Desert Campaign Help (Largely focused on Marru)

[Xavrias]

So, recently I've been planning a largely desert campaign. I like deserts, think they're interesting places, and even the environment is a hazard. What I don't like about the desert is that, in D&D, most of the desert hazards are bypassed at the earliest level. The cleric can provide almost infinite water. And endure elements is a first level spell. So I decided this campaign is going to be fairly low magic. While I was looking through my copy of Sandstorm, the Marruspawn caught my eye. They have a fair amount of history, and are extremely cool. A race so bent on the development of more powerful weapons they ended up destroying themselves. So I think a lot of my campaign is going to revolve around the marruspawn. The main things I need help with are; how should the marruspawn be involved. What is The Marru, because Sandstorm never actually mentions what they even look like. And general things about a desert campaign, any input on what you think about a campaign in a desert would be like, go ahead and post.

[dascarletm]

I believe that they are detailed somewhere. I thought I saw them... somewhere. Someone can help. Sorry not to be more useful.:smallconfused:

[Getsugaru]

Let me first start off by giving you a warning: the wasteland is a dangerously fascinating place (with a caster level of "wow"). There are a few dangers that even magic cannot fully protect you from. First off, there's desiccation damage, which someone once described to me as "fatigue and exhaustion's big sister when they get caught stealing her stuff". Desiccation damage inflicts similar effects to exhaustion and fatigue, and more. Secondly, I have but two words for you: Shape sand. It's like having every masterwork tool available to you (though usually not all at once) and every weapon/armor in the game without enchantments. Now just add in a Fiend of Possession with a major bloodline and you suddenly have access to high level equipment faster than you can say "wealth by level restrictions". Just beware of what shape sand can do, especially since it's not a magic item, technically (if memory serves, it's actually an alchemical item...). Finally, be careful of restricting magic too heavily in the desert without making sure the party is properly equipped, or they'll be dead before reaching the Marru-tomb that you're having them "investigate". Maybe just remove or severely limit those spells, or have it be that the party is Tier 3 or below, not counting psionics (though you probably should still forbid Spell-to-Power Erudite...).

Long set of warnings aside, here's some info.

Full-grown marruspawn stand 7 feet tall and resemble ebony-hued, jackal-headed humanoids—mostly. Different types of marruspawn were crafted for different purposes in the ancient war, and thus their outward forms might vary.
From what it says about the generic full-grown spawn, one could infer that the original Marru were the same, probably looking like one of these two, maybe even a combination:http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/dd_gallery/dd3/Anubis_p141.jpg
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/sand_gallery/87628.jpg

As for how to involve them, one way is what wizards did here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ub/20050317a). Another option is to possibly include a Marruspawn in the party who's gone rogue, and is being hunted down by his brethren for his "treachery" of their people. Finally, you can borrow one of the characters I was making a while ago for another campaign, the 7 blades of grief (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=216587), specifically Shock, a marrulurk who's gone against tradition and made his own following, despite using a memory-reprogramed marrutact as a patsy. While the build was never posted to the thread, I did write it down somewhere, and can dig it up for you and post it here. Just let me know.

Hope that something in this post helps...

[Xavrias]

Thank you, I think that magic items will be available, I won't limit the pcs supplies so they die. And thanks for the Marru information too. And if you have the time go ahead and dig that up. I was thinking of having them not show up until later in the campaign, sort of having them controlling stuff from the shadows. Probably going to have stuff on Destiny ( I think that's his name) and some stuff on the pyramid far off in the waste. Any ideas on Marru introduction into a low level adventure, like a mentioning, or even just an odd jackal.

[Kelb_Panthera]

You could simply tell your players in advance, "I'm doing something special with this campaign. No casters."

Then you can use any dangerous environment without having to worry about "casters can ignore those problems" syndrome. There's a bit in DMG2 that covers allowing characters to enhance their own gear, expanding that to work for all magic items can give you a work-around for why there are still magic items in a campaign setting with no casters.

Then you just have to not let them have equipment that creates the desired magical effect and you're set.

As for what the marru are and what they look like, I have no idea. The marruspawn are explicitly not their decendents, but the decendents of their creations. They could be an ancient civilization of human wizards whose cities and wonders were burried by the sands after their society crumbled.

I know the whole humans are the real monsters trope has been done a million times before, but that's because it works.