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Imdadanman
2014-04-06, 12:43 PM
So, I'm a dm of about 6 years now. I know my way around the d20 and around dungeons. I have a really great group in my college and we are a very deeply roleplaying group.

Storyline > combat.

And now for some story:

In the lands of Duros, a large continent approximately the size of Russia and Asia, a terrible necromancer had been killed nearly 5 decades ago. Through the use of twisted magic he managed to complete his voyage into lichdom and had an army of darkness take much of the south western portion of the continent by force.
A brave group of adventurers had taken on this wizard, Xentrillor, when he was alive but were unable to kill him before he became a lich. Sworn to good and to freeing these lands they tried their hardest to kill him.
The group had failed at first and barely escaped with their lives. They knew they needed some sort of powerful magic device to kill him forever.
The group's wizard, Esmin the Red, had told them of a lich's only weakness being his phylactery and they knew they somehow much locate and destroy it. Since they had no idea where it could be they suggested a magic blade be crafted that could seek the phylactery and destroy the undead wizard forever.
And so they tried.
Few people had magical abilities strong enough to help fashion the blade but still they tried. This series of blades that lacked the power necessary to kill Xentrillor was finally completed when the 7th Blade had been crafted. This blade carried in its body rune stones of great power that when all were together gave the blade great strength. This blade would be the one to defeat Xentrillor forever.

The party was renamed after forging the blade to The Fellowship of The 7th Blade. They, with the support of all of the people of their lands, marched onward to defeat Xentrillor.

And defeat him they did. Darrius the Mighty, a brave and wise paladin destroyed him with the 7th Blade only to be destroyed himself. Right before the blade cut into the lich, strange magic words were spoken and then he stood still. Not wanting to waste a great opportunity, the paladin struck him down. The body of Xentrillor was vaporized and the blade exploded with raw arcane energy. The rune stones shot off and separated.

Knowing the power of this blade, the members each took one rune stone and agreed to split the rest of the stones up amongst various peoples of their region so that if the time came for them to kill Xentrillor again, they had a weapon ready to be crafted to kill the foul wretch.

50 years later...

A cult of wizards who looked up to Xentrillor finally figured out what a scroll left behind in the lich's study meant. The last words the lich had said suspended his spirit in a separate realm so that someday the scroll he left behind could be recited and he could return. So the wizards recited the spell and the spirit entered the realm of the living yet again.

The party at the time had been prisoners held up in this cult's secret cave fort. They managed to escape and kill the high wizard of the cult. When the doors shut behind the group, a wicked laughter shot from the shadows of the dungeon and they ran down the hill back to their inn. At the inn they realized that the owners and the workers and patrons were all disguised cultists looking to send bodies up to their fort for more bodies for experimentation. They killed the cultists and decided to rest there for the evening before burning the place to the ground. That night a group of bugbears and goblins came down the mountain to the inn.

The goblins and bugbears had no idea such a strong group was spending the night and in reality the goblins were only coming to retrieve a tax on the property for their master, Gulgar the Conqueror, a hill giant whose strength is met only by his greed.

Gulgar is an interesting fellow. He conquered a few towns around his mountain peak fortress and takes down the occasional traveling caravan and all in all he has gathered a pretty decent pile of treasure and minions. The most wonderful piece of treasure he had found was an old wizard named Esmin the Red.

Back to the party...

The adventurers traveled south to the big city of Riverport in hopes to sell treasures, see new things, and of course, to find work.

When they were leaving the inn they met up with a traveling carriage going south to Riverport. The halfling woman driving the carriage had a very special package to deliver to the head priest down in town. She hadn't a clue what was inside, but, the gold was good and she was okay with the occasional outside the law deal.

In the box was a brain in a giant or are jar. The brain was consumed by the spirit of Xentrillor and no priest in Riverport ever ordered the package.

The brain was able to dominate the priest and have the priest carry the brain down to the mausoleum below the great church. The brain was able to command spells of animating the dead through the priest and before anyone knew better, a great army of corpses was rising below the city. These corpses, assisted by raiders lead by Minotaur rot-priests of Baphomet, stormed the city and slaughter dozens of guards and citizens. This corpse army was led by the high wizard of the cults newly reanimated body, which now was controlled by Xentrillor.

The king hired the citizens of his city of Riverport to go with his rangers to scout the lands around his city to see if local communities need help. Perhaps this was the work the party wanted.

But that night when the zombies and raiders were taking the streets by force, the group's wizard Geyvin was over come by some strange desire to go and follow the horde. The next time the party would see him would be a shocking experience.

The party went off to help clear out different issues and odd jobs for towns around. This was all boring and easy to deal with until Gulgar noticed some pesky heroes mucking up his good little setup by killing his "tax collectors" in the areas below his home and so in a way that only a hill giant could really appreciate, Gulgar came down from the mountain and slaughtered a whole towns worth of people. The party swore revenge on the giant and they went up the mountain helping communities as they ascended.

One dwarf community was a mining town that had a good number of smiths in it as well. These smiths recently were forced to give Gulgars men weapons and armor but had to stop because of a strange event: their mines were flooded. Knowing their fate if they couldn't start the forges up again they sent the adventurers up into the caves above to see what the flood'a cause was. The party found a peculiar scene.

Cultists had set up a little hideout in a cave above the mines and just under Gulgars fortress. There was a small hole where the cultists could see into the throne room of Gulgar and flood was caused by a bottle of Everflow tipped onto its side, pouring down a crack in the floor and down into the mines. The hideout was empty but they arrived at the perfect time to see a meeting between Geyvin and Gulgar.

Geyvin came in demanding they get the old wizard Esmin for Xentrillor. Gulgar demanded more money first. Geyvin, outraged by this as Xentrillor offered nearly 100,000 gp for this old man, called Xentrillor to help deal with this greedy giant. Xentrillor climbed through a portal into the room and held Gulgar down with a giant skeleton claw that came from a portal as well. Xentrillor left the old wizard Esmin to rot in the throne room and killed Gulgar only to resurrect him as a skeleton.

The party went up to the mountain top and killed the skeleton and freed Esmin. Before Esmin died, he spoke of the Fellowship of the 7th Blade and said if they hope to kill Xentrillor before it's too late, they must venture to speak with Lady Felim (the party cleric) in the city of Thorris nearly 800 miles east.

So long story short, they are gonna need to gather the runestones to rebuild the blade.

The creative part is placing the stones in the world now. I have an idea for a couple where they will be but maybe some people can think up some cool ideas too?

1. The Fellowships Rogue took his share of the loot and made a huge dungeon under his castle and keeps the tip of the blade in a giant piece of crystal (there's a puzzle to get it out)
2. A halfling mayor is a bit of a playful fellow (as all halflings should be ;) ) and he will give the party his rune stone if they can find his hiding spot for hide and go seek. (I wanna make this one seem nearly impossible but be very cheesy at the end and have his hiding spot be a metaphor or something such as him hiding in a back pack of theirs and saying that "the most important thing to bring with you is the kindness and honesty of a true friend")
3. In the last game when the party was visiting South Reach, the biggest city in the area, a metropolis to be precise, they met a dwarf named Wulden Steelband and his father was the dwarven defender of the Fellowship. His father had a runestone that went missing when a gang of undead and raiders took their home by force and killed everyone but Wulden. I'm thinking this runestone will be on the body of Geyvin when they manage to kill him as he has become a reoccurring villain alongside Xentrillor.

I want obtaining these stones to be like tests where the party is either pushed to their breaking point or mentally tested.

Any ideas or comments on the campaign so far? Tell me I'm very eager to hear :)

2E Phoinex
2014-04-06, 02:07 PM
Some questions designed to stimulate creative thinking, not to poke holes in a fun campaign:

Why did the stones have to be scattered? In fact why not just reforge the sword then and there if they suspected a possible return? Was there some danger about the rune stones power? Or perhaps did a member of the lich's cult make off with an important component of the sword that was required to bind the rune stones together? What could be the consequences of a rune stone falling into the hands of evil?

There's an idea, maybe if the lich gathers the rune stones he can use evil magic to permanently anchor himself to this plane, perhaps without the need of a phylactery? Or you know some equally evil and world-endy type of dark magic that requires the use of the rune stones.

Incidentally, what is the lich's goal? Is it simple conquest, or is there another aim? And are his armies currently ravaging the countryside again or does he need to rebuild his forces?

Where do the rune stones come from? (also you may have said this all ready and I just read poorly, but do you ever explain just how many there are?) Do the stones have powers when they are not assembled into the 7th sword?

Who allowed the Halfling to be the guardian of a rune stone!!?? I kid, sounds like that could be a source of some comic relief and fun. But seriously why does he have it, was he a member of the original party?

Just how badass is the current party? Some character outlines would be neat.

Finally, and kind of a biggie: Why does the party have to go spelunking and adventuring to get these rune stones from their guardians? Realistically, with the return of the lich the guardians would just meet up and reforge the sword wouldn't they? (but that wouldn't be as fun for a game obviously) So how do you justify the need for the party to adventure and get the stones themselves? Are there other groups trying to reforge the sword?

Sounds like fun. Maybe next time I'll post something actually constructive instead of just a volley of question marks haha

Imdadanman
2014-04-06, 03:23 PM
So when it comes to the party's bad ass-ness, they're low level and that's why they will have trouble initially giving the runestones out to a gang of adventurers who haven't totally proved themselves. They're levels 2-5.

The reason I never specified the number of stones that there are is because I figured if I left it open ended right now I'd have room for dm freedom to add in stones as I needed and add in stones for different purposes perhaps? So in reality I feel as though there would be like 12?

The reason I had in mind as to why the stones would be best kept separate is that when they come into contact with each other they have powers and energy, the more in contact the more power, alone they are useless. In the wrong hands they are powerful and destructive devices. They seem to be like batteries that get exponentially more powerful as they combine; and this means you could power some really awesome gear or some really evil weaponry.

Perhaps the lich will want them to stay on the plane or to summon a super powered elemental or something worse? Maybe he is making a device to make him invincible?

Excellent questions though! I dig your input!

The Oni
2014-04-06, 07:56 PM
Maybe the fully-assembled blade is just *too* powerful to keep around for any length of time. Volatile, even. Mere mortals may wither away in its presence. Keeping it around a city is akin to sitting on a reactor core. The only reason its existence could be justified would be to defeat an even greater danger (yay nuclear weapons allegory).

Could be the rush of power someone gets when wielding all the stones in conjunction is addictive and corrupting. Extrapolating from this: Darrius the Mighty was considered as great as he was because he was able to resist the lure of it and retain his senses under its influence. Fearing that a lesser man would fall victim to the sword's influence, they decided to leave it broken.

Could be that all the members of the Fellowship weren't really very good friends at all, rather allies forced together by necessity, and suspected that with the Lich gone, one of the other members might use the blade for less-than-noble purposes.

Hopeless
2014-04-08, 07:01 AM
Since their nemesis found a way to cheat death what if the same spell that returned him also returned Darryn the Mighty?

Could the original sword once repaired turn out to be now intelligent with Darryn's soul locked in the blade until it accomplishes the task all those years ago that claimed Darryn's life?