DM Notes – C01.S01.11
[Campaign Note] [A Note on Notes]
So then… I guess the party will not be going down into the mining site of the deep gnomes who are excavating Red Tears under the monastery… at least not yet.
Originally I had imagined a deep gnome touching the staff of shoon in claw of Sharpfangs sometime after the party went below. From there, some kind of underground chase scene… but then Rasi and Joloobo ended up witnessing the escape of Sharpfangs in the possessed body of Snirla Terrabones.
It left some options for how to reveal things… Elder Thaola wants the Red Tears kept secret even from the party – probably due to the soon debut of her new wine… Red Well… not sure why she feels so secretive about it… but that is for figuring out later.
Joloobo awakens after nearly being killed by the deep gnome female Snirla. She is also laid out there unconscious and Olilrasi is missing… along with the staff Snirla carried out of the mine. It becomes apparent, if Snirla is believed, that she was possessed of something. The notion that it was an ancient dragon is hinted at but the facts are not certain.
Arrodon, being Rasi’s adoptive father (has that full story been told in gameplay? If not, find a place for it ) is concerned and sends out 3 search parties. At first, the trail of Rasi is easy to follow… she is a blind albino dragonborn teenager after all… but then the trail suddenly just stops. This is due to teleportation… if I had to guess… from the staff of shoon (which is in keeping with canon… and also somehow responsible for Sharpfangs being trapped in solid rock these last 100 years)
When I devised the Vale of Soxolone, I imagined a secluded and peaceful valley tucked safely within high cliff walls – accessible only from the opening where the monastery sits (unless one can fly… or somehow fall from a great height safely). The name Soxolone went through a few variations first – before I even considered it might possbily be someone who still lives in the valley – that sort of came about during game play. Once I “discovered” Soxolone was an ancient Treant who has called this magical place home for a century or more… I was left with the decision on how to encounter Soxolone, if at all. As far as any one knew, Elder Arrodon was the only person to have ever had a direct encounter with Soxolone… so I could have left it all to a off-scene encounter. With the trail of Rasi gone cold… it seemed the right time to introduce the one who sees all in the vale. Being a Treant, I figured conversation might be odd and awkward… of course LotR must come to mind… I thought “how can make the treant difficult to converse with?” turns out… I really just make the encounter difficult to write well… but “what if Soxolone spoke only in questions?” It needs more attention to be certain… and could be extended a bit more to reveal additional details about the Treant NPC and his place in the Small Teeth.
Of course the party is heading back into the crevasse… that seemed an obvious choice. The fire troll sub-plot remains unsolved, and the mining tunnels beyond just the one which trapped Joloobo remained unexplored. The water wight was another possible destination…. But Soxolone gave us a pass. Besides… the Rrellette probably would have lost to the staff anyway… and maybe she did… but Yisi knows better than to get too close to the lake now that he nearly spent his final minutes in it. We are now in our first “dungeon crawl” I found a map of a large mining complex to work through. It obviously has a history… but I need to discover what it might be. I has been there a long while but only recently did the crevasse opening into the Vale of Soxolone happen. That means there is one ore more other entrances… Joloobo was trapped in the room at the far south of the complex with other poor unfortunate souls… an untold number, but at least a few at not all at once.
What else is in this mining complex? Well the spiders had to have a matron of sorts… but Rasi (aka Sharpfangs) would have had to deal with the giant spider had she come through here… and so she did… the beast is all tangled up in its own webbing and quite dead – probably from an Arcane Bolt like that which nearly killed Joloobo. But then, I cannot have every monster in the complex be dead ahead of the parties arrival. There is opportunity for some creatures to have been bypassed by Rasi/Sharpfangs – like a few ooze jellies perhaps. It is also possible, in fact likely that Rasi / Sharpfangs is not navigating the mining complex with a lot of expertise… can the soul of a dragon get lost in a maze while inhabiting the body of a blind girl? One must assume it is possible and even likely. So then I need a few underground monsters to fight and some that have been fought by Rasi. But then that leads to a question… how will party encounter Rasi? Or even… will they? Could I leave that part unresolved for the time being? For some other cycle two or three levels down the road? If there is a combat, 3 against 1 might prove fatal, and party does not want to kill Rasi – they are here to save her. The DM wants to save Rasi as well.
The soul of Sharpfangs just might find another host… maybe even a fire troll (although that seems unsatifying). If another host was found, party would find Rasi unconscious like Snirla was found. However I rather like the idea of leaving that end loose… Rasi escapes the mining complex and is somewhere in the world while party takes on other adventures. I would think Sharpfangs ultimately wants to regain a true dragon form… probably a Blue Dragon specifically… this opens up the possibility of running Tyranny of Dragons for this shield.
But then… a large campaign such as tyranny would advance characters to level 7 or 8… I had other plans for Heroes Gate… I could run Tyranny as an alternate universe thing. Or maybe these characters interact with the tyranny story line in some limited way… taking on just an episode or two without getting sucked into the whole plot. That would allow me to stay on track with Heroes Gate…
Level 3 and 4 are prequels… at the beginning of level 5 each party is formed into a “sheild” and takes their first “contract”. I had previously planned on introducing both Shaggy and Zoony in the next cycle of The Everwelte Shield… Midnight Managerie… Shaggy is actually connected to Dawndra’s backstory, but it is Yisi and Valea who were to first encounter him.
And Midnight Menagerie was going to be introduced by Rey Ko Toh – a Brownie with some Q-like powers, and traits… he is someone of legend in the feywild… and will interfere when it suits him… though not as a malevolent. I originally imagined Yisi and Valea hitting a dead end in the chase after Sharpfangs, and Rey Ko Toh would appear in time to give aid… at a price… He will continue to be a reoccuring character and quest giver in the future for the Everwelte Shield. Zoony is actually his main motivation to start… Although from another dimension entirely, at least by birth, she was brought into the feywild as an infant by her father – who was a flighty fellow? Or maybe running from something in Theros? Or maybe Rey Ko Toh originally saved him in order to save Zoony… at any rate, Rey Ko Toh has a special vested interest in Zoony which remains to be discovered. He sees into her future shadows and knows she has a place like family with the Wardens Guild – and specifically with Yisi and Valea. Perhaps Zoony is actually the way which Yisi ends up falling into unbridled Sune worship? Don’t quite know yet… Zoony and Sune sound alike – is it cheesy to make such a connection between them? Or expected?
All that to say… within the mining complex I need to create an opportunity for Rey Ko Toh to appear and offer a deal. Perhaps another magical dead end chamber like Joloobo was captured by? What are these chambers about? Certainly they are not part of the original mining group… no they were put in place after the fact – perhaps as a way to capture food. The giant spider only took advantage of the one but was not its creator. Question is… where is the creator of these traps? (I should probably go back to the earlier trap scene and include the bones of monsters in addition to humanoids… whatever is feeding probably intended the traps for creatures of any sort.)
The mining complex…. As I’ve been calling it… what is its story? Was it carved by dwarves? Or by gnomes? Deep gnomes… Murlaasta Marbleye… She lead an expedition here from the underdark (Rrinnoroth) some hundreds of years ago. For a time, it was known as the Marbleye Mithrilfield. Murlassa was a reknown master jeweler and enchanter who made circlets and bracelets of mithril. A thick vein of mithril was discovered in the depths of the Small Teeth and Murlaasta chased it upward until it splintered and spread out into a large field of thin veins. Somewhere in the Marbleye Mithilfield is her workshop. Deep Gnomes have legends about the mystical workshop which has caused many expeditions to be sent out in search of it – particularly any knowledge about how she was able to enchant mithril with illusion magic. A few of her creations are still at large in the world today – most of which are used by the most elite theives because of the magic which allows them to appear as someone or something else… or not appear at all.
But I am way ahead of myself… illusion magic did not create the traps in the Marbleye Mines… something else did, someone else… a caster of some sort… but one who feeds on any sort of creature because the traps are about food. Werewolf of some sort? I previously used werewolves who keep their “food” in a village of cages… what sort of underground creature would eat most anything caught in its trap? Perhaps a drow werewolf? A drow sorcerer with lycanthropy? And a Murlaasta bracelet…
I need a few encounters before reaching any sort of finale in the Marbleye Mines… minor ones but maybe at least one which hints at a werewolf? Or maybe they need to find the workshop? But they are on a rescue mission… even poking around in crates for left behind gems is bad form when Rasi could be getting further and further away. As they get closer to the center vein of the mine, the monsters get harder… because the center leads into underdark. There are no surface entrances… well there were not any until the crevasse opened up. Why would a fire troll travel all the way out to the valley to eat however? Who knows… do I need to sort that at all? But I do know it came from the center vein which travels deep… players will not need to venture that far to encounter the fire troll… it surfaces for fresh meat.
Before that, however… players get stuck in a trap. Rey Ko Toh appears to inform them that their friend is in grave danger – currently in combat with Mr Something… the Drow Sorcerer Werewolf. He can help free them but favor-for-favor. They need to free a friend of his… in place where he is powerless. (Menagerie). He transports them to another location in the mines where Rasi/Sharpfangs is fighting the werewolf… what will they do? Fight the werewolf I expect – rather than join forces with him. But when the combat turns against him, the werewolf will transform into Rasi… so the party will not know which to fight. He has a magic bracelet and can appear as any form. He also has wild magic… ? Being a sorcerer… Level 6 Sorcerer? Is it worth building out this vNPC that far? Or just a stat block.
At some point, the vNPC transforms into Rasi… he will have a staff but will not actually use it. His eyes will appear blind but he will not behave blind like Rasi does… how to communicate this to the PCs? (or to players?) I know how this battle will end… which raises some interesting thoughts about what I am doing here… in normal tabletop play it is sort of required to leave results to themselves… not plot them out. What I am doing in txtplay is different… I am plotting… I am planning a full story. I might still be able to generate an adventure for tableplay based on this, but I cannot plan and plot the story. Still, this is valuable because I am practicing what I might need to do on the fly as DM.
So I should try the following process
- Outline an adventure
- Txtplay the adventure
- Refine the scenarios
- Cut the plots and publish