I have a group that are relatively new to the game that I have taken through most of Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and they will be finishing up soon, and i wanna take them on a homebrew adventure next to explore some new themes and some character backstories. I just want to see if my basic ideas are sound, or if anyone sees any glaring plotholes logically in my initial flow!
So, I'm going to have the party come back to Waterdeep, as it's their base of operations, and most of them have some ties to the area. The fighter actually is a former member of the Griffon Cavalry, and that's where the story picks up! At first they will get some word that there are some undead sightings here and there throughout the city, and will maybe be called upon to put a stop to a few here and there, but nothing too awful. Eventually, our fighter will receive word that his mentor from the cavalry has been killed in action, and his funeral is planned for (insert date here).
I think I should give some background on the BBEG now, who I am thinking of making a masked lord of Waterdeep, and a shameless ripoff of Lanfear, one of the Foresaken from The Wheel of Time. Anywayyyy. She has been raising the dead around the city as a way to weaken the authority of Laeral Silverhand and any other authority figure (and maybe also to weaken the barrier between Strahd's realm and Faerun so she can unleash him? I wanna link this to the Strahd campaign eventually I think)
Now, I ASSUME THEY ATTEND, and since the mentor was well-respected, there are many high-ranking officials in attendance, including some masked lords and our BBEG. While they are at the funeral, THE CORPSE RAISES AS A REVENANT just as a horde of zombies descends on the crowd, causing chaos. Now, as we know, a revenant raises because it seeks vengeance for something that happened in life, not because it is raised by necromancy, necessarily, but the fact that the zombies arrived at the same time would lead the folks at the funeral to think they are connected, right?
SO! The undead raising gets blamed on the now dead Mentor and the case is closed in the eyes of the city watch at least.
That's my jumping off point! I want it to feel like a noir detective thriller mixed with a gothic horror novella, with a healthy sprinkling of classic fantasy action.
Any thoughts? Any ideas? Anyone just wanna chat? Any HUGE plotholes or inconsistencies they can see coming up in the future?
I have a group that are relatively new to the game that I have taken through most of Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and they will be finishing up soon, and i wanna take them on a homebrew adventure next to explore some new themes and some character backstories. I just want to see if my basic ideas are sound, or if anyone sees any glaring plotholes logically in my initial flow!
So, I'm going to have the party come back to Waterdeep, as it's their base of operations, and most of them have some ties to the area. The fighter actually is a former member of the Griffon Cavalry, and that's where the story picks up! At first they will get some word that there are some undead sightings here and there throughout the city, and will maybe be called upon to put a stop to a few here and there, but nothing too awful. Eventually, our fighter will receive word that his mentor from the cavalry has been killed in action, and his funeral is planned for (insert date here).
I think I should give some background on the BBEG now, who I am thinking of making a masked lord of Waterdeep, and a shameless ripoff of Lanfear, one of the Foresaken from The Wheel of Time. Anywayyyy. She has been raising the dead around the city as a way to weaken the authority of Laeral Silverhand and any other authority figure (and maybe also to weaken the barrier between Strahd's realm and Faerun so she can unleash him? I wanna link this to the Strahd campaign eventually I think)
Now, I ASSUME THEY ATTEND, and since the mentor was well-respected, there are many high-ranking officials in attendance, including some masked lords and our BBEG. While they are at the funeral, THE CORPSE RAISES AS A REVENANT just as a horde of zombies descends on the crowd, causing chaos. Now, as we know, a revenant raises because it seeks vengeance for something that happened in life, not because it is raised by necromancy, necessarily, but the fact that the zombies arrived at the same time would lead the folks at the funeral to think they are connected, right?
SO! The undead raising gets blamed on the now dead Mentor and the case is closed in the eyes of the city watch at least.
That's my jumping off point! I want it to feel like a noir detective thriller mixed with a gothic horror novella, with a healthy sprinkling of classic fantasy action.
Any thoughts? Any ideas? Anyone just wanna chat? Any HUGE plotholes or inconsistencies they can see coming up in the future?
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
How so? Not being pedantic, just seeing how it could cause an issue. I’m actually relying on them communicating with the revenant at some point in the future actually!
How so? Not being pedantic, just seeing how it could cause an issue. I’m actually relying on them communicating with the revenant at some point in the future actually!
I was just worried about the players finding out who the BBEG is early on.
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All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
That's a really good point to bring up! I don't know if I want to start out with the conceit of "it was one of the masked lords" therefore we have to find out which one, or just have the mentor not know who had him killed. It could be very interesting if the BBEG wasn't masked, but the party nevertheless had to prove they were behind the spooky stuff.
Your mileage may vary on something like this but, I think noire-style stories are extremely difficult to pull off in a satisfying way. They kind of only work in film because noire mystery is like 50% mood and 50% story. It's hard to portray mood in D&D unless you're an amazing writer and roleplayer. It's also even harder now because I assume most people are playing remotely (like myself).
Again, this is largely dependent on your players, their tastes, and how willing they are to suspend their disbelief, but I tend to be pretty sensitive to out of character things and since noire is so dependent on a consistent and specific mood and tone, when my DMs have tried it, it's never worked. They always devolved into a point-and-click adventure game instead of a cool mystery story. And those were the times I was most bored with D&D.
My advice would be to lean hard into the Gothic and classic fantasy tones and throw some literature or fairy tale stuff in there too. You can get pretty dark and mysterious without sucking your players out of the experience.
Oh yes I definitely have noooo illusions about my ability to weave a god-tier mystery. This will be a good old fashioned gothic horror hack and slash adventure with a detective mystery framing device. I definitely like to keep my sessions feeling episodic, and you bring up a good point with things being socially distant now! It’s changed my dm style to allow for shorter, simpler stories, as everyone is just kinda exhausted by life in general, so I do have to remain mindful of that when creating a narrative.
This sounds perfectly fine to me - not sure what the mystery elements are though. It seems mostly that they'll be directed to go to specific places at specific times. Nothing wrong with that. If they don't go to the funeral, then the revenant can still jump up, they just hear about it later and maybe have to track it down.
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I have a group that are relatively new to the game that I have taken through most of Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and they will be finishing up soon, and i wanna take them on a homebrew adventure next to explore some new themes and some character backstories. I just want to see if my basic ideas are sound, or if anyone sees any glaring plotholes logically in my initial flow!
So, I'm going to have the party come back to Waterdeep, as it's their base of operations, and most of them have some ties to the area. The fighter actually is a former member of the Griffon Cavalry, and that's where the story picks up! At first they will get some word that there are some undead sightings here and there throughout the city, and will maybe be called upon to put a stop to a few here and there, but nothing too awful. Eventually, our fighter will receive word that his mentor from the cavalry has been killed in action, and his funeral is planned for (insert date here).
I think I should give some background on the BBEG now, who I am thinking of making a masked lord of Waterdeep, and a shameless ripoff of Lanfear, one of the Foresaken from The Wheel of Time. Anywayyyy. She has been raising the dead around the city as a way to weaken the authority of Laeral Silverhand and any other authority figure (and maybe also to weaken the barrier between Strahd's realm and Faerun so she can unleash him? I wanna link this to the Strahd campaign eventually I think)
Now, I ASSUME THEY ATTEND, and since the mentor was well-respected, there are many high-ranking officials in attendance, including some masked lords and our BBEG. While they are at the funeral, THE CORPSE RAISES AS A REVENANT just as a horde of zombies descends on the crowd, causing chaos. Now, as we know, a revenant raises because it seeks vengeance for something that happened in life, not because it is raised by necromancy, necessarily, but the fact that the zombies arrived at the same time would lead the folks at the funeral to think they are connected, right?
SO! The undead raising gets blamed on the now dead Mentor and the case is closed in the eyes of the city watch at least.
That's my jumping off point! I want it to feel like a noir detective thriller mixed with a gothic horror novella, with a healthy sprinkling of classic fantasy action.
Any thoughts? Any ideas? Anyone just wanna chat? Any HUGE plotholes or inconsistencies they can see coming up in the future?
Thanks for your time!!
The speak with dead spell could be a problem.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
How so? Not being pedantic, just seeing how it could cause an issue. I’m actually relying on them communicating with the revenant at some point in the future actually!
I was just worried about the players finding out who the BBEG is early on.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
That's a really good point to bring up! I don't know if I want to start out with the conceit of "it was one of the masked lords" therefore we have to find out which one, or just have the mentor not know who had him killed. It could be very interesting if the BBEG wasn't masked, but the party nevertheless had to prove they were behind the spooky stuff.
Good stuff to think about, thank you!
Your mileage may vary on something like this but, I think noire-style stories are extremely difficult to pull off in a satisfying way. They kind of only work in film because noire mystery is like 50% mood and 50% story. It's hard to portray mood in D&D unless you're an amazing writer and roleplayer. It's also even harder now because I assume most people are playing remotely (like myself).
Again, this is largely dependent on your players, their tastes, and how willing they are to suspend their disbelief, but I tend to be pretty sensitive to out of character things and since noire is so dependent on a consistent and specific mood and tone, when my DMs have tried it, it's never worked. They always devolved into a point-and-click adventure game instead of a cool mystery story. And those were the times I was most bored with D&D.
My advice would be to lean hard into the Gothic and classic fantasy tones and throw some literature or fairy tale stuff in there too. You can get pretty dark and mysterious without sucking your players out of the experience.
Oh yes I definitely have noooo illusions about my ability to weave a god-tier mystery. This will be a good old fashioned gothic horror hack and slash adventure with a detective mystery framing device. I definitely like to keep my sessions feeling episodic, and you bring up a good point with things being socially distant now! It’s changed my dm style to allow for shorter, simpler stories, as everyone is just kinda exhausted by life in general, so I do have to remain mindful of that when creating a narrative.
Thanks for taking the time to give input!
Essentially what you've described boils down to:
This sounds perfectly fine to me - not sure what the mystery elements are though. It seems mostly that they'll be directed to go to specific places at specific times. Nothing wrong with that. If they don't go to the funeral, then the revenant can still jump up, they just hear about it later and maybe have to track it down.