ObiHan
2016-12-05, 04:33 PM
My gaming group is about to start a new campaign based in Eberron. I'll be running, after a long hiatus on the other side of the screen, and I've decided to run in Eberron. I've generally homebrewed, but I think the coherence of a pre-written setting will serve our group better for this one.
Since a lot of it will be homebrewed, I won't go into party makeup and the like. Suffice to say, our group is very good at making the party fit the game and vice versa, so I'm not overly worried about mismatches there.
What attracted me to Eberron was the sort of broad base of magic, and the cyclic history of the rise and fall of empires. It reminds me of another setting, Numenera, which I found intriguing. With that in mind, I'd like to go in a sort of cyberpunk direction with it all. What I've got so far is this...
I'm adapting parts of Whispers of the Vampire's Blade. Rather than chasing down the agent defined in the adventure, the offender will be an agent of powers unknown. He has stolen a recently translated map of Xen'drik from the vaults of the Twelve. The heroes, who all have history with the Twelve will be tasked with recovering the map. If they return it, they will then be tasked with verifying its veracity. If not, they'll be following it.
Many of the encounters in the adventure will remain mostly the same. I'll likely get rid of the Masquerade Ball, but horse chase, fight to get onto airship and the airship battle will remain the same.
The map is to a massive giant enclave. The enclave was a sort of giant center for knowledge and research. Getting there will be a cool adventure. I like the idea of jumping from an airship using Quaal's Feather Tokens that I read in the Xen'drik Expeditions bits I could find. Afterwards, there will be some "random" encounters designed to highlight that the place the players are approaching is a hub of magic and psionic power. I'm up in the air about making them find a key. I think it may just be a riddle in part of the map.
So, what will they find when they get there? Here are my ideas so far...
1) A way to permanently imbue living creatures with spell-like abilities that will breed true. Without proper knowledge, it inevitably results in the rapid death of the subject, similar to how the vampiric type rings worked in WoT. The Mark of Handling will provide insight into how to use it correctly.
2) Nearly completed plans to turn the Ring of Syberis into a mass communication, information storage, and geolocation network. It also includes plans for an implanted "receiver" made from an Eberron shard. I'm thinking this opens up adventures like what we see in the "Legends of the Duskwalker" series. If the PC's activate it, everyone with the Mark of Scribing, Mark of Finding, and Mark of Detection will certainly know. So will all of the entities currently inhabiting it.
3) A working creation forge, but not one that works the way the PC's understand them to work. It's essentially a body-swapping device that creates a body for the subject's mind to inhabit. The body looks much more like a cyborg than the warforged. It's still a prototype, though, and the meld won't necessarily be perfect. Neither is the ability to come back necessarily clearly indicated.
4) A bunch of places that can't be opened and/or accessed yet.
Also there is the secret history of the giants. The Dal'Quor are spirits from a realm of dreams, a realm that became aware of Eberron when the giants' "cyberspace" overlapped with it. The realm is still cyclical and that cycle has been disrupted by the sudden discovery of the giants. That's what the creation forges were originally designed for...homes for the escaping spirits. The bad actors on both sides turned it into a wide scale conflict and brought about the design for the weapons of planar disruption the giants began to develop.
The giants didn't create the Draconic Prophecy, but they were the first to attempt to use it rather than simply study it. The Marks are much more ancient than the current incarnation. The movement of the celestial bodies were charted as part of it, but so is the location of every Syberis Dragonshard, and they all have numbers assigned...almost like they were placed.
I want the game to be very fast paced with heavy focus on different types of encounters in different places and planes. I'm open to either staying in Xen'drik or going back to the mainland and the big cities. Also interested how the different power groups would react.
What adventures and other ideas do you think would fit here? I'm open to most anything.
Since a lot of it will be homebrewed, I won't go into party makeup and the like. Suffice to say, our group is very good at making the party fit the game and vice versa, so I'm not overly worried about mismatches there.
What attracted me to Eberron was the sort of broad base of magic, and the cyclic history of the rise and fall of empires. It reminds me of another setting, Numenera, which I found intriguing. With that in mind, I'd like to go in a sort of cyberpunk direction with it all. What I've got so far is this...
I'm adapting parts of Whispers of the Vampire's Blade. Rather than chasing down the agent defined in the adventure, the offender will be an agent of powers unknown. He has stolen a recently translated map of Xen'drik from the vaults of the Twelve. The heroes, who all have history with the Twelve will be tasked with recovering the map. If they return it, they will then be tasked with verifying its veracity. If not, they'll be following it.
Many of the encounters in the adventure will remain mostly the same. I'll likely get rid of the Masquerade Ball, but horse chase, fight to get onto airship and the airship battle will remain the same.
The map is to a massive giant enclave. The enclave was a sort of giant center for knowledge and research. Getting there will be a cool adventure. I like the idea of jumping from an airship using Quaal's Feather Tokens that I read in the Xen'drik Expeditions bits I could find. Afterwards, there will be some "random" encounters designed to highlight that the place the players are approaching is a hub of magic and psionic power. I'm up in the air about making them find a key. I think it may just be a riddle in part of the map.
So, what will they find when they get there? Here are my ideas so far...
1) A way to permanently imbue living creatures with spell-like abilities that will breed true. Without proper knowledge, it inevitably results in the rapid death of the subject, similar to how the vampiric type rings worked in WoT. The Mark of Handling will provide insight into how to use it correctly.
2) Nearly completed plans to turn the Ring of Syberis into a mass communication, information storage, and geolocation network. It also includes plans for an implanted "receiver" made from an Eberron shard. I'm thinking this opens up adventures like what we see in the "Legends of the Duskwalker" series. If the PC's activate it, everyone with the Mark of Scribing, Mark of Finding, and Mark of Detection will certainly know. So will all of the entities currently inhabiting it.
3) A working creation forge, but not one that works the way the PC's understand them to work. It's essentially a body-swapping device that creates a body for the subject's mind to inhabit. The body looks much more like a cyborg than the warforged. It's still a prototype, though, and the meld won't necessarily be perfect. Neither is the ability to come back necessarily clearly indicated.
4) A bunch of places that can't be opened and/or accessed yet.
Also there is the secret history of the giants. The Dal'Quor are spirits from a realm of dreams, a realm that became aware of Eberron when the giants' "cyberspace" overlapped with it. The realm is still cyclical and that cycle has been disrupted by the sudden discovery of the giants. That's what the creation forges were originally designed for...homes for the escaping spirits. The bad actors on both sides turned it into a wide scale conflict and brought about the design for the weapons of planar disruption the giants began to develop.
The giants didn't create the Draconic Prophecy, but they were the first to attempt to use it rather than simply study it. The Marks are much more ancient than the current incarnation. The movement of the celestial bodies were charted as part of it, but so is the location of every Syberis Dragonshard, and they all have numbers assigned...almost like they were placed.
I want the game to be very fast paced with heavy focus on different types of encounters in different places and planes. I'm open to either staying in Xen'drik or going back to the mainland and the big cities. Also interested how the different power groups would react.
What adventures and other ideas do you think would fit here? I'm open to most anything.