Seneschals Lets share some stories. (Long Post)

[Prince of Thieves]

Lets share some story ideas and outlines.

Some people have suggested that it is fruitless to share story ideas for RoS because of the Spiritual Attributes. But I disagree, I think if you keep your PCs' SAs in mind when you read anothers story idea you may just find a great adventure for your PCs. Anyhow here are 2 ideas of my own to start things off.


THE SICK
Placement: Somewhere near the Irontooth Mountains.

Setup: Someone(who at least one PC cares about) is deathly ill. No medicines or prayers have healed them, but there is hope, a lone hermit who is rumored to be a sorcerer might be able to help.

Catch: The hermit will not help, unless the characters do a favor for him.

Favor: "A forgoted cavern in the gol infested Irontooth Mountains hold the remains of a long dead warlock and his treasures. Go there and return with his bronze amulet and his ruby-ring and I will heal this someone. Whatever else you find there will be yours for the taking."

Crypt: The forgotton cavern does hold many treasures. But in addation to being deep in the territory of a Gol tribe it is also protected by a socererss beast, an Infernal Guardian (from OBaM.)

Twist: The ring is a Talisman(bonus SP dice) and perhaps the bronze amulet is carved with ancient writings which hold the formula for some spell or the writing is the last piece of a puzzle so that the hermit can understand some terrible and powerful spell that the warlock researched in years past. Also maybe the hermit is equally unable (even unwilling) to heal the sick someone, he just wants the warlocks treasure.

SECRETS OF THE WOOD
Placement: I think best used in a small town deep in the darkly magicial and superstitus forest of Ouestenreich.

Backstory: The Mayor of this humble berg once had a wife but his cheating ways broke her heart. One night overcome with grief she fled into the woods and was not seen for a ten-day. There in the forest The Spirit of the Wood found her, he/it comforted her and loved her. She returned to her worried husband, who knew nothing of the forbidden coupling. For a time he was a more caring husband, at least taking care to disguise his wandering fancy. When his wife showed pregent there was much celebration. Months later the halfling was born and the mayor was horrified to behold the child, so he decided to silence the embaressment. He sent the midwife away to live in another town(with a generous sum to buy her silence) and he perpared to take the strange infant into the woods and there leave it. But his wife decided to protect the child; so babe in arms she fled again into the woods. The fickle Wood Spirit would not appear to the woman or claim the child, but he/it did guide her to an old cottage, where she met an elderly woodsman. When his wife did not return the mayor soon settled on the story that his son was still born and his grief mad wife fled with the baby into the woods. In time he remarried, not knowing that his wife and her child still lived, with the kind woodsman deep in the forest surrounding the town.

Setup: Recently the roll of years claimed the young halflings two caregivers leaving him all alone. The mayor, his guilt wearing on him has been alarmed by reports of the strage fairie man who has been spied watching the village from the cover of the woods. What happens next depends on the themes the Seneschal is trying to capture in his story.

Conclusion: Perhaps the young halfling is kind and lonely and will soon be the victim of the mayor's despreat need to erase the strange betrayal of his wife. Or maybe the halfling is an angry little green guy who wants to get revenge for what he sees as the mistreatment of his now dead mother and he means to kill the mayor, his new wife and their child/children to settle the score and he isn't above harming or killing others who get in his way. (I like the 2nd option myself.)

Notes: The halfing shouldn't be a combat monster instead make him a trickster villian, try to outsmart and out-sneak the PCs. Showcase his unseelie side with tricky and dangerous traps and cunning murderous plots. Glamour 2 wouldn't be out of place if you'd like the little fella to have magic.


I hope you all enjoyed the read and maybe someone found an adventure idea they'd like to use.

[James Buchanan]

The campaign I am planning draws upon several elements.

I try to avoid setting too much in stone before the players get involved but basically it works like this.

The players start in a large(-ish) trading town in northern cyrenthemir. The plot hook is a peasant man being beaten up by ruffians/roguish bladeslingers.

If the players intervene, (which hopefully they do!) the peasant feeds them a sob story of how his village is going to be raided by bandits. (idea stolen from the 7 samurai)

Then, as is my style, I leave the PCs to come up with a solution. I will provide a local lord, if a courtier wants to petition for his aid. There is of course the option of bladeslingers going and preparing defences/duking it out. But, I tend to assume that players will come up with something I haven't thought of, so I tend not to plan for that.

As the bandit lord is finally defeated. He wails out into the darkness/cold/whatever, asking for his lord to forgive him before his body is wracked with spasms and several bones within him break.

This opens the characters to the grander plot. A (rogue?) geluorise sorcerer ventured far into the north years ago in search of a long lost source of arcane power. Most considered him lost, eaten by hefs or whichever. But it turns out that he is not, and drunk on his own power he has been dominating the gols and other trollspawn of the north, forging an army of them. He has moved southwards, secretly into stahl, and was (for some reason.. could he be working for Uglub's interets?) intending to move into Cyrenthimir.  As well as his trollspawn army, he has recruited bandits and mercenaries, and called lesser sorcerers to his cause.

Depending on how the players play things out, I am not sure if I will make this all a big ploy by Uglub to gain more control in cyrenthimir. (ie: His rogue sorcerer is kicking up a fuss with all his trollspawns,  Uglub either moves in under the ruse of restoring peace, or provides aid which allows him to seed the country with his troops and instigators, in preparation for a civil war uprising) (read: another campaign).

But, again, it is up to the players to come up with a solution to the trollspawn problem,  either by forging alliances with nations, rousing the people, or perhaps sneaking into the Sorcerer's fortress and striking him down.

I have some other elements that I am intending to seed into the campaign, the Thayrism religion intrigues me, so I am hoping to find a way to enmesh the PCs in a religious issue of church vs thayrism (vs atheism.. perhaps), that and the fact that if there is a sorcerer, there will implicitly be a question of the rightness of sorcery, particularly with what the campaign will turn into.

Combine all this with rousing swordfights and horse chases away from the sorcerer's bandit infiltrators, and it all should prove a bunch of fun :).

-James