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Kaun
2008-09-10, 05:56 AM
Hey guys long time reader first time poster yada yada…

Anyways as I have decided to run a new dnd 4e campaign I figured since I had used these forums as a major source of motivation I would give a little back by making a log of how my campaign was going and of how I go about preparing for sessions to come ect ect… Now since I haven’t seen anything like this on the forums which surprises me I figure either this doesn’t belong here or there is some where else people do similar such things so if it gets deleted so be it. Anyways feel free to comment, borrow or criticize anything here if you are going borrow something please chuck a post in for my own ego :smalltongue:. Read as much or as little grabs you and any ideas you want to add I would love to read. Hopefully I keep this going and end up with a truly epic post.

p.s. I apologise for my horrible spelling and grammar and my horrible a.d.d and my ramblings and … well everything hehe.


Ok here we go!


To start with a bit of back info on myself for prospective.

My Style of DMing.

Um where to start. I have been playing rpgs for some where around about 14 years now and GMing for a large period of that time. My main games have been the old faithful DnD in every addition apart from the original booklet versions, L5R , Shadowrun, Gurps in many forms, champions, Deadlands, vampire, cyberpunk…. Meh this list is going to go on for a while … lets just say I have played a lot of stuff. My style of DMing is fairly open, I’m not a big fan of railroading unless it’s a short run campaign designed with a specific agenda.

I prefer to build around ideas some my own some thrown out by my players. I have never been spectacular at building awesome well thought out dungeons with well staged encounters and traps and the like, my style is more give the players freedom to do what they want and then try to subtly get them to move along the lines I want them too just winging it depending on what they decided to do. This style of play came about due to the well learned lesson that if you over prepare for something your players are guaranteed not to go anywhere near it or alternatively attack it from a direction you had never even considered so I feel its better to prepare for everything a little and then get good at thinking on your feet. So I let them lead the way and try to manipulate things to curve them the way I want. I’m a firm believer that if the rules get in the way of fun then ignore them, more often then not I let the dice fall where they may but if I figure its going to do more harm then good then I fudge things somewhat. I’m not a DM vs player’s kinda guy and I also hate a player who will argue rules with me mid game, If you’re so desperate to play the rules to the letter go play a war game and stop holding up the fun. I also take inspiration from various places and then twist it to my own uses, I will try and anoint any “inspirations” as I go along.

My thoughts on 4e.

I have read a lot of 4e threads either good or bad and I don’t really see the point on dipping to deeply into arguments because changing peoples opinions on stuff is hard enough face to face let alone in text form on a forum. I like to try new things and I like my rule’s simple and quick so 4e was interesting to me. I was a little bit sceptical about running another dnd campaign because I have never been a fan of the whole level thing and chrs becoming all powerful as they go on laughing in the face of mere mortal weapons but my players were keen so I have decided to embrace it and try to make it as fun as possible for everyone involved.

So far I like the way hit points are done now, why you ask? Simply put I can throw my players up against some decent and interesting fights at low level and not worry about them dropping down dead from the pure sight of a monster. I personally doubt there is a DM out there who hasn’t worried about attacking a 1st lvl wizard with ANYTHING at the fear of them dropping dead in the first session from a well placed rat bite :smallbiggrin:.

Secondly I like the ways the skills work now. Hehe I may not like them later but I like them now. I like how just because you not trained in something some one with a natural ability in something still has a chance to succeed. Thirdly I at first wasn’t overly keen on the whole powers thing but I decided to embrace them and see how they went and my players enjoyed them and it seemed to get them trying to work together more as a tactical unit rather then just competing together to see who could get the highest damage output. So I figure if everyone’s having fun it can’t be all bad, but hell ill finish this here and I might add to it later. My basic mindset for the whole thing is if I go in there with a half assed approach because I don’t like bits and pieces of the game then I’m just going to end up with a half assed game. So I’m embracing 4e and hoping everybody has fun.

Campaign plan:

-Ok basic plan I’m designing my own world for the players to play in, I like this more because it gives me more freedom to do what ever I want with out the players expecting certain things due to knowledge they have on setting gathered from other sources.

The basic Plan of my world I’m drawing inspiration from a few places, Mainly at the moment I’m working off an idea I got when reading “Liveship Traders Trilogy” written by Robin Hob (p.s. if you haven’t read any of Robin Hob/ Megan Lindholm work you are missing out on possibly the best fantasy writer ever and I will knife fight anybody who says otherwise!!! :P) Um sorry got off track any way in this book there was a port city which was governed by a council set up by all of the traders who inhabited the city. So I expanded on this idea and thought to myself what happens if after a large empire/kingdom falls into strife and infighting and when the smoke settles it is the trading guilds/companies/organizations/families that have been just continuing to do what they do and just trying to survive are suddenly in the best position’s overall. All of a sudden people are getting sick of fighting because faith and loyalties start to wane when your weapons and armor are broke and scarce and your bellies are empty the idea of mercenary work for a trading guild that keeps your belly full and your gear up to shape and only ask’s you to fight if there is a profit starts looking really good.

So I figure move on say 100 years from this. You have a group of traders who have made a sort of alliance to increase there overall profit and power. Established them self’s a sort of council where they all meet and bicker argue and trade over there laws but use there combined power to enforce there wills on people outside there own perspective groups. You will still have other people trying to hold on to there individual power left over from the last empire so the land will be doted with Princelings, Baronies, lords and tyrants all holding onto what ever they can keep. But no longer are the people living in a world based on your blood line dictating your status now it’s all about the coin and power you can muster to yourself. Ok now I’m typing it out it just sounds like modern day but hell I like it so I’m sticking with it. I have also been reading “Sword and Shadows” series by J.V. Jones and the concept of how ruler ship works in Spire Vanis also has been lurking around in the back of my head so I might work that in some where (I will explain more if I use it.) Ok I will delve deeper into describing my world later.

-On going sub plot: Ok I like to have some large plot going on in the back ground that the players can be involved in directly or just affected by the ripples that will spread out from it over the game. After thumbing through the monsters manual I decided that I really liked Orcus’s (p 206 mm) and the whole concept of him trying to kill the Raven Queen, sounded like a fairly epic battle with a lot of interested parties on both sides and in the middle.

Ok so I decided to expand on this, there has got to be some major obstacles in the way of this happening or it would have happened by now. So I start thinking about what Orcus has to do to get his goal accomplished. Well firstly he can’t just rock up to the Raven queen’s house and kick in the door, the lady has a bunch of followers plus she’s on a completely different plane which Orcus probably can’t just wander into with out a fair bit of effort. So there I figure are the main things he has to deal with. So the basic idea I came up with is Orcus knows that during the first age of the prim material plane when all the races were still young and dumb a group of Salamanders from the city of brass in the elemental chaos spotted an opportunity, created some massive dimensional portal and used it to travel to the prim material and enslave the races they found there and live like kings. I’m keeping this description brief and ill come back to it more later but they hang around for a bunch of years and are eventually are overthrown by a slave uprising (I’m thinking about making the uprising lead by some dragon born guy who became the first ruler of some new empire which would later fall and then it would be the lost dragon born empire the players hand book eludes to.) Continuing on slaves drive the Salamanders back to the elemental chaos and then start building there lives.

Ok once again I shall get back to this later the point of me telling you this is Orcus knows about this age and he also knows about this dimensional portal and by his thinking if he can some how figure out how to get this thing working again he can get himself and a bunch of his minions to the prime material plane, whole sale slaughter all the living there claiming the dead as his own thus creating a massive army + weakening the Raven Queen at the same time. Then with this newly amassed apocalyptically scaled army he can redirect the portal to the shadow fel and march them through the Raven Queens domain and take her throne as his own. Ok I figure this could make some interesting gaming especially when you through it into a world governed by the all mighty … gold coin.

Ok more to come

Kaun
2008-09-10, 07:19 AM
Ok Characters so far:

Ok I like the guys to build there characters then I build the world around what they want to make as much as I can. I have known all these players along time so I decided I will use this section to outline there characters and what I know about there play styles. One thing I just realized is I don’t have the characters names with me currently but I shall fill you all in later. The characters were rolled up using 4d6 drop the lowest, there all using phb races and classes. I may eventually get around to posting some stats we shall see what happens. Also I think there is one more player to come to my core players so ill add his details later. I know the details are fairly brief at the moment and I will ad more info as time goes on.

Character no 1:

The first character rolled up I believe was an elf two weapon ranger. I know what your thinking cliché but the player is generally good and I’m sure he will take it out of the box some what. His over all concepts is based around the American Indians out of old westerns. So I will work in this type of elf into the game, maybe Indian meets Mongol since the weapons he chose so far was scimitar and hand axe. So he’s sun tanned skin, decorative feathers, tribal tattoos that kind of thing roaming the planes and tundra’s of some place yet to be added hehe.

This player is always one I like to at the table, he is perceptive, intelligent he enjoys the fun of the game and also the social aspect of the game. He is the kind of player who comes up with strange ways of getting through things and can generally be relied upon to connect the dots as I try to add subtle plot hooks into the game. The only real issue I can have with this player is he has a tendency to use knowledge his character really wouldn’t poses and also he has often in the past built his characters with stats based towards things that require rolling and then role plays his way thorough the things that don’t. Some times you have to pull him up with some choice words like “ that was an excellent speech and spoken by the right person it probably would have got the job done but the way your 8 int 7 chr half orc barbarian butchered it the affect is some what less the awesome.”

Character no. 2

Next character in like is a Tiefling Warlock, well its slightly less cliché’ then the first one but only slightly. Ok this character is a bit cookie cutter infernal Warlock so far but he’s character apparently has a habit of collecting the teeth of his defeated foes and keeping them in a bag, then taking them out and absently mindedly playing with them like dice or a coin.

This player is used to being a DM he is generally a quiet type of guy, but he is prone to coming up with good idea’s when there needed the most.

Character no. 3

Third character is a Dwarf Battle Cleric of Khord. Ok this character is a dwarf’s dwarf, Loves nothing better then a big room temperature ale after a long days battling what ever needed battling that day. Big beard with braids in it tucked into his belt, mock Scottish accent the works. His weapon of choice is the Maul.

The player for this one is the group’s min maxer/power gamer or as close to one as we have. He has always had a good head for tactics and getting the best out of the abilities of what ever he is in control of. His one major short falling is he is prone to being a massive dumb ass and making some choices that end up in every body at the table either laughing or face palming or both.

Tormsskull
2008-09-10, 07:56 AM
Anyways as I have decided to run a new dnd 4e campaign I figured since I had used these forums as a major source of motivation I would give a little back by making a log of how my campaign was going and of how I go about preparing for sessions to come ect ect… Now since I haven’t seen anything like this on the forums which surprises me I figure either this doesn’t belong here or there is some where else people do similar such things so if it gets deleted so be it.


It's not that it doesn't belong here, but you probably won't get a whole lot of responses. First, a lot of people will be scared away by the amount of text to read in your post. Second, most people seem to use these forums (or Gaming d20 in particular) to talk mechanics, playstyle differences, edition differences, etc. Character backgrounds, campaign ideas, request for suggestions in crafting adventures and the like barely get more than a page, if that.

I would recommend that you do this in a blog. That way all of your posts are kept together in a central location, and then you can throw a link to the blog in your signature. There are a few places you can get a blog for free, so its really easy to do.



My Style of DMing.


Sounds reasonable. Winging it can go pretty well as long as you have a bit of skill at it. Im one of those DMs that tries to flesh out loads and loads in my campaign, and then if I don't end up using it, no big deal, as I enjoy doing it anyway.



My thoughts on 4e.


4e sounds like it will work for your group. Opinions vary of course, just as you said (and yeah, you're really not going to change anyones), but 4e tends to be better for newer players and it is less worried about realism/simulationism than previous editions.



Campaign plan:


Sounds very cool, I like this setting. I have always been really interested in the campaigns that have a developed sense of country, politics, etc. It sounds like you are accomplishing this quite well.

As for the sub-plot, it seems to be a popular one. When I ran my group in 4e one of the characters really liked the Raven Queen, made it his deity, and became a hunter of undead and Orcus' followers. As for the specifics of how he is going to handle trying dethrone her, I wouldn't get into too much detail.

If you want it to be a plot point, as in it happens and it affects the world and such, that's cool but the PCs probably won't be directly involved and as such the specifics aren't needed.

If you want the PCs to be directly involved, then it probably won't be for a very long time as they are going to have to get up there in level.



Ok more to come

Looking forward to it, and good luck.

Charity
2008-09-10, 08:16 AM
I'm going to have to vaguely disagree with Tormsskull here and say that your post is not too long, it's fairly concise really, I really like to see these things get posted here they are soooo very much more interesting than the endless, repetative my edition is better than yours 'debate' that is on rinse and repeat here...
So pretty please with cherries on top post more here.
Nobody follows links in siggs, post here!
The largest reason these threads don't stay on the front page is that they are not not contentious and so don't get posted to relentlessly. They generally get plenty of reads.

Kaun
2008-09-10, 08:43 AM
It's not that it doesn't belong here, but you probably won't get a whole lot of responses. First, a lot of people will be scared away by the amount of text to read in your post. Second, most people seem to use these forums (or Gaming d20 in particular) to talk mechanics, playstyle differences, edition differences, etc. Character backgrounds, campaign ideas, request for suggestions in crafting adventures and the like barely get more than a page, if that.

I would recommend that you do this in a blog. That way all of your posts are kept together in a central location, and then you can throw a link to the blog in your signature. There are a few places you can get a blog for free, so its really easy to do.




Yeah makes sence but i figured i started it i shall give it a bit if it fizzels i shall shift it over.

Alright figured I would add some more info on world back ground I had been thinking on. I would love some input on the trader section by the way as im still trying flesh out how i want it to go.

The Salamander Empire from the first age.

Here are a few basic points I added, since they won’t be overly important early on in the campaign.
-The Salamander’s civilization was know as “the Huntruran Empire” hun-choo-ran, named after the original Salamander who lead the invasion of the prime material.

-They managed to spread there rule over the lions share of the land.

-There metal works were unparalleled in skill and many of there creations still survive today.

-They would trade with the “Brass city” using large and expensively crafted teleportation circles created to give them access to there home plane.

The Dragon born Kingdom from the second age.

I’m going to touch lightly upon this age just for the hell of it, not sure how much it will come into play but hell if it comes up at least I have given it some thought.

-The Dragon born kingdom was forged when one of the enslaved Dragon born named Odlas started the rebellion against the Huntruran Empire and manage to slay or cast out all the remnants, the empire has long since crumbled.

-The kingdom was known as Eldast-mor which roughly translates to “The Grand Kingdom”.

-Eldast-mor did not gain near as much control or power as the Huntruran Empire only ever getting control of around 20% of the land at there peak.

-Many other Baronies, Duchies, Kingdoms, Earldoms ect.. rose to power during the same period as many of the races finally took control of there own lives and began to develop there own culture.

The Traders

Alright I need some major trading groups to fill out the “Council”. I figure the Council will be made up of the 9 most wealthy and powerful guilds this being determined by over all earnings I guess. I am thinking that all members of the Traders guild must pay 10% of there total earnings to the guild and its all worked out and every 5 years or so the 9 guilds who will hold a council seat for the next 5 years is determined.

I started working on some basic rules that guild members have to abide by. These are very basic and any input would be much appreciated. I like the idea of keeping them very open to interpretation because it leaves room for guild members to try exploiting loop holes.

-One guild member is not allowed to draw the blood or kill another member or be responsible for it happening.

-Guild members are required to hold true to any contract or agreements.

-Any issue between guild members can be brought before the guild council and any ruling made by the council must be abided by.

-Any guild member under duress may ask refuge of another guild member and unless completely unable they must provide it with in reason.

-Guild members must pay 10% of there earnings to the guild.


Just as a side note I think I shall try to give the game a bit of an English gangster feel i.e.: Lock stock and two smoking barrels, the Snatch ect. I have always been a fan of memorable and reoccurring npc’s, plus I think with the soldiers of fortune mentality I have been leaning towards the seedy world of that exists in the wheeling and dealing of the trader groups I think I can make it work. I also am a big fan of Knights of the dinner table and I want to make attempts at building out there npc’s that are hard to forget like peg legged dwarf yak dealers or Bi-polar half pixie fortune tellers that kinda stuff.

Also as a side not I am planning on having a human warlock in the service of Orcus being his agent on the prime material because although he knows the portals exist doesn’t mean he knows how to use them and will need somebody on the prime material to do the leg work and start tracking down and researching the facts so it can all happen. As a reward Orcus grants them boons and promises them grate power and so on. That way the pc's can get involved from the get go, this Warlock will have a sort of predetermined timeline of things he will be doing to get the job done and the only way it can be altered is if the pc's intereced.

anyways more to come tommorow.

thanks in advance for any imput.!! :smallsmile:

Mando Knight
2008-09-10, 11:51 AM
I also like the tidbits the MM gives about Orcus. Even managed to (temporarily) derail my brothers' campaign when I suggested to one of the player-brothers (Geno9999, in fact) that the fairly mundane goblins were controlled by one of the cults of Orcus... his character is a Dragonborn Paladin who already had some personality quirks, so I just gave him another one. (They were really being controlled by a homebrewed Star-Pact Warlock who had a bit of a Lovecraftian vibe to him...)

Kaun
2008-09-10, 10:20 PM
Ok a bit more work on the back ground plot line.

The what – Orcus knows the Huntruran Empires used to be able to move large amounts of “stuff” between the prime material and the Elemental chaos. So he figures he should be able to track the portals they used down fix em up and get them working. Once there up and going he intends to use it to get himself to the prime material and once he is there get his strength up and redirect the portals to the shadow fel and the go after the Queens throne.

The how – Orcus can’t just wander around the prime material and do a few field trips here and there checking out old first age ruins and read up on ancient history in the local libraries. Alot of his minions also float in the same boat and since he still has a fair few details he needs to find out before he can get things swinging he will need to keep it a little bit cloak and dagger because there are a lot of factions that if they had any idea of his plan’s could stomp them out well before they got anywhere near bearing fruit. So any of his more powerful and intelligent undead will probably draw to much attention at this early stage of the game so he needs a suitably skilled pawn to do his leg work.

Insteps my afore mentioned warlock so I’m going start fleshing him out.

Orcus’s prime material agent for this task.

Name : Rilorr S’iris
Race: Human Age: 29
Sex: Male Class: Warlock

Background:
Rilorr is the third son born into a family deeply imbedded in a powerful trading family. By family tradition as the third son he is expected to take on the role of a scholar so he could assist his family with the business in what ever way possible. Although he does have a deep lust for knowledge he had no real want to spend his days pouring over old family accounts and sifting through records of council meetings in attempt to garner more power to his guild. So he avoided studying cartography and economics and began delving more heavily into the history of the arcane and the possibility’s it held. When he started dabbling with communing Orcus saw potential and granted Rilorr power with the promise of more if he could unlock the secrets of the Huntruran.

Description:
Rilorr is of a slight build with a decent moontan, he has medium length hair and looks as though he needs to get more sleep with deep bags under his eyes and gaunt features. He is most often dressed in a traveller’s long coat and a gritty noble men’s suit. (Now that I type this it sounds kinda like Jonny Depp in sleepy hollow).

Personality:
-Talks to himself when he is thinking.
-Easily irritated
-Not overly confident when by himself but if he has allies with him prone to over confidence.
-Has a tendency to become distracted mid sentence as an idea runs off on its own train then snap back to now and wonder what exactly he has just said and if who ever is in ear shot now knows to much.
-Is forever reminding him self of what he will soon be.
-Likes to use aliases.
Here is a list of some of his more commonly used ones.
Loed – Hinz – Vors – Lond – Chiet – Coel – Quent – Atho.

-Stats:
I’m fairly sure he will end up being a Scourge Warlock with an infernal Pact, but I shall work on that later.

Ok the first session has also been played and I have also been working on the outline of a few major trade guilds + some stuff for the second session. I shall try to get that posted up later today.

Cheers for reading guys :smallsmile:

Beleriphon
2008-09-10, 11:31 PM
The what – Orcus knows the Huntruran Empires used to be able to move large amounts of “stuff” between the prime material and the Elemental chaos. So he figures he should be able to track the portals they used down fix em up and get them working. Once there up and going he intends to use it to get himself to the prime material and once he is there get his strength up and redirect the portals to the shadow fel and the go after the Queens throne.

The how – Orcus can’t just wander around the prime material and do a few field trips here and there checking out old first age ruins and read up on ancient history in the local libraries. Alot of his minions also float in the same boat and since he still has a fair few details he needs to find out before he can get things swinging he will need to keep it a little bit cloak and dagger because there are a lot of factions that if they had any idea of his plan’s could stomp them out well before they got anywhere near bearing fruit. So any of his more powerful and intelligent undead will probably draw to much attention at this early stage of the game so he needs a suitably skilled pawn to do his leg work.

Insteps my afore mentioned warlock so I’m going start fleshing him out.

Orcus’s prime material agent for this task.

Name : Rilorr S’iris
Race: Human Age: 29
Sex: Male Class: Warlock

Background:
Rilorr is the third son born into a family deeply imbedded in a powerful trading family. By family tradition as the third son he is expected to take on the role of a scholar so he could assist his family with the business in what ever way possible. Although he does have a deep lust for knowledge he had no real want to spend his days pouring over old family accounts and sifting through records of council meetings in attempt to garner more power to his guild. So he avoided studying cartography and economics and began delving more heavily into the history of the arcane and the possibility’s it held. When he started dabbling with communing Orcus saw potential and granted Rilorr power with the promise of more if he could unlock the secrets of the Huntruran.

Description:
Rilorr is of a slight build with a decent moontan, he has medium length hair and looks as though he needs to get more sleep with deep bags under his eyes and gaunt features. He is most often dressed in a traveller’s long coat and a gritty noble men’s suit. (Now that I type this it sounds kinda like Jonny Depp in sleepy hollow).

Personality:
-Talks to himself when he is thinking.
-Easily irritated
-Not overly confident when by himself but if he has allies with him prone to over confidence.
-Has a tendency to become distracted mid sentence as an idea runs off on its own train then snap back to now and wonder what exactly he has just said and if who ever is in ear shot now knows to much.
-Is forever reminding him self of what he will soon be.
-Likes to use aliases.
Here is a list of some of his more commonly used ones.
Loed – Hinz – Vors – Lond – Chiet – Coel – Quent – Atho.

-Stats:
I’m fairly sure he will end up being a Scourge Warlock with an infernal Pact, but I shall work on that later.


That sounds quite excellent, and if you need to you can even run the official adventures from Wizards, or at least rip off ideas. Its really funny when you consider how similar they are to what you've described.

As for Rilorr, what is his merchant family into? Including his family would be a good way to get the party involved with the Orcus plot. Maybe he's manipulating the movement of goods for Orcus' cults by manipulating records. He might for example say the losses from caravan raids are acceptable for the gains made, and the raiders just happen to be a cult of Orcus.

As a suggestion though, making him unaware that he's really working for Orcus might be fun and his power source is one of Orcus' subordinates. When he finds out about Orcus he doesn't care, or even happier that his true patron is much more powerful than he thought.

Matthew
2008-09-10, 11:44 PM
I'm going to have to vaguely disagree with Tormsskull here and say that your post is not too long, it's fairly concise really, I really like to see these things get posted here they are soooo very much more interesting than the endless, repetative my edition is better than yours 'debate' that is on rinse and repeat here...
So pretty please with cherries on top post more here.

Indeed. I accidently derailed one just yesterday.



Nobody follows links in siggs, post here!

True. Though I have discovered that some sigs lead to interesting places.



The largest reason these threads don't stay on the front page is that they are not not contentious and so don't get posted to relentlessly. They generally get plenty of reads.

Exactly. Basically, it's down to you to pace yourself so that it keeps bobbing up and people get the opportunity to read it.

Kaun
2008-09-11, 01:27 AM
That sounds quite excellent, and if you need to you can even run the official adventures from Wizards, or at least rip off ideas. Its really funny when you consider how similar they are to what you've described.

Intersing which adventures are you talking about out of interest?



As for Rilorr, what is his merchant family into? Including his family would be a good way to get the party involved with the Orcus plot. Maybe he's manipulating the movement of goods for Orcus' cults by manipulating records. He might for example say the losses from caravan raids are acceptable for the gains made, and the raiders just happen to be a cult of Orcus.

I hadn’t really contemplated this option I had always just considered him going rogue and that his family may be looking for him as well. This option thou does present a lot of opportunities for the PC’s to be brought in by other family members investigating these loses of profit and uncovering Rilorr’s schemes and then have him having to go on the run from his family and be cut of from his financial assistance he is used to. I shall defiantly give this more thought.

Thanks heaps!!


Ok time for some more info for you guys to have a look at.

Some of the trader’s guild’s I have been working on. Descriptions are a bit basics but I am just trying to lay down some foundations.

House of Bear.

The House of Bear are one of the original founding members of the trader’s guild and can trace there ancestors back to a nomadic tribe that began in the second age. Like there totem animal they are slow to move, very stubborn and highly territorial.

Main trades:
Mining (all), Forestry, stone work, metal work, farming, construction.

Traits:
House of Bear are sort of Russian Cossacks in some sort of rough edged renaissance. They enjoy art and culture but it’s anything but flowery, it’s always powerful but more then often very blunt.

Ja’dron trading family:
Ya-dare-on

The Ja’dron trading family has been around for at least two ages, not all members of this group are related by blood but any members of power are defiantly at least distant cousins even if by marriage. Ja’dron are a very loyal bunch but are know for there love of indulging in the finer things in life. They have a reputation of shifty dealing and skirting dangerously close to breaking the guild laws but they have been doing it for so long that they have made an art form of it.

Main trade:
Information, Logistics, Banking, Farming, Mercenary/security, Transcription /scribe. (would be much abliged if somebody can recommend a word that better describes what I mean then scribe)

Traits:
Classic European gothic. Long coats, wigs, make up on everybody. A sort of 1800’s France meets modern Emo/Gothic with a bit of a Mafioso overtone.

Four winds trading house:

As the story goes originally born of a Halfling nomad clan has grown to become a large and wide spread made up of many different races and cultures. The 4WTH is unlike any other council member in that it is not one whole group but rather a wide spread network of like minded traders who although value independence also see the values of a larger collective influence. The winders although not being a single entity they do hold a sort of brotherhood mentality. They traffic information between members when ever possible keeping there members in the know about what is happening and where some coin can be made. Members are not required by any sort of in house law to bend over backwards for each other but they generally try to assist visiting members as much as they can and members operating in the same area try to funnel work to each other.

Main Trade:
Everything and anything.

Traits:
As above – the once common factor they generally share is they always stick to a deal and never try to squeeze too much from any customer because it can reflect badly on other winders.

DM note: I drew the idea for these guys from that planescape faction from the city of doors. I can’t remember there name of the top of my head but I’m sure somebody will remind me.

Goldfinder’s craftsmen’s Union.

Goldfinder isn’t actually a dwarven family name tracing its origins back to the first age as many of there members will tell you. Its actual origin is the nickname of the original founder Harag Graniteback from two ages ago. Goldfinder was a small independent trader and metal smith who was a cranky and irritable old grey beared who’s irritation with constantly being out manuvered and out gunned in the trading arenas, began gathering up his like minded kinsmen in an effort to level the playing field some what. Two ages later and ol’ Goldfinders legacy continues as the Craftsmen’s union has well entrenched it’s self in the traders guild as one of the major power players.

Main Trade’s:
Mining, Engineering, Logistics, construction, Metalworking, Stone Masonry, Alchemy, Weapon and armour smithing.

Traits:
Big headed and full of bluster, Cut throat traders and prone to strong arm tactics when negotiations won’t get them the result they want.

Ok just switching things up a bit, this NPC's isn't a member of the traders guild but i was giving him a bit of thought so i figured i would chuck him in this post.


The Goblin King.

Haknarr Gradur.
-The skull king, he rose to power 15 years ago in the spindle marshes by killing the chiefs of all of his rival goblin tribes who populate the marshes. Usually goblin tribal scuffles would go all but unnoticed by everybody who wasn’t a goblanoid apart from the fact that the spindle marshes are the only place the spindle poppies grow. The spindle poppy is the main component of most healing based alchemy and the only people who can safely harvest the poppies are goblins and there kin, this point alone makes Haknarr a very powerful figure. Haknarr has gotten himself to the top of what he thought was everything only to realise that he has just started to scratch the surface of power and wealth, he has seen for himself the highs the traders council has soared to and now he coverts this for himself and his kin.


Description:
Haknarr is an ageing hobgoblin that has fought many battle’s and has many hard won lessons as his reward. He listens twice and answers once, he has a keen tactical mind and a treasure trove of bloody experience. A lot of his victories have been won due to his sharp eye and his knack for finding and exploiting his enemy’s weaknesses.



DM notes:
When I was thinking up Haknarr I was basing his concept of a character from J.V. Jones’s Sword of Shadows trilogy. The characters name is Vaylo Bludd aka The Dog Lord and at first he is painted as the BBEG but through the series you start to see him as an honourable man and incredibly intelligent but un trained mind. I haven’t finished the last book yet (so please don’t ruin it for me) but I can see later on that he may end up coming to aid the main characters in the end even though they had been enemies from the opening pages of the first book. I can see similar potential in Haknarr he is a vicious warlord and a blood thirsty fighter and seen as nothing more then a savage but he is a creature of his environment and he has witnessed another world and is trying to drag his people into it. I can also so later that if Orcus does end up invading the prime material the PC’s may end up needing his aid in defeating and driving the demon’s armies back to the planes of hell. I think he can become an npc with a lot of potential.

Kaun
2008-09-11, 07:46 AM
Here we go with a bit of a rundown on the first session.

Ok I pre-warned my party that this session would a bit of a rail road and a bit combat heavy just so we could all get a bit of a feeling for how the combat system works and I could also gauge what I could throw the party against with out it being a over all steam rolling. All in all the first session would be all about getting a grip on the rules and getting the ball rolling.

First session Plan:

Ok to start I had a bit of a think about the town I was starting them in and made a few notes on what it was like.

Town: Rocks end. – Cattle farming town: Pigs + Goat’s + Duck’s.
Total population: 200+ .1x Inn/drinking house/general store “the Ducks Bill Inn”
No trader sponsored house in town – 1 small church Dedicated to Palor. (church is maned by a Friar named Jargo)

Ok a little rough mission outlay

Oppening with.

PART 1: Farm encounter.
-Undead attack at Carter farm.

-encounter 2x Gravehound’s p274 MM 300xp encounter.

Now depending on how this encounter went I set up a second harder encounter two throw in if the first was to easy.

-possible second encounter:
-Deathlock Wight x1 175xp p262 MM
-Zombie x1 125xp p274 MM
-Zombie Rotter x3 114xp p274 MM
Total exp = 414xp


PART 2: Celebration/Funeral
-The town celebrates the relase from the fear of the undead attacks but also morns those they have lost.
-Give the party a chance to move around town socalise ect.
-Harg Carter the farmer who lost his wife and daughter in the attack asks the pc’s to attended there funeral the following morning.

PART 3: Jargo’s aproch.
-after the formal part of the funeral the Friar Jargo comes to the pc’s and asks them to come to talk to him at the church.
-Jargo tells the PC’s about Rilorr S’irrs’s recent visit to town only he knows Rilorr as Loed. Rilorr was sniffing around town asking about any old ruins in the area.
-Jargo tells the party that he was sent to the region by the Bishop at the church of Palor at Care Tren (aka City of Gates). His task here apart from spreading the word of Palor was to keep an eye on an ancient burial mound the church had decided was best left undisturbed. Due to its remote and hidden location it has been an easy task for the last 20 years. Rilorr left town near 12 days ago and it was not long after that the undead attack started. He asks if the pc’s will aid him by going to investigate the burial mound and see if there any sign’s of Rilorr’s presence.

-Jargo dosent know this but Rilorr had the Deathlock wight as a minion to help him with his mission but left it behind to clean up his tracks.

-As a reward he offers the party a satchel of potions he has made himself and a Script of reward which can be redeemed at Care Tren.

First sessions: What actually happened?

Started by getting the pc’s to each describe there characters.

Opening: Ok I have never been a massive fan of the hole starting in the inn thing, I find it a massive time waster and generally the first hour of the session tends to go down the toilet while the pc’s stumble about looking for some direction. I’m a big fan of starting right in the thick of things and also starting with the pc’s already having a sense of urgency to what’s going on so my opening monologue went something like this.

“As you get closer the mist roles back revealing that the figure hunched down over the body is one of the local farmer’s, his name currently escape’s you but his face is one you have seen in the local inn. The farmer is cradling what remains of a young girl, by the looks she was mauled by a wild beast. The farm looks up at you, his eyes filled with utter sorrow and his face slack with disbelief. He doesn’t seem to hear your questions but eventually he raises his arm and points down the track towards what looks like a large barn.”



Ok the party is confused but after some inspection the cleric try’s to quickly comfort the man and then I have to tell him that I don’t think any amount of heal skill rolls will bring the girl back. The ranger spots some bloody paw prints disappearing up the path towards the barn and they head of to investigate. So 5 min’s after starting the PC’s are already in the thick of it… Just the way I like it.

Um long story short I throw the gravehounds at them. They have a couple of rounds swinging at each other the pc’s defiantly seem to have this under raps thou. The Big clincher was when the cleric decided to give turn undead a try, it completely rocked both the grave hounds and the ranger and the warlock quickly finished them up. There was a little bit of damage done to the PC’s but a healing spell and a couple or serges later and there all good. The rule I didn’t realise until after this session was there needed to be a 5 min rest to recharge encounter powers so the party got away with about a min one while they scoped out the barn. I decided to throw the second encounter at them because the first one felt more like a warm up.

This encounter would have been a bit of a killer if I didn’t spread my damage as much as I did. The ranger moved around the back of the barn and ended up heading in the side door while the Lock and the Cleric moved towards the front doors. The ranger burst through the back into one of the rotters and an angry wight. Where the Cleric was ambushed by the zombie coming out the front door and pulled up in a bear hug and another rotter blocking the front entrance. Long story short the deathlock white landed a couple of decent spells snaring the ranger and taking chunks out of his hit points while the cleric and the Warlock tried to get into the barn. In the end the cleric broke free smacked the zombie up a bit and then charged into help the ranger and the wight ended up throwing bolts at random and using his aoe. The dice got les accurate for the undead for the second half with out me having to fudge anything I just spread the attacks around more then I was planning and the pc’s cleaned things up and collected there loot. After everything was … um … re killed?... the pitchfork and torch wielding locals turned up and started to cheer for them and celebrate the removal of the undead threat.

PART 2:
All went basically as expected there was drinking and eating after a couple of decent bluff rolls the Cleric had the locals believing it was all him and the others just tagged along for the ride. The Ranger hanged back and tended his gear while watching the festivities while the warlock tried to figure out what gear he needed. They went to the funeral and then spoke with the Friar and were keen to go check out the old burial mound for him.

So they headed out I made the dungeon small because the night was winding on and I didn’t want it to finish half way through. There was a sort of winding entrance tunnel and opened on to an old chamber that hade been split in half by an earthquake or something years ago leaving a large fissure splitting the room in half and filtering light down from the forest surface above. So they spent some time finding a way to get across and into the next chamber which happened to be a massive hall full of sarcophaguses laid out in a pattern around a central dais with a badly detiriated idol on it.
Rilorr had left a trap here to cover his tracks in the form of a blood rune on the floor that when broken summoned 2x spectors p244 MM. This was another fight that could have ended badly if the spectors teamed up on one target but I decided to try more of a wolf pack tactic where they would appear in the middle of them and aoe then pick of the target who had been pushed the furthest from the group hit them then go invisible and shift around keeping the pc’s guessing. So this fight hurt them but I think they still had it in there head that there was a big boss to come.

I decided to make the big boss I bit of a survival fight rather then a straight out kill and loot thing. The final room they entered was I room with just one large sarcophagus on a raised platform surrounded by columns. On the back wall was a large section of pigeon holes in the wall with some sort of old text carved into the stone around them. My basic thinking behind this was that this tomb was for the family of very powerful salamander sage who was very involved in the portals back in the day. The pigeon holes contained scrolls that recorded all his achievements in the arcane field and the carvings on the wall, an enchantment to greatly slow the ageing affect of the scrolls contained with in. There are 5 aged and broken scrolls on the floor and the first 6 pigeon holes are empty, the theory that Rilorr was looking for a scroll with info on the portals and started at the start and once he found the one he wanted he left. The ranger quickly picked up that obviously somebody was looking for something specific and stoped looking once he found it.

Inside the sarcophagus I also dropped a few items so the part could get some loot, a +1 short sword a necklace of protection and some gold and gems. Also the Big boss in a way, the sarcophagus was filled with the dusty remains of the sage’s corpse but where his stomach should have been is a basketball sized hole coming up through the ground. Long story short they have stumbled on Kruthik nest p170 MM and not long after tho hole is unearthed hatchling Kruthik’s come spewing out. The PC’s bolt for the door and end up coming to a halt at the rift in the first chamber, they slowly make there way across while the warlock turns to fight and since the bugs are minions he starts to think he could win until the automatic damage received by every Kurthick in melee range ticks over and he is forced to swing across the rift on a rope. The pc’s bolt for the exit the dwarf cleric struggling to keep up with the Bugs hot on his heels. He makes it through the exit just in time for the ranger to roll a natural 20 in an attempt to shove out one of the old columns holding up the door way bringing the entrance to the tunnel down on the chasing bugs. All in all a good end to the session.

In hind site I have seen a lot of ways to start getting the group to operate more as a team. After the few worrying turns stuck in solo combat with the wight I think the Ranger will double think the kick the door in and go in hacking approach next time.
And the rule system does seem to flow nicely enough along. I just need to make a photocopy of a few pages of the PHB for a quick reference in combat.

Anyways in a couple of days I shall throw up some ideas about my plans for the next couple of sessions.