Creating a Flexible Campaign

This past month, I have been working on a new campaign called "Kaye" after a state in the game. The campaign is from the Echoes of Heaven setting published by Final Redoubt Press.

I crafted Kaye to give the players as much freedom as I can so they can fully immerse themselves in the story of the campaign. This immersion requires consistency which I implemented using three devices. The first device is the use of recurring NPC's, the second was to create a sensible story, and the third and final was to define both the city and state where the adventures will take place.

Consistency is important so the players can rationally understand the game world. That understanding allows them to plan ahead, measure their actions, and judge the actions of the NPC's.

The recurring NPC's all have a complete player's sheet. They could very well be used to play an actual character. Aside from that sheet, they also have at least two defining characteristics. These vary from NPC to NPC, but they usually define their personalities or physical appearance.

A sensible story is created like a puzzle by fitting every piece of information the players receive while playing. If any piece does not fit, there must a good reason for it. If that reason is nonexisting or weak, than that piece should be removed for it does not contribute to the story.

For example, if a thieves' guild is described as having only male haflings all the encounters that relate to that guild must follow that logic. Any deviations must be described to the players as soon as they see it and the explanations must make sense within the world context.

The more the players interact in the world, the more context or background information needs to be taken into account for the continuation of the story. As time passes, the world in which the players adventure comes to life allowing the players to live their characters within that world.

Finally the cities and state are described visually in a map. That map provides the players with distances between towns, the overall terrain and the city names. The cities are visually described in maps just like the states, but those maps do not contain exact proportions. The city maps only provide the players with the links between districts, their overall location and finally the size of the city based on how many districts it has. Each of the districts is then described by its particular name, their general social class, the kinds of business or other important locations, and finally a series of encounters that further enforce their own unique characteristics.

The Kaye campaign aims to be consistent, so the players can fully immerse themselves in the story that takes place within it.

Religion in Echoes of Heaven

I am presently running a campaign in the Echoes of Heaven campaign setting published by the Final Redoubt Press. In this post, I will talk about the religion aspects of that setting and how I work them into the campaigns I run.

Holy Symbol

Echoes of Heaven is the only campaign setting I have used more than once since I started DMing with the 3.5 version of the Dungeons and Dragons rules. One of the reasons I enjoyed the setting so much was the religion aspects presented in the fantasy world.

In that setting, the religion had been trimmed down and focused in one church. That church was further divided between the five main core races. So all races have a common denominator to them but they still contain unique aspects to their churches.

Much like the Christians churches, in which a Baptist church has some similarities with a Catholic church but they also have many differences. That was one of the aspects of the setting that really appealed to me, since it was so easy to relate to.

In addition to the main church in Echoes of Heaven, there are two extra religions presented, one for the druids, which imply the worship of nature and another one that worships hellish creatures mostly for the monsters or evil characters in the game.

If the players want to dig in further, the main churches have several smaller subdivisions. Such as the the knights that seek and destroy undead, or the clerics whose only purpose is to care of the sick. As a DM, I have the players interact with those smaller departments from time to time, which gives the players the opportunity to get involved in that area of the church if they choose to.

This simplified approach to the religion, works great on my games. And I would recommend this setting to anyone that is looking for a similar approach to religion in their games.

The Careorraent Keep

In this post, I will continue the story of the heroes as they approach the Careorraent keep, bringing Rei as a blood slave for the vampires. For a complete background information on this adventure, please refer to the previous posts tagged Rothen Campaign.

The Careorraent Keep

As the heroes' boat approached the Careorraent keep, they were surprised to find an old stone tower standing atop a small island. There was only one dock on the island and it had a soldier waiting for them in it.

The cleric and the fighter were still playing the part of thugs working for the slaver. They attached the boat to the dock and following the directions given to them, unloaded Rei into it.

The soldier came close to the group and started joking with the slaver asking if he brought anything good for the soldiers or if it was only for the master this time. The slaver laughed at the joke and said next time he would, but this time he had found a pretty little sorceress for the master to play with.

The opportunity the heroes were waiting showed itself when the slaver told the heroes to get busy and take the girl inside while he talked to his friend. The heroes acted as fast as possible, rushing in to save whatever precious time they could.

Once inside the tower, they met two human soldiers. Those soldier were no ordinary warriors but trained fighters. They were very well armed and from the looks of it, had a considerable amount of training. They told the heroes to take the girl down to the slave penn in the basement.

Download the Autorealm source file for the basement level from 4shared.com

The heroes did as ordered and, once inside the small cramped basement level, they met a human jailer. The jailer didn't ask anything of them, just moved to open the cell for the new slave.

It was at that moment, the fighter unsheaved his sword and used it to hit the jailer. The cleric joined in the fight while Rei started to untie and ungag herself. Being at a disadvantage, the jailer was quickly killed, having no time to warn the soldiers on the top floor.

Download the Autorealm source file for the ground level from 4shared.com

In the slave penn, the party found six anemic slaves. All of them had bite marks in their bodies which led the party to believe those were the blood slaves for the vampires. Upon seeing those people in such a horrible situation, Cedric, the cleric, told the party they needed to free them.

Rei said there was nothing they could do for them. She reminded the cleric, they needed to get the Lich's diary before dark since the master of the keep was coming soon after that. Not to mention, their boat was too small for all the slaves if they did not turn into vampires during the voyage.

Download the Autorealm source file for the second level from 4shared.com

Cursing fate for such a cruel choice, the cleric silently killed all of the blood slaves, cutting off their heads and filling them with holy water. To everyone's surprise none of them resisted. The ones that were conscious thanked him for ending their suffering.

Cedric was now angry beyond words. He was holding his sword tight and his hands and he told the party that today, he was not going to show any mercy to any of his enemies.

Download the Autorealm source file for the third level from 4shared.com

As the party ascended, they came upon the soldiers who at once recognized what was happening and engaged them in combat. Even though they were well trained and in very good gear, the party was very well prepared for the encounter and dispatched them to their deaths.

Rei said that now they needed to take care of the slaver and his soldier friend outside. Since they could very well take off and leave them stranded in the island.

Download the Autorealm source file for the fourth level from 4shared.com

The fighter said he would rush outside and tell the soldier the sorceress got lose and was wreaking havoc in the slave penns. The party agreed to to the idea with one condition imposed by the cleric, he wanted the slaver to suffer before dying.

Minutes later, the soldier rushes in and is surprised by the cleric and sorceress. Outside the fighter hits the slaver, who upon receiving that very first blow started to beg for his life.

Once the the slaver's friend was dispatched, the slaver himself was brought inside the tower. The Cleric looked at him in the eye and told him that today he was going to pay for the many lives he had destroyed.

The slaver had both hands bound behind his back and was tossed into the cold waters surrounding the tower. Cedric watched him for a few seconds to be sure he would feel some pain before drowning.

The party proceeded with the search for the diary and moved as fast as they could from floor to floor killing any opposition they encountered. Until finally arriving at the fourth level, where they met the wight.

From the very beginning, the wight behaved very differently than most of his kind. He was a controlled calm individual that upon seeing the party asked who they where and what they wanted.

The cleric told him they wanted the Lich's diary.

The wight took a closer look at the party and started laughing saying that they picked an excellent time to invade the tower, since the master of the keep was away with most of his retinue. But once they returned, he would make the entire party his slaves to replace the ones they had undoubtedly killed.

Unimpressed with his treats, the cleric rushed into combat with the undead beast followed by the fighter and the sorceress. The wight proved more skilled then they had anticipated but fighting three well armed adventures was too much for even a strong wight as that one.

In a play for mercy, with the defeat but a question of time, the wight finally told them the location of the diary. With the information they needed, the cleric dispatched the vile creature to the nine hells it came from, while Rei retrieved the diary from a nearby bookshelf.

Once the wight was destroyed and the diary found, the party ran out of the tower. They did not want to meet the master of the keep that day. But Cedric told the party, they would be back one day to finish the job and rid Ralsand of the vampire curse once and for all.

The party left the island a little after dark carrying with them the Lich's diary.

Meeting the slaver

In this post, I will continue the adventures of the heroes in the city of Ralsand as part of the Rothen Campaign. The heroes are still working for the Wizard Mayor Francenn trying to get the Lich's diary. For a complete background information on this adventure, please refer to the previous posts tagged Rothen Campaign.

The party got themselves ready to meet the slaver. Using a specially designed kit, they disguised themselves as peasant workers.

The party met the thieves' contact near the entrance to the slaver's depot. The contact went on to say that the slaver's crew had been taken care of and he would do his best for the slaver to hire them for the trip. He asked the party to let him do all the talking with the slaver. He pointed out that either the cleric or the fighter should gag and tie Rei and bring her on their shoulder to the slaver.

The contact went on to say that both the cleric and fighter would have to play the part of his thugs. That included agreeing with just about anything that he asked and very importantly speaking as if they knew only about half a dozen words.

When they arrived, The contact started talking to the slaver. He presented himself as Tefe and from the looks of it, he and the slaver had done a lot of business before.

The Slaver

Tefe showed Rei to the slaver, and told him he knew for a fact she was a sorceress.

That made the slaver very excited and he asked what proof Tefe had of that. Tefe replied he saw her casting flare at an alley. The slaver started smiling and could barely control his excitement, he placed his hand on Tefe's shoulder and both of them started talking business and moving a little ways from the party.

About ten, fifteen minutes later, the two of them moved back near the heroes. The party could see the slaver eyeing them closely. It was than that they heard Tefe telling the slaver not to worry because the guild knew both men very well and they would do for a short sea trip without any problem.

Tefe then bid all of them goodbye and moved away from the group.

The slaver than came closer to the heroes and told them today was their lucky day since they were about to make some easy money. All they had to do was load the girl into a boat and row it to an island not far from the coast. They would each get paid five gold pieces.

The heroes tried their best to act as thugs, speaking slowly using the smallest number of words possible to get the meaning across. To answer the question, the heroes accepted the deal without any hesitation.

The slaver than told them to follow him, so the fighter shouldered Rei, who at that point started playing her part and struggling against his grip. The party followed him to a small boat.

The voyage to the Careorraent keep went without incident. The slaver started talking about the crew that worked for him before, and how they had got themselves into a fight in a tavern nearby and got killed that very day, which was, as he had pointed out before, lucky for both the Cleric and the Fighter since now they could take their place, if they proved themselves to him.

The Cleric tried his best to look excited, always showing interest to what the slaver was saying.

The party approached the keep in the last few minutes before sundown. The slaver was very excited looking at the shore for someone he could talk to.

Blood slaves for Careorraent

In this post, I will continue the adventures of the heroes in the city of Ralsand as part of the Rothen Campaign. Someone that is familiar with my previous posts will note a slight change in the way I write the story. I have added a little color to the party members. Hopefully this change will make the text more interesting to read while keeping it useful for anyone wanting to use the ideas in it as part of their campaigns.

Francenn was pleased to hear that the heroes were able to get the information about the diary. He did not care about the cost of that information and that his "cousin" had become a fugitive from the vampires because of it. In a positive frame of mind, Francenn proceeded to tell the heroes a contact of his from the Ralsand Thieves guild would help them with the infiltration in the Careorraent keep.

The party was told to wait for the contact at the lobby near the entrance. During the time of their wait, Cedric, the cleric, started to talk in hushed tones about how disgusted he was with Francenn. The cleric pointed out the wizard had absolutely no principles whatsoever. He listed the deal with the Lich, the use of the thieves guild and the vampire houses in Ralsand as prove of his failing character.

Rei, the sorceress, reminded him how he had treated the party at first, talking down to them just because they weren't nobles. Even though now he seemed to have stopped with that, the anger she felt towards him was still very much there.

The party was not sure how they would go about changing that situation, but they were going to find out the wizard's weaknesses and maybe one day remove him from the mayor's house.

After a short time, the contact came to speak with the heroes. The party explained to him what was needed and the contact said he would meet them at their inn with more information in a few hours.

Rei takes a quick nap at the inn

True to his word, the contact met the party two hours later and shared the information he had. The thief said the Careorraent keep was located in a small island off the main ports of Ralsand. Having a keep in such an odd location provided for good security, so the party would need a good plan in order to get entrance to it.

The thief went on to say, the guild had such a plan, but the party would have to act immediately if they were to take advantage of it.

The heroes told him, the expense of another battle, after having fought an inn full of vampires, was going to be very high.

The contact informed them the reason they needed to move now, was because the vampire lord, master of the keep, was out of town for the day, coming back soon after dark. He explained to them that without the master there, entrance to the keep would be much easier.

He also reminded the party, the sorceress could use scrolls, while the fighter and the cleric could always buy more potions if they needed. The opportunity to get easy entrance to the keep was worth that extra expense.

Once the party agreed to it, the thief explained the plan, which as he put it involved a bit of understanding from the sorceress. At that, Rei started to pay closer attention to the whole deal.

The thief said the Careorraent house was known to buy "blood slaves" from a slaver in town. That slaver was always looking for beautiful girls, paying double if they were virgins, triple if they had magical blood.

The contact than suggested using Rei as bait for the slaver. The slaver would bring her to the keep by boat immediately to get paid as soon as possible. The rest of the party would then pose as assistants to the slaver to help him with the boat and with the prisoner.

Rei was not very pleased with this idea. Being blindfolded, tied up and gagged wasn't something she would be looking forward to, but that was the only plan offered to the party at the time.

The thief continued to the next part of the plan which involved getting the crew that usually made the trips to the keep to have some sort of mishap. But that would be provided by the thieves guild, paid for by Francenn.

The contact said, everything would go down in about one hour, so the party had to be ready by then.

To ease Rei's fears, Cedric assured her that if they were for some reason unable to be her escorts, they would not allow her to be taken to the keep in the first place. That assurance made Rei more cooperative with the whole plan.

The party made some last minute purchases in town, then headed to the area where there were supposed to meet the slaver that supplied the Careorraent vampire house with blood slaves.