tchntm43
2019-07-17, 10:59 AM
For the next adventure with my group, the party is headed to the great dwarven city where one of the party members comes from. They have been in search of an ancient artifact for the past couple adventures, and finally have a lead on its location: a mysterious wizard (who was the pre-campaign mentor to the party's wizard) stole the artifact from a tower it had once been held in, and took it to the dwarven city for safekeeping. The party is working for the Empress at the moment, who wants the artifact for herself, but the party is starting to learn that some people they trust don't want the empress to have it. They also encountered a strange and annoying floating skull that insisted on following them for a bit that was also after the artifact, but as soon as the party learned where the artifact had been taken, the skull left them in the middle of the night.
The dwarven lords of the city have been fooled by an ancient red dragon who also wants the artifact (seems everybody is after it!). Although it's not listed as a red dragon ability, this dragon can polymorph the same way golds and silvers can, and is taking the guise of a legendary dwarven folk hero. This deceit has led the lords to entrust the artifact with the dragon, who is using duergar servants to construct a housing vessel for the artifact (it can't be used by mortals without causing death in its present condition).
There are two things I am drawing a blank on in setting this up. The first is bridging the first two paragraphs I wrote above. How does the mentor wizard relinquish the artifact to the dwarven lords? To avoid breaking the adventure, I really need him out of the city by the time the party arrives, because he's too powerful and he would assist the party if they encountered him, and I don't want that. I need to make it believable that he would give it up to the lords.
The plan is that, upon arriving at the dwarven city, the party is denied entry. The dwarf party-member's family has been imprisoned and he is now banned from the city. Half of the dungeon-delving of the adventure is accessing the city (which in typical dwarf fashion is built into a mountain and mostly underground) by old unused tunnels. Later, the party can reach the undercity where the polymorphed dragon and his duergar servants reside.
The second thing I need is a reason for why the dwarf's family is imprisoned. He was sent out by the family pre-campaign with the purpose of securing the family's access to a new mine of some unknown mineral near where the campaign began. The best I've come up with so far is: The family didn't tell him the whole story, and they are completely broke and in debt and sending him out to form a partnership with the mine owner was a desperate attempt to get enough wealth quickly in order to pay back the banks. And by the time the party arrives, the banks have said enough and they've been imprisoned for failing to repay debt. I don't know, I feel like a better explanation could be created for why the family is imprisoned. Oh, and from the DM perspective, the reason why is that I don't want the party getting easy access to the whole city yet.
The dwarven lords of the city have been fooled by an ancient red dragon who also wants the artifact (seems everybody is after it!). Although it's not listed as a red dragon ability, this dragon can polymorph the same way golds and silvers can, and is taking the guise of a legendary dwarven folk hero. This deceit has led the lords to entrust the artifact with the dragon, who is using duergar servants to construct a housing vessel for the artifact (it can't be used by mortals without causing death in its present condition).
There are two things I am drawing a blank on in setting this up. The first is bridging the first two paragraphs I wrote above. How does the mentor wizard relinquish the artifact to the dwarven lords? To avoid breaking the adventure, I really need him out of the city by the time the party arrives, because he's too powerful and he would assist the party if they encountered him, and I don't want that. I need to make it believable that he would give it up to the lords.
The plan is that, upon arriving at the dwarven city, the party is denied entry. The dwarf party-member's family has been imprisoned and he is now banned from the city. Half of the dungeon-delving of the adventure is accessing the city (which in typical dwarf fashion is built into a mountain and mostly underground) by old unused tunnels. Later, the party can reach the undercity where the polymorphed dragon and his duergar servants reside.
The second thing I need is a reason for why the dwarf's family is imprisoned. He was sent out by the family pre-campaign with the purpose of securing the family's access to a new mine of some unknown mineral near where the campaign began. The best I've come up with so far is: The family didn't tell him the whole story, and they are completely broke and in debt and sending him out to form a partnership with the mine owner was a desperate attempt to get enough wealth quickly in order to pay back the banks. And by the time the party arrives, the banks have said enough and they've been imprisoned for failing to repay debt. I don't know, I feel like a better explanation could be created for why the family is imprisoned. Oh, and from the DM perspective, the reason why is that I don't want the party getting easy access to the whole city yet.