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View Full Version : A dragonborn-elven war Campaign?



paladinofshojo
2011-07-09, 02:08 AM
I have an idea for a campaign that is heavily based on the Greco-Persian War....

it starts with an incredibly powerful elven empire expanding through vast regions of the world, conquering plainsland not unlike Central Asia....their army consists of vast forces of lightly armoured infantry and cavalry, many of whom are conscripted from every corner of their empire.....I want to say that the bulk of their army is made up of gnolls as they seem like they would be found in a region akin to Central Asia and the Middle East and they also seem like a good mook soldier race, serving as spies and footman for their elven overlords. The empire's best soldiers would be Immortals....their armour would be leather and chainmail, the Immortals excel in chariot combat, using war axes, and archery.....The backstory would start out a with a LN emperor of the elves begins liberating and unifying the surrounding nations to solidfy his power, founding an incredibly powerful empire....each conquered region or "sattrap" is allowed to keep its local religion, laws and customs.....this empire enjoys prosperity for 50,000 years

until there is a revolt on a border state similar to the Ionian region of Turkey.....which is a colony of the dragonborn city-state of Athens (the dragonborn will fill as the role of ethnic Greeks, whose city-states fight against eachother just as much as with eachother). The revolt was caused by Athenian spies who aided Aionian rebels in burning the city down to the ground, however a sacred shrine and temple to an important elven goddess also went up in flames along with the city......This insult led the Emperor to start a war with Athens, he then sends a huge army of elves, gnolls, and orcish mercenaries via sea to burn Athens down to the ground. The Athenian Dragonborn being an intellectual race favor magic over conventional warfare and were able to defeat the Elven Empire with their army of Elderitch Knights (rather than being Bronze and Stone Age, the dragonborn would make their weapons and armour out of large, hard crystals concecrated by Bahamat....however, their armour would still be hoplite styled, so think a Spartan with crystalline armour). As his forces were routed the elven empire died from the grief and humiliation of his loss....


His 13 year old True Nuetral son was immediately crowned emperor......for 10 long years the new emperor plotted to gain vengeance on Greece for what it had done to his father.....and so he began to muster large armies of gnolls and orcs to bolster his elven forces.....to prevent magic from being an issue he also began to incorperate mages into his ranks, placing wards on his officers to prevent them from being killed by arcane spells.....With a massive force of 200,000 the new emperor decides to send his army through a narrow strait which is 1 mile long......to do so he constructs a makeshift bridge out of boats anchored in place with boulders and is miraculously able to lead his army across the sea.....

However, as the Emperor is passing through the narrow pass of Thermophylae, he sees a small vanguard of crystal hoplite dragonborn soldiers standing in position......These warriors belong to the city-state of Sparta (known for its harsh militarism and indoctrination, Sparta has two kings, a military king and a political, from age 7 on onward, Spartan dragonborn males are raised to be super soldiers). The Athenian elders had previously begged the Spartan military king for aid....so the king went to a prophet blessed by Bahamat for guidance, the prophet told him that "a king must be sacrified so that the elves are driven back".......This is where the Campaign starts

If you have any ideas and comments to add be my guest.....I just want to see what you guys would say

Ravens_cry
2011-07-09, 05:15 AM
I don't think the players would be really happy with a no-win situation. OK, so the holdout served it's purpose, delaying so other forces could be readied, but the PC would still be dead. Unless the PC were part of the forces being readied, in which case you could run into the "NPC-doing-awesome-things-and-no-you-PC-can't-participate-or-change-anything" problem. It's an interesting idea, but I would tweak it so it is less recognizable and more PC centric.

Vemynal
2011-07-09, 12:24 PM
dude thats the plot to the movie "300"

cept from a more historical standpoint

Ravens_cry
2011-07-09, 02:36 PM
dude thats the plot to the movie "300"

cept from a standpoint
*Sigh* When the version involving elves and dragonborn is the "more historical" version . . .

paladinofshojo
2011-07-09, 07:11 PM
I don't think the players would be really happy with a no-win situation. OK, so the holdout served it's purpose, delaying so other forces could be readied, but the PC would still be dead. Unless the PC were part of the forces being readied, in which case you could run into the "NPC-doing-awesome-things-and-no-you-PC-can't-participate-or-change-anything" problem. It's an interesting idea, but I would tweak it so it is less recognizable and more PC centric.

True, but this is just the backstory, my idea is that the PCs are elite soldiers sent from each city state as a strike force to attack the empire while they are busy fighting against the Spartan vanguard.......An Athenian dragonborn mage, Spartan Dragonborn fighter, Thebian Dragonborn Rogue, Delphi Dragonborn Cleric/Paladin of Bahamat is my idea.....

Vemynal
2011-07-09, 09:45 PM
*Sigh* When the version involving elves and dragonborn is the "more historical" version . . .

well I mean come on, I loved 300 but they totally took "artistic license" with the event thing lol

Shadowknight12
2011-07-09, 11:02 PM
I knew exactly where this was going when I read the words "Greco-Persian War." I kept on reading, thinking maybe I'd dodge the bullet... but no. This is Sparta, indeed.

I am always leery, very leery, of using things that are lifted whole-cloth from either history or fiction. Some stealing and copying is good, but when practically the entire story is the same save for a racial makeover... yeah. Not a fan.

My advice would be to check with your players first. If I was your player, I'd really appreciate the chance to say "No, thanks, I'll sit this one out. Have fun, guys!" rather than creating a character and then realising that what seemed to be a fun campaign at first ended up being... well, something lifted whole-cloth from another source. It happened once to me with a campaign that lifted the story from the Dragon Age videogame and by all the gods above, I did not have a good time (again, because I was never told that it would be like that).

So yeah, warn the players.

Ravens_cry
2011-07-10, 12:07 AM
True, but this is just the backstory, my idea is that the PCs are elite soldiers sent from each city state as a strike force to attack the empire while they are busy fighting against the Spartan vanguard.......An Athenian dragonborn mage, Spartan Dragonborn fighter, Thebian Dragonborn Rogue, Delphi Dragonborn Cleric/Paladin of Bahamat is my idea.....
Then this one must ask, why even have that as the explicit backstory? You could just as easily do another "empire invades, elite unit of defenders goes behind enemy lines" story, without so explicitly copy and pasting from history. As it stands, it feel more then a little cheesy.

Coidzor
2011-07-10, 12:12 AM
If you try to 300 them, then one of them is going to remember the example of Alexander.