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View Full Version : 4e Campaign Journal - Shadows of Arkhosia



Corporal Flint
2010-06-08, 12:29 PM
This is a homebrew campaign I cooked up a while back in the Forgotten Realms setting (With a few alterations). I'll be updating this somewhat infrequently, as my group can't meet weekly due to summer classes and other RL stuff.

Background: In the previous campaign (Which I did not DM), the party had journeyed to a coastal town at the summons of its mayor. He told them the town was under repeated attack from a local alliance of goblins, orcs, and ogres, although why he had no idea. The party, leaning somewhat towards the Unaligned side of the charts, decided to try to undermine the mayor's influence while helping against the attacks, hoping that they would gain enough popularity to be considered for the upcoming elections (Therefore netting a town). Over the course of a few meetings, the party established themselves in the town, made friends with the local populace (I myself joined the militia AND city guard, earning the rank of corporal in both), and generally gained favor. Eventually, the horde of monsters got fed up with losing soldiers to the town piecemeal and attacked in a massive wave. The party was sent to a small fort a few miles outside of town that guarded the main road towards the coast. From there they led the defense of the line (There were other forts which were NPCed by the DM through percent rolls, with bonus or penalty modifiers for moral depending on how well the PCs did in their encounters), beating back orcs and goblins. The final fight culminated in a boss battle pitting the party against two ogres and a cyclops (All level 8...against seven level 6 PCs). It wasn't going well, and one of the PCs, a Wilden Monk, ended up dying before the party made a comeback and killed both of the Ogres, sending the Cyclops fleeing. The attack broke off with most of the horde dead or dying, and the party was hailed as heroes. At this point they came to realize that they didn't much like the idea of being in charge of a town and being shackled to a particular place, so they decided to look for work elsewhere (While staying in touch with NPC friends and allies they had made).

The Party:
All PCs are level 7, I'll update with the rest of the names later. And yes, I know it's an unbalanced group.

Leaders:
Githzerai Ardent
Dragonborn Warlord "Lieutenant Herbert 'Hannibal' Dashwood"
Tiefling Bard

Defenders:
Human Battlemind "Leeroy Jenkins"

Strikers:
Halfling Rogue "Harley Qinn"
Warforged Avenger "Fawkes" (Party Leader)

Controllers:
Shardmind Psion


Session One - An Offer They Can't Refuse

As the party celebrated their victory in the town's tavern, they were approached by a regal-looking eladrin who claimed to be a servant of Lord Jarvis Gale, whom the PCs had heard of as a well-known nobleman and environmentalist (Through Streetwise checks they also heard rumors that he was D&D's version of an eco-terrorist). The eladrin offered them a job working under Lord Gale, performing services "tailored to their skillset" (AKA killing things). They agreed, and traveled via carriage to the Aurora Forest, a fey-like collection of flora and fauna located on the side of a mountain that glowed with eerie blue and green light at night. With decent Perception checks, the party noticed that the carriage was being tailed by Elven rangers. The Warlord was able to determine that their movements coincided more with guards than ambushers, however. Ironically, as they moved deeper into the woods and higher up the mountain it was the Warforged who noticed that many of the plantlife was not native to the region, having more in common with flora from the Feywild.

When the carriage arrived, the party looked outside to see a clearing on the edge of a cliff that was almost perfectly circular. Starting from the edge of the treeline and stretching to the open cliff, the clearing (Almost an acre wide in diameter) was covered in teal and silver grass, also Fey in nature. A large mansion occupied the center, guarded by more rangers (Not only Elves, but Half-Elves and Eladrin as well). The servant led the party into the mansion and into Lord Gale's study, where they met their new employer: a slightly eccentric, extremely young (35 yeard old) Half-Eladrin. Gale informed the party that the Hammerfast Mining Coalition, a dwarven mining group, was currently engaged in operations beneath the mountain, and that their "mining" was disrupting the forest (Logging, pollution, etc). Gale agreed to pay the party hansomely if they infiltrated the mine and found someway to "convince" the dwarves to leave (Peacefully if possible). When asked where the entrance to the mine was, the PCs were informed that it was far too heavily guarded for them to enter with any measure of success; the only way for them to get in would be to hijack what the dwarves called a "train". Designed by Gnome engineers and mages in order to ferry the ore out of the mines for the dwarves much faster than any ship (The mountain was also along the coast, and the HMC's outpost was across a 50-mile wide channel), the train was powered by a blend of magic and technology, suspended above a trio of parallel rails by lightning and *handwavium*.

The PCs agreed, and Gale informed them that they were to leave on his fastest cutter immediately.