Running a game soon! Need a story for an Eberron game!

[Nerdynick]

Hello once again forums!

So my group is wanting to get started earlier than I had planned, and due to my homebrew setting falling through on the development side of things, I decided I'd switch to Eberron, which I only recently started looking at. Though I love everything I've read, I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the setting. Consequently, I'm needing to come up with an adventure for the group for their first session.

The set-up: The whole party is first level, consisting of a Gnome Alchemist, a Human Bard (Sandman Archetype), a Dwarf Barbarian, and a Half-Elf Cleric. The system is Pathfinder. The hook is that they've all been invited to the funeral of a wizard of some small renown, and they are all to receive something in his will. Some know the wizard personally, some have never met him.

Help! And please explain setting-specific things since I'm relatively new to it.

Thanks.

[fishyfishyfishy]

Familiarize yourself with the different dragonmarked houses, since they provide many services that adventurers have need of. What type of gaming style do you and your players have? If you are looking for something with a lot of intrigue you could go for a game set in Sharn. Or if you want to feature more dungeon delving you might prefer to have them start in Xen'drik. Are you keeping the Artificer class and adopting it for pathfinder? The setting is hugely influenced by Artifice. Think about how the pathfinder classes fit within Eberron. Alchemist is right at home with the Artificer, but a Witch feels out of place for anywhere except with the Orcs of the Shadow Marshes and the Drow of Xen'drik.

[Shining Wrath]

How long do you want this to run for? The be-all and end-all of Eberron hooks is "What happened on the Day of Mourning"? Answering that question should require enough adventures to get the PCs well into epic. BTW, there is no canonical answer.

As others said, the Dragonmarked Houses are ready-made for hooks. The wizard may have been a member of the Twelve, which is the research arm of the Dragonmarked Houses cooperating together. Or he could have been manifesting an mark without being in a House, which is what got him killed - and now you have to save his children who are also manifesting the same mark. What the PCs "get" at the funeral is ... a child to save.

Or the wizard leaves each of the PCs an item which is also a clue, and combining the clues leads them to a treasure ... which is wanted by the BBEG to advance BBEG schemes.

Or the wizard leaves them something which has to be delivered to his true heir - who lives in the L'Hazaar principalities, while the funeral is in Sharn. Give the PCs a chance to experience some Eberron goodness - lightning rail, air ships, Houses Lyrander and Orion.

[Nerdynick]

I'm keeping artificers, yes, but I haven't put serious thought into mechanical replication within the PF system since nobody wanted to play one. Out of curiosity, is there a good remake of the class out there?

With the Twelve, are there only 12 wizards, or is the name representative of the number of houses?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

There's a local warlord holed up in a castle that's rumored to be protected by a powerful magical ward. The neighboring nobles have discovered that there's an artifact that will suppress the ward and allow them to storm his castle and bring him to justice! Will this party of capable adventurers take up this noble quest? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=302120#4)

[Roguenewb]

The 12 is the inter-house cooperation group for the dragonmarked houses. Its power waxes and wanes over time, based on how willing to work together the houses are. Its particularly strong at the moment. Its a fairly large organization, they coordinated things like lyrandar, sivis and cannith working together to manufacture the airships.

Here's a sample plot: At the funeral, after everyone has finished saying their bit, and after everyone has left, perhaps the party is held back to hear the will, and they are among the last to leave the church, they see a girl wrapped in rags, with a handful of rats on her, crying at the grave of the wizard. She sees the players, drops something on the grave and runs off. When they investigate the item (most railroading part of the adventure), they discover it to be a badge in the family crest of the wizard. Upon further investigation, it turns out (how ever you want to reveal this is up to how you like to roleplay), the girl is an abberrant heir, who the wizard took to supporting after he developed a similar mark. He's been working with representatives of House Tarkington in the area, trying to limit the attacks on them by the Twelve. Unfortunately, the party ends up being approached by both sides to do things they don't want to do, because neither side is perfect here, both have a point, and both are unwiling to see reason.

Maybe the first couple missions for the Tarkingtons are "retrieve a relic from the War of the Mark from a nearby cave", "convince the Wasuh family to let their son marry an aberrant woman", "stop attacks by a crazed sentinel marshal who blames the aberrants for everything".

That could buy you weeks to develop a more robust continuation of the plot based on what the party is like.

[Darrin]

The set-up: The whole party is first level, consisting of a Gnome Alchemist, a Human Bard (Sandman Archetype), a Dwarf Barbarian, and a Half-Elf Cleric. The system is Pathfinder. The hook is that they've all been invited to the funeral of a wizard of some small renown, and they are all to receive something in his will. Some know the wizard personally, some have never met him.


The wizard had a small stronghold hidden somewhere in the Mournlands/Xen'drik/etc. where an artifact is hidden. He's hidden clues to the whereabouts of the stronghold in various items, one of which falls into the PCs hands. A powerful house or guild is after this artifact, and gets tipped off that this item is the key to finding the map or unlocking the stronghold.

Gnome Alchemist: Crystal Flask. Once per day, you can pour out a potion that lasts until the next sunrise.

Sulday: Endure Elements
Molday: Mage Armor
Zolday: Enlarge Person
Wirday: Remove Fear
Zorday: Aid
Farday: Longstrider
Sarday: Delay Poison

This is actually a hint to a later puzzle, where the PCs must pick or select an Emerald something (gemstone, potion, door, etc.): (E)ndure Elements, (M)age Armor, (E)nlarge Person, (R)emove Fear, (A)id, (L)ongstrider, (D)elay Poison.

Human Bard: Coatl Quill. 1/day comprehend languages (up to 250 words), +2 circumstance bonus on Decipher Script, Forgery, and Craft: Calligraphy checks. Also, unbeknownst to the PCs, if the quill is dipped into the Crystal Flask and a command word spoken ("Phalaenopsis"), it will draw a map to the wizard's hidden stronghold.

Dwarf Barbarian: Pewter Goblet with four blue quartz gems embeded around the rim. The cup has a permanent detect poison enchantment on it, 30' radius, where the quartz gems around the rim turn black to indicate direction. If one of the potions from the Crystal Flask is poured into the goblet and a command word spoken ("Libatius"), it will convert the liquid into a potion of lesser restoration. (There's a puzzle/trap in the stronghold that involves picking the door/chest without a poison trap.)

Half-Elf Cleric: Firebrass Lantern. +2 competence bonus on Spot rolls when the lantern is lit, 1/day detect secret doors. If one of the potions from the Crystal Flask is poured into the lantern and burned, purple smoke billows out and forms into a magic mouth effect: "The crystal drains, the feather stains, speak my favorite flower, and your path will be plain." Throw in some botanical/horticultural books in somewhere so they can figure out "Phalaenopsis" = Moth Orchid.

Scene 1: The PCs arrive at an inn to get rooms for the night when the innkeeper points at one of the PCs and exclaims, "But you're already checked in!" After a short discussion, the innkeeper tells the PC that he gave him the key to room #14 last night. Room #14 is locked, but the innkeeper will open it up with his own key if asked. Inside the room, there's a dead body that looks exactly like the PC, garrot marks around the neck, and signs of a scuffle. The local authorities take custody of the body and ask the PCs a few cursory questions, but later claim they have no idea what the PCs are talking about. This isn't designed to lead into a full-on investigation, just get the PCs really spooked.

Scene 2: When the PCs frequent a local tavern, a man walks up to one of the PCs, claims to be a distant relative, and offers him a drink. The drink is spiked with Dreamlily (Sharn City of Towers p. 161 or Secrets of Sarlona p. 138), which the man hopes will soften up his target for a Sudden Silent + Sudden Still charm person spell. If successful, he attempts to pump his target for information on the will, the deceased wizard, and the whereabouts of a "special map". If confronted or attacked, he casts obscuring mist and swift expeditious retreat. If captured, he stabs himself with a needle-tipped ring, and the poison, whatever it is, renders him catatonic for several days, long enough for someone else to make sure he "disappears".

Scene 3: After the will is read and the PCs have been given their inheritance, a well-dressed gentleman asks for a private meeting with the PCs, and then offers them an exhorbitant amount of money for one of the items. While they are negotiating, assassins break in to wherever and attack, demanding the item as well. In the ensuing melee, the gentleman is killed before he can explain why the item is so valuable/important. If the assassins are captured/interrogated, they claim to be working for a local house/guild/whatever and threaten dire consequences if the item isn't handed over, but don't actually know why it's so important either.

From there, you can go into your standard Noir "get the MacGuffin" plot with fake maps/doublecrosses/etc., then move into the Indiana Jones stuff when the real map is found.

[Shining Wrath]

I'm keeping artificers, yes, but I haven't put serious thought into mechanical replication within the PF system since nobody wanted to play one. Out of curiosity, is there a good remake of the class out there?

With the Twelve, are there only 12 wizards, or is the name representative of the number of houses?

Number of Houses. There are numerous wizards, they have a floating tower in one of the capital cities (Karth). Useful plot hook guys as they by definition care about any powerful magical item, any new spell researched, and so on. Alignment of the group probably TN with a shade toward LN - they were set up by the old King and require cooperation between the Houses. Any individual member can be any alignment you need.

[Prime32]

Or he could have been manifesting an mark without being in a House, which is what got him killed - and now you have to save his children who are also manifesting the same mark.That reaction seems a bit... extreme. More likely they'd just offer him work. You might be able to pull it off with aberrant marks and House Tarkanan, though even then they'd probably want to recruit the children rather than kill them (and only kill the wizard if he refused to help them).

[shadow_archmagi]

How long do you want this to run for? The be-all and end-all of Eberron hooks is "What happened on the Day of Mourning"? Answering that question should require enough adventures to get the PCs well into epic. BTW, there is no canonical answer.



Other Potential Plotlines: (mix and match as needed!)

Riedra Ascendant: Quori are my favorite villains! Everybody loves space ghosts. The Dreaming Dark are fun.

Vampire Cult: The Emerald Claw/Blood of Vol are interesting too.

Lord of Blades: A sociopathic robot intent on some master scheme, which miight be building a god? Did you really need the excuse to practice your Bane voice?

Lords of Dust: Oh, right, there's forces of evil inherent in the universe, and they have agents trying to free them from their ancient slumber.

Xoriat: There's also an alternate dimension full of mind flayers and other crazy things.

[Prime32]

Vampire Cult: The Emerald Claw/Blood of Vol are interesting too.

Lord of Blades: A sociopathic robot intent on some master scheme, which miight be building a god? Did you really need the excuse to practice your Bane voice?IIRC, the writer intent here was that both Erandis d'Vol and the Lord of Blades are small fry relatively speaking*, who still exist because it would require enormous effort to stamp them out (the LoB is hard to find, and Vol's lair has absurdly powerful defences). At the same time they have easy ways to gain a lot of power really quickly, by ascending to godhood or unlocking the Mark of Death respectively, and PCs can quest to stop them from finding knowledge/artifacts that they need to do it.

*Note that Erandis only controls a few parts of the Blood of Vol cult directly (a few more know vaguely of "Lady Vol" as some kind of saint), though she's very good at manipulating politics.

[Nerdynick]

The wizard had a small stronghold hidden somewhere in the Mournlands/Xen'drik/etc. where an artifact is hidden. He's hidden clues to the whereabouts of the stronghold in various items, one of which falls into the PCs hands. A powerful house or guild is after this artifact, and gets tipped off that this item is the key to finding the map or unlocking the stronghold...

Quick question on this. Were your players to identify the items (magically or through Spellcraft), how much about the items would you tell them?

Also, how would one convert the Dragonmarks to PF? I don't quite feel they're all powerful enough when converted. Especially things like the Mark of Detection (use a cantrip twice per day? That's..... limited). How have you guys handled it?

[137beth]

Quick question on this. Were your players to identify the items (magically or through Spellcraft), how much about the items would you tell them?

Also, how would one convert the Dragonmarks to PF? I don't quite feel they're all powerful enough when converted. Especially things like the Mark of Detection (use a cantrip twice per day? That's..... limited). How have you guys handled it?

Dragonmarks are rarely potent options by themselves. What makes them good is all the technology and items that go with them, and the social benefits of having one. This is as true in PF as it is in 3.5

For a specific conversion, you could increase the daily uses by one, possibly making cantrips at-will, but you don't have to. The limited spell-like abilities aren't the reason someone takes a dragonmarked feat anyways.

The most important thing to change is the skill-ranks prerequisite. In 3.5, the maximum skill ranks is 3+your level, while in PF it is just your level. Thus, greater dragonmarks should only require 9 ranks in two skills, and the lesser dragonmarks should only require 6 ranks.

[Invader]

The reemergence of the mark of death is always a fun hook. Its either appeared and you have to stop the person who has it from committing evil acts or you have protect the person that now has it from being eliminated from the other houses or what have you.

[Nerdynick]

Is there any mention of the tides of Eberron? It seems to me like sailing conventionally (disregard airships) would be nigh-suicide with twelve moons affecting the tide.

[gurgleflep]

SIDE QUEST IDEA!!
I've never looked into Eberron other than for monsters and races, but if there's slavery issues you could use this quest I asked for. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=273472) Read the second post and level accordingly :smallsmile:

[Darrin]

Quick question on this. Were your players to identify the items (magically or through Spellcraft), how much about the items would you tell them?


It depends on the group. If they were all new players without a lot of RPG experience, I'd probably go out of my way to drop hints or give them all the information explicitly. As 1st level characters, they may not have the resources to pay for identify. But there is a bard, and I could feed them some clues via Bardic Knowledge rolls, or at least get them started in the right direction:

"You've heard a little about this multiple potion thing before. You think it has something to do with the days of the week. Maybe the wizard had some research notes in his library?"

If the bard blows his bardic knowledge roll or gets completely confused by red herrings, then I'd probably have the executor of the will hand them a sheet of paper with the "Known Properties" of the item listed, but not the "combo" effects.

If it was a more seasoned group that knows how to exploit identify for free, then identify wouldn't list the combo effects, but I'd probably drop a hint that there might be a combo effect and let them fiddle around with it.

[Shining Wrath]

That reaction seems a bit... extreme. More likely they'd just offer him work. You might be able to pull it off with aberrant marks and House Tarkanan, though even then they'd probably want to recruit the children rather than kill them (and only kill the wizard if he refused to help them).

If the manifester is of the wrong race, e.g., elf Wizard suddenly pops up with Mark of Making, the mark is aberrant even though it's perfectly normal in a human.

A human, yeah, they'd just make him an offer he couldn't refuse about adding d'Cannith to his name. An elf with the Mark of Making might be considered to represent an existential threat to the entire House - how do you keep everything "in the family" when the family is now multi-race?


Is there any mention of the tides of Eberron? It seems to me like sailing conventionally (disregard airships) would be nigh-suicide with twelve moons affecting the tide.

That's not necessarily true, as the gravitational effects of all those moons at different radii would tend to cancel one another. You'd get complex tides requiring a Cannith device to predict - but not necessarily large ones.

[Nerdynick]

Back again.

So Eberron has this statement to the effect of "If it exists in D&D, it exists in Eberron". I was wondering if the populace of GitP extended this to firearms. Easy enough to dismiss as alchemical inventions and definitely a standard when it comes to naval vessels, I don't see any ships or characters in Eberron sporting firearms.

EDIT: Airships + Broadsides of cannons = epic fight scene

[unseenmage]

Back again.

So Eberron has this statement to the effect of "If it exists in D&D, it exists in Eberron". I was wondering if the populace of GitP extended this to firearms. Easy enough to dismiss as alchemical inventions and definitely a standard when it comes to naval vessels, I don't see any ships or characters in Eberron sporting firearms.

EDIT: Airships + Broadsides of cannons = epic fight scene

Faerun already has Alchemical Smokepowder (FRCS, PGtF) which acts just like gunpowder only is non-explosive. And the island of Lantan has guns, as do some of the pirates of the Sword Coast IIRC. There's a nice expansion on the DMG guns in Dragon 321 page 30.

[Nerdynick]

Well, even in Faerun few people actually use firearms. It seems to me like the advent of firearms would begin to make more archaic weapons obsolete. And whilst I can see gunslingers in Eberron a lot easier than Faerun or Greyhawk, I ask myself why more people don't use them. :/

[unseenmage]

Well, even in Faerun few people actually use firearms. It seems to me like the advent of firearms would begin to make more archaic weapons obsolete. And whilst I can see gunslingers in Eberron a lot easier than Faerun or Greyhawk, I ask myself why more people don't use them. :/

In Faerun? It's because of religious constraints, and political ones. The Techsmiths of Lantan don't sell the tech outside their sphere of influence much. Gond basically snuck guns into the setting and the other gods, especially his superior(s), were not happy with him.
One assumes a higher than natural occurance of misfires occurs that keeps the tech from spreading. Remember, the gods of D&D verses hold the reigns on their realities. And they're often epic spellcasters too boot. Making it so one tech or another has restricted access is fairly easy for them.

Beyond that, it can also be a nice mystery for the PCs to uncover, why do firearms not spread more widely?

[Logic]

Relatives of the deceased wizard (no matter how far removed) are irked that they were left out of the will (whether the wizard intended this or not is up for debate, even the local constabulary is unsure) and are petty enough to get whatever the PCs received.

Some are simply going to attempt to steal these trinkets, some will demand them (by force if necessary,) and others will gladly pay for them. (Whether any of these items are of any real value or a hook of their own is up to you.)

[137beth]

Back again.

So Eberron has this statement to the effect of "If it exists in D&D, it exists in Eberron". I was wondering if the populace of GitP extended this to firearms. Easy enough to dismiss as alchemical inventions and definitely a standard when it comes to naval vessels, I don't see any ships or characters in Eberron sporting firearms.

EDIT: Airships + Broadsides of cannons = epic fight scene

Keith Baker said that "If it exists in D&D, it exists in Eberron" is a common misconception (I'll see if I can find the quote later, it was on his blog)--the actual rule is "If it exists in D&D, it has a place in Eberron".

So if it exists in D&D, you, the GM, have the OPTION to put it in Eberron, but it doesn't necessarily exist.

For firearms in particular, I (me, personally, nothing official) would say firearms are relatively rare in Eberron. The world of Eberron has gained a lot of technology since the time of the typical D&D setting, but most of that progress has been magical, not technological. One of the books (forget which one, I think it was the ECS or magic of Eberron) said that Eternal Wands of fireball/magic missile allowed magewrights to replace more potent casters as artillery near the end of the last war. Eternal wands of blast spells are basically magical firearms, and 16th-18th century guns did require training to use, so my guess is that there wouldn't be a huge need for them. They'd probably exist, though, and if people wanted to play a game with a lot of guns it could certainly work in Eberron:smallsmile:

[Prime32]

Well, even in Faerun few people actually use firearms. It seems to me like the advent of firearms would begin to make more archaic weapons obsolete. And whilst I can see gunslingers in Eberron a lot easier than Faerun or Greyhawk, I ask myself why more people don't use them. :/Large numbers of people are capable of using wands and eternal wands (moreso than in most settings at least) which are superior to guns. It wouldn't be odd for guns to exist, but probably only as specialised equipment (maybe for use in dead magic zones, or aboard ships) or a novelty for the rich. Sort of like the niche that modern crossbows have.