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Gnaritas
2010-02-08, 04:45 AM
Apologies ahead for my bad english.

I recently started a campaign from scratch and am working on the story as we play.
The story so far in (very) short:
20 years ago the humans started invading the dwarven country.
8 years ago the humans won.
Now the humans are at the verge of invading the elven country.
The players are part of a resistance to stop the humans from within.
Their task now is to retrieve items from a long deceased dwarven wizard.

Now i want the human empire to be controlled by some evil force, which i had not yet planned out, but i just came up with an idea.

When they find the wizards items, they will find among those the Wizards journal/diary. In it he describes a "famous" pit/gap amongst dwarves, where no dwarf has entered before. He tells his story of him entering and the evil he finds/feels there.

What i want is for that evil to be the evil that took over the human emperor. But what could that evil be?
Could it be Dark Elves and how would they have gone about controlling the emperor (i read something about a spiderlike creature that can take over or change into a humanoid being, cannot remember the name). What would their goal be? I was thinking that when the party finally finds the gap/pit, they would find dwarves being forced into labour, building a path downwards so the Dark Elves can rise to the surface.

Or should i take some kind of demon/devil path?

Do you seem problems/situations i might run into?

Sorry for all these questions, i am new to DM-ing and i do not want the players to think "this story sucks" but to have fun and think "Wow, this was a fun campaing".

Gnaritas
2010-02-08, 04:56 AM
Oh i found the creature that can mimic a humanoid. The Aranea.

Are they in some way related to the drow?

Simba
2010-02-08, 05:00 AM
succubi, doppelgangers....

Dervag
2010-02-08, 05:01 AM
The important thing to remember is always to make things make sense, and to have good characters. I'm not well qualified to talk about how to make your characters compelling, how to make the players interested in the NPCs.

But as for making sense:

Always think about motives, the resources people have available, that kind of thing. Don't think "I want the villain to try and burn down the orphanage, because that's a good start for an adventure, so I'll have him do that?" Ask yourself "What would the villain want to do?" and then find ways to make interesting adventures out of it.

When it comes to countries, remember:
-Logistics: a poor country cannot afford to maintain powerful forces in the field unless it makes a lot of money fighting the war.
-Politics: rulers have to watch out for threats to their own power. If they act weak, irrational, or foolish, people will be tempted to try and overthrow them, or to take advantage of the weakness and reduce the king to a puppet.
-Sources of power: there are many ways to be powerful- loyal troops, magic, networks of spies, you name it. But anyone who has influence must have allies among various sources of power: a king with no army, no spies, and no court wizards isn't important. Knowing which allies a powerful person depends on tells you a lot about what tactics he will use.

Look at this article (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/rTKEivnsYuZrh94H1Sn.html) for more advice.

Danin
2010-02-08, 05:02 AM
Well, personally I would think Dark Elves to be a bit... minor of a force to have been ruling things from behind the scenes for so long. With the scope of that much power, I would expect something more in the air of devils / mind flayers / dragons.

Gnaritas
2010-02-08, 05:07 AM
Out of those 3 i like the flavor of the Aranea best, but a good reason why i should take one of the other two can easily convince me.

Anyway, i guess i need a way for the first Aranea to have come out of the pit. I guess the dwarven wizard himself could be the cause of that. The aranea could have disguised himself as a young dwarven child, lost in the pits for days. Maybe that is why the wizard came down, because a child has been lost near the gap, the aranea killed the child and took over his form.

Gnaritas
2010-02-08, 05:12 AM
Well, personally I would think Dark Elves to be a bit... minor of a force to have been ruling things from behind the scenes for so long. With the scope of that much power, I would expect something more in the air of devils / mind flayers / dragons.

Could a dragon do this and manage to stay behind the scenes? How would he go about doing that?

Also, i am more affraid that the Devils or Mind Flayers are too big a force, able to destroy the world by themselves.

FirebirdFlying
2010-02-08, 05:59 AM
Bronze dragon, Alternate Form (yeah, I know they're supposed to be Good, but you're the DM, change it). Also, dragons have casting.

And yes, devils and mindflayers can take over/destroy the world. This is a perfectly fine way for them to do it, too - not by using force themselves but through manipulation of others.

I see nothing wrong with using dark elves, though. Except for fantasy racism in general. :smallcool:

frogspawner
2010-02-08, 07:12 AM
There was a creature called an Intellect Devourer in the 1st-ed AD&D Monster Manual. Whether it's got an equivalent in 3.5 I don't know.

Basically, it's a tiny lion (or can make itself so) with a brain for a head, and lives inside the head of anyone else, having devoured their brain (how, I'm not sure!). It then controls them as an automaton. It's immune to most magics and only takes almost no damage from even mega-plus weapons. It scared the heck out of my players, even the gung-ho powergamer with the vorpal sword when their expected beheading blow just gave it a tiny nick on the neck... When they did manage to kill it's initial host, it just hopped out and latched onto the fighter, who then lopped-off the cleric's arm as it ate his brain. A good time was had by all! :smallwink:

Gnaritas
2010-02-08, 07:26 AM
So, since i have the book Drow of the Underdark and haven't done anything with it yet, i would like to take that route.

The party finds the Wizards Journal and take note of the wizards last adventure. He is called for help by a dwarf-friend, a child, the friends grandson has been "adventuring" near the pit with his friends and he fell into it. The other young dwarves could hear him yelling, he must have still been alive, but no dwarf dares go down there. Reason being the ancient evil stories told for centuries, as well as the treacherous path downward.
The wizard decents down and after a while sees eyes in the shadows, it is the child, thank the gods it is still alive. The scent of evil and the impenetrable darkness are reason enough to quickly take the child back up. The child seems traumatised, different, and after a few weeks he dissappears, never to be found.

It was the Aranea and he was set free by the wizard to roam the earth. Eventually over the course of years managed to kill and take the place of the emperor after working with him closely for many years.

It could be the party picks up on this lead, if not i will occasionally let some more leads fall down on them:
News among the dwarves is that dwarves working at the Pit have been dissappearing
Dwarfs are more actively standing against the human tyranny, forceful actions against the disobeying dwarves at the pit are the main cause for this.

Should they travel to the pit, they find the dwarves are forced into labor to build a route downward. Supposedly for mining, but the dwarves themselves are unsure how that information is established, the dwarves themselves never dared go down there for mining.

Eventually they will go down into the pit and will fight some spiders, eventually maybe drow. They will find out some of the plans and plot from lesser evil creatures (Kuo-Toa?) down there or through documents they find on the Drow.
They can either find a way to stop/kill/expose the emperor or kill the Drow-Queen.

If they never go down the pit, the plans of the drow will go to the next phase, where they will start invading the surface.

Off course any side-tracks are allowed and encouraged, but is this too much railroading? I need some kind of storyline for them to walk into eventually, i hope i doesn't sound to forcing.

Gnaritas
2010-02-08, 07:28 AM
There was a creature called an Intellect Devourer in the 1st-ed AD&D Monster Manual. Whether it's got an equivalent in 3.5 I don't know.

Basically, it's a tiny lion (or can make itself so) with a brain for a head, and lives inside the head of anyone else, having devoured their brain (how, I'm not sure!). It then controls them as an automaton. It's immune to most magics and only takes almost no damage from even mega-plus weapons. It scared the heck out of my players, even the gung-ho powergamer with the vorpal sword when their expected beheading blow just gave it a tiny nick on the neck... When they did manage to kill it's initial host, it just hopped out and latched onto the fighter, who then lopped-off the cleric's arm as it ate his brain. A good time was had by all! :smallwink:

Nice, i might try something like this, i can always flavor it to be a spider kind of creature (since that combines better with drow).

<edit> they are in the SRD
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/xph_gallery/33557.jpg

oxinabox
2010-02-08, 07:41 AM
What if, instead of the Dark Elves it was the Dark Dwarves (Duegar).
Who used the humans to first destroy there enemy the main dwarven nation,
and are now using them to destroy the (dark and normal) dwarves anceint enemy - the elves.

the Dark Dwarves motivation:
the Dark Dwarves can then come back - as liberators for the dwarves (calling themselves deep dwarves - traditionalists, who were too deep to notice the human invasion, almost completely cut off from the dwarven world - "It too k 20 years for use to find out what was happening on the surface!").
The Dwarven Leadership has been taken out by the humans,
the humans armies have been heavily weakened by the elves,
so the Dark Dwarven armies can sweep in and take out the garisons.
As Hero Liberators, the Duegar take over leadership of the dwarven people.



The Pit
The pit is the only path down to the Deepest tunnels.
It's the only way down to where the dark dwarves live.
although History has almost forgotten when the darkdwarves left.
(either a forced, or slef imposed excile)
this in the path they took.
the "Don't go down there, it's where the Duegar went"
got mutated over ten thousand years (not so long for dwarves) or so, into: "Stay away from that Pit, it's cursed"


----------------------------
Lets face it the dark elves get all the blame heaped on them.
A alternate plot could be a coalition (alliance) of people who are sick of being the scapegoat.
always blamed by the humans for every evil in the world.
"good" mindflayers, dark elves, cromatic dragons.
who want to set up the human empire as the bad guys,
so they can come back as rescueing hero's.
first saving the elves at the last minute, then freeing the dwarves.
and finally resueing the human empire, from it's tyrannical and now obviosly mad leader.

Gnaritas
2010-02-08, 08:01 AM
The Duergar would be a nice shift from the more common Drow.

I do however feel the Drow have more of the cunning, sneaky, political kind of flavor which would fit this story arc better.

<edit>

By the way, how about this:

The Drow were banned from the surface ages ago by the elves. This ban is enforced by the Ancient Golden Tree in the Elven lands who keeps the Drow from going to the surface. Their plan is for the tree to be destroyed!!. After which the Drow will rise to the surface and take over the world while laughing maniacally.

Is this too far-fetched?

olentu
2010-02-08, 04:49 PM
The Duergar would be a nice shift from the more common Drow.

I do however feel the Drow have more of the cunning, sneaky, political kind of flavor which would fit this story arc better.

<edit>

By the way, how about this:

The Drow were banned from the surface ages ago by the elves. This ban is enforced by the Ancient Golden Tree in the Elven lands who keeps the Drow from going to the surface. Their plan is for the tree to be destroyed!!. After which the Drow will rise to the surface and take over the world while laughing maniacally.

Is this too far-fetched?

I think someone wrote a book on the same basic idea just with demons or something. One of the shanara books perhaps. So probably not so far fetched.

oxinabox
2010-02-08, 07:41 PM
I think someone wrote a book on the same basic idea just with demons or something. One of the shanara books perhaps. So probably not so far fetched.

shanara, terry brooks IIRC

frogspawner
2010-02-10, 05:33 PM
Nice, i might try something like this...
Glad you liked it. No idea if that was how they were supposed to work 'officially', though. My story came from back in the old days, and it was in the Fire Giant King (a second one) so of course it had been placed by the Drow - specifically, good old wannabe-Queen Eclavdra


After which the Drow will rise to the surface and take over the world while laughing maniacally.
Would they bother? Drow 'know' that the ban is a lie - the surface is inferior, and no-one who's anyone would go there. Even an empire of millions of worthless surface-creatures would be no more than an ant-farm. Something to mock a rival over, if discovered they had one. You would smirk, someone would titter - and they would have to leave the party, exquisitely humiliated...

Dervag
2010-02-10, 05:54 PM
This leads to the amusing image of the whole thing being planned and carried out by the Drow equivalent of a pimply teenager no one else respects...