Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Zardnaar Nov 15, 2005 2:26:30	Heres a rough outline of my ideas for my Darksun game. I started my PCs at level 3 just like in 2nd ed. Its been just about 10 years since I played DS- my current group are additions to my old group from back then (basically when some leaves I replace them-I have had 2 of my players since 98 who gamed with my original 95/96 group) The party consists of 1 3rd level Elven Druid (varient from unearthed Arcana) 1 3rd level Human Cleric 1 2nd level preserver/1st level fighter (human aiming for eldritch knight PrC) 1 2nd level Mul Gladiator They're from Tyr and the timeline is free year 10- 4 months after the prism pentad. Basically around the time of the revised boxed set. They skirmished with some elven raiders and are currently in Tyr and are following leads to gain access to under Tyr. Stealing an idea from the mystery of the Ancients boxed set I want to have them go into the ruins of the green age Tyr and due to the great earthquake a remnant of Tyr'agi is revealed below Tyr. However a certain band of Halflings lead by an insane Psionist who has followed his dream are here as well....... After that they want to escort a caravan to Balic. I thought it would be a time to drum into them how barren Athas is and hit them with gith raiders along the way and have them met the Dwarves of Ledopolus. Maybe have them visit an offshore island in the Sea of Silt once they're there. Then back to Tyr again. Hopefully they will return to Tyr where I can have them develop contacts and relationships with NPCs. basically give them a reason to care about the place. Maybe a short side trip towards Urik where they can run into some of Hammanus Templars and military forces. They're building a fort there and notify the PCs all trade with Urik is to cease except at these border forts. If I'm feeling mean maybe they get escorted to Uriks arena. A few more ideas would be welcome. Theres advance scouts for the Kreen empire to the west, Kurn lies to the north and beyond that lies the Last Sea which they may be barely aware of.
#2 jon_oracle_of_athas Nov 17, 2005 4:09:13	They could always hire on with House Vordon or one of its dummy houses, such as House Troika. Use them as pawns in Thaxos' plot against Tyr, and when they one day play Tyrian Conspiracy, let them know the horrible truth that they have helped set the stage for.
#3 Band2 Nov 17, 2005 11:13:52	How about this: First you need a mentor/ sponsor for the characters. Agis would be a good choice but he is dead. So create someone like him. Agis (or a new mentor) asks the characters to perform a favor for him when they get to Balic. He asks them to find a slave girl, named Zagres. He gives them a short description of the girl when she was 15 years old, but warns them the description is ten years old. He tells them that ten years ago she was owned by the Eumenes noble family in Balic, and that they should start looking for her at their town house. Agis just asks the party to locate the girl, not to bring her back to Tyr or anything else. He just wants to know where she is. Why? Agis does not say and will not tell the party if they ask. Maybe his excuses are it’s a personal matter that is too sensitive to talk about, or it is a state secret that he cannot trust the characters with. Moving on, the party arrives in the Wavir controlled portion of Balic. When they inquire about the nobles they learn that the Eumenes town house is in Tomblador section of town. The characters have to infiltrate that section and arrive at the town house, maybe fighting a group of Tombladors who think the characters are spies of the Wavirs. Upon reaching the noble’s house they find that the Eumenes family has been down on its luck and lost much of its fortune. They had to sell Zagres a couple of years before to a templar named, Vitellius. Inquiring after the templar Vitellius the characters cannot find him, but eventually learn the Vitellius’s superior Clodius is a prisoner of the Wavir, waiting for execution. If the party approaches Clodius he refuses to have anything to do with them unless they can arrange a pardon with the Wavir higher ups. If the party try to pursue a pardon, perhaps the Wavirs ask the party to perform some service. Maybe hunting down some slave tribe that raided a caravan stealing some important papers or objects. After performing the favor and getting Clodius pardoned, the templar tells the characters that Vitellius was killed in the chaos after Andropinis’s death and the Wavir coup. He has no knowledge of a slave he use to own or any other useful information. The party is at a dead end. The party could come up with the idea or some one could suggest to them, to return to the Eumenes to see what else they can learn about the girl Zagres. If the party interviews the one remaining house slave the Eumenes still have, she can tell the party all sorts of “servant’s gossip” about Zagres and a supposed affair she had with another slave named Samos. Samos was also sold by the Eumenes family around the same time as Zagres. Samos was a soldier slave and he was sold to the city for the army. The characters could inquiry after Samos’s whereabouts. Since the Wavir coup the soldier slaves have been freed. Eventually the characters learn that Samos is involved in an underground organization that runs outlawed gladiator matches. The characters discover the location of the matches and go there one night to find Samos. They would have to get past the guards, all tough ex-gladiators. While inside the old warehouse used for the matches, they could get thrown into an impromptu match, or a monster brought in for a fight could get loose. After the excitement dies down the party meets Samos. He is a gruff, middle-aged, scared warrior, but he softens up when Zagres is mentioned. He tells the characters that he looked after Zagres like a daughter. He encouraged her to run away from the templar Vitellius, which she did just after the dead of Andropinis was announced. While on the street she ran into a noble woman who offered her help. Alektos said she thought Zagres was an orphan and she want to help her. Alektos told the girl to come to her town home and she would arrange some position for her in her household. Before leaving, she gave Zagres a beautiful new gown to wear. After telling all this to Samos, Zagres left very excited to start a new life. That was three months ago, and Samos has not seen her since, because Alektos’s town home is in the Rees portion of the city. Samos can give the party directions. After infiltrating the Rees sector, the party are in for a surprise. The directions lead not to the noble quarter, but to a run down section of town. The town home turns out to be a house of prositution. The noblewoman, Alektos, actually is a recruiter for a tough gang of thugs that run the house. She lures naive young women to the house with promises of a better life only to have them fall into the clutches of the gang. The party will have to force their way into the house as the gang only lets regulars in. After taking on the gang, the party can learn from any survivors or from the girls that they free that Zagres is not there. Less than a month ago she escaped. She left with a client, a fire priest named Marius, who the gang members feared. The girls claim the two fell in love and Marius rescued her from the house so they could be together. When the party track down Marius they learn the truth. Marius recognized the call of the Fire Lords in Zagres and took her from the house to initiate her into the service of the fire lords. She is becoming a fire cleric and lives with Marius so she can learn more of her duties to her new lords. You could have Marius ask the party to accompany them on a journy so that Zagres could undergo her initiation. After leaving Zagres at Marius’s house the party can finally report back to Agis on the girl’s location. Why did Agis want to know the girl’s location? By keeping it a secret you can decide from a number of different reasons. Perhaps Zagres has a brother who was a slave. He escaped to Tyr and befriended Agis. After a few years of friendship, Agis wanted to track down his good friend’s long lost sister. Perhaps, Zagres was once a slave girl in Agis’s house before the Tyrean rebellion and he is secretly in love with her. Or maybe when she was a slave in another noble’s home she witnessed the noble performing defiler magic. Agis wants to find the girl to get proof to charge the noble/ blackmail the noble. Or (If your mentor is evil) the defiler noble could be a friend of Agis. He wants to know the girl’s location so he can have the girl killed later by other less principled agents.
#4 Band2 Nov 22, 2005 10:01:13	Here is another idea. If the characters have a thri-kreen companion or if one of the characters is thri-kreen without an established background this idea revolves around him. This idea occurs after the events of Dragon Crown, which the timeline puts at FY 4. During the time when the Psionatrix was activated the psionic suppression file caused thri-kreens to go wild. The characters’ companion, Tik-tik, was at that time part of a clutch of thri-kreen. The clutch tried to stay together during the difficult time but eventually a fight was started that engulfed all the members of the clutch as they turned on each other. Some of the clutch members were killed and the rest scattered. To Tik-tik’s shame he was the one who first succumbed to the madness and started the fight. It has been 5-6 years since those mad days. *Tik-tik, had trouble dealing with the memories of that horrible event when he turned on his clutch mates. Because thri-kreen do not sleep, they have more trouble overcoming such traumatic events and it has taken Tik-tik, this long to decide he wants to face his past. Now he asked the party for help to find the members of his old clutch to see what became of them. There were 12 members of the clutch, but Tik-tik, has no idea how many survived and where they are. First step is to return to the site of the battle (in some stretch of sandy wastes.) There they can find the remains of two of the thri-kreen. A third lies buried a short distance away. A ranger or hunter could follow the thri-kreen’s path to find it. Tik-tik, will be too overcome to notice. Also scattered about are equipment and personal items of the other thri-kreen. Tik-tik, wants the remains interned in a thri-kreen burial circle, which is in the nearest stony barrens. Next Tik-tik will notice none of the dead was the clutch’s druid. He knows where the druid’s guardian lands were, near the clutch’s terrain in the sandy wastes. He suggests going there to look for the thri-kreen druid. Once in the guardian lands, the druid finds them and is at first hesitant but can be convinced that Tik-tik wants to be reconciled. But he has a problem. A powerful defiler has arrived at an oasis in his guardian lands. The defiler has a large group of soldiers and is trying to destroy the oasis. He asked the party to help. The defiler told the soldiers that there is gold buried under the oasis and they are trying to dig it up. Actually he believes there are obsidian spheres buried there, that he can use to boost his magic. Both are wrong. After dealing with the defiler, the thri-kreen druid can help point them to the next thri-kreen, the clutch’s psioncist. A bird spotted the thri-kreen on an island in the silt sea, or a nearby silt basin. The island is only half a mile off shore but the party will have to find some way across. The psioncist has isolated himself on the island to conduct mediation experiments. He has made peace with himself over what happen years ago and will gladly help the party find the rest of the clutch. Using his psionic powers on personal items found at the old battlefield he can help track down the rest of the clutch. The following can then be done in any order the party or you wish: One thri-kreen was killed 5 years ago. In the battle crazed state created by the Psionatrix, he attacked a heavily armed merchant convoy and was killed. The captain of the convoy’s guards took the remains and had a suit of armor fashioned out of it. The captain is very proud of his armor and has maintained it well over the years. He is also very belligerent and will be very difficult to deal with. Tik-tik will want the armor recovered so it can be interned with the rest of the clutch. The captain is very difficult and could lead to a fight but it should still be possible to purchase the armor from him. One thri-kreen was killed when he entered ancient ruins by an undead creature. The creature turned the thri-kreen into an undead monster as well. The thri-kreen haunts the small ruins along with a number of other undead. Tik-tik will want the thri-kreen’s undead existence ended and the remains returned to the burial circle. One of the thri-kreen is alive. He moved to a city-state. He was overcome with self-hate and could see himself good for nothing but killing. Eventually he became an assassin for hire in the city-state, stalking prey throughout the city. The party will have a difficult time trying to track down the thri-kreen. Even if he hears that Tik-tik is looking for him he will try to avoid the meeting. The party will have to track down the thri-kreen by making contacts in the underworld and the bard’s quarter. There they could fact many dangers from thugs, to bards who are rivals of the thri-kreen who seek to poison the party members. One thri-kreen died and its remains lie in the desert. But the area is the domain of some large desert monster. Something big and too difficult for the party to defeat in combat. They will have to find another way to retrieve the remains. One thri-kreen is alive and has joined another clutch of thri-kreen, near the old clutch’s hunting grounds. The party will have to make contact with various thri-kreen clutches in the area hearing rumors about the missing thri-kreen. Eventually one clutch will know where he hunts now but will ask the party for a favor first. The thri-kreen clutch has been harassed by a large group of primitive human hunter-gatherers. The thri-kreen ask the party to find a way to negotiate with the humans. They ask the party because they think they will better be able to talk the humans than the thri-kreen. The human tribe lives a very primitive existence. They have been trying to kill the thri-kreen because they hunt the same lands that the tribe claims. The tribe is vast, several hundred and cannot be defeated in combat by the party. They will not agree to negotiate and look down on others that are not party of the tribe. The tribe is run by a chief and a shaman (maybe a druid). The best way for the party to stop the tribe’s raids on the thri-kreen is to join the tribe. To join a character must pass an initiation that involves fasting, as well as hunting a dangerous desert predator with only a spear. After passing the initiation the new member could try to face the chief in personal combat for leadership of the tribe. The combat is one on one with only one weapon each. If the character wins he becomes leader of the tribe and can order them to stop the attacks. Another tact is to challenge the shaman. A druid or cleric character could claim to have a better knowledge of the nature spirits than the shaman and better know what the spirits want. Even a psioncist could do the same but not a preserver or defiler who the tribe will attack immediately. If the cleric can best the shaman in a duel that involves only magic, the cleric can convince the tribe to stop the attacks. For the last clutch member’s location, that is left up to you. Where do you want to send the party next? The Hinterlands? The far south?
#5 Zardnaar Nov 22, 2005 23:24:59	No Kreen in the party. Current plan is a brief trip from Tyr to Balic then maybe a trip to the Hinterlands. I here theres a few hostile Kreen out there.
#6 jon_oracle_of_athas Nov 23, 2005 1:43:27	No Kreen in the party. Current plan is a brief trip from Tyr to Balic then maybe a trip to the Hinterlands. I here theres a few hostile Kreen out there. Nah, that's just a rumor. :P
#7 Zardnaar Nov 23, 2005 2:54:18	Nah, that's just a rumor. :P Did anything official ever happen from that story arc? Basically is there a full scale Kreen invasion about to take place?