Eberron Campaign/Adventure ideas

[SmileyX]

Now im going to begin planning an extended Eberron Campaign, and i need help coming up with ideas for Adventures and Adventure chains. The Campaign is supposed to be open, so im going to need a lot of ideas just to get through it. I only have two ideas right now, but please follow the format with any ideas.(IE. numbering) All help is much appreciated :smallbiggrin: .

1) Morgrave University hires the adventurers to travel to Krona Peak in the Mror Holds, where they are to meet there guide. The guide leads them into the mountains to an ancient kobold mine/fortress, a Morgrave Expedition was sent here to look for items of historical importance to Kobolds. What they find is a haunted mine filled with undead kobolds, a Shadar-Kai Warlock/Necromancer, and a piece of an ancient artifact left over from the time of demons or even before, the Obsidian Man, a 12ft. tall statue crafted from obsidian that is an unstoppable killing machine, but only at night. Once the professors at the Morgrave University discover what it trully is, the PCs have to race back to the Mror Holds and stop a sinsiter group from repairing the statue and unleashing it upon the world.

2) Recently in the poorer sections of Sharn people have been going missing, most reappear a few days later, there skin horrifyingly marred, strips torn off, areas burned, and strange tattoos covering there bodies, and most certainly dead. The people fear worse for those who have not reappeared. A call goes out from the people, they need heroes to find the perpetrators of these crimes, and to bring them to a swift, bloody, justice. The perpetrators are a group of crazed victims of the Aberrant marks, attempting to inflict there curse upon others of the dragon marked races through the use of a near perfected Eldritch Machine.

[ZekeArgo]

Edit: bah, I should read thread posts next time. Thought this was a general eberron thread -_-

Kinda a way out there campaign idea I've been toying with for a while, sorta seeing it as eberron's magepunk meets 2020's cyberpunk:

War never changes. House Cannith believed that they could play hardball with the kingdoms and countries of Eberron. They pushed their scientific and arcane studies to their limit to achieve ever-lasting dominance over the other houses. Technically, they accomplished that goal. Three hundred years ago they unleashed a chain reaction that made the destruction of Cyre seem insignificant.

Xiorat crashed over 90% of Eberron's surface.

The few who managed to survive, be it aboard airships or by some other miracle, were shaken to their core. They gathered, drawn together by their shared horror and grief, and searched the broken world below them for many decades. But as sentient creatures do, they adapted.

Construction began over the first great manifest zone: the crater that was once Sharn. The remaining Artificers, Magewrights, and Elemental Binders crafted a great platform to support an entire city high above the mists that enveloped and obscured Eberron's surface. The people settled into their new lives, and whatwas once horror became the past a generation later, and legend a generation after that.

Eberron lies below you, twisted and utterly changed. New Sharn, the last city, is the home of the known world's inhabitants, though there have been many to leave and attempt to start their own settlements above the mists over the years.

This brave new world is harsh, and life is as cheap as it has ever been. What will you do to make your mark?

[Doresain]

the mystery of the warforged express...basically, five warforged bodies lashed together and thrown onto the lightning rails have been traveling the rails for about a year now, and no one knows where they came from

(the story behind this is a group i was in was stranded on the outskirts of cyre when someone blew up the lightning rail...we were then attacked by warforged...things got silly after that)

[SmileyX]

Oooh that idea i very good ZekeArgo, unfortunately personally im going to be running a standardish campaign. Doresain i like it :smallbiggrin: my play group tends to be silly most of the time so it would work well as just some rumors for them to hear, than while travelling somewhere to be ambushed by them. Any other ideas that people would like to share?

[Randel]

1. A series of brutal murders is detected in Sharn. The bodies are found stripped of their skin and eyes. Victims are usually among the poorer class but they some are members of a criminal organization or another business. The killer? A sentient human skeleton who is out to have revenge on those who betrayed it in life and responsible for its undead existence. Intermediate crimes to further its goals and some from just being insane. Oh, and it wears the skins of its victims.

2. The lightning rail is hijacked by what seems to be a renegade House Cannith wizard and a rogue. They move the passengers out of the front three cars and unhitch the rest of the train. The wizard works to install an eldrich machine into the train and feed the bound elementals special boosting elements to increase the trains speed. If the party is watching... they will see some serious **** once the train hits 88 miles an hour.

If they fight the two, the rogue mainly uses disabling magic from wands and the wizard summons some homunculi using his lesser mark of making, favoring packmates with alchemical items. They hope to disable to party and maybe leave them in one of the cars as they unhitch them one by one as the train speeds. They try not to kill anyone if given a choice, saying something about parrot-oxes or somesuch.

3. The party hears reports of a massive surge in the number of vermin and oozes in one area (possibly the sewers of sharn) upon investigation they find that the oozes are not 'quite' as ravenous as normal oozes but are very very numerous. The vermine are often found a bit bloated, and brimming with positive energy.

They eventually find a hole in space, a tear that acts like a portal to mirror version of eberron that is being destroyed by a surge of positive energy. The creatures there are healed of hitpoints every minute and each minute after that gain temporary hitpoints as their bodies swell from the energy. If their temp hp is more than double their normal HP they explode.

The people in that world must fight off the rapidly multiplying vermin and the oozes that seem to just multiply when they explode. The people survive by slashing themselves to keep their HP from reaching lethal levels. The party might work to evacuate the people to eberron while they try to defeat the cause of this plague... a burning green cloud of positive energy located in their nation of Cyre... a cloud that hangs above the spot where the Glowing Chasm lies in the mournland!

((Note: I got this idea after reading some of the book about Elder Evils, particularly the one part where peoples healing accelerates until they need to make a DC 45 fortitude check to avoid exploding.))

[FoE]

Here's an idea for a short adventure I had:

The adventurers are hired by House Deneith to protect an important ambassador from Drooam while she's in Wroat, the capital of Breland. It turns out to be ... a medusa! Of course, medusa have a powerful gaze attack, so why should she need protection? Because while in Breland, it has been ordered that she must wear special blinders that inhibit her powers. Although she is skilled at magic, one must be able to see to use most spells. The adventurers have been hired because most of Deneith's mercenaries are too afraid to serve as her bodyguards, even though she will be placed under arrest if she dares to remove the blinders.

What's her mission? Well, it depends on what's happening in Eberron right now. Maybe she's there to discuss peace with Breland. Maybe she's there to request aid. This is the Sharn Inquisitive article that gave me the idea for protecting a Drooamite ambassador:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebsi/20060828a

Of course, there are mundane challenges to deal with; people are terrified of medusas, and the fact that she's wearing blinders will matter little to an angry mob. In fact, that might just encourage attackers, since she will be easy prey for them. To up the ante, maybe your mob could be led by a zealous member of the Church of the Silver Flame, who thinks that medusas=evil so he has to kill her.

If you're looking for an excuse to get your medusa into the streets, have her visit a museum or sculptor. Medusas love fine stonework.

A more organized and serious threat, however, would be a member of the court of Breland who isn't terribly interested in negotiations with the Daughters of Sora Kell. Maybe it's the Karrnathi government that wants to halt discussions in its tracks. Or maybe it's a rival of your medusa from Cazhaak Draal, another medusa who wishes to see the one you're protecting dead in order to make some political gain.

In this instance, you would have the adventurers protecting the medusa from a gang of assassins. You could have the assassins be from any faction, though I was thinking of an assassin with an Aberrant Dragonmark or perhaps even a monk from the order of the Flayed Hand. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out this link(http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041213a). The Flayed Hand monks make seriously sick assassins, since they actually enjoy whatever pain you can dish out. :smallamused:

You could RP the medusa as being a bit of a bitch (very disdainful of humans), but I thought of making her actually somewhat pleasant, so that the heroes want to protect this creature. (This would be a good adventure to screw with your paladin's head.) For tips on playing a medusa, check out this article:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20060905a

Alternatively, you could have the adventurers in Sharn, and the medusa could be checking up on the other medusa who runs the Daask gang that operates in the city. (The Daask are the criminal network that work for the Daughters of Sora Kell.)

The advantage of this adventure is, if the adventurers do a good job, they may make an "ally" that they can use later if they ever visit Droaam. And if they do, maybe you could use this hook as a mini-adventure (make sure to scroll down the page to "Fight my Battle":

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sh/20070521a

This could also be a way of introducing the adventurers to the King of Breland, if you have an idea concerning the royalty.

[FoE]

I also had an idea for a "personal" adventure, though it might not apply to your party. Let's say one of the PCs is from Cyre, and like most of his countrymen, he lost a loved one during the war (let's say a brother for the sake of argument).

As he's adventuring about, he runs into an old comrade of his brother. "No, your brother's not dead ... I saw him living in New Cyre!" So he convinces the others to go with him to find his brother.

Turns out his "brother" is a changeling who took his brother's place. Maybe the changeling was a comrade of your brother's and failed to save his life, so he took his place out of guilt.

So your PC maybe kills the changeling out of grief, and gets arrested. Or maybe he says, "let bygones be bygones," but at the same time, your PC feels awful about the awful conditions in New Cyre, and asks how he can help the situation. Turns out there are some bandits making regular raids on folks as they're travelling to New Cyre. Can you take them out for us?

Turns out these "bandits" are Brelish people who don't friggin' want the people of Cyre setting up in their goddamn backyard. They're well-organized, and perhaps the adventurers find these bandits are well-connected ... maybe to a lord back in Wroat, or maybe to someone out of Breland, like a Karrnathi lord who also has ties to the Order of the Emerald Claw...

See how this thing can build?

Incidentally, if you like the "changeling took my brother's place" idea and don't want to make it personal, just have it so whatever town the PCs are passing through want to hang this poor changeling because he has been impersonating a local veteran who died in the war. Maybe the PCs feel bad for this poor bastard and want to break him out of the local jail. Or maybe they even know that the actual solider who "died" is alive and well elsewhere, because they met him! So they have to go capture this fellow and drag his ass back to this town in order to clear the changeling's name.

If you want to introduce a little comedy into an adventure like this, here's how to work it:
1) The solider who "died" hated his naggy mother, so he faked his death.
2) This changeling comrade of the solider went to tell the mother of the solider's death, but felt bad about it and impersonated the son.
3) He got so tired of the old broad that he revealed what he was, and she got the authorities on his changeling ass.
4) The adventurers go to drag this solider back to town, but he doesn't want to go 'cause he hates his spiteful mom, and anyways he's got a good job with House Deneith.
5) House Deneith also doesn't care for the adventurers kidnapping their employees, so they chase the adventurers back to this little town. Of course, the heroes bring the guy back and the changeling gets freed, but the solider is no longer the "local hero," and he's got some explainin' to do to his little ma...

Incidentally, if you want some "goofier" plot hooks, check out this article:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebsh/20050131a

And no, I do not work for Wizards of the Coast. But in my thirst for Eberron material, I read all their online stuff a few months back. :smalltongue:

("Steal this Hook!" actually does come up with some neat ideas, though.)

[Gralamin]

A single PC is contacted by the King's Dark Lanterns. The Dark Lantern will request the PCs help in unraveling a plot to kill King Boranel. The plot itself should be filled with political intrigue, with several nobles and leaders of important organizations being suspect. Gnomes, Merrix, Emerald Claw, And Cults of the Dragon Below is what I'd suggest. Also: Secret notes, lots of them. Encourage the PCs to trust no one, and each PC to trust one person, while the others distrust them. The more split up the PCs get in trying to unravel the mystery, the better the satisfaction will be in unraveling the plot. Every so often throw in fights to keep people on there toes.
If your PCs are the type to get distracted (yes I know we are), I suggest using minor artifacts that increase in power with the characters as a sort of adviser. Preferably they should be intelligent, but they should not have ego scores, instead manipulating the PCs based on their own intentions.

[Doresain]

Oooh that idea i very good ZekeArgo, unfortunately personally im going to be running a standardish campaign. Doresain i like it :smallbiggrin: my play group tends to be silly most of the time so it would work well as just some rumors for them to hear, than while travelling somewhere to be ambushed by them. Any other ideas that people would like to share?

ambushed? by the warforged express? the only problem with that would be the fact that said warforged are a little on the dead side

[SmileyX]

Aha, maybe in you're world, however in mine they'll be crazy rail pirates with conductor stones instead of feet, and 'guns',(ie. wands). It'll be awesome.

[SmileyX]

Continuing this, i need some ideas with some concepts i have. I need to develop some lasting clients, and some ideas for possible missions.

#1) I need to flesh out an eccentric Noble living in Sharn, with plenty of living space, cash and spare time. I'm thinking he'll hire the PC's to 'poach' creatures for him. Sometimes he'll want the skin, sometimes the entire corpse, and sometimes hell want it alive. So i need oodles of potential creatures, suggested areas, and possible consequences. I'm thinking they will definitely need to capture a living spell at some point, but other than that and horrid creatures from the Eldeen Reaches, i'm out of ideas.

#2) Terrorist organization in Karnath. Except there not really terrorists, they don't attack normal citizens, they'll just be an organization hell bent on cleansing Karnath of all undead. They'll be composed primarily of Silver Flame members, and angry angry elves, but i need some help setting up how they get in contact with the pcs, potential mission ideas(i only have an idea for them assaulting Fort Bones), and fleshing out important NPC's in the organization.

Any ideas?