Biotroll
2015-02-01, 04:10 PM
Fair warning at the start of it all: This is probably going to be a wall of text.
Those of you who didn't run away, hello. :smallsmile: I'm preparing a campaign in Eberron for my players and I wanted to focus on aberrations and Daelkyr and I also want to introduce my players to psionics. Now I have some idea of what I want to accomplish with my story, but I've got block at the moment and not much time to think about it, so I'm looking for help here. Below you will find the background for the story and some major sides I want to appear there and what their motives are. I'll need help in gluing it together though.
In our last campaign in the Eberron my players faced the Blood of Vol and resurgence of Mark of Death. There were many undead showing in all Khorvair but Vol was forced to stop her project and sacrifice her valued researchers and high priest in order to get the adventurers of her back. The adventurers were hailed heroes for stopping the undead plague and Vol learned that she really found a way to make a Mark of Death appear again. Lady Vol is now getting some time to not draw too much attention again and plans to try her plan again later. The five nations are fighting each other about who is responsible for this however and there are smaller border conflicts again. As they are now, they won't be able to unite to fight against the Daelkyr and his armies.
The cause of all that is going to happen in the campaign. He is not evil, more like scientist, and he was researching potential of the races living at Khorvaire. In his time he noticed that some individuals show much more potential when put under stress and are able to overcome many obstacles. This was fascinating for him and this is what he chose to study. He spent centuries trying to modify his servants and then test them and put them under different stressful situation in hopes to make them show the hightened potential. Unforutantely for him he had only little to no success and was pondering a new way to study this problem. He decided that instead of using modified creatures he would use pure natives (or how to call humans) and give them a seemingly world threatening obstacle to solve. This meant he started preparing armies and made a clone of himslef, albeit far less powerful, that could be controlled remotedly by him and which was meant to be killed in the end of this test. To his surprise he didn't get to actualy launch this project as his trusted lieutenant - a powerful mindflayer and one of his last test - attacked his remotedly controlled clone in belief he is attacking the Daelkyr himself, and managed to best him and eat his brain thus obtaining knowledge and powers of said clone but also trapping the mind of Daelkyr in himself without knowing so. The Daelkyr trapped in the mindflayers head decided to not unmake him but instead to watch his next actions.
The Daelkyr doesn't have a name now and I would like to give him some. He will not make an appearance in the campaign untill the very end when the mindflayer is slain and his psychinc projection is going to thank the players for their cooperation.
This is the BBEG the players will fight in this campaign. He was lieutenant to the Daelkyr for decades and was put under the stress by being given role of leadership and very limited life span. If he performed well, which he did, his life span was prolonged by the Daelkyr. If not, well, tough luck. However he was forgotten by his master in past few years and was not given additional years to live which annoyed him to no end. He tried to talk to his master about it but with no luck. He finaly snapped and attacked him, hoping to be destroyed and thus ending it all. He didn't realise he won untill few hours after he ate the brain of his former master. He had troubles accepting all the knowledge of his master and only could recollect small part of it. When he realised he could make himself immortal if he could access all the knowledge he started looking for ways to do so. He started commanding the armies of aberrations again and started creating large psi-crystal based brain (as I don't want the elder brains to exist in my game) which was supported and given energy by a large biomass. He connected himself to this brain and it allowed him to access more knowledge, so he could prolong his life span, improve his body to that of Ulitharid. He used the armies made by his late master to mine more crystals and to futher improve his brain. However he also found out he could absorb creatures mind and add it with its knowledge and personality in his brain. He then made research to make symbionts that would allow other creatures to connect to his brain and share their thougths and knowledge with him without having to eat them and thus weakening his armies. With this breakthrough he had much more mind-power to search his knowledge and he could easily command vast numbers of his underlings. He became The Many as he united many different minds with single goal on their mind. He was still in controll and could disconnect if he wished so but he realised he created something magnificent and decided to get even more power by getting back to Xoriat. To break through the seals he started to assimilate the inhabitants of Khorvair in search of way how to do it. This is why the players will fight him.
He is the one fighting The Many for several months now for resources as he is making his own research of psionics and has a special psionic branch. Lately his enemy was acting more inteligently and was able to coordinate better. By studying the corpses of the enemies they found out about the symbiont that allowed them to connect their minds together. The Lord of Blades wanted this technology as ti would allow him to command his legions with a thought and conquering the meatbags would be so much easier. His researchers couldn't find a way of reproducing the symbionts who were not willing to connect to them anyway. Researchers are now trying to make something similar with use of crystals only, but are missing the main thing - the brain.
When players get to 6th or 7th level, they should be well known in at least some circles. The Lord of Blades will send his emissary to them, as they fight common enemy, to help them as best as he can. The truth is that this emissary is trying not only to help them, but to gather as much information about The Many as he can. This basicaly means that the players will be given free cohort - a warforged psion, most likely a seer - who will be 2 levels below them and who they will be able to controll in battles to get used to psionics. Outside of combat he should be good with knowledges/gathering information and if asked for opinion, he would give one. (He will also be the voice saying: Are you sure? if the chose to act irrationaly, which they will).
I will need a name for the psionic branch and some recommendations about the cohort itself. I know the basic rules of psionics but I never really read through the powers and only started now, so I'm a bit lacking in what it can and cannot do and which powers to pick. As I see it now, psions are not good at healing and buffing others, but have some nice selfbuffing and blasting. Are there some tricks, except psicrystal-share pain-vigor I should know about?
I want Droaam and the sisters to play some role in this. I see it now, that they can foretell a great catastrophy in near future and they plan to use it to strengthen their power. When they find out it's the aberrations threatening them all they propose and aliance to Darguun (and more importantly to Dhakaani tribes) to prove themselves to humans and gain more respect. In the end of the campaing Droaam should be recognized as a state by other nations.
On behalf of Droaam they will gather their armies and manufacture byeshk weapons to march against aberrations once again to show everyone the glory of old Dhakaan empire. The Dhakaan tribes plan to overtake the leadership of Darguun which will most likely end in civil war once the aberration threat is somehow dealt with.
I've got some basic ideas of what I want to put my players through. They will start at a ship and they already know it and were told, that the campaign will spend only short time on seas. I plan them to be returning from some island for whatever their reasons back to Khorvair but being attacked on their way back by a ship that will be full of humans with aberration/deformity feats and with psychic warrior as their leader. Once they defeat them and found hostages in the ship and get back they should go on and investigate what is going on.
Untill level 6 or so I plan them to be mainly investigating the cults of Dragon Below in different parts of Khorvair. After that I want to send them into Shadow marches and spend some time there, probably untill level 10, fighting aberrations and more cultists. Then they should be declared troublemakers and war instigator by several nobles who are followers of daelkyr and the party will be forced to hide. This is when Droaam will come in and will accept them and even fake their deaths so that they can work in secrecy withouth having everyone at their throats. They should make some more adventures into Khyber to look for behloder sage who lives free and wants to be left alone and who will send them to ask more questions to aboleths. After meeting aboleths the party should be around level 15 or 16 and will be sent to final confrontation with The Many and thus ending the campaign.
As you see, this is only very rough idea and I need to fill it in. I got some plans for first few levels. They will be searching clues on behalf of house Lyrandar for missing ships in the area and will find a smaller hideout of cultists which they will fight with and find out some clues about symbionts etc. On returning back and getting reward they will be hired by another house (not sure yet) to find out his missing relative who disappeared and I want them to go to investigate a weird travelling carneval. But after that I am blank.
TL, DR and still want to help:
- looking for name for Daelkyr lord who studies potential of various races
- looking for name for psionic branch under control of Lord of Blades
- looking for list of psionic powers
- looking for power tricks that could be usefull
- looking for ideas for adventures with some aberration or cult of dragon below theme
That's it right now as I am tired and running out of time. I will try to chime in with some more info once I can. Also sorry for any mistakes in the text as it was all a bit rushed.
Thanks for help playground. :smallsmile:
Those of you who didn't run away, hello. :smallsmile: I'm preparing a campaign in Eberron for my players and I wanted to focus on aberrations and Daelkyr and I also want to introduce my players to psionics. Now I have some idea of what I want to accomplish with my story, but I've got block at the moment and not much time to think about it, so I'm looking for help here. Below you will find the background for the story and some major sides I want to appear there and what their motives are. I'll need help in gluing it together though.
In our last campaign in the Eberron my players faced the Blood of Vol and resurgence of Mark of Death. There were many undead showing in all Khorvair but Vol was forced to stop her project and sacrifice her valued researchers and high priest in order to get the adventurers of her back. The adventurers were hailed heroes for stopping the undead plague and Vol learned that she really found a way to make a Mark of Death appear again. Lady Vol is now getting some time to not draw too much attention again and plans to try her plan again later. The five nations are fighting each other about who is responsible for this however and there are smaller border conflicts again. As they are now, they won't be able to unite to fight against the Daelkyr and his armies.
The cause of all that is going to happen in the campaign. He is not evil, more like scientist, and he was researching potential of the races living at Khorvaire. In his time he noticed that some individuals show much more potential when put under stress and are able to overcome many obstacles. This was fascinating for him and this is what he chose to study. He spent centuries trying to modify his servants and then test them and put them under different stressful situation in hopes to make them show the hightened potential. Unforutantely for him he had only little to no success and was pondering a new way to study this problem. He decided that instead of using modified creatures he would use pure natives (or how to call humans) and give them a seemingly world threatening obstacle to solve. This meant he started preparing armies and made a clone of himslef, albeit far less powerful, that could be controlled remotedly by him and which was meant to be killed in the end of this test. To his surprise he didn't get to actualy launch this project as his trusted lieutenant - a powerful mindflayer and one of his last test - attacked his remotedly controlled clone in belief he is attacking the Daelkyr himself, and managed to best him and eat his brain thus obtaining knowledge and powers of said clone but also trapping the mind of Daelkyr in himself without knowing so. The Daelkyr trapped in the mindflayers head decided to not unmake him but instead to watch his next actions.
The Daelkyr doesn't have a name now and I would like to give him some. He will not make an appearance in the campaign untill the very end when the mindflayer is slain and his psychinc projection is going to thank the players for their cooperation.
This is the BBEG the players will fight in this campaign. He was lieutenant to the Daelkyr for decades and was put under the stress by being given role of leadership and very limited life span. If he performed well, which he did, his life span was prolonged by the Daelkyr. If not, well, tough luck. However he was forgotten by his master in past few years and was not given additional years to live which annoyed him to no end. He tried to talk to his master about it but with no luck. He finaly snapped and attacked him, hoping to be destroyed and thus ending it all. He didn't realise he won untill few hours after he ate the brain of his former master. He had troubles accepting all the knowledge of his master and only could recollect small part of it. When he realised he could make himself immortal if he could access all the knowledge he started looking for ways to do so. He started commanding the armies of aberrations again and started creating large psi-crystal based brain (as I don't want the elder brains to exist in my game) which was supported and given energy by a large biomass. He connected himself to this brain and it allowed him to access more knowledge, so he could prolong his life span, improve his body to that of Ulitharid. He used the armies made by his late master to mine more crystals and to futher improve his brain. However he also found out he could absorb creatures mind and add it with its knowledge and personality in his brain. He then made research to make symbionts that would allow other creatures to connect to his brain and share their thougths and knowledge with him without having to eat them and thus weakening his armies. With this breakthrough he had much more mind-power to search his knowledge and he could easily command vast numbers of his underlings. He became The Many as he united many different minds with single goal on their mind. He was still in controll and could disconnect if he wished so but he realised he created something magnificent and decided to get even more power by getting back to Xoriat. To break through the seals he started to assimilate the inhabitants of Khorvair in search of way how to do it. This is why the players will fight him.
He is the one fighting The Many for several months now for resources as he is making his own research of psionics and has a special psionic branch. Lately his enemy was acting more inteligently and was able to coordinate better. By studying the corpses of the enemies they found out about the symbiont that allowed them to connect their minds together. The Lord of Blades wanted this technology as ti would allow him to command his legions with a thought and conquering the meatbags would be so much easier. His researchers couldn't find a way of reproducing the symbionts who were not willing to connect to them anyway. Researchers are now trying to make something similar with use of crystals only, but are missing the main thing - the brain.
When players get to 6th or 7th level, they should be well known in at least some circles. The Lord of Blades will send his emissary to them, as they fight common enemy, to help them as best as he can. The truth is that this emissary is trying not only to help them, but to gather as much information about The Many as he can. This basicaly means that the players will be given free cohort - a warforged psion, most likely a seer - who will be 2 levels below them and who they will be able to controll in battles to get used to psionics. Outside of combat he should be good with knowledges/gathering information and if asked for opinion, he would give one. (He will also be the voice saying: Are you sure? if the chose to act irrationaly, which they will).
I will need a name for the psionic branch and some recommendations about the cohort itself. I know the basic rules of psionics but I never really read through the powers and only started now, so I'm a bit lacking in what it can and cannot do and which powers to pick. As I see it now, psions are not good at healing and buffing others, but have some nice selfbuffing and blasting. Are there some tricks, except psicrystal-share pain-vigor I should know about?
I want Droaam and the sisters to play some role in this. I see it now, that they can foretell a great catastrophy in near future and they plan to use it to strengthen their power. When they find out it's the aberrations threatening them all they propose and aliance to Darguun (and more importantly to Dhakaani tribes) to prove themselves to humans and gain more respect. In the end of the campaing Droaam should be recognized as a state by other nations.
On behalf of Droaam they will gather their armies and manufacture byeshk weapons to march against aberrations once again to show everyone the glory of old Dhakaan empire. The Dhakaan tribes plan to overtake the leadership of Darguun which will most likely end in civil war once the aberration threat is somehow dealt with.
I've got some basic ideas of what I want to put my players through. They will start at a ship and they already know it and were told, that the campaign will spend only short time on seas. I plan them to be returning from some island for whatever their reasons back to Khorvair but being attacked on their way back by a ship that will be full of humans with aberration/deformity feats and with psychic warrior as their leader. Once they defeat them and found hostages in the ship and get back they should go on and investigate what is going on.
Untill level 6 or so I plan them to be mainly investigating the cults of Dragon Below in different parts of Khorvair. After that I want to send them into Shadow marches and spend some time there, probably untill level 10, fighting aberrations and more cultists. Then they should be declared troublemakers and war instigator by several nobles who are followers of daelkyr and the party will be forced to hide. This is when Droaam will come in and will accept them and even fake their deaths so that they can work in secrecy withouth having everyone at their throats. They should make some more adventures into Khyber to look for behloder sage who lives free and wants to be left alone and who will send them to ask more questions to aboleths. After meeting aboleths the party should be around level 15 or 16 and will be sent to final confrontation with The Many and thus ending the campaign.
As you see, this is only very rough idea and I need to fill it in. I got some plans for first few levels. They will be searching clues on behalf of house Lyrandar for missing ships in the area and will find a smaller hideout of cultists which they will fight with and find out some clues about symbionts etc. On returning back and getting reward they will be hired by another house (not sure yet) to find out his missing relative who disappeared and I want them to go to investigate a weird travelling carneval. But after that I am blank.
TL, DR and still want to help:
- looking for name for Daelkyr lord who studies potential of various races
- looking for name for psionic branch under control of Lord of Blades
- looking for list of psionic powers
- looking for power tricks that could be usefull
- looking for ideas for adventures with some aberration or cult of dragon below theme
That's it right now as I am tired and running out of time. I will try to chime in with some more info once I can. Also sorry for any mistakes in the text as it was all a bit rushed.
Thanks for help playground. :smallsmile: