Oct 24, 2010

10th blog entry - Campaign introduction idea, No.4

Hey guys, sorry I haven't been around for the last few weeks. I'll make it up to you, so let's get started!

There is a continent, the only one known to civilized world so far, that stretches for thousands of miles from east to west, and also for thousands of miles from north to south. It has dozens, or even hundreds of names, all drawn from legends, but the most widely used is Arania. Others include Akhanor, Aldriiz, Orton and others, but “Arania” is the only one known to every single one of it's inhabitants.
Now, on the eastern part of the continent lies a great rocky chain of mountains called Rudar. It too has many other names, but let's stick to this one, as it's the most-used one. It is a land of dwarves. In fact, it's a series of caves which stretch for hundreds of miles, filled with all sorts of dwarvenfolk, with hundreds of thousands entrances to the caves, all scattered throughout the mountains. The exact number of dwarves living there is known to none, not even to the most powerful and influential of them, but those who try to estimate usually say about one billion. Now, that is a lot of dwarves, who could easily make the strongest kingdom on Arania, if they were united under a single banner, but, that is not the case. It is said that there are over ten thousand tribes and clans of dwarves on Rudar, and all of them, as dwarves always do, live underground, in great mountain halls, cut through and into the rock. It is pointless trying to explain their lifestyle or interests, as all of them try hard to differ from each other. Some value smithwork, some value stonecutting. Some value gems, others gold. There are even those clans that value magic, as there are those who believe brute force is the key to solving all of the life's problems.
You could say the only thing they have in common is digging. Digging into the depths, looking for resources and rare and even unique materials. Considering that the dwarves are many, and the tunnels and halls are even more than many, the Rudar mountains are starting to crumble on itself, leaving behind thousands of cut-off passages and treasuries, sometimes even whole little kingdoms, filled with... Treasure. To better explain the proportions of underground kingdoms, I'll say that there are rumors that some of them go so deep, to the hell itself. There are also rumors that some lead to another worlds, and some even go beyond the borders of imagination and/or reality and end up delivering the explorer to the non-existent places of the universe. Of course, none of this is proven to be true.
You guys (characters) are a group of tomb-raiders, brought together by interest, sense of loyalty, friendship, luck or something else. Of course, you are not the only such group. In fact, you are just one out of thousands of them. You look for abandoned mines, passages and halls where dwarves used to, or still live, and loot them, providing that there is anything to loot. Sometimes you venture into the depths, and during one such raid, your party was attacked by a group of dwarves, who carefully laid out an ambush, waiting for a curious group of adventurers to walk into their trap. After a short fight, you realized the only way to keep the head on your shoulders is to flee, but with the path back to the surface being blocked by angry dwarves, the only way you could run is deeper under the ground. After about an hour and a half of being pursued, and then finally losing your pursuers, you find yourself lost, with no idea of which way to go.
Not knowing if the next living being you encounter is going to be friendly or hostile, you carefully choose your path and quietly walk through endless passages and halls of Rudar, hoping to meet the daylight as soon as possible.

Hope you like it, c ya soon!

62 comments:

  1. This is sounding pretty sick, keep it up man!

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  2. good info, i might actually put this into practice

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  3. I played D&D once but the DM sucked and everyone just ended up turning into Were-rats. :/

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  4. Holy shit wall of text.
    I read through it all but man, break it up into paragraphs or something.

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  5. Will do nest time, thanks for the tip!

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  6. I think I might use this for my next campaign.

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  7. As a Forgotten Realms DM, I approve of your efforts wholeheartedly. Keep the content coming!

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  8. Any chance at some home brew maps and rules? Love the description of this one.

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  9. DMing sounds pretty interesting

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  10. Nice. Well thought out!

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  11. I've no idea what's going on here. looks cool though.

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  12. great campaign ideas, keep up the good posts!

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  13. Wall of text my man, make paragraphs please

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  14. Good stuff once more but agree with Jinx... Make some paragraphs for readability please...

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  15. long post. plz view mine thanks

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  16. nice tips, there is some good info here.
    good enough to run for president, school president that is...

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  17. great read, great tips! keep it up

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  18. Holy crap, suspense. >.<
    Cool idea, too.

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  19. Cool. Even if I don't play D&D it's a nice read.

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  20. lol "magnus clan"
    but whatever.
    interesting take.

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  21. I was never DM :) I read your other posts and I like your blog very much. Keep it up.

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  22. can't wait for the next one, I was always too lazy to DM, thanks for the tips

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  23. Wow, thats pretty neat. Very well thought out. I like it.

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  24. OH MY GOD WOULD YOU UPDATE AGAIN??? D:
    Suspense is bad, man.

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  25. thanks for this post... do you have any new updates?

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  26. Sounds like a crazy DMT trip, i'm gonna write a long detailed post like yours soon... Hanve't done that in a while :P

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