1. The Pc are slave in the obsidian quarries of Makla. They must reach a quota of 1 ton of obsidian per day or they dont get there ration of water and food. They must hack the obsidian then put the chunk in big wooden sled and pull it up the hill to a loading bay. The obsidian is hot (people working there need the double amount of water) and cut your flesh (people loading the sled must make a dexterity check or lose 1d4hp ).
The PC must learn to survive in these harsh environement. You can make a random encounter with Kes'trekel attacking the PC, rock falling from the mountain, slave turning mad and sled and mining pick breaking up. Pretty fun to run a slave adventure. At the end, the PC realise they have no chance if they stay there and must try there chance in the desert by escaping.
2. The Pc find an oasis harvested by escaped slave. They are battling a group of wild monster that hide under the oasis. The monster werent there when they came here. One of the villager put the fault on the PC. In fact, these slave were released secretly by there master, a noble defiler from the nearby city-state. The suspicious villager is an agent of that defiler, he is the one who summoned the monster. The noble asked that guy to lead the escaped slave in this oasis so they can harvest it, making the oasis bigger so the defiler cna go there later and defile the land. Pc must first kill the monster, get ride of the ennemy villager and then, defend the oasis agaisnt the defiler and his guard. In my campaign, the PC managed to kill the monster by flooding the tunnel under the village with the lake of the oasis (they builded a dam. )
3. In the year of the priest defience, the Pc are hired by the Veiled Alliance to find what the ziggourat is all about. They must sneak in the Golden tower to find Kalak plan. When they have found it, give the PC some sheet, one with an image of the ziggourat, one with the ziggourat and people in the stand and you can see magic leeching the life-force of the PC and the 3, the page of Dragon king were you can see all the transformation stade of a dragon. Then, the PC must find a way to stop Kalak.
4. Pc save the life of an elf in the desert. That elf tell the Pc he his chasing an evil mage that defiled the elves tribe cropland where there kank were eating. He want to kill that defiler. He ask the PC to bring him alive the defiler so he can question him then kill him. If the PC agree, they must ambush the caravan transporting the defiler. That defiler is just a scribe working for a noble. If the Pc bring him to the elven tribe, they question the so-called defiler in secret, then give him-up to the PC and ask them to finish him off. Then the elves leave. If the Pc question the scribe, they learn that is not a defiler and the elves wanted some information concerning an old abandonned mine west of there. His master, a defiler, had visited this mine year ago and had dissapeared in the mine. The elf chief (a defiler) want to retrieve the spell book in the old mine. That mine is inhabitted by banshee dwarf. So it end up with a run betweeen the PC and the elven tribe to see wich one get to the spell book first. In the middle of that, the Banshee will try to kill all invader of there mine unless they help them finding the copper vein (doesnt exist).
5. The Pc goes to Balic and learn that the sorcerer-king Androponis want to take all the nearby village and enslave them. The PC must go in the desert and unite all the village in a big army to fight Androponis army. Of course, they will be defeated. The PC must then convince the Giant of Dragon Palate to attack Balic and create a diversion so the Balician army must fall back to its city.
6. Sacha and Wayans convince the PC to kidnapp Siemouk, one of Shadow king templar. The goal for Sacha and Wayans is to make Nibenay fall in animalistic rage and fight the Dragon, hoping he will kill it and release Rajaat by the process.
7. The PC are slave send to the Forest ridge to lumb wood for Urik or Tyr. A mysterious ``Insert reason here`` wipe out the guard and the slaves are now alone in the wood. They have become the next meal for a tribe of halfling, and the night will be pretty long repealing the little men. That not all, since a pack of Feylarr want fresh meat too.
8. The PC are hired by the Veiled Alliance (in fact, a rival) to kill a defiler (in fact, a real member of the Veiled Alliance).
9. The elfe leader of scenario 4 (if he survived) take his revenge on the PC by kidnapping one of the PC closest friend. That turn into a chase in the desert right trough Kalidnay were the elf and his tribe wait the PC in the old ziggourat.
10. The PC must retrieve someone from column of 1000 slave of Gulg that his heading east in the Salt flat. That column is heavely escorted. PC must pass as slave to get in the column and find the guy. Finaly, when they find him during the nightr, the column have stopped in a big plain of bone and all the templar have left. PC find the awfull truth, they are right in the middle of this year Dragon levy.
That some of the idea i played and it all went well with some minor modification. Give yours.
Later on when the community leaders decided to use necromancy to obtain explanations as to their own members' actions, the stored bodies of the attackers are found in a state of advanced mummification, the bodies seemingly too old to be questioned through necromancy.
Whatever the reason for the attack on their compatriots, someone else in the camp does not want its leaders to find out.
There is an infiltrator within their ranks.
Several events were set in motion that day when those VA members turned berserk.
The initial trigger of those elements: A myrmeleon agent operating within the camp had charmed several VA members into working for him. When the abnormal behavior was noticed by others, the agent sent the evidence―the charmed VA members themselves―on a rampage, counting on their deaths to cover his actions.
The myrmeleon is still undercover, his presence unsuspected.
This agent works for a temporary cabal of defilers who formed around an ancient document relating to a "sorcerous army" to be found within a keep deep in the wastes. They believe the ground on which the VA camp has been built is in fact the ruins of this keep. Scrying of the region revealed the VA camp, a major thorn in the cabal's plans to obtain this "sorcerous army" for itself, leading to their introduction of a myrmeleon in the camp to gain covert access to its hidden treasure or, failing that, facilitate a military take-over of the camp by turning its members against themselves.
This is exactly what happened. Having failed to gain access to the ruins' secrets on his own, the agent started charming VA members but his ploy was discovered midway to completion when one of his spells failed to take hold of one of the victims. The agent quickly killed the failed recruit and sent an order for the others to go on a rampage, covering his tracks and getting rid of the evidence, buying him a few more hours to salvage his plans.
Before starting to charm people, the agent sent a message to the defiler cabal, telling them to march on the camp, assuring them they would attack during a moment of great confusion and gain the advantage. But the death of the charmed individuals stopped short the agent's plans, and now out of time to charm a fraction of the camp into his pocket, he must instead find a new way to sabotage the camp before the cabal's host arrives to lay claim to the ruins.
The PCs have several chances of discovering what is happening: Catch the myrmeleon in the act of sabotage (the DM can throw a few chances at the PCs), piece together the plot's pieces from various clues left behind (at the DM's discretion), or find ancient, yet untranslated documents in the VA's library pertaining to the "sorcerous army" (these might have been currently worked on by the VA's local sage, who might have requested help from a PC with a high Knowledge or Decipher Script skill when first arriving in the camp, which could help in understanding the myrmeleon's actions in the nick of time).
Once they know what is to come, they must disable all of the myrmeleon's traps before the host arrives, and then race against time to gain access to the ruins' secret chamber so as to withhold the host the "sorcerous army" that would increase its power several fold and make it a major destabilizing force in the region. (The sorcerous army can either be entombed defiler/warriors ready for animation by a powerful necromantic engine, or a still living army caught in a time-field, ready to complete its ancient mission upon the field's collapse.)
Succeeding at either dismantling the myrmeleon's traps and mounting a suitable defense against the defiler host, or giving them evidence their sought after prize has been destroyed, the attack on the camp can be averted.
2) Works well with the paranoid view of most Athasians. Good second plotline.
3) It sounds pretty solid, but I would have the PCs sneak into a holding of Kalak's other than his Golden Palace. The Sorcerer Kings are, in a very real sense, the closest things that Athas has to gods and it's very likely that they have various wards and sentries set up that the PCs, at any level, would have a hard time overcoming.
What if, instead, the goal was to kidnap a templar that was head of the, say, Iron Mines of Tyr to find out what's going on with the ziggurat? A very "hard" target, but not impossible. While Kalak still lives, infiltrating his Palace would be exceedingly difficult.
4) The elves of Athas are nomadic and often turn to defiling, themselves. I like the idea here, though. What about a defiler attacking their kanks for components or something? Other than that, this is pretty good.
5) Nice, but one giant might not be enough to call back an entire army. Maybe a small clan of giants? Cool idea, though.
6) Ouch. Before Dregoth, Nibenay was far and away the most powerful of the SKs (24th level - the next closest was Hamanu at 22nd). The PCs will have their hands full with this one. Good luck to them! :D
7) Maybe the "something" is hunters from Gulg? They regularly "protect" the forest by killing "interlopers." Solid plotline here - you'll have to tell me how that one turns out: my players tend to avoid the forest between Gulg and Nibenay for some reason (ie. they usually get eaten there as I had a Nightmare Beast's layer near the mountains).
8) Nice twist.
9) Careful about kidnapping friends of the PCs or they will be gunshy about making them. A better idea is to have him kidnap someone that is important to the PCs, but not necessarily a friend. If they have a noble patron or allied member of the Veiled Alliance, that might be a better choice.
10) That's pretty cool.
11) Interesting.
12) Good one, Penn.
12) Good one, Penn.
Thanks! I'd hoped for a longer analysis, but...
Anyone interested in writing down an actual mini-adventure (5 pages) with it?
If not, maybe one day I'll try, but I have no idea if it'll be good or utter crap.
My PC when TWO time in the Golden tower, and trust me, it was very difficult and they were scaried to **** (specially on the second time).
The first time in the Godlen tower is one of the best game I ever runned. The PC barely escaped alive.
It's just very different from my own campaigns; but not in a bad way.
Actually its based - quite without having rationaly planned it that way - on the standard Stargate SG-1 mission: SG team sent to camp of rebel Jaffas to acquire info, there they witness a mysterious murderous spree, eventually the SG team finds a Goa'uld masquerading as a Jaffa and using its hand device to brainwash other Jaffas.
I love that show
Actually its based - quite without having rationaly planned it that way - on the standard Stargate SG-1 mission: SG team sent to camp of rebel Jaffas to acquire info, there they witness a mysterious murderous spree, eventually the SG team finds a Goa'uld masquerading as a Jaffa and using its hand device to brainwash other Jaffas.
I love that show
wait a minute... thanks for the inspiration... i could use d20 modern and have a Stargate on Athas... imagine what could possibily happen...
the movie Stargate is like the quintessential view of a Sorceror King to his subjects... a kind of false divinity backed by high tech (magic is just tech beyond the comprehension of those without :D ), yet with a glimpse of understanding that a ruler still has a communion with his subjects (aka must actually handle problems). Ra even has the dark sun feel down.
sg-1 was cool...until they went the way of generic sci-fi (dont deny!). but who am i kidding? who cant like richard dean anderson?
Right now they have found Kobol, the fabled source of humanity, and what the religious texts say is the only way to find the 13th colony of mankind. That would be Earth.
I just hope the show's designers won't pull one of those stupid "the futuristic fleet meets the habitants of Earth and the audience realizes eartlings are in the middle of the year 2005"!
So many things are wrong with that image: the colonists have a multi-milenial history behind them and yet have ties, formal attire, know greek names for gods, etc...all things that are in Earth's past, meaning that even if colonists were, god forbid, atlanteans, they still wouldn't have ties and anachronistic things of that sort.
Same with Stargate: the show's designers have told us Earth's humanity is not the first human race to evolve, the Ancients were there before. IIRC they appeared on another planet and later put the seeds of their form on Earth. Its still funky: Earth has fossil records and biochemical analysises that all point to a earthly appearance of human life.
Those two shows have better get their ultimate revelations straight or they'll lose credibility in the eyes of their more scientifically aware audiences.
I think it would be much better if reach earth and surprise! Earth is really, really advanced. To the point where humans are barely recognizable. If you think about it, the poor inhabitants of the Battlestar fleet spread to the stars, got crushed by the cylons, founded a new settlement, built it back up to the current tech level, and got smashed by the cylons again. If they originated from Earth, who has not been attacked by the Cylons (maybe), then that would mean Earth was WAY advanced.
Of course, they'll probably play it out the way that you described. Much easier and safer that way.
Personally, I was always a fan of the way C.J. Cherryh's Chanur series came to an end.
when you see books from DS such as slave tribes, dune trader, you see groups and agents of these pitted against each other, and dark sun is backdrop.
where any show meets any game is in the interaction of characters to form intertia, to drive story forward
so we can all learn a lesson from great shows, and a lot from shows which give us no suspension of disbelief or inspiration. they put on TV what we put on the table....roleplaying, for good or bad.