Session 2 Monsters

Based on lessons and feedback from the first session, I've been busy putting together the encounters for the rest of the adventure. I am punching things up a bit, incorporating more monster types, and more terrain and maneuver constraint in the map design. I haven't pulled maps yet, but I do have my monsters picked out.

The Mine Entrance: This will be an attack on a defensive point held by the monsters. The encounter consists of an orc witch doctor, human guard, 2 goblin warriors, and 4 goblin cutters. This gives a mix of minions and standard monsters, with both a controller and a mark to mess with the PCs' actions and tactics. There is also a level 2 trap allocated here, but I haven't decided what form this will take. The plan is to harass with the witch doctor and goblin warriors at range, while the guard and cutters hold a defensive position.

Ironmentals: This is something of a wandering monster encounter, as they can burrow and thus pop out of the walls pretty much anywhere. I can slot it in as needed for some pacing. I have tweaked them since the original version, increasing the crusher to level 2 and adding an ambusher version. Revised stat blocks are below. Basically, the lurkers can pop up and immobilize, and the crushers get a special charge they can use against the immobilized target.

Collapsy Cave: This is set in, well, a collapsy cave. Well, not as in its going to cave in, but many of the stalactites are prone to breaking and falling. I'm thinking any creature that moves more than 3 or 4 squares is subject to an attack, that has the potential to also create difficult terrain. The monsters are coming back from the following encounter, and is a goblin acolyte of Magulbiyet (or the Eye), two orc raiders, and their two trained fire beetles.

WYRM!!!: Here we have a just feed grey dragon wyrmling and two dark acolytes. I wanted something to break up all the orc and goblin action. A wyrmling as an elite sounded like fun. I'm imaging this as some sort of deal where the wyrmling is a “gift” from an established element of the Cult of the Elder Elemetal Eye, with its handlers.

GOBLINS!!!: A goblin cursespewer, three goblin lurkers, and four cutters. This is the general “nest of goblin followers” from which the other gobbos came. Basically, this encounter mostly serves to show that the twins have a bunch of goblin followers. Or something. The cursespewer is a nasty piece of work.

Orc Guards: This is the twins' personal guard. The orcs are younger ones that the twins have recruited from their own and other nearby tribes. It's pretty straight forward, an orc sergeant, a half-orc archer, and two orc raiders. All level 3, when the PCs are going to be level 2, so a hair tougher, but still pretty doable, the way they've been playing. With the sergeant and the orc warrior's surge, this should be a more tactical battle.

The Twins: Here they are, Karad and Lyshhak, devotees of the True Eye, as they know it. They are level 2 elites (stat blocks below), designed to work together a bit, and be a lot of fun. I especially look forward to messing with the PCs using Lyshhak's beguiling call. Along with the three orc freaks to support them, this should be a dramatic fight. I'm thinking of having this set in the deepest part of the mine, where Lyshhak was messing with the mojo of the mountain. I can include some sort of aura terrain feature to help represent this. Especially with the PCs enjoying the favor of the mountain. I may have some central thing give some kind of bonus to adjacent creatures. Or, if the fight is looking rough, I could grant a recharge on an encounter power or a triggered healing surge, as the spirit's power flows through them. Something I'll have to finish mulling over.

Now, without further ado, the ironmentals and the twins!

The ironmentals I envision as small, mobile amalgamations of rock and rough iron. They are vaguely quadrupedal, with iron claws and plates. The iron parts blend seemlessly into the ore-like rock of their bodies. Their heads have a single sensory organ, which appears as a globe or egg of polished hematite. Which, incidentally, can serve as treasure, based on the quality of it and how well it survived the fight, i.e. I can adjust how much treasure to award for any given pack.

Meet the PCeebles, and Session 1 After Action

Last week we had our character creation session.  Everyone liked the sound of the second level 1 encounter power, so we went ahead with that.  We ended up with:

Elyissa Soulaxe, axe and shield-wielding dwarven fighter.  She is of a clan that, two generations ago, brought ruin to their mountain through unchecked avarice.  They ended up migrating south and becoming seafarers.  Driven by wanderlust, she has struck out on her own, to see the larger world.

MorCu, elven beastmaster ranger, and his Unnamed Raven.  His tribe is from a series of islands off the western coast, with a strong Pacific Northwest tribal feel.  When away hunting, his entire tribe vanished without a trace, and he left the silent haunt of his home.

Constantine, a human hybrid barbarian/ranger.  His tribe, the Obsidian Spear, lives in not too far from Briarridge, and he has had dealings there.  However, with the encroachment of both growing operations in Briarridge, and an increasing Torrenvold presence from the south, his tribe is finding itself squeezed out.  Seeing the writing on the wall, as it were, he seeks to find a place in the larger world.

Lucan, half-elven archer bard.  Adopted and raised by elves, he originally envisioned a life as a priest of Corellon.  But Sehanine has other plans for him, and with her touch on his destiny, he seeks out the deeper mysteries of past empire.

Yesterday we had our kickoff session.  It went smashingly well, all things considered.  The first few encounters I did kind of softball in how I built them.  However, the creating characters together and everyone talking about what they were taking really paid off tactically.  They, sad to say, took my monsters apart.  The first encounter had Elyissa yo-yoing on HP for bit as she was surrounded by minions, until Constantine finally hit with a power that did a burst 3 CON mod damage to enemies and swept all but one out.  MorCu, predictably, was a killing machine.  Lucan really fouled things up for me, between his Virture of Cunning, which broke my flanks several times, and a power which let an ally make an at-will as an interrupt, which basically aborted half of the frenzied mountain spirit's avalance charge.

Everything flowed really well.  We got through four (simple) encounters, and a bit of exposition and set-up in town, all in three hours.  Everyone was fine with the set-piece encounters and the light narrative thread, this being the war up for the whole campaign and for our group.  More story and character oriented stuff will come in time.  A big part of that was my pre-game prep.  I got a multi-pocket plastic file folder.  For each encounter, I had a card with the monster, XP, and treasure info, printed out stat blocks for the monsters (cut apart), and the map or tiles for it, all in its own pocket.  I had minis picked out and bagged for each encounter.  So when it was time for a new encounter, I was able to pull everything right on out and have it ready to go in just a minute or two.

Into retrospect, I was pretty happy with the bandits and crazy critters encounters.  I think the goblins at the looted wagon could have used a little more oomph, and the frenzied mountain encounter probably needed more than just the spirit.  The players really enjoyed that one, both seeing the potential threat it presented (even as they punked it), and the flavor and background of the encounter.  I will definitely have to think of a way to reuse the spirit as an NPC.

Going forward, I know I can punch things up a bit.  I think I will aim more for level+1 and level+2 encounters, and a more varied monster mix.  I certainly need some lurkers and artillery to put pressure on MorCu.  I also will be looking at doing some more complex encounters.  The next one is going to be the party busting into the mine, and I figure that will be fun, as they assault a defended location.  There's also the encounter with the falling stalactites coming up as well.  Good thing I have plenty of commute time during the week!

Finally, there's my personally victory: not only did I run a fun, entertaining game with nary a hitch, I did so with almost no nerves.  Sure, I was anxious about how it was going to turn out, but I had none of the fear of public performance that has undermined previous attempts to run games.  That has really helped get things off on the right foot, and I look forward to next week's game!

The inaugural encounter of the game I intend to be a chance for the players to start getting a feel for their characters in play, as well as highlight the dangerous nature of the area around Briarridge. It is going to be a classic “bandits attack”, and I am most likely going to tell the players, “You'll be able to take an extended rest after this, so fell free to drop dailies.”

As an encounter to ease them in, it is level 1, consisting of a desperate bandit boss (level 1 skirmisher-leader), two desperate bandit archers (level 1 artillery) and eight desperate bandit scum (level 1 minion, I may have four players and drop them to six scum, between a level 1 and 2 encounter, but lots of minions should still make it easy). While it is a lot of enemies on the field, the minions will get swept sway in pretty good order. The main synergy is the boss's don't let them win that easily! power, which will allow him to direct an ally to make a basic attack whenever a PC drops one or more bandits. Since it is an opportunity attack, the boss can only use it once per PC turn, regardless of how many bandits are dropped.

For the map, I'm planning on using the map from Keep on the Shadowfell, for the initial “kobolds ambush you on the road” encounter. It's the same concept, and allows me to use a map I already have. Being desperate bandits, I'm not giving any treasure as part of this encounter.

I foresee two potential troubleshooting issues. First, if the players try to talk the bandits down, I may turn that into an impromptu skill challenge. Second, the bandit scum can daze when they attack with combat advantage. That's a lot of potential dazes that can go out. I'm not too worried, as the minions will be going down fast, so it will be tough for them to get many combat advantage situations. Still, I may change the effect to weakened for a turn anyways. I'm still thinking on that. If it looks like it's being too much of a pain at the table, then I can also change it mid-encounter (little do the players realize the stat block was supposed to say “dazed or weakened”!).

And now, some desperate bandit stat blocks:

Ruling Down the House

One of the strengths of RPGs is the ability to tweak and customize. While I do greatly enjoy 4E right out of the box, I am looking at some potential house rules for this game. Some affect character building, and another isn't so much a rule, as an adjustment to some of the default assumptions about running the game.

First, I will be implementing global Expertise. I don't have a horse in the “were these patches for broken game math” race. However I do feel these feats are just too good, and kind of boring. While some builds may feel they can do without the +1 to attack in favor of other things for a while, it is an autopick when it upgrades to +2 at 15th level. Also, missing sucks. I don't want to trivialize the potential to miss, but I don't want to see the game get too whifftastic. Thus, I will be dropping the whole series of Expertise feats, and just granting their bonuses as an automatic up grade.

Second, under consideration but with a strong chance of being used, is two level 1 encounter powers at level 1. In my experience, low level play can be a little boring due to the lack of options. While many races and classes bring some additional encounter powers, many of these are of a more utilitarian nature. The PCs get one chance to pop something cool each encounter, along with their daily every so often. It makes for fallback on a lot of at-will spam. So I would let the players take a second level 1 encounter power. Then, at 3rd level, they would just upgrade one to 3rd level, instead of getting a new one. It will provide more options and choices in every encounter, and I think the overall power boost is minor enough to not cause any headaches.

Third, and this is more of a “develop for possible later use,” ties back into “missing sucks.” Various people have proposed some sort of mechanic where you gain a cumulative bonus each time you miss, which you can expend, all at once, on a later attack. It is a little more fiddly, requiring an extra element to track. I'm not going to use it right off, but will keep it in mind.

As a “behind the scenes” change, I'll be handing out some extra utility magic items, i.e. those that aren't primary bonus items or that give significant direct combat buffs. There's a bunch of cool, weird items to had, especially with access to the Adventurer's Vaults and DDI. I figure dropping an extra one per level will give more toys to play with, without significantly affecting the power curves.

All in all, nothing that will significantly alter the way the game plays, but I think it will have a positive effect on pacing and giving some more choices for the players to work with.

"But", the Magic Word

While we are going to have a joint character creation session, my players are already pondering character ideas, both in mechanical and background terms.  This is exciting, because it shows they are interested in the game, and means we'll have plenty of material to work with when we get together to start hammering stuff out.

One of the players is considering a bow ranger, but isn't too excited by the basic archery build from PH1.  His idea was to play an elf beastmaster ranger, focusing on ranged attacks.  While the beastmaster build assumes a STR-focused, melee character, mixing it up with his beast, by focusing on ranged DEX pwers for himself and beast powers that just involve the pet attacking, an archer beastmaster should be plenty doable.

Where things got interesting was when he asked if he could have a hummingbird as his beast, trading out some or most of its damage for extra speed, and essentially use it as a quarry spotter.  I thought about this, and the fact that the raptor beast template is already relatively low damage, at 1d6+1 to start, and very maneuverable with a fly speed of 7 (hover), and decided that I really didn't like messing with that.  So I said, "No, but..." and made the counteridea of using the raptor stats as-is, and the hummingbird is some kind of three foot long dire fey hummingbird, with a dirk- (if not rapier-) like beak.  It would still be a great spotter for him, still present a potential threat itself, and dude, killer hummingbird.  He liked the idea (his wife evidently laughed with glee), so it looks like he may go with that.

I looked at the beast powers some more, and started to consider letting him take some that are of the "you and your pet both make attacks" variety, and change the character's attack portion from melee STR-based to ranged DEX-based.  I figure that this will still be pretty balanced, as, one: there are plenty of ranger multi-modal powers already.  Two: he's giving up the easy flank oppertunities with his pet of the melee beastmaster.  The Distant Advantage feat does help to overcome that, but at the cost of a feat and the added complication of needing a third character to set up flanks for him to exploit.  Three: having a dire fey killer hummingbird pecking away bloody gobbets out of some hapless monster while the ranger pumps arrows into it passes my Rule of Cool handily.   Or, as a friend so succiently put it, "That's not just D&D.  That's D&D in capital letters, that are fifty feet tall, on fire, and resting atop a crushed halfling."

BONUS POST: Monsters!

I'm actually hard at work on encounter design already.  I'm looking at around a half dozen or so custom monsters.  Thanks to the magic of the Monster Builder, here's the first two:

Trouble in the Mines

It's never too early for prep work! Which is why, despite not having characters made yet, I'm already working on the first adventure. It really is pretty easy, just leave the hook potential as wide open as I can, and when we sit down for character creation, I'm going to say, "I have this idea for a first adventure. It involves clearing out this small, possibly abdandoned mine outside of Briarridge. How do you guys think you would get involved?" Start with the player involvement right from the get go.

With that left open for later, I can work on the overall shape of the adventure itself. While I can't design individual encounters until I have a group (both players and PCs), I can decide what they will be in general terms (e.g. goblinoids looting a wagon, PCs get the drop on them), and on the flow of the adventure. Fot the big bad, I had the idea of a pair of orcs, twin brother and sister, heretics exiled from their tribe, that have attracted a ragtag band of similarly outcast goblins and orcs, and set up shop in the mine in question. The twins are going to be the PCs first contact with the Cult, though they likely won't relize it at the time. Indeed, what I want to aim for is, when they see the eye symbols the twins have, they just assume it is Gruumash's symbol. It won't be until later (say, when dealing with their chieften father who exiled them), that they find out different.

As for the twins themselves, they will be a pair of elites, the brother as the soldier melee type, the sister as the magical artillery type. While I am not designing them yet, I do have an idea of a mechanical hook: each will have an ability that triggers when the other becomes bloodied. As for why they are there, beyond general monster lairing, what if they choose this site because it allows them acces to the flows of energy and primal magic, allowing them to twist and draw on them for their own purpose? I was already considering this when I found out one of my players is pretty solidly set on playing a shaman, so that pretty much locks this idea in.

It also leads to another encounter idea. What if the actions of the twins have driven the primal spirit of the mountain mad? Encounter! Imagine a fight with a solo, a kind of mid-boss, as the PCs are attacked by the spirit up on the mountain. Defeating it doesn't kill it, but frees it from its frenzy. It can explain that the mojo of the land is being messed with and call on the shaman and his allies to set it right. Oh, and it can also imbue the shaman's totem with power, turning it into a magic item. Not only is it a great point to hand out a juicy bit of treasure, but it makes it personal. Win!

Another encounter I brainstormed up was an attack by bandits on their way to Briarridge. This will showcase the rough and dangerous nature of the area, as well as give everyone a chance to stretch their wings and see their characters in action. Especially with new players, this is going to be a softball encounter, and I will likely encourage them to use their dailies, letting them know they'll make it it to town okay from here. Metagamey, sure, but I want this to be the try-everything warm-up. Plenty of minions, scruffy desperate brigands, and the PCs being awesome.

At this point, I have a beginning, a mid-point, and a boss encounter, so its time to start weaving them together and filling out more. The overall flow of the adventure that I see (barring PC willfullness) takes shpe like this:
Bandit attack
Time in town (Rest, NPC interactions, another post will cover Briarridge)
Journey to the mine
The mine itself

I start considering links and encounters to flesh all this out. The spirit mid-boss is definately part of the journey portion, and its climax, but I need to get the PCs there without resorting directly to the shaman's PC sense. What if the madness afflicting the mountain spirit also affects other things? The PCs are breaking camp (cause it will take a couple days to get to their destination), on a foggy spooky dawn, when they are attacked by animals obviousilly under some unnatural influence or compulsion. When they defeat them, their spirits rise and depart up the mountain, beckoning the shaman to follow. Link, spookiness, low-visibility battlefield. Sounds good.

I also want an encounter with the goblinoid followers of the twins, give the players a taste of whats to come. With the bandits and the animals attacking the PCs, I decide I'll turn the tables. The players with find a band of goblins that have attacked a wagon from another mine, killed its driver, and are picking through and arguing about loot, when the PCs come on them and get the drop. Also, a good point to have some treasure.

That pretty much leads the party up to the mines. Since this is the focus of the adventure, and I already have four encounters before the mines, I figure I will want around six or so for the mines. The boss encounter is a given, so that gives me about five to play with. I want some variety, so I decide that while three of those are going to involve the twins' followers, I'll have two with other things that happen to live (or otherwise reside) in the mines. I don't have too much in mind yet for those individual encounters, save for a possible "overcome the guards to secure entrance to the mines."

For flow troubleshooting, the main potential I see is the party skipping the spirit mid-boss. Since part of character and party creation will include coming up for reasons for them to be on this adventure, getting them going won't be a problem. If they do decide to skip the spirit encounter, then I'll just up gun the twins a bit, as they have that stolen primal power, and add the shaman's totem to their treasure.

At this point, realizing I have a level or more of encounters here, I break them down into a list like so:

• Bandit attack
• Wagon looting
• Animals attack
• Frenzied spirit mid-boss
• At the mine entrance
• Followers 2
• Followers 3
• Others 1
• Others 2
• The Twins

From this point, as I come up with ideas for the other four encounters, I'll pencil them in, and start assigning treasure parcels. I also figure that clearing the mines is a prime example of a major quest, and the spirit is a good minor quest. I am open to more minors once I have character ideas and backgrounds that I can tailor too. This will certianly see them going into level 2, and I'll probably be drawing from the first few parcels for that level for this adventure.

Coming Soon: Once I have a confirmed party, I can start designing encounters, some of which I will feature here!

PUGging For Great Justice

Just a bit of happy news: I found a couple more players for the game, so at this point, it is a go.  We're getting together in a couple of weeks for character creation.  I'm doing it as group so people can bounce ideas off each other, come up with a group composition that works, and get a feel for who and why the party is the party they are.  I am going with the idea that they are already an established party of adventures, so it's coming up with that bit of backstory, and what will be hooking them into the first adventure.

The couple of players are, themselves, a couple.  A husband and wife who are pretty new to 4E.  They've done some delves and the D&D Encounters, and played in their first LFR game this weekend, at the same table as me.  They are really liking the game, and are quite excited about a stable ongoing game that actually allows for some deeper character and story development.  Chatting with them at the meet up and online, I think they are going to be having and providing a lot of fun, so I'm really jazzed,

There's been some brainstorming about character possibilities, and the player I thought was going to be playing a shaman is planning on doing something else.  I going to keep the primal encounters, as they do add variety, and can be spun to show the unnatural activities of the twins.  I'll just have to decide who to grant the weapon imbue to, but that'll be no problem.

We're Building a World / We're Building it Bigger

One of the interesting things about 4E is that it comes with not so much a weak default setting, as a stronger default meta-setting. While it talks about "the world", it isn't so much about a single specific world, as it is a style of world. Sure, it uses some consistent names and ideas: some of the fallen empires, the gods, and bits of peices of classic D&D lore, and a default cosmology. There are no maps of anything more than, "Here's a valley as an example starting campaign area." Modern places and things, are either example fluff for game elements, or exist in the context of a module that needs a bit more setting material to hang together. The world as a whole? It is really more a collection of themes and tropes than a place.

As a DM, that gives me a lot of flexibility, especially with potential new players. As they read through the books, they get a feel for the setting, without having to worry about if I am using or changing specific details. The world-as-places is a blank slate. The vibe of the world is something that, when we come to the table, we're on the same page about.

Using this default meta-setting, the Points of Light background, thus presents a strong advantage for me. It is designed to help support the core D&D trope of adventuring. It presumes a world that has seen the rise and fall of successive empires, each leaving their marks on the world. The most recent, the cosmopolitan human empire of Nerath, failed over a century ago. Civilization now exists as mostly isolated bastions: city-states, loose confederations of towns, individual communities with tenurous trade links. Most of the land, though, is wilderness. There are no great nation-states or other spanning organizations. Much of the land between these pockets of civilization is full of monsters and ruins and other such adventurer-attracting fodder.

Perhaps a way to think of this default PoL background is as a specific palette of colors. While many different paintings can be made with them, they'll still have a certain unity in feel. While one can certainly change out colors for others, changing the themes and nature of settings that result, I like the PoL and what it offers me, so I am going ahead with that.

With that decided, it's time to start applying those colors and make this world mine, so that I can then hand it over to the players. Of course, the key here is that while I am building a world, I'm doing so for a game. As such, I'm leaving most of it aside for now, and choosing one particular corner I can use as setting and background for the start of play, and likely most of the heroic tier, at least.

My intital thought, when I conceived of Operation ZEaGAuiOS, was a setting focused on the colder, more northern climes. I kicked that idea around a little bit, but ultimately rejected it, as it felt a little overdone to me. I still love the broader concept - I regard Frostfell as one of the best 3E books - but it wasn't working for me here. So why not take it down the other way? Something temperate, verging on sub-tropical; almost Mediterranean. That then melded with a bit of idea I had a while back reagrding "ancient fortresses floating over the southern coast."

And so it was that....some region I have yet to name, was born. Yes, I suck at names, which is part of what makes running a game so fun and exciting. Anyways, it is a stretch of southern coastline of the larger continent, separted from it by a fierce mountain range running roughly parallel to the coast. See the scanned sketch of it below:

Yes, it is a very rough sketch.  No scale yet, the barest of terrain features.  It exists, at this point, just to give me a view of the shape of the land, with plenty of open areas to fill in details.

This region represented the southern most outposts of Nerath. I imagine it wasn't heavily settled or exploited by Nerath, more of a military (likely mostly naval) presence to help secure the area, and plans to expand and colonize. When Nerath fell, an influx of refugees fled down to the area, as good land and relatively distant and secure from the decline and death of Nerath.

As part of the Points of Light, I imagine there are roughly a half-dozen major-city states. The only one I have strongly defined in my mind at the moment is Torrenvald, the City of Blades. It is dominated by the church of Bane, and is essentially a theocratic militocracy. It is the single strongest city-state in the region. It has been involved in skirmishes and small conflicts over different resources in the area, but there has been no major wars, and no attempts to conquer any of its neighbors (a constant fear of theirs).

The only other place that's gotten any solid though put into it is Briarridge (I hate that double "rr", maybe just Briaridge?), a mining town in the mountains. It serves a complex of very lucrativce iron mines in the area, which were one of the few things that Nerath had been exploiting, as well as empires before them. Yup, plenty of dungeon fodder there. The town, and all the mines, are indepenent, with many different interests operating different mines. Torrenvald would love to bring the whole area under its "protection", but realzies that while it may have the force of arm to do so, such an act would almost force the other city-states into some form of alliance against it. This is where I am planning to have at least my first adventure or two.

There are some other fragmentary ideas I have. There's the aforementioned floating fortresses, which are the legacy of a much older empire. They slowly drift about, seemingly sealed, though they occassionaly vanish and reappear else where along the coast. Basically, instant side dungeons. One of the city-states, as another relic, is built around bridges and streets of solid yet flowing water; one of the things I came up with to show off the elemental theme. A lot I am leaving undefined at this point, to give the players plenty of room to add their own elements to the setting. If someone says, "Hey, can I be from a place like X?", then I want to be able to tell them, "Sure! Tell me about X, and let's figure out where it would be." All while considering how I can use X in the game and spin some adventures out from it. One of my goals for heroic play is to have an adventure focusing on the background of each character, to really weave them in and make the setting matter to them. That will both help make the settings theirs, and make the later big threats to it all the more exciting.

Coming up next, how the first adventure started coming together.

Dungeons & Dragons? Tell Me More...

Just saying that I am going to be running D&D doesn't necessarily say much.  As an RPG, it is very broad in its scope of potential game and story ideas.  One of the things I love about D&D, and 4E in particular, is its focus on the action-adventure fantasy gaming.  D&D is about doing STUFF and having fun doing that STUFF.  Not to say there isn't room for story or character development or such - and I plan to have a good dose of both - but deep exploration of those aren't the itch that I choose D&D to scratch.  So what I'm looking to run is basically "as-advertised" D&D: kick ass team-based fantasy action-adventure.  Especially since a couple of my prospective players are new to the game, if not tabletop RPGs in general, going with the default playstyle the game puts forth will be easier on them.  And, as a very rusty DM, easier on me!


I pitched the idea of running something to a couple of friends, who were fully on board with it.  My first thought, once I had decided on running a game of D&D, was "what is this game going to be about?"  In the sense of if there's going to be action-adventure and kicking ass, what kind of ass is going to be kicked in what kind of adventurous places and ways?  While I'm a fan of all things Far Realm and Lovecraftian, I discarded that for some of D&D's own backstory: elementals and giants.  Elemental themes to the game struck me as pretty cool, both for world and adventure building, and how can you go wrong smashing giants (and they have some smahsing minis).  Giants are tough customers, so that means the primary arc of the game would have to be at the paragon stage.  Which works out well, because that gives me the heroic tier for folks to get used to their characters, some general D&D adventures, and laying the groundwork for Operation: ZOMG Elementals and Giants All In Our Shit.


Before I had even thought much about the potential shape and source of this threat, I was flipping through The Plane Below: Secrets of the Elemental Chaos and came across the section on the Cult of the Elder Elemental Eye.  Too damn perfect.  Right there was the driving antagonistic force for the game.  It delivers my desired elemental and giant action, with room for plenty of other nasties under its umbrella to boot.  The old school D&D ties are just bonus coolness.  I already have some general flow shaping up just based on this.  During heroic, I can have the PCs encounter some scattered elements of the Cult, and foreshadow the coming conflicts that will define paragon play.
Further, by using the Cult, I now have ready-made epic tier potential, if any ideas don't arise in the course of game - or in addition.  Both Tharizdun and Zuggtmoy, as well as the Elemental Evils themselves, all give me lots of fodder for epic adventuring.  Espeically one nasty little idea that occured to me: what if, after all these centuries, Zuggtmoy nurses a grudge about how her operation got jacked out from under her?  The concept of Zuggtmoy as an uncertain ally for the PCs in their fight against the powers behind the Cult is a fun one.


With this, I now had the broadest of roadmaps for the game, a rough idea of what each tier would be largely revovling around.  Paragon and epic are a (long) ways off, so it's time to start breaking into heroic and planning that out.  I want to include a solid propotion of adventures based on PC backgrounds, which, lacking players and their respecitive PCs, I can't really plan around yet.  But before even that, I need a where for things to happen....