From me;
- The classic; Player start as slave in a caravan and that caravan get attacked by elves/thri-kreen/human raider/rival house/city-state/tribe. They are bandonned in the desert and must survive.
- Working hard; Player start as slave in a mine/quarries/field/construction site and must reach production quota each day if they want there ration of food and water. The templar/overseer are hard on them, there deadly beast romming and danger from the work itself. They soon realise there only way to survive is to escape.
The PCs start out with their pack, a full 30+ member pack of Jeral kreen (the less aggressive, more civilized ones). The pack is desperately short of young members and especially children, and need a good haul on the latest clutch of eggs. They go on a short "hunting circle," a week-long trek that will bring them back to the dej just in time (hopefully) for the eggs to hatch. A few encounters along the way and they get back and pick up the kids.
The new leader takes the pack south to Nibenay (they're in the lands between the Blackspines and the road out of Nibenay). This is roughly a week-long trip in my campaign (hence the distance thread earlier). Then the pack heads back to the dej. On the way pack, while the PCs and a few other members of the youngest clutch are off hunting, a [legendary beast] attacks the pack, decimating it and killing it to the last. Clues point to a nearby elf tribe, and thus begins the real adventure.
***
On a parallel campaign, the same PCs will play more human(oid) characters from the city of Balic. They will start in a small neighborhood and get embroiled in local politics. This will eventually draw them out into the wastes into the Forked Tongue and later deep into the desert to the ruins of Kalidnay. From here, it will be on to Guistenal (maybe), and end up in Tyr. That will be where the fun begins (probably somewhere around 8-10th level, if I plan it right) - Kalak has a plan for his city and the slaves in it.
In a different campaign, the PC's started out as runners for a Merchant House making a regular check on one of the city's outposts. they arrive to find the outpost in ruins, no survivors, and tracks leading off into the desert...
The lands around the oasis have withered as slowly -as it does every year - the oasis dries up. The herds are the life blood of the tribe, used for both mounts and for food, as beasts of burden and as raw material for the tribes goods. Thus, the tribe must move onto greener lands.
However, a female tribe member - heavily pregnant - has gone into labour as the tribes belongings are packed. The tribe must move, and so they do. But the PCs 'volunteer' to stand guard whilst the woman gives birth, and catch up with the slow moving tribe later.
Slowly a dust storm starts, and under it's cover gith attack. Three armed with metal spears! A bloody fight ensues with players and gith mostly blind whilst a hysterical mother screams in fear of her life and from labour pains!
The gith attack proves to be random, merely scouts who stumbled by accident onto the party as they sought water. But why do simple scouts have metal spears? As the players consider the question and it's ramifications, the air is split by the squeal of a new voice on Athas.
But something is wrong with the baby. The baby is unusually pale and long of limb. And, she hurls the first PC out of the tent who makes any sort of agressive move towards her or her mother.
So, in short you have a prelude to the Black Spine adventure, introducing metal using Gith. The Villichi I threw in just for fun.
Very nicely done. My kreen campaign is going to introduce a gith leader by the name of Blackspear - early tie-ins are a must. The human group will continually bump into Korgunard before they officially "meet" him.
I have a random question. :D
What, at least in the official published material, ever happens to Korgunard? I have Arcane Shadows (old school flip-book version) and have read it through, but I have not seen anything else that talks about him, and I do have the published material, except for a very few of the magizine articles (some of it has never been fully read through).
If he was still around, I think that with DA part I out and part II in the works, I think it would be a great time for him to show back up on the Tablelands.
I have a random question. :D
What, at least in the official published material, ever happens to Korgunard? I have Arcane Shadows (old school flip-book version) and have read it through, but I have not seen anything else that talks about him, and I do have the published material, except for a very few of the magizine articles (some of it has never been fully read through).
If he was still around, I think that with DA part I out and part II in the works, I think it would be a great time for him to show back up on the Tablelands.
He gets wasted in the Dragons Crown adventure by a bunch of 21+ level psions. Which I felt was kinda lame, particularly when the PCs later beat up one of the psions responsible. The adventure also fails to accomodate resurrection being cast on him too if I remember correctly... but that is getting even more off topic.
He gets wasted in the Dragons Crown adventure by a bunch of 21+ level psions. Which I felt was kinda lame, particularly when the PCs later beat up one of the psions responsible. The adventure also fails to accomodate resurrection being cast on him too if I remember correctly... but that is getting even more off topic.
DAMN! :headexplo
I really need to set down and read through those longer adventure books. Thanks Fluffy :D
Well, what about having the Kurn SK do a little show and tell during the upcoming adventure line, maybe having him mentally engage the big bad dead dude and thereby allowing the PC's to at least get within striking distance.
Well, what about having the Kurn SK do a little show and tell during the upcoming adventure line, maybe having him mentally engage the big bad dead dude and thereby allowing the PC's to at least get within striking distance.
Oronis is actually quite secretive, paranoid and maybe even xenophobic. He is certain the other SKs will gang up on him if he reveals himself for some reason. But more importantly, he is more concerned about continuing his acquisition of power and continuing his transformation as well as improving New Kurn than restoring things anywhere else or helping out PCs.
For these reasons I think it best to use him as a villain. Helps make sure the PCs don't think hope is ever on the tables. And also gives you something different to throw at the PCs.
He gets wasted in the Dragons Crown adventure by a bunch of 21+ level psions. Which I felt was kinda lame, particularly when the PCs later beat up one of the psions responsible. The adventure also fails to accomodate resurrection being cast on him too if I remember correctly... but that is getting even more off topic.
What makes it worse is that one of the psions was a halfling who end up eating Korgunard's remains.
Ah, college days.
I remember the first time I ran Dragon's Crown, the PCs took the psion hostage and waited for him to poop...
Ah, college days.
Really, my PCs took one look at the table where he was murdered, read the resurection spell and cast it on his blood.
Well, like I said, City by the Silt Sea. He was imported by Dregoth on his search for suitable beings to help with his invasion plans, and then cast off.
Started with the characters in a slave caravan with no specific memories of the past couple years. They arrived in Shazlim, to be put into the arena there. After a few fights, someone contacted them about "their mission" and informed that "they needed to get to Raam immediately". So the unknown NPC helped to arrange an escape. In the meantime they heard bits and pieces. Their slave owner was informed that he had them to do with as he wished, as long as they were dead by the time the Messenger arrived, which was supposedly due in a week.
With help, they escaped the arena, were led through the town in the middle of the night to the merchant tent where the NPC and her twin sister set up shop. Given a bit of information and some supplies, they set out for Raam.
Around dawn, they were ambushed by a small Elf raiding party, but they managed to drive back the threat. Around midday, while they were camping (not too far from the Silt Shoals) They were set upon by a pair of Beasthead Giants who demanded food and water in return for letting them live. The group agreed, gave in to their demands, and let them eat and drink. As the Giants were leaving, someone had the bright idea of attacking the giants. Needless to say the group had to flee into the hills and to a pit in the rocks that they had recently discovered. The pit was the collapsed ceiling of an ancient structure that was buried ages ago. The structure was being used as a base of operations by a band of Gith, along with their Illithid Master (Illithid Master??? Are you out of your mind?? - not at all, another byproduct of Dregoth's House of Imports)
This is as far as they are at this point in time.
They should be reaching Raam in the next session, where they will learn more about their original "mission", and that they must have discovered something vastly important if someone went to the trouble of wiping their minds and leaving them for dead (why not just kill them outright? Because the one put in charge of their deaths made a silt skimmer load of money selling them into slavery, and really thought that they'd be dead on schedule). This news should take them to Giustenal, where they can have fun there for a while before stumbling in on the plot that is afoot there.
As far as other things go. In my world, Kalak is still alive, I don't know if the group will ever make it to Tyr or not. Who's to say where things may lead from here.
Oronis is actually quite secretive, paranoid and maybe even xenophobic. He is certain the other SKs will gang up on him if he reveals himself for some reason. But more importantly, he is more concerned about continuing his acquisition of power and continuing his transformation as well as improving New Kurn than restoring things anywhere else or helping out PCs.
For these reasons I think it best to use him as a villain. Helps make sure the PCs don't think hope is ever on the tables. And also gives you something different to throw at the PCs.
I do not have plans to use him in this manner, due to the fact that I see him as being a little more proactive in the restoration of Athas, though I do agree with you that he is a little more concerned with his own city-state and his advancement.
I currently have some of his templars roaming the tablelands, having had physic surgery on their minds to hide knowledge of New Kern and many of the other aspects of Oronis. Their main job is unknown to them, but they do receive dream messages pointing them toward specific goals.
In the long run, Oronis will reveal himself to the PC's and they will become his agents. One thing they will do will be to capture on of their archenemies alive and to bring him back to New Kurn to help him be redeemed as per the BoED. The PC's will be sent back through time to get an item Oronis remembers, but during the ceremony held to time travel, their enemy, a defiler who will have hunted and fought them many times, will break in and also be sent back.
The adventure in the Green Age will last some time, and in the end they will most likely get what they came for, but not before they meet Myron the Troll-scorcher and change his out-look on several things: which leads to him being killed and Hamanu replacing him. Mean while, their archenemy will have fallen in with Rajaat.
When they get back to their own time, the PC's will learn how their actions in the past influenced the future. They will also find out the their enemy went on in the past to become Keltis the Lizardman Executioner, who will become Oronis the Avangion whom is their patron.
I like messing with my PC's :D :evillaugh muuaaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!
The adventure in the Green Age will last some time, and in the end they will most likely get what they came for, but not before they meet Myron the Troll-scorcher and change his out-look on several things: which leads to him being killed and Hamanu replacing him. Mean while, their archenemy will have fallen in with Rajaat.
When they get back to their own time, the PC's will learn how their actions in the past influenced the future. They will also find out the their enemy went on in the past to become Keltis the Lizardman Executioner, who will become Oronis the Avangion whom is their patron.
Y.O.I.N.K.
Of course, the PCs would be changing the Troll Scorcher's outlook, believing they are saving the trolls...
They might learn that Hamanu was not the original Troll Scorcher only when returning to their own time...
They have decided to accompany a scribe, also from Tempugs band who has been invited by messenger to head to Balic, recently freed from dictatorship and now in need of those with literary skills - previously illegal to all except the kings templars and select slaves. Libraries have been opened to the masses and many city folk are learning to read and write, while vast expanses of historical documents are needing translation.
The four decide to protect the scribe on his long journey to Balic and are excited to see what a 'free' city has to offer. They head to nearby Cromlin to join with the monthly house Shom trade caravan heading south