4e Grand Conjunction - new players and new dm

[vachtor]

They will need something to pass as human basically all of the time. Maybe with Darkon being the exception? And possibly Sithicus? Wow.

Just remember to play the Ravenloft people as you would medieval people of our world if a Dragonborn walked up. Lots of screams, shouts, and fleeing followed by a mob of people trying to kill the "demon-thing." Pretty much the same for the rest you have listed there.

This is why I'm hoping they keep the mage NPC around. They're about to run into a Goblin held in a cage by hobgoblins (Splug, for those familiar with Keep on the Shadowfell) but my Splug is actually a Tiefling Illusionist/Enchanter trying to thwart an Orcus cult on behalf of the Raven Queen. If they let him/her accompany them and don't do something stupid like kill her off, she'll help them out with illusory disguises (how she masquerades as a goblin). Unless they piss her off, then the spell may "fail"...

[Dark Angel]

They will need something to pass as human basically all of the time. Maybe with Darkon being the exception? And possibly Sithicus? Wow.

I had fun with Sithicus (as previously mentioned, I have one player who is half elven), as the majority of the group is human. They were not accustomed to the terrible prejudices of elves towards non-elves. When one of my more frustrated players questioned this, I just looked at them and made it very clear (in my campaign): When every other place (especially in the superstitious Southern Core) treats elves like crap at best and targets at worst, they reflexively treat others in a similar fashion. He really couldn't argue the point further (at least successfully) and the rest of the time spent there had the typically quiet half elf woman speaking for the rest of the group. Good times.

[vachtor]

I had fun with Sithicus (as previously mentioned, I have one player who is half elven), as the majority of the group is human. They were not accustomed to the terrible prejudices of elves towards non-elves. When one of my more frustrated players questioned this, I just looked at them and made it very clear (in my campaign): When every other place (especially in the superstitious Southern Core) treats elves like crap at best and targets at worst, they reflexively treat others in a similar fashion. He really couldn't argue the point further (at least successfully) and the rest of the time spent there had the typically quiet half elf woman speaking for the rest of the group. Good times.

The good thing (for this group) about the GC series is that I can somewhat avoid some of the VERY xenophobic places, at least to start. Because I'm doing Death Unchained over Touch of Death, they will have some extra fun waiting for them when they get to Falkovnia...

I'm hoping that early on in the campaign the Shifter in my group will realize this and alter his features to be a bit more human. The elf would have some issues of course, but it will be especially hard on the Goliath and none will be as bad as the Dragonborn (who is the group lead).

I'm planning on warning them about fighting near towns, where any special illusions masking their appearance would likely fail. I'm VERY looking forward to it failing...

[Dark Angel]

I had fun with Sithicus (as previously mentioned, I have one player who is half elven), as the majority of the group is human. They were not accustomed to the terrible prejudices of elves towards non-elves. When one of my more frustrated players questioned this, I just looked at them and made it very clear (in my campaign): When every other place (especially in the superstitious Southern Core) treats elves like crap at best and targets at worst, they reflexively treat others in a similar fashion. He really couldn't argue the point further (at least successfully) and the rest of the time spent there had the typically quiet half elf woman speaking for the rest of the group. Good times.

The good thing (for this group) about the GC series is that I can somewhat avoid some of the VERY xenophobic places, at least to start. Because I'm doing Death Unchained over Touch of Death, they will have some extra fun waiting for them when they get to Falkovnia...

I'm hoping that early on in the campaign the Shifter in my group will realize this and alter his features to be a bit more human. The elf would have some issues of course, but it will be especially hard on the Goliath and none will be as bad as the Dragonborn (who is the group lead).

I'm planning on warning them about fighting near towns, where any special illusions masking their appearance would likely fail. I'm VERY looking forward to it failing...

You know you will have to keep us posted right? The situations you are potentially describing are priceless already!

[vachtor]

You know you will have to keep us posted right? The situations you are potentially describing are priceless already!

Oh I definitely will! The only drawback is that we're all old men (35 for me on Monday!) with kids, so sessions are not as often as I would like. Also, seeing as its 4e and they're all very new to this, we tend to not make a lot of progress each session. At current rates, it will be at least 5 (ugh) more sessions before we even GET to Souragne.

I'm happy that I have a storyline in place that will last for the next year (if they're enjoying it) and that I finally get to share my love for this setting.

[Quinntonia]

Hey, I am writing about similar issues in my "Grand Conjunction Problems" thread, keep in touch in case we run into similar problems.

[vachtor]

Well after several months of play, my group has finally landed in Souragne!

Key points from their first session:

- they only got as far as the Vistani encounter before we had to call it for the night
- they fought some interesting swamp wildlife including Giant Frogs, a Snake and a few Crocodiles
- one of the crocodiles was a zombie
- I've given all zombies that they will encounter (including the croc) a disease to spread (modified version of the 4e disease Cemetery Rot, basically a zombie plague)
- none of them know where they are, what they are in for, or that they are trapped there. All they know is they were sucked through a portal to... somewhere...
- the NPC that travels with the group knows a teeny bit about planar lore and was quite freaked out when she discovered the Vistani camp. She wouldn't go into detail because she doesn't know a lot, but she warned the group not to mess with the Vistani or she would abandon them immediately.
- which was good because the Goliath Berserker was not happy about things in general and wanted to just be proactive and start killing them...
- the Vistani mentioned they looked like the came from outside but didn't react badly to their appearance (specifically the dragonborn)

Thoughts for the next sessions include:
- Having a real encounter with the locals, and the reaction be as negative as I can make it
- Instituting Fear and Horror checks, a very new mechanic for these guys
- Patiently waiting for someone to do something evil, I want to do powers checks!
- Having someone catch the zombie plague and not save out of it quite so quickly...
- Letting the murder mystery begin...

Issues I'm running into:
- I'm still wary about the adventures I'm planning. I'm not completely sold on how to run Ship of Horrors, even though I'm planning to heavily modify it. My biggest goal is to run as fun of adventures as I can, so I'm willing to alter the Hexad accordingly so that I my players have the best time.
- My current plan is NOTWD, Ship of Horrors (heavily modified), Feast of Goblins (mildly modified), House of Strahd/Death Unchained (heavily modified), From the Shadows, Roots of Evil

Any thoughts?

[Quinntonia]

I would add Touch of Death to the mix, it is seriously well written, and has some pretty awesome bits in it.

I also had the Souragne zombies be able to spread their infection, with the swamp also being a really infectious place, and anyone just hanging around drinking the water and eating the food in danger of getting sick. I saw this as the character of the place, with disease and rot around every corner.

[vachtor]

Right now the NPC with them is purifying the water for them. I made sure to point that out, as I'm thinking she will be separated from them at some point and it will lead to illness.

Also, she is an illusionist/enchanter.... What do we think Anton Misroi would think about these types of spells being cast within his domain? What can or would he do about it?

Also regarding Touch of Death, as much as I like the idea of sending them into the desert, I'm having a hard time reconciling that portion of the campaign. It may be an interesting side journey that I would run outside of my Hexad. I'm also planning on having them run into the Carnival in between things just to give more flavour.

[Quinntonia]

Right now the NPC with them is purifying the water for them. I made sure to point that out, as I'm thinking she will be separated from them at some point and it will lead to illness.

Also, she is an illusionist/enchanter.... What do we think Anton Misroi would think about these types of spells being cast within his domain? What can or would he do about it?

Also regarding Touch of Death, as much as I like the idea of sending them into the desert, I'm having a hard time reconciling that portion of the campaign. It may be an interesting side journey that I would run outside of my Hexad. I'm also planning on having them run into the Carnival in between things just to give more flavour.

Anton doesn't really figure into the adventure, for whatever reason, he seems to be letting this happen for his own purposes, I wouldn't worry about it.

As far as Touch of Death, this is your campaign, do what works best for you.

[vachtor]

I know he doesn't factor in, but one of his only two rules is that only Necromantic or Clerical magic be performed in Souragne... it may be an interesting complication that he become involved, not personally but through agents, to stop a violation of his law.

[Atma]

I know he doesn't factor in, but one of his only two rules is that only Necromantic or Clerical magic be performed in Souragne... it may be an interesting complication that he become involved, not personally but through agents, to stop a violation of his law.

I think this is mostly a cultural taboo in Souragne, i.e., only necromancers or clerics are considered welcome or acceptable there.

[vachtor]

Actually after I posted this I read the Souragne Gazetteer which had some excellent information about this. Specifically that it is not that Misroi can detect the magic being used, but if it reported to him then it is dealt with... harshly.

My next session will have the group encounter Luc and then be led into town. There they will hear the customary warnings and it will be up to them to decide. The good part for me is that the only real arcane caster is the NPC that is traveling with them. If she dies, they balance out the loss by learning what kind of forces occupy this world and what they are really dealing with.

[vachtor]

My new players have now had their first night of just RP and they seemed to enjoy it!

My players have progressed from the vistani encounter all the way to confronting the murderer. So far they have been extremely cautious in their new surroundings and haven't traveled anywhere at night, including barricading themselves in the Tarascon manorhouse for the night in efforts to catch the murderer (not knowing he was in there all along hiding from them).

Some fun points so far:

- my players are apparently afraid of the dark! As said above they are very hesitant to go out at night, they fought over not putting out any lanterns in the floating house for fear of what would happen in the dark, and they were very aware of the time of day when doing any investigating, to the point that they missed a couple of planned encounters like the "dinner party".

- it has been made very clear to my group (via npc) that outlanders (like the dragonborn warlord) would likely be burned at the stake, but luckily some minor illusions and a Hat of Disguise are helping them out. They have been warned about combat in public ruining illusions and that the npc alone knows the command word for the Hat. If they piss her off, it may "fail"...

- they have found the Hyskosa Scroll, which made them happy because they finally understood Luc's ramblings, but are convinced that it is only related to the zombie apocalypse that's about to come. They have already been trying to attribute various hexads to what they think will be coming next. I love playing the long game...

- I had to kill off the sheriff via the zombie lord death aura (after their night barricaded in, they were about to hand over evidence of the killer and then wash their hands of everything, so he had to die)

- we left off with the party being fed up with everything and going to the cemetery to open the last buried coffin. As they pulled it out and started to break the chains, the murderer jumped down and is confronting them...

The next session will likely be mostly combat, from the murderer to the zombie horde to the final showdown.

I'm also planning on a few interludes in between hexads, to keep things fresh and not all about the main quest. I've always been planning a mini House of Strahd after Feast of Goblyns, but I think that I'm going to try to do:

- the Night People (Carnival) immediately following NOTWD (the carnival stops in Port de L'hour and there are wee thieves about)

- The Created after Ship of Horrors (island dissolves into mist while on it, run out of the fog into a nice little town with a toy shop...

Not that I'm tied to solely published works, but are there any other suggestions that anyone would recommend running my crew through? I'd like to show off a lot of what the setting has to offer, but mostly I just want fun stuff to torture them with...

[alhoon]

My PCs made it through the adventure with Luk alive. They risked getting in the way to save him.