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Lady Cassandra
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31# |
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(Date Posted:07/01/2005 00:14:01)
It's true, every campaign needs a recurring villain to keep things interesting. Ah yes, Redmund Erhart, the man we all loved to hate. Of course, we gave him plenty of reason to hate us back. From the first meeting, we were pretty sure that he was behind all sorts of nefariousness in the city and went out of our way to make his life heck. He happily returned the favor. As the lucky player who got to "deal with him" at the end, in the aforementioned battle atop the Wachturn, suffice it to say that he got the death he deserved.
And that reminds me, I still need to read through the boxed set and see what portions of the campaign came from the published material and what came out of Danar's fevered imagination.
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Black Jack Rackham
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32# |
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(Date Posted:07/01/2005 08:28:43)
A combination of disparate thoughts combined to come up with this interesting plot idea. I was looking at the background list (writing characters for my ongoing campaign) just after reading the NOM ebook. I got to thinking about the afyam addict background. Never really caught my fancy because of the monotonous nature of drug addiction. Need to get drug-have drug and using-get money for next hit-repeat as necessary.
But what about the afyam addict who wants to quit? Well it has potentially lethal consequences, but what would happen if the hero found out about a "scientist" who was proported to have a quick solution to the problem. However, it is revealed that this scientist, one Alvara Arceniega, is on the run from the Inquisition (alternately if you are running a campaign around 1670 he may have just retreated to his fortress in Sierra de Hierro). He must be found, and once that has been done, what price might he exact (either now or in the future) for the magic pill. Worse, what might be the effects of the "cure", especially if the afyam addict in question was a mage or even the child of one?
Even if the addict doesn't have much or anything that Alvara desires immediately, this could always lead to an introduction to the machinations of NOM...
Just to throw a monkey wrench (cause everyone loves monkeys...) in the above idea, what if, instead of any kind of meeting with Alvara, the hero in question has connections with any of the other 13 (perhaps one that the GM has added). Whether the NOM member likes or dislikes Alvara, internal machinations can then begin...
Mark
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"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid."
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Black Jack Rackham
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33# |
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(Date Posted:07/05/2005 18:12:06)
REBECCA YOU STAY OUT!!
Another background I had a lot of fun with was Romance. What I realized is that once a hero has added a dependent whom they are disposed to aid/rescue/tolerate, you can inflict any of the other backgrounds you would like to throw at them.
For example in my pirate campaign, one of the heroes has a romance. She's also VERY high maintenance. Worse, she has amnesia. Therefore, there are any number of people wanting to grab her but who don't bother to tell her (or him for that matter) who she is or why they are after her.
In reality, she is a minor Montaigne noble (Tamis specifically) who was betrothed to a powerful and very evil man (she watched him beat a servant to death just prior to meeting her for the first time). She ran away so she wouldn't have to be married when she boarded a ship that was attacked by pirates (not the heroes) who blew it to bits. It was during the explosion that she lost her memory.
Where this goes is that our hero and his lady love will come into contact with the betrothed (who is a captain of the L.E.B. (L'Empereur's Beteau) Chimera). During the fight, the heroes will lose (I'll make sure of that) whereupon the love interest will offer to accompany the betrothed in exchange for the heroes going free.
This begins the next surprise, remember she's from Tamis? So she's never known that she is a Porte mage as well. However, love for the hero will enable her to get him a message as to where the betrothed is taking her.
Then all the heroes have to do is race halfway across Montaigne, sneak into Tamis, fight the captain, rescue the girl and escape, all the while dealing with the beginnings of the Montaigne Revolution (specifically the killing of nobles, heh heh heh)
Hope this was helpful
Mark
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"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid."
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Black Jack Rackham
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34# |
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(Date Posted:07/05/2005 19:06:45)
REBECCA YOU STAY OUT!!
While we're on the topic of backgrounds and the cool things we can do with them, may I present the case of my Pyryem Mage with the hunted background? Oh sure, I've done the obligatory random strangers who want to kill you and Ussuran cooks with ungodly syrneth devices designed to smash you apart, but what about the Uber-badguy?
What if, instead of wanting you dead, he wants something from you? In my Pyryem hero's case, it is his brother who is hunting him (the hero is the younger brother and the older one, according to the hero, wants him dead so there are no other claims to his being the Bogatyr. A bit paranoid this one).
But I thought, what if that is merely what the player thinks is his brother's reasoning for trying to get him out of the way. What if, his brother has designs on a great deal MORE power than just being Bogatyr? What's more, hatred has to come from someplace and since the brother wants power, what about the power of Pyryem?
So there you have it. The Pyryem hero's brother wants to take away his magery for himself. He has access to some odd and unique syrneth technology which he believes will allow him to "steal" the Pyryem which he rightfully should have rather than his upstart younger brother.
So he has the ability, now, how does he get the hero to go along with it? Well putting his friends in jeopardy will do that just nicely. Now all he has to do is lure the heroes back to his manor, poison them and make the mage an offer he can't refuse.
But he was never born to wield it and it will drive him crazy. In a fit of rage, he runs off. The heroes will have to stop him prior to dying from the poison, but the question is how to find him.
This leads to a series of murders which occur around the Pyryem hero's home town. Over time, the Pyryem hero realizes that the murders are occurring in the exact pattern as the people he encountered while changed into animal form. See the memories of the skins the hero has borrowed are intruding on Uber-badguy's mind.
In the end, the heroes will triumph over him, but the question becomes, how does he get his power back? On their way back to the manor and the weird syrneth devices which spawned this monstrosity, they encounter an old lady stuck in the road. She says she was involved with helping Uber-badguy with the toxin that the other heroes are afflicted with. If they will help her free, she will give them the antidote. After helping her out, she informs Pyryem hero with a twinkle in her eye that he could never give up something that was a part of him, only allow others to borrow. And her words fade away as she fades from sight.
I can hardly wait to put this one into effect.
Mark
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"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid."
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Black Jack Rackham
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35# |
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(Date Posted:07/10/2005 17:24:07)
REBECCA YOU STAY OUT!!
I mentioned this idea in another thread so I thought I'd flesh it out a bit and put it into the plots thread. This idea came from another background, orphaned. The character in question is an Inish pugilist (Finigan school). The first twist in this background was that rather than having her just meet up with a random NPC that had something to do with the death of her parents, I have treated the incident as though she has post-traumatic stress disorder (woo psych degree to the rescue again!!), in other words intruding thoughts, images, nightmares, flashbacks, etc., which may or may not be "true"
It began as a dream she had in which she once again witnessed the events which lead up to her parent's death. This was triggered by seeing an NPC on a ship they boarded. In the dream the NPC took center stage in a flashback to her as an 8 year-old. I made sure to have her (player) separate from the other players when this happened so that she could only relate what she remembered of the dream rather than them experiencing the dream along with her. She (the player) fell right into it because I described the NPC as a 20 year-old who was the same age in her dream. She never caught on, challenged him to a fight, and beat the daylights out of him.
Several nights later I had her again in the dream, only this time she "added" about 20 years to the perpetrator, several more scars, and a haunted look that her victim had not had.
What's really going on is that, as you've probably guessed, her victim is the son of the actual perpetrator. His father is a member of the Rilascire who hated the nobility of the Avalon isles. His preferred method of extermination was bomb making. The O'Tools offered him the chance to rid Inismore of the O'Bannon. "Build a bomb for us and free us from the yoke of the O'Bannon." they had said. To help him they would introduce him to the one person on Inismore who knew the secret of cold iron. Cold iron weapons would be effective but might get more than a few killed, they reasoned. A bomb of cold iron would be sure to kill him.
But the hero's father was the fly in the ointment. He had accidentally witnessed the meeting of the bomber and the cold iron maker by the O'Tools. In truth, he knew nothing but the O'Tools could take no chances, so they ordered bomb maker to kill the hero's father. The bomb maker did as he was told, killing dad and mom when she got in the way. But that was only the beginning of his problems. The Sidhe learned of the bomb he had created and came to get him. He fled, finding the one place on all the Glamor Isles where the Sidhe had no sway, an ancient crater from a meteor of cold iron. Here he was stuck until he decided to accept his fate. The sidhe, for their part were patient or at least exacting in their revenge for the bomb. So here he sits waiting for the hero to hear the story from the cold iron maker who is cursed in his own way. When she makes her way to the bomber, she will assume her revenge is at hand, only to find out that he is already in hell. The question for her is what about the O'Tools?
Hope this was helpful.
Mark
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"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid."
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Black Jack Rackham
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36# |
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Posts:707
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02/26/2004
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(Date Posted:07/18/2005 07:35:05)
This week's adventure proves truth can be stranger than fiction. While up visiting relatives in Maine, I happened upon a poster entitled "Sable Island: Graveyard of the Atlantic," well that's something just DYING to be made into an adventure. Turns out, this island (located south east of Nova Scotia) has been the site of some 350 recorded shipwrecks since the late 1500's (curious? here's just one website http://collections.ic.gc.ca/sableisland/english_en/history_hi/graveyard_gr/treasures_gr.htm and this site has a MAP!!!!) Well, according to the site, a combination of storm winds, fog, and ocean currents are really responsible, but this is, after all, 7th Sea. While I liked the fog idea (Sable Island averages 125 days of fog per year) I also thought of the many syrneth races and their penchant for using magnetism (which would certainly mess with compasses) what about extreme magnetism messing with humans inner ear (dizziness, nausea, vomiting, disorientation, you know the works) would make avoiding the island quite difficult. A third option, also from the true island is that there are significant natural gas pockets near the island, so it's possible that inhaling the natural gas (which, in reality, has no smell) the sailors could get confused and crash. So now you've gotten them on the island, what next?
Well, referring to back to the true island, many of the survivors spent quite a bit of time on the island, as well as their horses. I had several ideas about this, the first, inspired by Lord of the Flies, is that those willing to do anything to survive began preying upon those who try to remain civilized. The heroes could get involved by being attacked by the "evil" group, and eventually aid the "good" group. Alternately they could witness a fight between the two groups and have to sort things out.
Another idea I had was that the survivors have banded together to try and get off the island. Either they have begun scavenging off the previously wrecked ships in an effort to build a new boat (in which case, they are missing some vital part that the heroes' ship JUST happens to have) or they are planning on stealing/taking command of the very next ship that shows up (which the heroes have conveniently provided for them.
Third, perhaps the survivors have occupied their time going through the wrecks and have acquired quite a tidy sum. They certainly won't be very willing to share with the heroes (assuming that they will be trying to take everything). Perhaps there are only a few survivors and they need help to get the remaining treasure (and the choicest pieces).
And let us not forget the horses who have survived the wrecks and begun to interbreed. Even if the wrecks began as they did on Sable Island, the horses have been on the island almost a hundred years. What new and interesting traits do these isolated yet extremely diverse animals possess?
Just a few of my ideas.
Mark
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"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid."
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Mr Big
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37# |
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03/25/2004
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(Date Posted:07/18/2005 08:02:59)
Man, another great setting at sea! That was a lucky poster to find. When you get done with your campaign you should compile all your locations into one resource for other GMs to use.
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