mud man or giant mud man (reskinned Ochre Jelly). This made the skill challenge much more important. Unfortunately, because the giant frogs had made the last encounter take so long, the store had to close and we ran out of time, so to speed things up I gave Oneus a very powerful special attack against the giant mud man, and didn't use any of its powers apart from the standard attack (especially not the splitting one!)
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For the Onlookers
Nothing for you this time. This is all based on Mike Mearl's article in DDI, "Keep on the Chaos Scar", and is information that the players need to know.
For The Players
In between your adventures in the Chaos Scar, your characters spend their time in Restwell Keep. The closest bastion of civilisation, you can use the keep to find supplies as well as information about future possible quests. The Keep is the site of conflict, however, as rival factions seek to gain control over it.
This post will be edited as the campaign progresses, with new characters and new information, to give you up-to-date information about what know about the keep and its inhabitants. Not everything you read here will necessarily be true! There are some plot hooks in here that you can choose to follow up on during the game.
History of the Keep
Restwell Keep was one of the furthermost outposts of the ancient Empire of Nerath, built in the borderlands of the Nentir Vale to guard the frontiers. The humans of Nerath called upon their dwarven allies from the Dawnforge Mountains, which lie some hundred miles to the east, to aid in the construction of the Keep: this is why, hundreds of years later, Restwell Keep still stands. After the comet fell that created the Chaos Scar four hundred years ago, the purpose of Restwell Keep changed from monitoring the orcs and gnolls of the hinterlands, to watching the evil that the comet had stirred up. They built the King's Wall around the Scar, and monitored it from the watchtowers along its length.
However, Restwell Keep could not survive the collapse of Nerath. Armies of orcs, goblins, gnolls and demons poured across the world, destroying the last great civilisation. The great city of Nerath to the south was burnt to the ground. The last king was King Elidyr, who led the Knights of Nerath and united the disparate forces of good. In the final battle, King Elidyr was slain, as were the vast majority of the surviving nobility of Nerath, but the armies of darkness were defeated. Restwell Keep was never part of the war, located in the frontier as it was, but the majority of its garrison marched to war and never returned. Within a generation, the Keep was abandoned, about two hundred years before the present day.
About a hundred years ago, Restwell Keep was discovered by the notorious dwarf bandit lord Greysen Ramthane. Operating from the forgotten fortress, Greysen pillaged the Nentir Vale and amassed a small fortune from merchants and travellers. However, he had not counted on the orcs of the Bloodspear Tribe. His reign of terror lasted only ten years before the Bloodspear War, when orcs poured out of the Stonemarch to the west and swept through the Nentir Vale. Ramthane barely escaped the keep ahead of the orcish armies, and was never heard from again. It was said that he did not have time to move his treasure hoard, and that it is still hidden somewhere in the Keep.
After the devastation of the Bloodspear War, Restwell Keep was once again reoccupied by bandits. The adventuring party, the Blades, inhabited the Keep in recent years, and used it as a base of operation as they sought their fortune, be it fighting monsters in the Chaos Scar, looking for Ramthane's fortune, or conducting some banditry of their own. They also encouraged other adventurers to come to Restwell Keep , and so a small community of fortune-hunters, mercenaries, bandits, adventurers, and other ne'er-do-wells sprang up in the keep, encouraged by the Blades' lax attitude towards law and order.
However, the Blades' rule did not last long. Only a few months ago, the Blades stole a holy relic of Erathis, goddess of civilisation. Lord Peridin Drysdale, a paladin of Erathis, led a small group of crusaders to the Keep, where he defeated the Blades. Following his victory, Lord Drysdale decided to remain in the Keep. He is now trying to bring order to this forsaken area, by sponsoring adventuring parties to cleanse the Chaos Scar, and encouraging settlement and trade. However, his policies are not popular with many of the adventurers who still operate out of the Keep.
Lord Perithin Drysdale
The ruler of Restwell Keep, Lord Drysdale is a fifty-year old human, still strong but beginning to show his age. He is a skilled warrior, and has served in many campaigns as a leader of men in the name of his goddess Erathis. After his defeat of the Blades, Lord Drysdale has seen Restwell Keep as an opportunity given to him by his goddess, and has been bringing order to the lawless lands. However, many of his policies are unpopular, such as increased taxation, and a functioning legal system that means that adventurers can no longer do whatever they want.
Kendon Longstrider, Keep Bailiff
Kendon's white hair and mustache are a sign of his age. The elderly warrior served as bailiff for the Blades before the arrival of Lord Drysdale, and still fulfills that role today. He is in charge of the day-to-day management of the outer bailey, in charge of taxes, the Lord's bounties, and maintaining order.
Chendera, Priestess of Avandra
Chendera is Lord Drysdale's chief opponent in the Keep. She is a short half-elf with long black hair, and worships Avandra, goddess of luck, freedom and independence. Before the arrival of Lord Drysdale, Chendera was the spiritual leader of Restwell Keep, and she resents her diminished authority. Apart from their theological differences, Chendera feels that Lord Drysdale's policies might anger the denizens of the Chaos Scar. While she is not a warrior, she is more spiritually aware than any other in the Keep, and she senses that there is an evil in the Chaos Scar beyond the monsters that live there, an evil that is currently dormant but that she fears may turn its malice outwards once more because of Lord Drysdale's actions.
Ferdinand Ronnik, 'Retired' Thief
Ronnik is a slim human male who makes no secret of his previous profession: he was a very skilled burglar. In fact, he still boasts of how he broke into a temple of Zehir (the god of assassins and poison). However, Ronnik decided that being a thief required too much risk overall for not enough gain. Ronnik has instead become a moneylender and landlord, making money through means more legal if no less immoral.
Mother Aran, Landlady of the Stumbling Giant
There are two inns in Restwell Keep, but the most popular is the Stumbling Giant. The inn is run by Mother Aran, an old woman who had in her youth been an adventurer herself. As a result, she is no stranger to the unusual circumstances that often occur around the patrons of her inn, which is a large part of the reason for her popularity - the other main reason being her famous spiced potatoes!
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Welcome to the blog! To those who've taken part: I hope you enjoy looking back over your exploits, seeing what everyone's been up to when you haven't been around, or pick up a few plot hooks which I'll sprinkle in. To those who haven't: I hope you find this interesting and maybe slightly helpful.
About Me
I'm a high school teacher in Auckland, New Zealand, who's been roleplaying for longer than I care to think about. Recently, the local gaming store started getting Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition books in, and asked if I could run some games to promote interest. The only roleplaying I've been getting lately is forum-based, so I jumped at the chance to start doing face-to-face gaming again. Looking at the resources available, I found that the Chaos Scar adventures from the D&D Insider, when added to the old Keep on the Borderlands encounters season, would make a great setting.
For The Players
Three hundred years ago, during the time of the Empire of Nerath, a meteor fell from the sky in the northern lands of the Nentir Vale. It carved a great trench into the land where it fell. Around where the meteor had fallen, crops began to fail, wounds festered, livestock to sicken and perish. Strange creatures began to be seen, and men feared to go outside during the night. The King of Nerath declared the area cursed and built the King's Wall around the crater, which was now being called the Chaos Scar. Sentinels stood guard on the wall, making sure that the evil within the Chaos Scar would never threaten the rest of the Nentir Vale. Time passed, and the Empire of Nerath collapsed. The King's Wall lay in ruins. The only people who came to the Chaos Scar now were adventurers in search of treasure and adventure, seeking plunder in the ancient, long-abandoned ruins of the Chaos Scar, and to fight the timeless evil that still dwelt there.
The Chaos Scar game is an ongoing campaign, taking place in Vagabond Games, Takapuna, Auckland, New Zealand every Thursday night at 6pm. Characters are provided, and you can be taught how to play on the spot, so everyone is welcome to take part!
For The Onlookers
This is the section where I put behind-the-scenes stuff for those who are interested in how I promote D&D for the local gaming store. You might find it useful if you have to do something like this yourself!
I chose the Chaos Scar adventures because they offered a very wide range of short, pre-written adventures. I know that I won't have the time to prepare a new adventure myself every week, so having this sort of resource is essential! The first thing that I did was buy a lot of folders and print off all of the Chaos Scar adventures and maps for them. It took a while, but I found it much more useful. I also could write on the adventures to annotate them, make changes, elaborate connections between adventures, and so forth.
Our first session that we had was character creation, for the first three people. Fortunately, these were all regular rpgers who had varying degrees of familiarity with 4th Edition, so they form a core to the game. Since I never knew how many players we'd have in any given night, I went through the adventures and jotted down who all the npcs were that were mentioned, either in plot hooks or in the course of the adventures. I then conflated some of them, removed some redundancies, and wound up with about twenty other adventurers who feature over the course of the campaign.
For each of these characters, I created a Companion Character, using the rules from the Dungeon Master Guide II. This meant that, if we only had the three original players who are always there, we could fill out the numbers with some quest-appropriate companion characters. This would also give some more people for the players to associate with (since a lot of the Chaos Scar adventures are very light on role-playing). However, if we had other people show up, they could be given a companion character sheet and it would give them a simplified, learn-to-play character to try out the game with.
This has been fairly successful - it's allowed us to let everyone who looks interested to just jump straight in. On the other hand, as the NPCs get used like this, their own storylines and characters can be lost a bit. When I level up the NPCs, I'll probably write a character blurb for each of them, just saying who they are, what they're like, and what their goals are. It could be slightly tricky for some of the companion characters who are doomed to come to a sticky end to set up a future adventure, but I'll worry about that when I get to it.
Coming Soon
What I'm planning to do is to alternate between session reports and other articles. The next post will be some background information about Restwell Keep and some of the people in it! Then, after that, I'll have a session report for the Stick In The Mud adventure.
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