I'm planning to run the second installment of the "Shards of Eberron" campaign arc, an adventure called "Temple of the Scorpion God," from Dungeon #124 (the same which launched the Age of Worms adventure path). The campaign is just beginning and that adventure is intended for 7th level, so I have some time, but always enjoy brainstorming with Paizonians. I am converting the adventure to the Realms, and making "temple" the ruins of a Netherese flying city which crashed into the Nether Mountains. As the adventure is written in Eberron, the party is supposed to reach the location via airship and the various modes of quick transport which exist in Eberron. But do not in the Realms. Which is okay by me, because I believe journeys are great occasions for adventures and detailing a world and shouldn't just be skipped over.
The party will be traveling east from Silverymoon. I've done some research on the Nether Mountains (by which I mean whatever I could find in the 3.0 FR Campaign Setting book and the Forgotten Realms wiki, since I am not a master of Realmslore by any means) and found some promising material. I've read that there is a mountain in the east of the range called Dragondoom, home to a family of blue dragons, served by a tribe of hobgoblins in a nearby fortress called the Doomspire. I don't see why there should be blue dragons in the Nether Mountains, though, so I'm making them reds. The adventure features surface-dwelling drow and a dragon guardian in the "temple," which will now become a Young red dragon and his hobgoblin minions.
However, I want something to build an adventure out of for the trip between Silverymoon and Dragondoom. The Forgotten Realms wiki says that the Moon Pass, between those two points, is plagued by two warring orc tribes, the Thousand Fists and the Ripped Guts. I'd love to create an encounter which put the players between these two orc tribes, either fighting both (but somehow understanding that it's not just one homogenous band of orcs) or, better, interacting with them in some way to pit the two against each other, with the goal of safe passage for the party through the pass. They should be 6th or 7th level when they get to this stage of the campaign. I'm interested in plot points, monsters to consider using, exciting locations for battles, etc. And... go!
I'm planning to run the second installment of the "Shards of Eberron" campaign arc, an adventure called "Temple of the Scorpion God," from Dungeon #124 (the same which launched the Age of Worms adventure path). The campaign is just beginning and that adventure is intended for 7th level, so I have some time, but always enjoy brainstorming with Paizonians. I am converting the adventure to the Realms, and making "temple" the ruins of a Netherese flying city which crashed into the Nether Mountains. As the adventure is written in Eberron, the party is supposed to reach the location via airship and the various modes of quick transport which exist in Eberron. But do not in the Realms. Which is okay by me, because I believe journeys are great occasions for adventures and detailing a world and shouldn't just be skipped over.(snip)
Dragons of the Nether Mountains are Blue because of their proximity with Anauroch (great desert) and for the fact that blue dragons (lawful) are more capable of working as a community than red dragons who tend to be feuding solitary creatures. But that's a detail...
You use to be able to download "The North" Boxset for free from wizard's archive site. It's 2E AD&A but since 2E was queen of fluff, it shouldn't matter too much. I wonder if that's still available, that'd be an extremely useful resource (for free!). If you can get your hands on the 3.0 FR Silvermarches, that's a good resource as well.
Otherwise by RAW, PCs should make the trip from Silverymoon to Sundabar (above the Moon Pass) relatively easily. There, they have the choice of going south trough Turnstone Pass and orc country or stay north and travel in neutral lands all the way to the eastern peaks of the Nether range, right before the great desert, where the dragons live.
"typical" suggestions
South road: lots of orc and whatever crap you want to connect with Hellgate Keep (before or after its destruction?). PCs should expect to cross a major river or keep close to the (dangerous) mountains to cross its many, smaller streams at its source. Shouldn't be a problem by level 7.
North road, Uthgardh barbarians, orcs and your typical "northern encounter" That'd be old Dwarf country (fallen Delzoun), which can bring all kind of interesting stuff as well.
All in all, the area has been clearly defined (too much perhaps?) so unless you're a FR loremaster, you are likely to wander away from canon (which i encourage by all means).
'findel
Hey what d'you know...
Thanks, to both of you. I'll be looking over the PDF of the North and probably go over to Candlekeep to see if I can find some NPCs/adventure ideas. To my knowledge, the orc kingdom which Bill mentioned, the Kingdom of Many Arrows, is in the eastern arm of the Spine of the World, which lies a distance from the Nether Mountains. I do plan to play up the tensions between Silverymoon and the Kingdom of Many Arrows, however. I'm making the Silver Marches a much tighter kingdom rather than a loose federation, with Lady Alustriel as a more Galadriel-like Queen of the realm. Their attention on the orcs is important as background, because the party will be dealing with the more imminent threat of an army of lizardfolk rising in the Evermoors, near their home base, Nesmé (I'm using "the Muster of Morach Tor" and "Encounter at Blackwall Keep" [ripped out of context from the AoW AP] to put that war element into the campaign). Ultimately, the PCs are fighting against the servants of a black dragon, who are fighting against each other. The dragon is served both by the Cult of the Dragon, and by a group of scalykind in an ancient Meyeritari elven ruin within the Evermoors, which are trying to awaken a slumbering nation of yuan-ti. The dragon would rather be served by the yuan-ti, as she doesn't particularly want to become a dracolich, but the fanatical Cult of the Dragon is determined to stop the yuan-ti from waking up so they retain their position of influence in the dragon's servitors and can realize their plans of making her into an undead. To accomplish their goals, both sides are competing for mythallars (which I am making significantly smaller than what the FR wiki tells me, and also the source of both Netherese flying cities and high elven mythals).
The PCs will need to out-compete both groups. I plan to run "The Obsidian Eye" and both of the "Shards" adventures from Dungeon, replacing the crystal doo-hickeys in each with a mythallar. The party will already by clashing with Zhentarim agents looking for the mythallars, the Cult of the Dragon, a sect of Vecna they have managed to cheese off, and later, the servants of the yuan-ti. Not all will be active at once, so that the party has some way to keep things straight. Hopefully, they'll end up going for the City of Shadows adventure arc (I'll probably use Everlund for Istivin), so the drow will be playing a role.
More directly, the temple in Shards 2 will be a Netherese ruin laying so far at the bottom of a mountain crevasse that the drow can dwell there without having to adapt to the surface (I'm not so fond of FR above-ground dark elves). But the dragons are definitely going to be reds.
I may use the Underdark for at least some of the travel through the Nether Mountains. I don't want to play up the drow too early; but I can create a dwarfhold abandoned like Mithral Hall was until recently, and the PCs can go through a "Mines of Moria"-type passage (sans the Balrog) to avoid the dragons and harsh conditions which haunt the surface (I may revise "Home Under the Range" for part of that). I could use a "Bridge of Khazad-dum"-like area which is contested ground between the orcs and require both diplomacy and combat to navigate, which this party enjoys mixing together. I think the diplomacy will be necessary to make the players understand a little more that they are dealing with two distinct groups here, which as I said, is something I want. I just need to figure out how to bring that together into a cohesive adventure....
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I am a FR fanatic, I have played it since it first came out and I even have the old Dragon Magazines with Ed Greenwood's articles about it. Im also a big fan of breaking stereotypes. That being said I would like to throw my 2 cents into this discussion.
I love the idea of having the party interact with the two warring factions of orcs. Have you ever seen the movie Yojimbo? What if the two warring parties seeing this adventure group decided to try to hire this group for some dirty work rather than do the "normal" orc thing of jump and smash. You can't tell me that Obould was the only intelligent orc in all of Faerun. If either or both of the leaders of these respective tribes had smarts or even had a power behind the throne, I think it would be a fun time to see these two tribes trying to hire them and playing both sides against the middle. This was just a little idea I had if it sounds stupid disregard it.
Cheers
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Yeah, the Kingdom of Many Arrows is the opposite direction from where your PCs will be going.
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If you keep with your idea of a Red Dragon "family" it would be cooler to keep Hobgoblins rather than changing them to a Chaotic monster.
The Reds could love enslaving a Lawful race;...
A Lawful race would make for a better slave;...
There's lots of awesome DM-design potential in a LE Hobgoblin society subjugated by CE Red Dragons -- and the PCs can really get in to that.
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If the PCs end up on a "road" where they run into warring orc armies (1000 Fists & Ripped Guts), have them first see it from afar. The PCs could get to the top of a rise and see below them two orc armies camped in positions (chaotic positions) against each other. The PCs can guess that within a day or so those armies will march and the PCs, if not careful, could be caught in the middle. Of course, if there are some baddies right on their trail (Cult of the Dragon, Zhents, Yuan Ti, whoever), they may have no choice to jump in there and hopefuly go unnoticed.
I did this about a year ago. The PCs had to find a supposed entrance to the Underdark in the ruins of an old Fortress. When they got to the fortress they saw (from a hill a couple miles away) an orc army and a hobgoblin army (CE vs LE) in positions surrounding the Fortress. The PCs had to figure out how to get into the Fortress and find the Underdark entrance somehow without getting in the middle of the upcoming fight. (The PCs chose to pretend to be LE humans and "made nice" with the Hobgoblins -- it worked for half a session till the orcs charged.)
(In one of the AP volumes, I think during Second Darkness, the Pathfinder Journal details Eando Kiline travelling through Belkzen, specifically through warring orc tribes. Check it out.)
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You've got a huge number of peripheral evil groups in this: the Cult of the Dragon, the Zhents, the Mythallar, the Yuan Ti, the Red Dragons (cuz once the PCs meet them, well, it ain't gonna be resolved that session), etc.
Are you really planning on having them all be part of this "chapter" of your adventure? It seems like the PCs, which would be what, 5th or 6th level when they leave Silverymoon, could be really confused if you throw so many peripheral baddies at them.
In other words, you've got plenty of monsters and baddies to choose from before the PCs reach Dragondoom.
Choose a few possibilities to develop, then, based on what the Players seem like they would enjoy most over a few sessions (2nd through 4th level), choose one and develop it about when they reach Silverymoon. You'll be ready for when they leave Silverymoon.
Thanks!
@ Zealot: I haven't seen Yojimbo (alas!), but I agree: Obould can't be the only "smart" orc. I really dislike that portrayal of the race, if only because there is no way they could be such persistent and deadly enemies in the history of the realms if they are really as stupid as commonly portrayed.
@ W E Ray: I had completely forgotten about the Eando Kline story! I do remember that, now. Unfortunately, I am about 300 miles from my PF collection at the moment, but I should be back before they get to that point (and all this should be going into PbP mode, most likely).
And I'm definitely keeping the dragons as reds. They just feel more... right, to me. And I appreciate the suggestion to play up the L V C tensions between the hobgoblins and dragons! If the ruins are at the bottom of a crevasse, a detour through the lower dungeons of the Doomspire may be the only way to reach it. There, in the lowest ranking hobgoblins' barracks, perhaps they find that most of the army dislikes serving such capricious masters. The party may find unexpected allies to assist with getting in and out of the ruins, if the party does a favor in return.
Also, I like the thought of the party coming out of a high mountain cavern they have been traveling through, looking down on the Pass of the Moon, and hearing roaring and the blowing of horns, and an enormous horde of orcs haphazardly spread over the valley floor, using huge mountain beasts to pull giant, clumsy war engines into place as they prepare to slaughter each other the next day. Hasty stealth/diplomacy/skirmishes required to get to the other side. They may find an imperiled party of dwarven explorers on the way; the Nether Mountains were once on the border of Delzoun, so it makes sense there would be some "Dragon Age"-style "deep roads" left there which the PCs could go through, more safely than trying the surface. The band of dwarves would need rescue, but could also come along for advice and help clear things up. Meanwhile, yes, the party is being hunted, and cannot stay in place and wait for the orcs to finish killing each other.
As for the large number of baddies, yes, I'm aware of that problem. I plan to go slow on introducing them and have no more than two larger groups active at any time. Right now, their only clue to the yuan-ti is a book they can't read (From "Within the Circle," which I transplanted to Nesmé and used to kick the game off). They have (unwittingly) given it to an enemy.
I'm making the Cult of the Dragon a heretical faction of Velsharoon worshipers who believe that god was actually a dragon in human form, whose divine ascension is paving the way for the eventual rule of godlike dracoliches over the realms; the rest of the faithful are not so keen on this. They will serve as antagonists/allies throughout, and can provide clues as to what's going on, if only through notes looted off bodies. Starting with the sage who secretly worships Velsharoon, to whom the party accidentally gave the yuan-ti book for translation.
The first arc of the campaign, up through and after the adventure here discussed, will be all about the Cult of the Dragon. There will be peripheral appearances by the others (Zhents, Velsharoon-worshippers) for flavor, but they won't take center-stage. It won't be until they've come to fully understand the Cult of the Dragon that they find out anything more regarding the yuan-ti. At that point, their lower-level conflicts with various groups will largely have lapsed, letting them focus on a smaller number of associations at any given point.
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I'm impressed you remember! Yes and no; I have let go of it for D&D purposes. The things I wish to do with that setting aren't conducive to D&D, at least not without more house-ruling than I've got time for at the moment. However, I am still growing and detailing the setting's regions and their people, and the associated cultures, languages, and histories thereof. It's largely just a hobby at the moment, but there's always the possibility of giving fantasy novel writing a shot using that material later....
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...impressed you remember
Yeah, not sure if it's a blessing or a curse; some things I oddly remember frighteningly well (like, you were a grad student at U Tenn in the Natural Sciences), while some things (sorry, no examples) I have no memory of.
I can remember locker combinations and phone numbers from my childhood, can piece together entire conversations from years ago. But can't, for the life of me remember Tammy's last name (and we were really hot together).
Go figure.
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Yojimbi by Akira Kurosawa and please dont think its an anime.....anywhoo
I love the whole Red Dragon enslaving Hobgoblins. Now Hobgoblins are my favorite antagonists. They are very lawful and very organized. Now Im throwing this out there but what if the Hobgoblins being an enslaved race build a societal structure based on the blind devotion to their new leaders. They even as slaves would seek to bring order to whatever society they lived in so after a generation or three of being slaves they might follow the Dragons with a blind ferocity and fervor. I hate to compare it but look at Italy with Mussolini at the helm or facist Germany. This would also leave you with a large number of returning baddies to plauge your game. It could be some fun. Just some suggestions mate.
Cheers,
-V-