Narfell Ideas...

[The Ascendant]

I think that I am going to scale the Narfell deal down a bit and write the starting joe to epic campaign that WoTC seems to lack. Remember the Witch King story? That bad boy took characters from 1st level to mid 50th. I mean it was ridiculous, but cool as hell. That's what Im thinking...

[The Ascendant]

As for previous material, I think it would be cool to use the cities that were already designed as being representative of what those cities used to look like before the War. Also, after looking through Champions of Ruin, there are some serious badasses buried in the snow up there. Sure they arent as tough as some of the guys I was going to throw at you folks, but they are nasty enough. I also really want to focus on demi races and their prestige classes. I think its kind of lame that there arent better treatises on those folks. Keli's wife knows one of the editors at WoTC so Im trying to have him get to her and find out what it takes to submit a publishable piece of work for the D&D group.

[delkar]

Sounds good, Let me know what I can do.

[DM Cyphus]

Same here...I'd love to help...hell...start up a campaign and we'll test play for ya.

[The Ascendant]

Well, I think I want to take some of the stuff from Races of Faerun and expand it a bit describing the gray orcs and native humans within the region. I will likely introduce the goliaths there as well. I also need to get my hands on the 'Sons of Gruumsh' adventure. I think a good new mod ought to contain:

- a few new prestige classes for races found in Unapproachable East and Races of Faerun. Some of the ones currently detailed really arent that inclusive of the type of harsh clime and ancient backstory.

- a fairly good list of spells...some variants of spells found in Frostburn are good examples...Narfell and Raumathor were noted for massive summoning magic and artificing so spells around those would be cool.

- once you have spells, then you automatically have to throw in some new magic items. Relics and rune based items are going to be central foci of ancient Narfell. Rune magic is going to be the heavy part of the new magic detailed in the adventure...some of this will come from Races of Stone.

- obviously some new monsters...mostly new outsiders, some local specimen, and of course, some new automatons. Runescarred degenerates, undead, and better described blight templated creatures from Unapproachable East are also going to make an appearance.

- Champions of Ruin introduced some cool bad guys into the region which is fine since some of my bad guys would have eaten those guys...needless to say, including the new guys will be essential.

- we have a pretty good map, lexicon of terms, and core story line...in fact, a fair chunk of the first 10 stories are written, but would need tweaked due to house rules.

- the basic premise is that the characters become slaves in Telflam to a nasty Thayan who needs grunts to go with him on an exploration of ancient Narfell...of course, wacky hijinks ensue and the players are drawn into a complicated storyline involving the machiavellian Szas Tam and Larloch duo...need I explain more about it ending all epic and shit?

- I need to complete the timeline and write a fairly descriptive backstory of the region. Some essential books to read on the subject: Lost Empires of Faerun, the Unapproachable East supplement, FR Campaign Setting, Champions of Ruin, and the Witch King adventure from 2ED.

- did you know that the Raumathori are responsible for opening the Orc Gates? See. Lots of cool shit like that happened up there =D

Basically, I want to write a massive campaign adventure that better details the setting and leaves the nerds at WoTC grasping for breath because they are soo taken by the amazing whup ass that we have offered them.

Since there are a big 5 of us, I would have no problem crediting all of you involved. It would be a fun thing to say your a published author/contributor to something commercially successful. Just let me know what you are thinking about and I will work something out. Im also going to edit the first few stories and start restructuring them around the new premise.

[jamondashwood]

Well I've always considered myself fairly creative. I don't have all the source material you sighted... but I could come up with a few new spells or something... new domains too something cool like: prestige domains for new prestige classes!

Just a curriousity, what are the 10 stories you mentioned?

[DM Cyphus]

All sounds good...Just be careful with baddies being too powerful is all I'd recommend. You want everything as level-appropriate as can be...largely because you'll have DM's following the adventure (with their own tweaks here and there of course, as we all do) and you can't guarantee character survival at lower levels. If you leave everything level-appropriate, you still have challenging adventures for the characters that manage to remain the preferred level at all stages. Whereas if you go above level-appropriate, while the groups that manage to maintain the preferred level for that stage of the adventure could probably handle something a little more challenging...the groups who have two deaths a piece probably will add a third. lol It also helps for DM's who run low-power characters (which I generally prefer...I like the stuff in the MM to be a challenge for all characters...I usually stick with the RPGA character generation rules when DMing...keeps everyone on the same playing field...this is my first campaign to stray from it, in truth) that want to use your adventure to get everyone from low-level to epic without weakening the encounters and situations you present in your book.

Another question would be, will you provide dungeon maps already made for DMs at each stage?

[delkar]

I have most of the books, and I can pretty much obtain an electronic copy of any book thats out there.

[jamondashwood]

In response to Denny's comment the level appropriate stuff is fairly easy and fun to do with recurring villians. I've never really spent much time DMing *bows to those with DM experience*. But what I've always considered doing when it comes to that kind of stuff where the characters go from 1-20 or so. Have a villian show up in an adventure and get away, he can come back again. (This has to be done in a touchy way so the PCs don't think they were cheated out of catching him.) But that way they have a nemisis and know who they're going up against.

Then when they become more powerful they come closer and closer to catching him only to find out he was just a more powerful villian's lacky and now they have to go chasing that one.... think about the show 24. They do that stuff all the time.

"If we can just stop this one event... all will be okay."
"We're almost able to stop him when we hit a setback...."
"Okay we're over the set back and can almost stop him..."
"Got him! Yay us!!! What? Now we have to do this to save the world.... okay let's go."

Would a powerful villian really be concerned with a group of 5 level 2s? No. But when they has defeated several of his lackies... he might take a more personal interest.

[The Ascendant]

Exactly, the kind of baddies we're talking about are Szas Tam and even forces beyond him. Those are the kind of machiavellian badboys that dont even expose their faces until its too late to know they were directly involved. The first adventure revolves around kobolds

[DM Cyphus]

Pfsh....everybody knows the best adventure's have Goblins.

[delkar]

And kobold bards.

[The Ascendant]

omg, the Doom Song is the best add on in computer RPGs ever...Deek and I fought thru Shadows and Hordes only to drop ass on wicked Mephisto...I rescued my fair lady in the process as well and redeemed her from evil...woot! The first kobolds in my game dont have bards, but they do have shamans >.<

[delkar]

That means no Deekins!

[The Ascendant]

Might not be any Deekins, but there ought to be some pretty cool Goblinoids and classes for both they and the orcs, ogres, and natives.