Hi!
I'm starting a 3rd level campaign, and I want to start it off by having the PCs wake up with steampunk modifications made to their bodies, a hazy memory of the past year or so, and an evil cabal after them.
The campaign will take place in the Angel Lands, a series of flying islands that circle the Maelstrom of the Abyss (an endless ocean filled with Cthulueque monstrosities) under the Vault of Heaven (a celestial sea). There are 13 main flying islands, each ruled or revering an irregular angel--a monster of some kind with 4 limbs and a pair of wings, like a dragon, sphinx, harpy, gargoyle, imp, faerie, etc. etc.
How should I re-skin the villains of the Azure Bond novel? They were a thieves guild, a witch, her former lover and lich, a dead god of rot, and weird seductive demon.
The PCs will be either a magus or halfling sorcerer, some kind elemental rogue-cleric archer type, and a tank of some kind.
I haven't read the book - all my information comes from the cRPG game by SSI so some things might be somewhat different.
The campaign will take place in the Angel Lands, a series of flying islands that circle the Maelstrom of the Abyss (an endless ocean filled with Cthulueque monstrosities) under the Vault of Heaven (a celestial sea). There are 13 main flying islands, each ruled or revering an irregular angel--a monster of some kind with 4 limbs and a pair of wings, like a dragon, sphinx, harpy, gargoyle, imp, faerie, etc. etc.
How should I re-skin the villains of the Azure Bond novel? They were a thieves guild, a witch, her former lover and lich, a dead god of rot, and weird seductive demon.
Moander could be rot-aspected cthulesque monstrosity from the Maelstrom, weird seductive demon could be actually fallen celestial from the Vault Of Heaven, thieves guild and witch can be thieves guild and a witch, while lich can be biomechanical undead that is animated by aforementioned steampunk technology.
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Hi!
I'm starting a 3rd level campaign, and I want to start it off by having the PCs wake up with steampunk modifications made to their bodies, a hazy memory of the past year or so, and an evil cabal after them.The campaign will take place in the Angel Lands, a series of flying islands that circle the Maelstrom of the Abyss (an endless ocean filled with Cthulueque monstrosities) under the Vault of Heaven (a celestial sea). There are 13 main flying islands, each ruled or revering an irregular angel--a monster of some kind with 4 limbs and a pair of wings, like a dragon, sphinx, harpy, gargoyle, imp, faerie, etc. etc.
How should I re-skin the villains of the Azure Bond novel? They were a thieves guild, a witch, her former lover and lich, a dead god of rot, and weird seductive demon.
The PCs will be either a magus or halfling sorcerer, some kind elemental rogue-cleric archer type, and a tank of some kind.
If you have access to the Monsternomicon (published by Privateer Press for the Iron Kingdoms setting) there's a wealth of creatures and lore useful for your project. If you don't, I think that the PDF is still sold somewhere.
The Iron Lich would make a great BBEG, steampunk and necromancy and everything else.I'd give a personal twist to some other elements, rather than just importing them straight out the original versions: the dead god of rot could become an undead god, petty and full of resentment (a kind of Atropal being), the seductive demon could become a corrupting and manipulating Glabrezu that shuns its menacing form, and so on.
The witch could be a... witch (APG + UM, full speed) and for the thieves guild I think there's a nice article in an issue of the Council of Thieves AP.
If you want to add a touch of blasphemous horror to the campaign, Chaositech by Malhavoc Press has some nice disgusting ideas on steampunk-like body modifications.
I was thinking of having a cabal of alchemists, or maybe an alchemical lich? The cult of "Moander" can be made up of inquisitors and weird oracles. Maybe replace the thieves with ninjas?
I was thinking of having a cabal of alchemists, or maybe an alchemical lich? The cult of "Moander" can be made up of inquisitors and weird oracles. Maybe replace the thieves with ninjas?
Wait. Steampunk... Floating islands... Flying airships... Fire Knives be Sky Pirates! Yarrrr!
Alchemical Lich is interesting option. But also think of the following option: keep Iron Lich with his mechanicaly augmented undead servants (again Iron Kingdoms Monsternomicon I & II could be great) and turn cult of Moander into cabal of alchemists? They would distill their vile connoctions from ichor and other unholy fluids drawn from the slumbering body of their rotting deity? And the aerial island they would control would be overgrown with freakish fungoid jungle.
And Inquisitors and weird Oracles could be servants of the fiend possing as (or maybe aspiring to become) deity.
Sky Pirates! They're a classic for a reason!
I'll also need replacements for Mist, Finder, Elminster, and Sage 1 (I just remembered I lent my copy of Azure Bonds to a friend. I hope!)
Sky Pirates! They're a classic for a reason!
I'll also need replacements for Mist, Finder, Elminster, and Sage 1 (I just remembered I lent my copy of Azure Bonds to a friend. I hope!)
Elminster: Beard, pipe. I'd say that he'd be veteran sky sailor-mage (weither wizard or arcane sorcerer). Add him a parrot as a familiar.
Finder: I know little of him, except he is former Harper that became one of the youngest gods of Faerun. Somehow I have that feeling that he was bard in life. And with those sky pirates I envisioned him as Orland Bloom's character from Pirates Of The Caribbean...
I'm thinking of making their "mysterious origins" be that they are from a cosmopolitan, steampunkish, noir-ish, city of the dead and dreaming. There is a huge backlog in the Courts of Judgement of the Dead, so souls have been piling up for centuries, and they often interact with the dreaming and other denizens of the beyond.
I'm designing some new PC races. One is the sandman, which are ancient constructs from millenia ago. Another are the redcaps, which are a native fungus race of capricious goblin dwarves.
OK, finished our 2nd session today. The PCs are a redcap astal marauder fighter (homebrew teleporting fighter archetype) that uses a glaive, a bastard sword-wielding revenant magus, and a sandman rogue/cleric archer.
I think this will be a relatively short-lived campaign.
The PCs just escaped from a floating aerial prison with weird alchemical and clockwork denizens. It seems like it's been left in abeyance for a while, with skeletal alchemists left in charge of clockwork "penny dreadfuls," crawling claws, swarms of rats, and a hungry owlbear.
The PCs escaped on a clockwork butterfly, flyig high above the vast Abyssal Ocean, along the outskirts of the Angel Lands, flying islands orbiting the Maelstrom.
So, where should they end up? I want someplace fairly friendly, where they can earn some coin, discover the sinister aspects of their steampunk bodyworks, and get a lead on the mysterious consipracy that brought them together.
I think I might limit it to 3 evil masters, at least one of which will be a fomorian (a one-eyed cthonic race from the depths of the abyssal ocean), possibly a cult of aberration worshipers, and I don't know what else. Sky Pirates? Some kind of cabal of evil alchemists?
I want to lead them to Down Town, my worlds-spanning City of the Judgement of the Dead....and Dreaming....
I read that novel oh so long ago and loved it, twas great.... can I play in your campaign?
*Puppy eyes* Pweeeese?
I read that novel oh so long ago and loved it, twas great.... can I play in your campaign?
*Puppy eyes* Pweeeese?
I've read it so many times, I've had to tape the cover back on it. I think I may read it again once I'm done with "Betrayer" by CJ Cherryh.
I've read it so many times, I've had to tape the cover back on it. I think I may read it again once I'm done with "Betrayer" by CJ Cherryh.I read that novel oh so long ago and loved it, twas great.... can I play in your campaign?
*Puppy eyes* Pweeeese?
I lost it at some point, I also went looking around for the rest of the series but never did find them.
The 2nd was good, but focused mostly on Giogi and Olive. The 3rd kind of tried to put too much in, so it dealt with the characters kind of shallowly. Masquarades was good, as was Finder's Bane (PLANESCAPE!).
How is your campaign going? Have you started it yet?
We had 2 sessions aleady. They went pretty well. I made some low-level clockwork costructs that probably need to be tweaked a bit. I think I want to make a "clockwork" template or sub-type or something. Something that can be applied to constructs, and allow Disable Device to be used against them to de-activate them.
One problem is I have 1 PC with horrible dice luck and 1 PC with amazing dice luck, so things are a bit swingy. The 3rd PC seems to have streaks of good AND bad luck.
The PCs woke up covered in spider webs and dust. The ratty brown and gray carpet of the barracks they were in turned out to be actual rat swarms! But they were able to use Acrobatics to get over the rats to their equipment, equip, and deal with the situation. They found a dressing room and privy, and light came out of the comode---it was open to the air, and the rooms were a mile or more in the air over the sea!!!!
They managed to escape the barracks area of the dungeon, and ended up in a central pair of chambers filled with "penny dreadfuls," Small copper constructs wielding sword and shield, with horrible faces on their copper shields. It was a long drawn out battle, but the PCs prevailed.
They managed to escape the barracks area of the dungeon, and ended up in a central pair of chambers filled with "penny dreadfuls," Small copper constructs wielding sword and shield, with horrible faces on their copper shields. It was a long drawn out battle, but the PCs prevailed.
Do you plan on posting stats of those constructs later?
I got my own for posting when I should be sleeping: only by rereading your post from monday my brain received information that you already told us about first two sessions :(
I might. I need to tweak the stats a bit.
Anyways, the big central double chamber has 6 doors leading off it. The southernmost growled at them, and the NW and NE had light coming from under them (blueish to NW, reddish to NE), so they went thru the NE door, and it was a big L-shaped room filled with tables filled with alchemical equipment. Also, 4 skeletal alchemists who spoke in elvish about some kind of "Papa Lion"; 2 fell back around the corner to buff, and 2 attacked! The fight was one of those long drawn out fights that ran through several rooms; the quasi-undead PC magus actually got so desperate for hit points, he drank something out of one of the cauldrons boiling on one of the tables! And it worked, which was good, since he then got a couple of critical hits--and the poor PC redcap fighter was struggling to roll double digits on his d20--and failing!
One of the chambers the skeletal alchemists fled to was filled with a dozen crawling claws. They were nice and easy to dispatch.
The PCs searched the bodies, raided the alchemist lab, and rested. They discovered a new alchemical material I had invented right on the spot: alchemical salt that prevents mindless undead from crossing it. That also protected them from another encounter with more crawling claws. They also discovered a butterfly-like key on one of the alchemists.
The refreshed PCs then finished exploring the dungeon complex, discovering a temple dedicated to the death and dream god the sandman rogue/cleric worships, complete with pool open to the sky below and magical altar that restores Channel Energy uses. They finally decided to go through the door with the growling behind it. It was a hangar with an owlbear in it, as well as a giant clockwork butterfly. They dispatched the owlbear with ease, then found pages from a manual on how to fly the 4-seater clockwork butterfly in the owlbear's nest.
The PCs used the butterfly key to wind up the clockwork butterfly (The Papillon--"Elven" (French) for butterfly) and flew away!
have you or any of your characters made campaign blog or site to read about it further?
have you or any of your characters made campaign blog or site to read about it further?
Nope. But we haven't played again since that session. I'm currently working on the sigils that are engraved on their clockwork and steam-powered bits. One is just an eye with a trident-like pupil, another is a cecaelia with her tentacles raised behind her like an angel's wings, and I have no idea what to do about the 3rd sigil. The Trident-Eye is for a band of fomorian sky pirates, the tentacle-angel is for a cult of a fallen god, and the third sigil is gonna be for a seductive halfling summoner. I'll probably need to come up with a 4th sigil for the hidden secret alchemist forced to create the PC's alterations.