Cool D&D Stuff
I'm really proud of the way my D&D game is panning out, and I just wanted to brag:
So there's this evil race of fish nazis (aka sahuagins) that are hell-bent on destroying humanity. Whelan, the traditionally aggressive military nation finds out about this threat and starts warning the world that they need to start building up armies to fight back. Two of the other major nations, Kashinya and Shijai, think Whelan is exaggerating the threat and accuse Whelan of using this as an excuse to build up their military. What complicates this even further is that Whelani intelligence has learned that Shijai's and Kashinya's leadership have struck a deal under the table that if war does break out, they're going to make a grab for Whelan's territories. Whelan estimates that if all goes well they'll be able to fight off the Sahuagins, but at the expense of being wiped off the map.
The player characters, for their own individual reasons, started the game in a Whelani prison and had to bust out, along with a guy named Henri who lost all his memories. Whelan tracks them down pretty quick, but rather than lock them up again offers them a deal: it turns out that Henri was a professor at a prestigous wizarding school from a fourth country who was working on developing a new kind of warship, but a clause in his contract forced him to lose all memory of the project should the information be at risk of falling into enemy hands. In exchange for escorting him back to the University of Poitionne to get his memories back, Whelan is willing to grant the players full pardons.
The trip took about 15 sessions, and along the way the players found out that the second in command of the school, Jacques, is a sahuagin in disguise, trying to keep the University out of the coming war. He set Henri up to be captured to trigger the memory clause, and he's trying to get his hands on a really powerful dagger to assassinate the head of the university to take power for himself. A strange mystic named Vogel explains that the dagger is a relic from the church of treachery, and it becomes more powerful when used by someone the victim trusts. With Vogel's help, the players were able to hide the dagger and get away.
Meanwhile, one of the player's adoptive father, a man named Peter Wolfe (also a professor at Poitionne), has been working to create a new race of superhumans called "Shifters" (they're these really cool half-werewolf people from the Eberron campaign setting). As it turns out, Vogel belongs to a radical sect that sees the project as an abomination, and is expecting to ask the players to kill this professor.
So the party finally reaches Poitionne, and one of Vogel's sisteren, Oiseaux, tells the party their mission. Naturally they say no, so she overpowers them and takes the dagger anyway. Plan A was to kill Wolfe directly, but when that didn't pan out she opted for Plan B, which was to give the dagger to Jacques on the condition that when he takes charge he'll cut the project's funding. This represents a major miscommunication between the Bird Sisters--Vogel saw the dagger as a tool and killing Wolfe as a necessary evil, but no way in hell did she want to see it fall into Jacques' hands either.
The party goes to warn the head of the university, also named Poitionne, only to find him in the middle of meeting with a Shijian envoy. The envoy tries to convince him that the sahuagin aren't nearly as big a threat as Whelan claims, and that this assassination plot is just more Whelani lies. Poitionne agrees to consider both sides and announce his decision the next day.
Soon after, Jacques shows up, stabs Poitionne with the dagger, tries to kill the party to cover up the evidence, and is forced to flee. Poitionne survives the assault (revealing in the process that he is in fact a minor God), sees the Sahuagin threat for what it is, and offers to cut a deal: he'll supply ships, but only if they remain property of the university, Whelan can't have anything to do with the construction, and Whelan has to supply a large number of slaves (also to become property of the university) to provide the labor. The Shijian envoy gets pissy and leaves.
So now the party needs to figure out what to do next. They've accomplished their mission, and their crimes are pardoned. Jacques, Oiseaux, and a handful of other villains are still unaccounted for. The logical next step is to help Whelan acquire the slaves, but the characters each have their own goals, motivations, and things they'd rather be doing than running errands for a nation they don't owe any more debts. We ended last night with everyone saying they needed their own one-on-one time to sort out what their characters goals are now.
...and that leaves out all the cool back stories and side plots that happened along the way, many of which were pretty spiffy in their own right.
So there's this evil race of fish nazis (aka sahuagins) that are hell-bent on destroying humanity. Whelan, the traditionally aggressive military nation finds out about this threat and starts warning the world that they need to start building up armies to fight back. Two of the other major nations, Kashinya and Shijai, think Whelan is exaggerating the threat and accuse Whelan of using this as an excuse to build up their military. What complicates this even further is that Whelani intelligence has learned that Shijai's and Kashinya's leadership have struck a deal under the table that if war does break out, they're going to make a grab for Whelan's territories. Whelan estimates that if all goes well they'll be able to fight off the Sahuagins, but at the expense of being wiped off the map.
The player characters, for their own individual reasons, started the game in a Whelani prison and had to bust out, along with a guy named Henri who lost all his memories. Whelan tracks them down pretty quick, but rather than lock them up again offers them a deal: it turns out that Henri was a professor at a prestigous wizarding school from a fourth country who was working on developing a new kind of warship, but a clause in his contract forced him to lose all memory of the project should the information be at risk of falling into enemy hands. In exchange for escorting him back to the University of Poitionne to get his memories back, Whelan is willing to grant the players full pardons.
The trip took about 15 sessions, and along the way the players found out that the second in command of the school, Jacques, is a sahuagin in disguise, trying to keep the University out of the coming war. He set Henri up to be captured to trigger the memory clause, and he's trying to get his hands on a really powerful dagger to assassinate the head of the university to take power for himself. A strange mystic named Vogel explains that the dagger is a relic from the church of treachery, and it becomes more powerful when used by someone the victim trusts. With Vogel's help, the players were able to hide the dagger and get away.
Meanwhile, one of the player's adoptive father, a man named Peter Wolfe (also a professor at Poitionne), has been working to create a new race of superhumans called "Shifters" (they're these really cool half-werewolf people from the Eberron campaign setting). As it turns out, Vogel belongs to a radical sect that sees the project as an abomination, and is expecting to ask the players to kill this professor.
So the party finally reaches Poitionne, and one of Vogel's sisteren, Oiseaux, tells the party their mission. Naturally they say no, so she overpowers them and takes the dagger anyway. Plan A was to kill Wolfe directly, but when that didn't pan out she opted for Plan B, which was to give the dagger to Jacques on the condition that when he takes charge he'll cut the project's funding. This represents a major miscommunication between the Bird Sisters--Vogel saw the dagger as a tool and killing Wolfe as a necessary evil, but no way in hell did she want to see it fall into Jacques' hands either.
The party goes to warn the head of the university, also named Poitionne, only to find him in the middle of meeting with a Shijian envoy. The envoy tries to convince him that the sahuagin aren't nearly as big a threat as Whelan claims, and that this assassination plot is just more Whelani lies. Poitionne agrees to consider both sides and announce his decision the next day.
Soon after, Jacques shows up, stabs Poitionne with the dagger, tries to kill the party to cover up the evidence, and is forced to flee. Poitionne survives the assault (revealing in the process that he is in fact a minor God), sees the Sahuagin threat for what it is, and offers to cut a deal: he'll supply ships, but only if they remain property of the university, Whelan can't have anything to do with the construction, and Whelan has to supply a large number of slaves (also to become property of the university) to provide the labor. The Shijian envoy gets pissy and leaves.
So now the party needs to figure out what to do next. They've accomplished their mission, and their crimes are pardoned. Jacques, Oiseaux, and a handful of other villains are still unaccounted for. The logical next step is to help Whelan acquire the slaves, but the characters each have their own goals, motivations, and things they'd rather be doing than running errands for a nation they don't owe any more debts. We ended last night with everyone saying they needed their own one-on-one time to sort out what their characters goals are now.
...and that leaves out all the cool back stories and side plots that happened along the way, many of which were pretty spiffy in their own right.