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View Full Version : Tweaking Eberron's Daughters of Sora Kell



seedjar
2008-03-16, 07:09 PM
Hey all. I really want to start a thread in my group's campaign that involves working for and with the daughters of Sora Kell. But the general description of hags leaves me somewhat unimpressed, even accounting for the legendary status of these particular hags. I don't want to change what they are as written, but I would like to create personas for these three that emphasize their finesse and influence. Particularly, I won't be immediately identifying them as the daughters, so I was going to have them disguised/polymorphed into some more common humanoid form for convenience's sake. As my group is part of an adventuring/mercenary type of outfit, I think it would be natural to cast the sisters as a group of up-and-coming adventurers themselves, or some sort of trades(wo)men in whatever context is convenient for their first encounter. A party of aristocracy/travelers is another possible guise.
Given the stats of the three daughters - http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041025a (anybody got a better link?) what kinds of equipments/minor build tweaks would you use in my place? How would you run the hags-in-disguise in a combat encounter? A non-combat encounter? Keep in mind that I'm looking to have the hags hire my PCs (or possibly be hired on by my PCs) without knowledge that they are actually dealing with the masterminds running Droaam. It will also probably be the case that the whole encounter is part of a larger plot on the part of the sisters.
Let's see what you've got.
~Joe

The Gilded Duke
2008-03-16, 09:05 PM
I've used the hags in two seperate very different games. In the first game, a Sharn based thieves guild game I never used them directly, but instead their minions in Sharn. In addition to groups of goblins, and hobgoblins, I once sent a medusa assassin after them. Of course in the background was the crimelord working for the hags, an Ogre Mage Artificer.

If you want them to be subtle, I'd suggest not actually having them show up directly. They can use magic items and their powers to personally monitor a situation without actually being there. I don't remember exactly what it was, but I think it was called something like "Circle of Sound". Remember that the three of them have a nation, a criminal organization, and sizable percentages of mercenary companies under their control.

This varies by the game, but why would the daughters of Sora Kell deal directly with the PCs? I can understand them being patrons of the PCs or villains, but unless the PCs have already proven themselves, the daughters have a lot more pressing matters to deal with.

If you do want them to take an interest in the party, and have them in disguise, I'd suggest that they send minions. If the part is important, some wonderful minions to send after them are Ogre Mages. Ogre Mages can shapechange into any small medium or large humanoid or giant. They can regenerate and they can fly. You can also give them class levels to be more impressive.

If you want to go with the mercenaries or adventuring group angle, have them be partially or all Ogre Mage spies working for the daughters. They can appear to be human, elf, or whatever else, and over time the players can start noticing strange qualities about them. If done right they can even pretend to be the hags themselves. Never have them grow to large size and the Pcs might never expect what they actually are.

If you want to have them as a re-curring villian, have the players kill them and chop off their head. They can grow it back. I once had the minion of a hostile noble be an Ogre Mage disguised as a human, the party by the end assumed he was some sort of strange aberration or a truly one of a kind creature.

Also, mechanically I don't actually like the stats given for the daughters. I prefer to take a regular hag, and then give them the Monster of Legend template.

seedjar
2008-03-17, 08:06 PM
Your point about having indirect contact is well taken, but my PCs are already in the lv. 10-11 level and by the time they're back in Khorvaire from their latest expedition they'll probably all be close to 13, if not further. I see this plot with the hags running long enough that, in the long run, I will have to play smart and stack the odds in case one of my more melee-minded characters decides to test his luck.
I'm still fleshing out a good reason for the hags to be directly connected to my PCs. They're already involved in all sorts of international intrigue, so it shouldn't be hard to justify. Likely, I can explain it through oracular devices, IE "Because Sora Teraza says so." I think that war is probably coming to my group's Eberron, so it likewise shouldn't be hard to frame it in the context of other political jockeying.
I think you're right about rebuilding. I haven't actually put it together to see what the stats work out to, but I'm not sure I want to deal with the complexities of the given builds (even if they are kind of simple relative to what's possibly.) Where is that template from?
~Joe

The Gilded Duke
2008-03-17, 09:18 PM
Monster of legend is from the Monster Manual 2, and apparently has been updated to 3.5, I use the version on www.crystalkeep.com. It is a good template for making a monster seem more unique and legendary, and essentially involves making it more tarrasque like. While a Hag with class levels is mechanically scary, it just wasn't weird enough for my uses.

And yeah, I can see the Daughters getting involved with the Pcs if they are 13th level and Khorivoire is going to start to descend into war. The Daughters have minions at their disposal that they don't necessarily care about. You could get the "adventuring party" into the trust of the Pcs by helping them out in an ambush situation. The Hags send some minions to kill the party, the hags then polymorph and kill their own minions.

The Hags might try and use (or ally with) a political party to directly take out their enemies in Khorivoire. They might be able to convince the party to help them take out the halfling crime family, and the changeling spy network in Sharn, removing their major enemies for control of the underworld. Then the hags could plant some evidence making it look like the party is working against Breland, (perhaps even suggesting that they have ties to the Daughters of Sora Kell) Then the Dark Lanterns can go after them (The Breland Spy network). Maybe also try to manipulate the party to go after the mercenary dragonmarked house that doesn't have Droamish mercenaries in it. Maybe if things work out really well, they could go on a campaign to free Zilargo from the evil Trust.

If all that works out, forces of the Hags can easily take over Sharn, and then aide Droamish forces in taking over the rest of Breland and a crippled Zilargo. One military house will already be weakened by the direct actions of the party, another will quickly be taking over by Droamish mercenaries.

As far as how to hide who the Hags are, have them pretend to be men. Have them as Men go around Droam killing off monsters, so the monsters themselves spread rumors of the "Brothers Three". When the PCs encounter them, it will look more legitimate.

Citizen Joe
2008-03-17, 11:05 PM
There are two things going for the daughters. One is that they can know anything via the prophetic abilities of one of them. Second, they can appear as anyone.

The way that the DM uses this is to set up adventures in such a way that no matter what the outcome of the PCs actions it ends up helping the Sisters agenda. If any of the Sisters actually come into contact with the PCs they should never realize it even happened. On the plus side, if the Sisters feel that the PCs are important to their agenda then they might receive mysterious help at some point or suddenly some side quest gets killed.

One time I started doing a side quest where the main quest was to get to a certain city by rail and pick up some experts for a disease that was plaguing Sharn. These experts were coming from Karnath. One of the Sisters and an entourage of Ogre Magi replaced the experts while a group of dopplegangers replaced the Sharn reception party. Thus both groups THOUGHT that they had succeeded in the transaction. However, on the way to the pick up, the Sharn group (including a spy for the Sisters) encountered a trussed up prisoner with gag and bindings with his escort/guard heading back to Karnath for trial. I dropped hints with pleading eyes and such from the prisoner and when the guard went for dinner, the group removed his gag... things went down hill fast as this sorcerer/priest promptly controlled one of the group to release himself. When the guard returned the room got shrouded in darkness and there was a crash of window glass and the flutter of the wind blowing by. When the darkness was beaten back with magic, the sorcerer was nowhere to be seen and the guard leaped out of the window to catch his prey. Moments later, the invisible sorcerer thanked the group and locked them in their cabin. When they got out they rushed around and saw a new person in the dining car. Then they started trouble assuming that the new guy was the sorcerer in disguise... but actually he was a world renown pit fighter that was retiring and on a promotional tour for his cook book. He was in no mood for the harassment the group was giving him. Everyone ELSE in the dining car was shocked that the group was so brazen and cleared the area and started to take side bets. Sure enough, a fight breaks out, the group gets a couple of good hits in but the pit fighter ends up winning due to such close quarters. So, there's like this big rivalry going on now between the pit fighter and the Sisters' spy guy. He gets a message to just apologize and let it go from one of the Sisters (this stuff will blow their cover). He can't let it go. He gets pummeled again and left in his cabin to slowly recover. When they get into town, there is a large crowd gathered for autographs and the Karnath group (the Sisters) had arrived early. So they spend the night in town. In the morning, the Pit fighter and his manager are found brutally ripped apart in their room with an arrow (apparently from the Silver Flame) holding a note saying they don't accept their kind in these parts. The group got on the train heading back to Sharn a short while later.