New Campaign Goal

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In article <Ms-dnekHKaTkrqzeRVn-hA@comcast.com>, autockr@comcast.net
says...

> I'm looking for our next great campaign goal, and was wondering if people
> would mind spilling the beans about their current campaign goals. Just "in
> a nutshell" type of stuff.
>
> EG: A recent campaign goal we had: Prevent an evil megalomaniac from
> destroying a nation in his bid for immortality.
>
> So, anyone care to share the basics of their campaign?

The campaign I finished this summer: stop the shade invasion of Faerun
that is backed by a deicidal goddess.


--
Jasin Zujovic
jzujovic@inet.hr

Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.dnd (More info?)

Jeff Goslin <autockr@comcast.net> wrote:
> I'm looking for our next great campaign goal, and was wondering if
> people would mind spilling the beans about their current campaign
> goals. Just "in a nutshell" type of stuff.

My players have just set off on a world tour. They were working as
auxiliaries in a Roman

• legion, until the Rhine froze over and hordes

of hungry barbarians shattered the local imperial forces. (The PCs were
on river watch that day.) They helped the local villagers get through
the initial onslaught, then investigated a dwarven research lab that had
been breached by the barbarians. They discovered that the dwarves are
developing warforged and that some dwarves worship mind flayers and
nasty Egyptian gods.

In this campaign, elans are descended from a group of Tibetan Buddhists
who learned to implant illithid larvae without suffering the usual ill
effects. My wife is playing an elan, mentioned that she might like to
visit Tibet, and the other players thought it was a great idea. So now
they're working their way around the world, leaving the Empire behind
until things settle down a bit. On their way to Africa, they learned
that barbarians are enlisting evil dragons to fight the imperials, and
the dwarves are fighting back with devils.

They'll probably reach Tunis next session and Egypt the session after,
unless they take a side trip through the Sahara and the Congo to visit
the elemental plane of fire (which lies just south of Africa). Either
way, there'll be lots of psionic wackiness; githzerai in Numidia,
githyanki in Egypt, and yuan-ti in the Congo if they go that far south.

After that, I expect them to head through Arabia, Persia, and India
before finally arriving in Tibet. Dunno where they'll go from there;
maybe press onward to Cathay and head back along the silk road, or maybe
follow the great disc all the way around to Russia, Scandinavia, and
back to the Rhine.

• The "Romans" are actually dwarves.

--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

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> So, anyone care to share the basics of their campaign?
>
Several campaigns (some never-finished, etc.)

1. Save a race of good dragons from extinction

2. Destroy a powerful teleport nexus that could drop an army on the village
doorstep

3. Fight to topple an evil orcish empire

4. Fulfill elements of a prophecy ... whose importance is not yet known

5. Return home and live a quiet life after having been invaded and turned
into refugees

6. Stop a dreadful psychic disease near a famous volcano


Spinner

Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.dnd (More info?)

This campaign never got off the ground, but here goes.

1. Make your way to the magic shield. Nothing may pass through the
shield, so camp there until it disappears (it's been there for
centuries, but it will fail soon)
2. Race to the center of the shielded area, to retrieve the artifact
that creates the sheild.
3a. Fight your way back home, artifact in tow.
3b. Oops, you lost the race. Fight your way to the artifact. then
go to 3a.
4. Realise the artifact is powered by super-rare gemstones, go find
some.
5. Realise artifact was, in fact, protecting your world from an
invasion of nasties.
6. Fight your way back to the invasion point, with the artifact and
the giant gemstone.
7. Replace the artifact and the (new) gemstone. This is likely to
be a suicide mission, since once the gemstone is in place, you're
trapped inside the shield. Epic level sacrifice and RP opportunity.

The artifact in question was powered by gems, with the largest gem in
it determining the size of the shield, and the total value of gems
determining the lenght of time the shield would function. To get a
1,000 year reprieve from invasion, you needed to find a huge gem of
huge value. on the other hand, If you just wanted to protect your
local city for a few days, a handful of large diamonds would do the
trick. Also, while powered, the artifact was complete immovable, which
is why you can't just turn it on and walk home with it. On the other
hand, resting while you had it was easy, once you knew what value worth
of gems would protect you for 8 hours. No need for guards.

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"Jeff Goslin" <autockr@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:Ms-dnekHKaTkrqzeRVn-hA@comcast.com...
> I'm looking for our next great campaign goal, and was wondering if
> people
> would mind spilling the beans about their current campaign goals.
> Just "in
> a nutshell" type of stuff.
>
> EG: A recent campaign goal we had: Prevent an evil megalomaniac
> from
> destroying a nation in his bid for immortality.
>
> So, anyone care to share the basics of their campaign?
>
> --
> Jeff Goslin - MCSD - www.goslin.info
> It's not a god complex when you're always right

Two worlds came together through the use of a portal system.

One where teh standard PHB gods ruled, and the other my campaign world
where the entire pantheon is constructed.

The God of death, had stepped down, in my world as he found a way to a
place where he could gain more followers, and more power.
This place was a third world not mentioned. So it, left a vaccum in my
pantheon for a god of death.

A young follower of Nether, the current but "retired" god of death,
Lady Sanguine Frostkill, halfling cleric of Nether found a way to
become an God.
And Nether even blessed her, which would have allowed her to take his
place, if she could finish the ritual of immortality.

In a previous campaign arc, we played the players had a hand in
unleashing an Elder Mind Flayer God. Yes, the Illithid have gods, but
only one god
and he was trapped deep within a prison constructed to keep him, and
psionic abilities from the world.

Anyway, the EMFG decided since he was pissed to have his followers
kidnap the girl, and take her to the other world.

Somehow they failed, and she ended up in an unknown place.

The players from the other world were having problems of their own,
several hidden shrines, and temples to Nurell had been discovered
when a few seemingly impossible to destroy undead began to pour out of
them, striking at the hearts of towns, cities, and castles.

The players did their work and located the shrines, and got rid of the
dead that they could destroy, but one and only one of them find a clue
to what was really going on.
A Yaun-ti cleric of the Reaper, had been captured, and she was
screaming about how he had abandoned her, how the reaper would not
answer any of their prayers
and how the dead they had controled for so long were breaking free.

With that in mind, they delved further, and found that each of the
"unstoppable" undead had strange runes carved into their bones, over
the marks of the Reaper.

It seemed someone else was exerting control over the Reaper's pawns.
So the Reaper sent his "children" 3 aspects of him, The Murderer, The
Jester, and tThe Darkness to my world
to hunt for this "invader" in the process the players followed in
hopes to stop them, find this "Godling" and get her to ascend. In
addition they all had to deal with the EMFG and his minions.

We stopped the game just shortly after their arrived in my world, and
had a face to face battle with THe Murderer, they found one half of a
series of books needed to attain godhood in my world, and a few
daggers that were also needed in the ritual, and in the end The
Murderer (a mortal aspect of the Reaper) was executed for his crimes
against both worlds, (A killing spree that was no less than 700 people
in a weeks time, he lived up to his name)

Still to come, if we ever get the time, is to locate the second half
of the books, the "Godling" and find out what mess the Jester and
Darkness have made of the surrounding lands while they were dealing
with The Murderer.

This was setup as a way to link both worlds, so both DMs might have a
chance to share responsibilty for a single group of characters,
switching off between adventures to allow for less DM burn out, plus
it was giving me a chance to test out some of my campaign stuff.

Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.dnd (More info?)

Jeff Goslin wrote:
> I'm looking for our next great campaign goal, and was wondering if people
> would mind spilling the beans about their current campaign goals. Just "in
> a nutshell" type of stuff.
>
> EG: A recent campaign goal we had: Prevent an evil megalomaniac from
> destroying a nation in his bid for immortality.
>
> So, anyone care to share the basics of their campaign?

Current campaign I am playing in began with the premise that the god
were all dead, but had existed at one time. There was a godwar, the
evil gods won, but in a Dark Crystal like moment of revelation they
realized that with the good gods all gone they themselves were fading
from existence. Twilight of the gods.

When the game started, there were no clerics, only druids. As time
progressed, we began to discover mysterious giant pearls (about 6 inch
diameter) of varied colors (black, yellow, green, and white so far).
These pearls apparently are something akin to "godseeds" that contain a
spark of the dead gods within. They are awakening, and when touched
they will bond with whoever touches them. If the bond is fully accepted
by the touching mortal, the godseed merges with them and they are
altered (may rewrite entire character, swapping around stats and taking
cleric levels if desired).

So far most of the pearls have been evil-aligned, and no one has bonded
with them (black appeared to be a death-god, yellow a disease-god). The
green pearl was a nature-god, and the party druid bonded with it and
altered to become a cleric. The white pearl we don't know much about
but most of us feel it to be "good".

Druids are a powerful faction in the world and at the campaign start we
were working for the top druid on the continent, investigating these
pearls and bringing them to him to study. Some time into the campaign,
this druid was killed in ritual combat by a rival half-orc druid who
took his place as head of the druidic order. He retained our services
but seemed like a surly bastard to begin with (my character, Krass the
chainfighting "tiefling", got along OK with him by some nice diplomacy
rolls and a bout of drinking Orc Kragg). He has been using his power in
the druidic order to move troops of orcs from his homeland into
different areas of the civilized lands to help "quell unrest", and our
suspicions are that he has been planting orc armies in to prepare for an
invasion of the civilized lands. Those who question his motives keep
disappearing, though. Funny, that.

The ghost of the old druid came to us and told us that he had been
poisoned by the half-orc prior to combat, which was a breach of the
rules. He also revealed that the half-orc has seized his old collection
of pearls, and is searching for the others so he can either bond with
them or get his cronies to bond with them. We also learned that we are
now on the half-orc's "Wanted" list, and are being hunted/searched for.
So, we've been avoiding the local druids for the most part and more or
less working towards the end of getting pearls before the half-orc does,
evidently building up to a final conflict between him and his cronies
and ourselves.

- Ron ^*^

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Jeff Goslin wrote:

> I'm looking for our next great campaign goal, and was wondering if people
> would mind spilling the beans about their current campaign goals. Just "in
> a nutshell" type of stuff.
> So, anyone care to share the basics of their campaign?

Eberron: From the Wayfinder Foundation in Sharn, Rescue a House
Lyrandar Dragonmarked Heir leading another party whose airship
went down in Xen'drik.

Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.dnd (More info?)

Jeff Goslin wrote:

> I'm looking for our next great campaign goal, and was wondering if people
> would mind spilling the beans about their current campaign goals. Just "in
> a nutshell" type of stuff.
>
> EG: A recent campaign goal we had: Prevent an evil megalomaniac from
> destroying a nation in his bid for immortality.
>
> So, anyone care to share the basics of their campaign?

Player’s Introduction – Eberron 3.5 Game
The Wayfinder Foundation
"The Elder of House Lyrandar"

FADE IN:
INT. CITY OF SHARN, BEYLISK TOWER, THE WAYFINDER FOUNDATION
- NIGHT

A small illuminated crystal sphere is delivered by messenger to
the players while they are seated around a conference table having
a smoke and glass of wine after a sumptuous dinner. As the players
look on, the sphere glows and swirls with color... soon the colors
are reflected on the walls of this library-like conference hall,
and the players find themselves drawn to look into the sphere.
Suddenly, a brilliant flash of light fugues into the room, coming
from everywhere at once it would seem, and when the player's eyes
adjust to the brilliant sunlight, they find themselves on:

SMASH CUT TO:

EXT. A LANDING PLATFORM IN THE MIDST OF A VAST AERIAL SHIPYARD
- DAY

The steady, strong wind, and sudden apparent change of altitude
leave the players gasping in the cold fresh air as they survey the
scene around them. The walls of Beylisk Tower have melted away,
and night has been replaced with day. In the bright morning
light, they look around and see a host of airships of various
sizes and makes, all moored to various landing platforms. In the
background, a score of House Lyrander airships take off, land, and
flit into and out of view, coming and going, climbing, and diving,
and gently approaching this anchorage. The enormous aerial
shipyard and port is nestled within the vast confines of towering
cumulonimbus clouds that dwarf the facility.

The player's eyes are drawn to an approaching aged elderly
half-elf tottering in the wind, with his long hair blown awry,
being escorted by a younger half-elf artificier. Two warforged
guardians stand watch in the background, at the foot of a
gangplank leading to a small House Lyrander fastboat. The elderly
half-elf shuffles until he is standing at the head of your
conference table. He waves his hand in an intricate circular
pattern and then points at the crystal sphere.

A House Lyrander airship... Burning... Spiraling downward in
lazy circles. A terrible crash into a jungle glade.

The aged half-elf wobbles, then Gul Dir' Tannith touches the table
lightly to balance himself and speaks to you:

GUL DIR' TANNITH
I saw this yesterday. And this morning, I hope it was all a dream.
(choking)
Help me find my son...

FADE TO:
EXT. A LANDING PLATFORM IN THE MIDST OF A VAST AERIAL SHIPYARD
(CONTINUOUS)

The young artificier, Gul Dan' Tannith is holding the sobbing
elderly half-elf.

GUL DAN' TANNITH
When I first heard... I didn't believe it was true. Perhaps it is
a trick... to lure us away from Cloudcroft...
(he frowns)

GUL DAN' TANNITH (CONT'D)
My brother was on that ship, it is the exploration vessel
Windshard. Had a crew of seventy-three, and included a party of
explorers. We sent her to Xendria, in search of a legendary
dragonshard deposit.

GUL DAN' TANNITH (CONT'D)
We pay top rates in gold, of course... and there is a 20% salvage
commission in it for you, if you can bring back the Windshard...
more important though is my elder brother Ann Tir' Tannith,
Dragonmarked Heir of House Lyrandar. Find him alive, and return
him safely to Sharn, and the fastboat, Spindrift, that has already
been dispatched to carry you to Xendria, is yours... as well as
the gratitude of House Lyrandar.

GUL DAN' TANNITH (CONT'D)
You come highly recommended from Lord Boroman ir' Dayne. We have
arranged a letter of credit in the amount of 5,000 gold sovereigns
as an advance for your wages and to equip for your recovery
expedition. When you are ready, you can contact us with the
crystal. The Spindrift will arrive at the uppermost landing
platform of Beylisk Tower the day after tomorrow. Be ready to
depart then. Thank you. Thank you all, and may the Sovereign Host
watch over you.

SMASH CUT TO:
INT: CITY OF SHARN, BEYLISK TOWER, THE WAYFINDER FOUNDATION
- NIGHT
The small illuminated sphere pulses softly with a glow as you
suddenly find yourselves back in the Wayfinder Foundation
conference room. It seems like a tiny place, even though this vast
hall is home to more than 100 intrepid adventurers who trek to the
remote regions of Eberron on various quests and journeys for
honor, knowledge, fortune, and glory...

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Jeff Goslin wrote:
>
> So, anyone care to share the basics of their campaign?

The Eberron game I'd like to run:

The heroes are among the last veterans of the Last War - they were
recruited/conscripted/constructed late in the game, and fought until the
armistice. They may not have fought on the same side, but what they *do* have in
common is that they weren't fighting long enough to have become truly
embittered - merely to have been exposed to the bitterness of the veterans they
met when they were fresh meat themselves.

Ideally there would be at least one warforged in the party, and one former
citizen of Cyre.

The campaign would revolve around both the players characters' personal goals
and the schemes of the Lord of Blades - I wouldn't run the Eberron adventure
path, but I would take some inspiration from it and from the Eberron adventures
in Dungeon Magazine for the character and attitude of the Lord of Blades'
minions.

An example of a random subplot: The warforged in the party is friendly with
Steel (random name), an NPC warforged active in the cause of "warforged welfare"
in Sharn. Steel is secretly an agent of and recruiter for the Lord of Blades,
and hires the PC warforged and his friends to investigate the "kidnapping" and
"brainwashing" of Rivet (another random name), a well-respected member of the
constructs' community.

Rivet has actually been successfully proselytised by the cult of the Blood of
Vol; searching for meaning in warforged existence, he's found himself attracted
to the idea that he can have a purpose in life by helping the mortal races find
salvation from death by spreading the Blood of Vol's teachings. Rivet seeks
acceptance from the flesh races, and lacks the understanding of the "mortal
experience" necessary to appreciating why the Blood of Vol is so controversial
outside of Karrnath.

As far as Steel is concerned, however, Rivet must be extracted - or, if
necessary, killed - because just prior to his disappearing into the Blood of
Vol's clutches, he had almost been converted to the service of the Lord of
Blades. Thinking he was a sure thing, Steel had spoken to Rivet of secret plans
and schemes against the kingdom of Breland that should not have been revealed,
and he's now fearful of his master's retribution should it be discovered what
Rivet knows. Meanwhile, Rivet's spiritual mentor in the Blood of Vol has just
become aware of what the new convert knows, and has informed the Emerald Claw of
this new resource . . .

In the long term, the party would come to grips with the threat posed to Breland
and the rest of Khorvaire by the Lord of Blades and his nascent warforged
nation. Perhaps I would steal from "Star Trek: The Next Generation", and have a
group of disaffected former followers of the Lord of Blades lurking in the
Mournland as potential allies of the PCs. In the two-part episode "Descent", the
rebels were Borg who had been mutilated by Data's brother Lore in his quest for
a way to make the Borg fully artificial; their warforged analogues could have
been similarly damaged by the Lord of Blades' attempts at improvement (and
resentful that he only seeks to "upgrade" himself when the process is perfected,
casting them aside) or perhaps warped by unforeseen effects of the Mournland
upon the warforged (what, am I borrowing from Lex Luthor getting cancer from his
kryptonite ring, thinking its radiation didn't harm humans because there were no
observable short-term effects, now?).

The climax of the campaign would be the defeat of the Lord of Blades. This could
as easily be a shattering of his power and a loss of his following as it could
be his destruction, however; an ideal resolution would see the party negotiating
some sort of safe haven outside of the Mournland for those warforged who still
seek a nation of their own (if the Mournland is the cause of the damage done to
the warforged rebels), or international recognition of the warforged
settlement's sovereignty (fun with Cyran avengers, yay!).

--
Christopher Adams - Sydney, Australia

SERENITY - The Future Is Worth Fighting For

http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/mh [...] slist.html
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/mh [...] elist.html

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Not necessarily. They might be hearing about two bands of
orcs/gnolls/trolls/bugbears/giants/duerro that were previously at each
others throats, but who have laid down arms and raided a local village.
That could reveal a clue or two.

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Spinner wrote:
>>> Any chance they'll discover America? Or ... umm ... Canada?

Bradd wrote:
>> That's unlikely, since the world map looks like this:
>> http://www.route66ad.com/images/roman_map.jpg

Spinner wrote:
> Cool. 'D'you make that yourself?

No. It's a facsimile of a Roman map that you can find in a few different
versions and places online. I created my own (huge) version on a
flip-chart sheet.

> Of course, that's what the players *think* the world looks like... right?

No. The world is a disc about 2,500 miles across. It borders on the
elemental plane of fire to the south, water to the west, and air to the
north.
--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.dnd (More info?)

>> > That's unlikely, since the world map looks like this:
>> > http://www.route66ad.com/images/roman_map.jpg
>>
>> Of course, that's what the players *think* the world looks like... right?
>
> why would you think that?
>
'Cause my poor narrow brain can't possibly conceive of the concept of an
actual flat world with actual historical lands not in their actual
historical places?

Stick.

Spinner

Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.dnd (More info?)

Bradd wrote:
>> [Regarding <http://www.route66ad.com/images/roman_map.jpg>:]
>> It's a facsimile of a Roman map that you can find in a few different
>> versions and places online. I created my own (huge) version on a
>> flip-chart sheet.

Spinner wrote:
> Lovely!

Yeah, that's worked out well. It offers plenty of room to record names
of kingdoms/provinces, major cities, rivers, and dominant races. Very
helpful given our current campaign direction (world tour).

>>> Of course, that's what the players *think* the world looks like... right?

>> No. The world is a disc about 2,500 miles across. It borders on the
>> elemental plane of fire to the south, water to the west, and air to the
>> north.

> Couldn't afford earth, eh?

The elemental plane of earth is under the topsoil. There's a bit of
disagreement about what's under that. Some folks think there's a big
turtle holding it all up, or maybe an elephant. The hobgoblins and elves
believe that there's an underworld, but the dwarves insist that Pluto's
realm is actually to the west, beyond the plane of water. So far, the
gods aren't telling, and nobody can teleport far enough to discover the
truth.
--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.dnd (More info?)

Telendil Silverleaf drückte sich sehr genau aus :
> I dropped my characters in a universe where the dark god, Morgaur, had
> defeated the forces of good. To maintain his iron-fisted grip on the
> planet, he established a "Serve or Die" policy: his psychic mages would
> detect powerful magic users and hunt them down, then give them a
> choice. They could serve the dark god or die. Lots of mages died. Those
> that remain live in secrecy, and have generally fled to the furthest
> reaches of the continent, in an effort to escape the probing eyes of
> the psychic mages.

Urgl, sound like Star Wars.

>
> There was, however, the Resistance. This secretive group (much like the
> Rebels in Star Wars) were fighting Morgaur's armies with everything
> they had, from hidden lairs scattered throughout the continent.

Yeah, right.

"I am a Jedi, feel the force, ladies!"
or
"Dark the other side is, Dark it is - Yoda, stop complaining and eat
your toast"

>
> The party's goal was to find a Resistance cell, join them (which
> required earning their trust), and help to find a way to wrest control
> of the planet from a dark god whose only goal was to subjugate every
> living creature to his will.

Well, I would once like to be in a group of evil people who have to
overthrow a good god/ruler.
That would be fun ;-)

--
Yes, Yes, more of the DnD flavor.
MC Beholder on the mike, DJ Mindflayer kicking it massive

Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.dnd (More info?)

Jasin Zujovic wrote:
> Heh, I've recently had exactly the same idea: pseudo-historical D&D
> with an Old World map, bounded by elemental planes. Well, not exactly
> the same, since I did imagine the Elemental Plane of Earth being on
> the far East, but close enough .... Could you be persuaded to tell us
> more about the campaign world (perhaps in a new thread)?

Sure. I'll start a new thread.
--
Bradd W. Szonye
http://www.szonye.com/bradd

Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.dnd (More info?)

Jeff Goslin <autockr@comcast.net> wrote:
> I'm looking for our next great campaign goal, and was wondering if people
> would mind spilling the beans about their current campaign goals. Just "in
> a nutshell" type of stuff.
>
> EG: A recent campaign goal we had: Prevent an evil megalomaniac from
> destroying a nation in his bid for immortality.
>
> So, anyone care to share the basics of their campaign?

A few plots that satisfied moderately long campaigns/scenarios:

Despite appearances, dragons aren't a *major* theme I usually use... but
two of the more interesting campaigns I ran did make use of them.


Dragon Lords

The gods created the world and left dragons as caretakers of the
world. Each Law (major facet of reality) is governed by dragons of
a particular Court, which is ruled by a dragon of that type.

I got rid of draconic color-coding and gave them abilities related
to the Law embodied -- Sun dragons, Storm dragons, Magic dragons,
Sea dragons, Beast dragons, etc. All dragons start off as little
more than animals (low intelligence, etc.), and are in fact
considered beasts rather than dragons. This is important.

It was possible for a Lord to be challenged and defeated by another
dragon. This led to changes in the Law governed by that Court --
when the Lady of Magic took over, magic *changed*.

A particularly competent human found and killed the Lord of Beasts
(unknowingly, at that). The power was transferred to the human
(who, uh, popped) and the power was catastrophically released. This
caused a backlash that destroyed the minds of the Court -- there are
no Beast dragons powerful enough to gather and control the power
left.

Now, similar things have happened in the past. These caused major
changes in the world, but after a couple of centuries a dragon
matured and gained control of the Law and reestablished the Court.

However, since in this case the *Beast Law* is broken, immature
dragons are... not growing right. New races, bestial races, are
coming into existance. This has the potential to destroy the world
itself as the Laws unravel (dragons don't mature correctly, the
Courts may eventually disappear as dragons to populate them stop
being created, other Laws are affected, etc.)

Into this mess the PCs show up. They gradually discovered enough
about what happened to have an idea how to reestablish the Court and
govern the Law again. (Basically, find enough of the macguffins to
gather the power in one place and assume the mantle of Lord, while
trying to stop others from doing the same thing for selfish
reasons.)

This one petered out after discovering what needed to be done and
starting to do it.


Dragonward

The first story arc was that a nobleman -- a collector of
antiquities -- has acquired a large stone with strange runes on it.
His team of troubleshooters[1] were sent to the capitol to visit a
relative at the University of Ter Liatri who might be able to
provide some insight into what the stone was.

The stone was deemed to be dwarvish, so off they went to the dwarven
kingdoms. Turns out it was a Mountainheart, used in establishing
the Dragonward[2]... it appears someone had removed it, possibly
leading to the Dragonward failing and allowing the dragons back into
the Empire.

So, various running around gathering information needed to place the
stone back where it belonged, lots of travel in the northlands
(dodging dragons[3] and a burgeoning orc horde... led by the
half-brother of one of the PCs and set on pillaging the Empire --
setup for the next story arc). Found the place, replaced the stone,
returned to the Empire.

[1] in the Paranoia sense, in fact... they'd recently returned from a
six-month trip to the southern continent because of a... mishap
while performing a task for him. He concluded they were unsuitable
for subtle tasks after that.

[2] 1800+ years ago, some Great Heroes 'chased the dragons out'. The
dwarven Runemasters then created this barrier across the entire
northern mountain range to keep them there. The populace of the
Empire, and even most dwarves, know nothing about this barrier,
though there are still plays and religious demonstrations about the
Great Heroes and their defeat of the dragons.

[3] Many (most?) of the predatory niches in the northlands were taken
over by dragons of various types. I modeled this by liberal use of
the half-dragon template. The 'mountain lion' niche was filled by a
half-dragon mountain lion, etc., but all were considered dragons.


Trollskov

After the Dragonward, the PCs were sent to Trollskov to help track
down a murderer... who turned out to be a nobleman possessed by a
powerful (discorporated) outsider who wanted to create a new body
for itself and needed a bunch of hearts (39 hearts collected 1/week
-- 3 * 13 * 7 days, basically, which explains how the Hergrav of
Trollskov had time to send to his friend, the PCs' employer, for
help) for the ritual.

Long and short, the PCs got there, managed to figure out what was
really happening (there were political and practical reasons the
Hergrav's men couldn't do it), find the (now dispossessed) nobleman
and find out what was *really* happening. (They'd thought up to
this point it was just a crazed nobleman who murdered on a weekly
basis and was collecting hearts for some weird reason.)

Then, beat feet to the top of the tower to try to prevent the ritual
from succeeding... which they sort of did[4], at the cost of most of
the house. Explosives are fun, aren't they?

Then hang around Trollskov for a while, since the passes were all
snowed in, get hired to fetch a staff from a tower, etc. This is
about where things left off.

[4] the Huntress had 'originally most recently' (she's been around for
centuries, but for the purposes of this scenario 'originally') the
nobleman because he could be out and about (women in Trollskov are
kept quite sheltered -- at least among the nobility). It was while
possesssing him that the murders were performed and the hearts
acquired. She needed to be in a female body to perform the ritual
so she used the nobleman's sister for that purpose. The PCs showed
up after the new form burst from the woman's body and eventually
managed to force the Huntress to discorporate again.


Keith
--
Keith Davies "Always code as if the guy who ends up
keith.davies@kjdavies.org maintaining your code is a psychopath
keith.davies@gmail.com who knows where you live."
http://www.kjdavies.org/ -- Damian Conway