Eberron history / campaign questions

[Chris P]

This is somewhat of a follow on to my previous thread of must have books. As I have started to work my way through the books I'm starting to get campaign ideas. The Explorer's Handbook had a Black Dragon (CR:23) that will most likely be the main villian pulling the strings. His main goal is to get free of his prison (I'm at work so I don't have more details than that). Elements of Eberron that I know I want to use are as follows:

The lightning rail - probably a train ride adventure similar to Dungeon issue #143
Airships - one of my favorite things about Eberron
Warforged - maybe a recueing some from a cult who wants to make them slaves again
Archeology - a lot of item finding which will be needed to release the Dragon (probably a Dragon Shard in there somewhere)
Dragon Marks - not sure how to use them yet

Any other suggestions or ideas on things that are very Eberron?

[Greg Schulze]

I recollect that the black dragon is a half fiend guarding a temple in Q'Barra. I have been DMing Eberron for 3 1/2 years and have tried to use all the Eberron elements somewhere in the campaign, so here it goes with your elements:

House Cannith, the House of Making that created the warforged, was splintered during the Last War. Cannith North is now controlled by a rakshasa of the Lords of Dust disguising himself as the baron of Cannith North. The rakshasa wants to release the black dragon from his service of guarding the fiendish temple in Q'Barra (he doesn't want to fight the dragon, just get rid of it) to discover it's secrets inside. An ancient artifact hidden away by the Lord of Blades in the Mournland is needed to release the black dragon from service and send him back to Argonnessen. This ancient artifact is a docent imbued with a fiendish giant's presence from Xen'Drik that one of the Lord of Blades' minions wears on him.

The PCs must find the docent before the rakshasa's warforged special forces find it (two groups of warforged here: the Lord of Blades' group and the rakshasa's group). The PCs mission is to take the lightning rail from Aundair to the Mournland where the special forces warforged attack them (see the Whisper of the Vampire's Blade adventure), head off across the wasteland and fight monsters and the Lord of Blades' minions, find the docent, make it to Gatherhold, take an airship to Q'barra, then bypass the black dragon and enter the ancient temple. There the PCs are to find out what the hub-bub is all about and destroy the docent (ala Lord of the Rings-cast in into the fires from whence it came).

I hope there are some ideas in there to get you started.

-Greg

[Chris P]

Greg Schulze wrote:

I recollect that the black dragon is a half fiend guarding a temple in Q'Barra. I have been DMing Eberron for 3 1/2 years and have tried to use all the Eberron elements somewhere in the campaign, so here it goes with your elements:.....

I have to admit Greg that until I read more of the books (still working on it) a lot of what you said didn't make sense. Now that I know more that is all great stuff. I think I will definately use some of it. I'm thinking that the black dragon may not have always been evil (I might be twisting history a bit here, not sure) and has the chance to be good again. The reason I say this is I'm thinking that I would like to do something similar to Paizo's AP points during the campaign where depending what the players do they earn either a "good" AP or an "evil" AP which determines how the dragon reacts later on in the adventure. Since the dragons main source of info is the mirror shard that aren't always displaying the current time (sometimes they show the past, other times the future) he can be swayed by how things unfold. Maybe he'll try and get released and doesn't care that doing so will release the demons and cause a second Great War. Maybe he'll sacrifices himself. Maybe he'll find a way that with the players help the release himself and keep the demons trapped becoming an ally. Then the Lords of Dust will come along and try and release the demons themselves. Not a 100% decided as of yet. Still reading and forming a plan. Thanks for your input.

[hopeless]

Chris P wrote:

This is somewhat of a follow on to my previous thread of must have books. As I have started to work my way through the books I'm starting to get campaign ideas. The Explorer's Handbook had a Black Dragon (CR:23) that will most likely be the main villian pulling the strings. His main goal is to get free of his prison (I'm at work so I don't have more details than that). Elements of Eberron that I know I want to use are as follows:

The lightning rail - probably a train ride adventure similar to Dungeon issue #143
Airships - one of my favorite things about Eberron
Warforged - maybe a recueing some from a cult who wants to make them slaves again
Archeology - a lot of item finding which will be needed to release the Dragon (probably a Dragon Shard in there somewhere)
Dragon Marks - not sure how to use them yet

Any other suggestions or ideas on things that are very Eberron?

How about the Pcs start off on the lightning rail and its raided and they end up fighting warforged thought destroyed in the battle of Fort Bright.

Research reveals evidence that four airships escaped Fort Bright right about when the mourning happened and rumors persist one of those ships was found in the Talenta Plains suggesting they fled the Mourning heading towards Q'barra.
The Karrns however are also looking for survivors from those same airships and whilst your PCs get to decide whether to explore the Talenta Plains or go straight to Q'barra or even the dwarves in the mountains there to see what they know.
The spoiler would be that what the dragon needs to free himself is not artefact but actually a blood descendant of the being who originally bound the first guardian, the Karrns are seeking proof a certain warrior and former Cyran general was killed in the flight from Cyre or to make sure he and his family dies and its them who are the blood descendants who if slain will mean the dragon can never be freed.

You can throw in the shard as being the means the four airships escaped the mourning actually sealing off the boundaries of Cyre to prevent the cataclysm effecting all of Khorvaire however they won't know that part since destroying it or trying to get it to work again might cause that same seal to fail endangering all of Khorvaire... epic enough for you?

And as for the dragonmarks, I thought the rakhasa in Cannith North was the lover of the leader not the leader herself?

Now for involving the dragonmarks, Lyrandar are helping the Karrns because they helped in the fall of Fort Bright and seek to silence what they think are witnesses to their crime, Cannith know someone sealed the boundaries of Cyre just not who, and as for an Eberron feel how about throwing in that Q'barra is under threat by a reawakened Xendrik Storm Giant who seeks revenge for the defeat that resulted in the creation of that dragon's guardianship which was done so that when needed the information and means to protect Khorvaire from Xendrik's wrath would be available of which that shard was just a part which was removed along with others to help protect and lead their finders to the dragon so he could fulfil his ancient duty...

But they don't know that...

(I was kind of thinking on using the rise of the runelords for this with the ancient foe being a storm giant but I think I'm going too far there...)

[Harden Sull]

Eberron has so much in it there are a million ways you can go.

Having the Black Dragon pulling strings is a good start (i'm having the daelkyr start to actually attempt to break free in my campaign). Don't forget in Eberron that the wounds of the Last War are very fresh. Big political themes can still happen, even in the more jungles of Qbarra.

Or the Day of Mourning released tons of magic-warped creatures upon the earth, some have escaped the Mournland.

Or the the party runs afoul of the Silver Flame (or a cult) and is persued by religous zealots and they don't even know why.

Or the various Dragonmarked Houses are attempting to manipulate the party to aid them in some way.

Or the Lord of the Blades has decided that it is time to rise up and crush the meatlings who created and enslaved them.

There is just so much going on you can just weave in bits and pieces here and there to give you players a taste of what Eberron has to offer, even if it doesn't pertain to your central story.

[Greg Schulze]

I always wondered (and never came up with a reason why) why the destruction of the day of Mourning was contained in Cyre only and did not spread across the borders. I like Hopeless' idea that it was somehow contained by airships. I've already have my idea for the day of Mourning and will have an adventure about it: it was caused by Sur'kil, the dragon from the Eyes of the Lich Queen adventure, with the help of Khurystas. He did it because the Prophecy told him to do so, now Sur'kil wants to fix it and needs the PCs help.

I think the rhakasha was the lover of a House Orien gal or some noble in Aundair, but I can't remember. I just pulled the rhakasha deal out of thin air since their evil bad guys.

[The Wraith]

Greg Schulze wrote:

I always wondered (and never came up with a reason why) why the destruction of the day of Mourning was contained in Cyre only and did not spread across the borders. I like Hopeless' idea that it was somehow contained by airships. I've already have my idea for the day of Mourning and will have an adventure about it: it was caused by Sur'kil, the dragon from the Eyes of the Lich Queen adventure, with the help of Khurystas. He did it because the Prophecy told him to do so, now Sur'kil wants to fix it and needs the PCs help.

I think the rhakasha was the lover of a House Orien gal or some noble in Aundair, but I can't remember. I just pulled the rhakasha deal out of thin air since their evil bad guys.

My idea 'behind-the-scenes' is this:

Spoiler:

Cyre was trying to create a huge force-field in order to 'isolate' Cyre from the rest of the continent and shield themselves from the War (their borders were extremely frail, and Karrnath on the north and Breland on the west had powerful armies). But, suddenly, the experiment went awry, and the massime magic generator in Metrol created a boiling fog that quickly destroyed any form of life, twisted them in abominable ways, and froze the dead bodies in a state of perpetual stillness... until it reached the 'intended' dimension and stopped.

I have to admit, however, that in my campaign, the Lord of Blades is actually

Spoiler:

Bulwark, the trusted Warforged friend of King Boranel disappeared after the Treaty of Thronehold , and is not a bloodthirsty warmonger... his idea is to dominate the weak-minded fleshlings, not to destroy them, since he has seen their weak ways to relate with each other, and their only hope of salvation is being ruled by the almost immortal race they created and that has the chance to lead them in an illuminate future - after cutting some branches (think of Akasha from Anne Rice's "Queen of the Damned" and her idea of 'salvation of humankind' in the novel);

plus, my favorite character of all is Erandis d'Vol (how can you not agree with her idea of revenge !?!...), so as you notice my Eberron Campaign is a bit twisted from the canon... or is it ?...

(One of my friends playing a Warforged lately gave me a HUGE idea behind the 'souls' of the Warforged... something related - obviously - with their Quori origin, but resulting in a different effect than the intended at the origin, being the result of THREE different processes of making - Quori, Giant, Cannith)

Just my 2c.

[Greg Schulze]

I would think it would be neat to read every DMs take on the Day of Mourning. They would all be good ideas. I used Sur'kil as the culprit to fit in better with my campaign since the Eyes of the Lich Queen adventure was kind of a stand alone adventure that had nothing to do with what stories I was DMing.

My LoBster:

Spoiler:

My Lord of the Blades is actually the first Merrix d'Cannith, Merrix d'Cannith of the Sharn House Cannith's grandfather. He converted most of his body into a renegade warforged, and along with his first warforged General One, have gone into the Mournland to raise a perfect warforged army to take over Khorvaire. After all, the Lord of the Blades stats in the Five Nations book are pretty whimpy. I used that as a captain's stats and the PCs wasted him.

[Harden Sull]

Heh, I described the day of Mourning to my PCs as a sort of magic nuclear bomb. So, my idea for it is, somehow, Cyre was the target of a magic weapon of unheard of magnitude. But who did it and why?

Was it one of the other nations? A dragonmarked house? Vol? The daelkyr?

In my game its the daelkyr through their crazed mindflayer minions.

Spoiler:

Its all tied together in my head. Vol is the obvious bad guy as she is attempting to attain complete god-hood. The daelkyr merely created/are using the opportunity to break free and run rampant all over again.

So, plots within plots within plots. Oh, and you know the Demon trapped in the Silver Flame? Yeah, its the Voice of the Flame now and it wants out....

[Vorbis]

In my campaign i took the idea presented in Tales of the Last War, where the warforged finds the old dream center of the giants.

Cyre tried to fire an ancient giant weapon used against the Quori, but the artifact spells they thought would shield them instead trapped the blast in Cyre.